The phenomena of climate change interacts with the complexity of urban system, which reflect sptially on the process of urbanization. One of the effects of climate change is an increased flooding hazards, and when floods occur this has a severe impact on human lives and comes with vast economic losses. The city of The Hague aims to achieve the goal of becoming a resilient city in 2050. However, the city is under the threat of extreme precipitation and the challenge of urbanization, which affect the liveability in the city. As an important component of achieving resilience, rainproof adaptation can be transformed as an opportunity. By taking the complexity of the social and enviromental vulnerabilities into the consideration, the project discusses the possibility of linking the water management process with the public space design to develop a conversation of the techinical, spatial and social process. The focus of the graduation project is how precipitation flood management can collaborate with public space design to become an opportunity for achieving urban resilience. Taking the case of The Hague, the Netherlands, the project proposes a re-defination of urban development process through public space design with techinical water management approach.

Uncertainty posed by Climate Change brings control approaches to environmental processes and dynamics into question. In the Netherlands and particularly in the Dutch River area (Rivierenland in Dutch) narratives have already shifted towards an adaptive planning (Davoudi, 2013). However, there is still a need to go beyond the physical cultural and programmatic separation between rivers -active areas in flood management- and the urbanized territory -passive areas in flood management-. The definition of these dualities in the Dutch territory not only feeds a model based on vulnerability, but it also leaves the problem of a fragmented landscape unsolved. Aiming at the enhancement of adaptive territories and the embracement of uncertainty, the thesis proposes the operationalization of an approach based on enhanced connectivity throughout the territory, where every part of the urbanized territory takes a role in the active management of floods and ecosystem restoration. An approach aiming at restoring systemic proximities between culture and nature and between local land management and territorial water safety. The main design outcome of the thesis is a transformation pathway towards the hybridization of the territory by increasing ecological densities and buffer capacities per land management unit. A pathway where synergistic coupling of functions are activated locally, triggering processes of innovation and cultural appropriation of the proposal, as opportunities for emerging ecosystem-based production models. The graduation research is positioned within an emerging urban paradigm, one that re-defines the act of urbanization as an act of re-territorialization (Deleuze and Guatari, 2000), where land uses are associated to evolutionary land roles that different occupation patterns perform in the establishment of a more symbiotic relation with the ecology in which these are embedded. Sources: Davoudi, S., Brooks, E., & Mehmood, A. (2013). Evolutionary resilience and strategies for climate adaptation. Planning Practice & Research, 28(3), 307-322. Guattari, F., & Deleuze, G. (2000). A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Athlone Press.