Delta Urbanism coming of age
25 years of Delta Urbanism where are we now?
V.J. Meyer (TU Delft - Urban Design)
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Abstract
‘Delta Urbanism’ is a common field of interest of different
disciplines, which discovered the need to work together in order to be
able to develop fruitful strategies for the future development of
urbanized delta regions. The birth of this collaboration can be dated in
the 1980s and 1990s, with the rise of three different fields of concern
on the effects of industrial society: the concern on the environmental
impact of industrialization, the concern on the alarming state of
affairs of cities in these years, and the rising concern on climate
change. The development of a real program of Delta Urbanism
at TU Delft started in 2005, with the International Architecture
Biennale Rotterdamon ‘the Flood’, the Katrina disaster in New Orleans
and the start of the new Delta Program in the Netherlands as important
driving forces. Important in the Delta Urbanism program is the search
for a new ‘Darwinistic’ approach, emphasizing the evolutionary character
of delta regions, and adaptivity as a main strategy to survive. This
approach should substitute the traditional. Reductionist ‘Einstein’
approach, which is fitting in the dominating paradigm of the industrial
society.
Delta Urbanism itself can also be considered an evolutionary field of
interest: it is under construction continuously. For the future, we can
appoint four important issues to be elaborated: a more radical approach
of the new adage ‘working with water’, water as a leverage for a
complex society in transition; making delta landscapes adaptive, and
design as an explorative method.
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