The Art of Resilience
A climate-aware street concept focusing on art in public space
M.J.H. Driessen (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Kristel Aalbers – Mentor (TU Delft - Environmental Technology and Design)
L.M. Calabrese – Mentor (TU Delft - Urban Design)
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Abstract
Cities are pressured by the impacts of climate change (Nijs et al., 2019). Rising temperatures, wetter winters, drier summers and more extreme weather events demand a fundamental transformation of public space (KNMI, 2023). In the Netherlands, both national and municipal governments aim to achieve climate resilient cities by 2050, however, this ambition cannot be realised without the active involvement of citizens (Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat, 2023). Unfortunately, there is a lack of climate awareness and visibility of climate resilient solutions (Lenzholzer et al., 2020).
This thesis addresses this gap by connecting the concepts of climate resilience, climate awareness and art and redesigning public space to create climate-aware streets. The research develops a toolbox of visible climate resilient interventions, analysed according to spatial scale, street typologies, microclimatic processes and climate extremes. To assess how awareness can be created, the study adopts and operationalises the three awareness mechanisms, experience, engagement and knowledge, derived from Iturriza et al. (2020). These mechanisms are applied to both the climate interventions and a curated set of fifteen art installations that engage with climate related themes.
The findings are combined in a climate-aware street concept, which integrates climate resilient interventions, awareness creating strategies, and art in public space. Illustrated through an archetypical street layout, the concept demonstrates how public space can be redesigned to make climate processes visible, tangible, and collectively understood. The street design concept can be implemented on various spatial contexts by a range of stakeholders, including the municipality, artists, designers and citizens, to collaboratively advance climate-resilient urban environments.