Symposium September 18 - 19
Join us in Delft on September 18 - 19 at this symposium about urban design!
As cities along rivers, deltas, lagoons, and coasts face increasing ecological fragility and social vulnerability, the urgency to reframe the urban condition through water becomes ever more pressing. These territories are shaped by a convergence of geological, hydrological, environmental, and anthropogenic pressures—forces that amplify multi-risk conditions and challenge conventional planning approaches and theoretical understanding. This symposium invites scholars, designers, planners, and researchers to explore the land-water threshold as a fertile site for experimentation, adaptation, and imagination.
The land-water threshold is understood here as a liminal and porous interface where flows of people, goods, ecologies, and cultures converge. These thresholds are not static boundaries, but dynamic interfaces where risks accumulate and possibilities emerge. The symposium invites rethinking land-water thresholds as experimental grounds for rethinking governance models, design principles, and socio-environmental narratives.
This two-day event will engage with multi-risk urbanism through methods such as participatory mapping, scenario-building, and speculative design. Contributions are invited that interrogate the relational, temporal, and narrative dimensions of water in urban environments, aiming to build a more inclusive and fluid understanding of space. We invite participants to bring in selected case studies that might reflect on questions such as: what is multi-risk? What are the challenges posed by water in different settings? What kind of new design patterns and/or water grammars we can identify that respond to the multirisk challenges across the land-water continuum? How do we map this liminal space and all its associated risks across the land-water threshold?
How can urban planners and designers intervene in these fluctuating zones to support ecological balance, social equity, and adaptive living?
We welcome extended abstracts (600–800 words) that speak to one or more of the following themes:
- Land-Water Threshold: Designing the Edge
How do shifting boundaries challenge conventional territorial logics?
- Water as a carrier of stories
What stories, rituals, and symbolic practices are embedded in water cities and how do they inform adaptive design?
- Mapping water risks along the land-water continuum
How can mapping evolve from a descriptive tool into a critical and speculative act?
- Water a laboratory for future imaginaries
In what ways can the urbanization of water become a site of imaginative experimentation for more adaptive and relational futures?
- Publicness and new ways of living with Water
What forms of amphibious, floating, and resilient (public) spaces and habitats can emerge from a deeper understanding of water’s dynamics?
- Water as a geopolitical space
How can planning practices engage with water as a contested geopolitical space shaped by climate and infrastructural histories?
Contact: p.demartino@tudelft.nl and pdemartino@iuav.it