Op de avond van 3 december organiseerde het Architectuurcentrum Nijmegen en Rijkswaterstaat een avond rondom Ruimte voor de Waal. In het Bastion onder de Waalbrug gaven de ontwerpers een inkijkje in het proces en in hun inspiraties. Ik leidde de avond.
‘So what can we do to protect our city from climate change?’ Every city in the world is asking itself that question, including Montclair, New Jersey, just across the river from New York. New Jersey and New York were hard hit by Hurricane Sandy. And that was the question that Gray Russell, sustainability officer of Montclair, put to me in our interview for a special edition of the local cable tv show ‘Greater Montclair’. I was in town to give two lectures in the month-long program Rising Tide at Montclair University. Read the article…
During TEDx Zwolle I gave a lecture about water in the city around the world. The sea and the rivers have shaped the identity and the country itself. Climate change increases the risk of flooding and drought. The effects of a disaster in a densely populated country like The Netherlands are incalculable. Climate change is now forcing itself upon us: a new reality that cannot be ignored. Read the article…
Dijken zijn de dragers van het Nederlandse landschap. Toch bestond er nog geen boek over – juist omdat ze zo vanzelfsprekend zijn, vermoedelijk. Dat hebben de landschapsarchitecten van LOLA Landscape nu gedaan: Dijken van Nederland. Daarin heb ik een essay geschreven over … dijken als bron van innovatie. Read the article…
I interviewed urban planning professor and author of ‘Emerald Cities’ Joan Fitzgerald for the John Adams Institute. Given the lack of national policy on climate change, cities have stepped into vacuum and are developing strategies of their own. Good for the climate, good for the economy, says urban planning professor Joan Fitzgerald.
A film, an app, an artwork, a Twitter-campaign, a product: those are just a few examples of social design with water. They can get an issue on the agenda, create a community and launch new products. For the book by Anne van der Zwaag on social design, Looks Good Feels Good Is Good, I wrote the chapter on the theme of water. The world is ready for designers who, rather than adding yet another chair to what is already there, prefer to devote their time and creativity to solving the world’s problems.