The Netherlands is a place where the interplay between mankind and Nature1 resonates deeply within the roots of its omnipresent cultural landscape. Proactively shaping this landscape, which is widely considered as the most eminent aspect of place identity of the Lowlands, stands at the cradle of the by now long and rich tradition of planning urban development. The unintentional production of this key facet of Dutch culture traces back to the Middle Ages when the peatlands of the western delta were cultivated and colonized, gradually forming over millennia through natural processes. Inhabiting this inhospitable environment led early settlers to adopt a technophilic2 approach, perceiving nature as something that needed to be controlled. This organized endeavour resulted in rapid polycentric urbanization, where manmade inland waterways interconnected medieval cities and rural villages spatially, socially and economically, on the territorial scale of what is referred to in this thesis as the Deltametropolis3. However, the transition to modernity disrupted this equilibrium, creating a divide between the increasingly separate spheres of ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ driven by the pursuit of global economic competitiveness. A metropolitan region was starting to take shape based on the already centuries-old urbanized configuration – complete with mutually competitive and independent cities in a discontinuous countryside, connected by an extensive infrastructural network, and where each individual citizen could compose their own polycentric city. While urban and rural typologies have long been dissolved into a continuum, today public policy still prioritizes compact city models and sectoral economic development, overlooking strategic interdependencies within the metropolitan region and worsening socio-economic inequalities. With the increasing pressure from Natural forces – once the core catalyst of the production of Dutch culture – the Anthropocene is experiencing a second deep transition that will once more inevitably alter our relation towards our natural environment. In anticipation of an uncertain future, this design exploration aims to express an authentic articulation of the spatial configuration of the Deltametropolis, drawing lessons from the past to shape the future, in which urban and rural spatial qualities are symbiotically reintegrated and our relation with Nature is critically reassessed.

(de Geyter et al., 2002; Geuze et al., 2016; Koolhaas et al., 1993; Palmboom, n.d.; Van der Woud, n.d.)

The Netherlands is inextricably linked to a network of water, polders, and dykes. Recent climatic and anthropogenic transitions pose several threats to destabilize this balance including the rise in sea level, extreme weather, and floods which could drastically change the landscape of South Holland as we know it by 2100. With this potentially unstable future in context, the demand for space and houses in the Netherlands rises consistently.
However, the combination of these issues presents an opportunity to restore the balance and linkages of Dutch ways with water. The future of the Maritime manufacturing industry can act as an adhesive to sustain these links by drawing on transitions around water at a global as well as local scale. Hence, the project intends to investigate the changes in the role of water systems in 2100 and how the Maritime manufacturing sector can steer it to address future spatial and climatic adversities.
In 2100, we envision the Maritime Manufacturing industry to expand its role to facilitate the adaptivity of the natural, social and technological landscape of South Holland, using water as the primary medium. We intend to introduce a radical transition by planning for diversified spaces on and for water, serving both an economic prospect as well as increasing consciousness of its role within society.
The vision addresses 3 major transitioning landscapes (wet peatlands, salt marshes, and water bodies) to develop systemic strategies and plan spaces by making optimum use of products by the Maritime industry. The vision opens up several areas of investigation around the 2100 ‘Portscape’ including the scope of circularity in the shipbuilding/ship-recycling industry, rethinking material-flows, and transitions in socio-economic structure in context to new social environments.

This booklet shows the process and results of Ode aan de Hollandse Waterlinies, a project developed in the elective course Landscape Architecture ON site. Research, analysis and Sense of Place formed the base of this project. The central aim of this course was to express the given site in a project at the interface between landscape architecture, landscape art and theatrical performance. This year the focus is on inundation and the inundation fields. As part of research for the festival “Ode aan de Hollandse Waterlinies 2021” our team - consisting of fifteen Master students - has realised a temporary interactive architectural installation in a privately owned meadow landscape, where cows, meadow birds and farmers live and work.