The design research studio will begin with a critical reading of key sections of the 2013/2014 Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change Report (IPCC 2013/ 2014). The focus will then be on a selective number of deltas—which host more than half of the world’s population and produce the lion’s share of global economic value. Deltas are amongst the earth’s most inherently vulnerable territories with regards to climate change and man has yet to figure out how to appropriately respond to the predicted consequences of increased vulnerability, which includes storm surges, sea level rise, both increased flooding and drought, and extreme rainfall. The hazard-prone areas threaten water and food security, human settlement and transport. Clearly the stakes, in terms of human and financial capital, are extremely high and need urgent attention. Design attention and creative thinking is part of the necessary ‘game-changers’ that must figure into a paradigm shift for such deltaic landscapes.

The design research will investigate the evolving relationship between environmental concerns and rapid urban growth by focusing on deltas, which are facing tremendous challenges regarding the interplay between culture/nature and city/water. It will parallel work being carried out in the Institute on the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and studio participants are to choose a delta—for instance the Ganges-Brahmaputra (Bangladesh), Mississippi (US) Nile (Egypt), Indus (Pakistan), Irrawaddy (Myanmar), Yangtze (China), Zaire (Congo)—in which they would create interpretive maps and projective cartography.

The main objective is to develop maps in order to first understand, by way of critical comparison, the challenges facing development and the opportunities to re-edit the existing urban and rural environments of deltatic cities and fertile lands. Thereafter, landscape urbanism scenarios, across scales, will be made to restate the balance between city and nature, consumptive and productive space, impermeable and porous surfaces, urban and rural.

This design research studio-atelier is different than a normal studio in the sense that it does not meet regularly/ weekly, but instead is designed around intensive workshop sessions and independent work of studio participants. It is intended as a very small studio-atelier for maximum 6 students who are highly motivated and primarily for students who have followed the landscape urbanism studio in the 2nd semester of the master course.