Transitional Territories – MSc4 Lecture Series Final: Workshop PLAY!
For the closing session of the 2018-2019 Lecture Series program ‘The North Sea’, a dedicated intensive workshop session on serious gaming for Maritime Spatial Planning convened by Breda University of Applied Sciences, Games & Media Group.
The Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Challenge 2050 is a computer supported simulation game that gives maritime spatial planners and stakeholders the ability to explore the diverse challenges of sustainable planning of human activities in the marine and coastal ecosystem.
The North Sea region is bordered by a number of strong economies, the United Kingdom (England and Scotland), France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway (non-EU member but a member of the European Economic Area), and is one of the most heavily used seas with extensive shipping, fishing, energy (hydrocarbon and offshore wind), aggregate extraction, defence, recreation and includes 2 of the world’s largest ports (Rotterdam and Hamburg).
The Blue Growth potential of the North Sea area was analysed in a 2014 report (“Blue Growth Scenarios and Drivers for Sustainable Growth” (Ecorys, et al., 2012) which estimated that the North Sea’s maritime (blue) economy represented at least €150 billion (or approximately 30% of the EU total) and employed at least 850,000 people. The following key sectors are considered the most important in the North Sea: offshore wind, offshore oil & gas, aquaculture, shipping, shipbuilding, cruise tourism and coastal protection.
The North Sea Commission is a politically-led cooperation platform for regions around the North Sea, bringing together the Presidents and delegates appointed by the Regional Authorities immediately below the level of Government which border the North Sea. Through dialogue and formal partnerships, they aim to promote common interests, especially in relation to European Union institutions, national governments and other organizations dealing with issues that are relevant to the North Sea. The focus for the North Sea Commission’s work is the North Sea Region 2020 strategy document. It defines the following focus areas under the priority ‘Managing Maritime Space’; maritime spatial planning, exploitation of marine resources and the North Sea Maritime Stakeholder Forum.
The Commission has a thematic working group called Marine Resources, which includes a number of measures related to MSP in the North Sea, including exchange of best practice on MSP and ICZM across the North Sea and promoting dialogue between all users of the North Sea to facilitate policy integration.
National initiatives include developing arrangements for planning across jurisdictional boundaries, however there is currently no MSP at a North Sea scale. A need for strategic action has been noted, but a lack of overarching authority with a broad enough remit to facilitate the political co-operation required presents a key challenge. There is international co-operation on a regional basis; the Wadden Sea Forum provides a mechanism for Dutch-German-Danish trilateral co-operation including on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) and provides a basis for co-ordination with regard to MSP.
* The lecture series program is open to the public. All cordially invited.
25th September – 29th October.
* The lecture series program is open to the public.
—Nicolas Jaar. Être. Space is Only Noise.
We started our new academic year and the second year of a three year-long research and pedagogical project on the North Sea Region.
For the academic year 2018-2019 Transitional Territories Studio focuses on the idea of ‘Altered Natures’, in face of continual violation of the earth system caused by human-induced forcings. The method of research-by-design is applied in order to cast light on a diverse meaning of urbanisation and to inform the design practice (being architectural, political, and/or environmental) under the lens of a territorial project. Hereby, we aim to investigate the possibility of new spatio-temporal formations and occupation between sea and land — or the establishment of new ground and its infrastructure space that arise from a revised balance between society and nature. By necessity, the understanding of these new formations comes as the idea of a parallel world — or The Last Lands (after Maria Ludovica Santini, 2016) — to be regarded as distant from traditional dynamics, in search for a new significance, or a lost identity and representation of being.
‘The Last Lands’ will be investigated as part of the Architecture and Hydraulic Engineering tracks – focusing on a new construction orientation within the territory of the North Sea. The program is supported by a workshop and lecture series in February 2019 on ‘Seascape Architecture’.
For the Urbanism, Landscape Architecture, and Policy Analysis tracks, the studio will centre the attention on a new development logic of the North Sea territory — addressing the state of exposure and the unfolding fragilities of its societal, cultural, political, economic, and ecological systems. The program is supported by the upcoming lecture series in October 2018 on ‘The North Sea’.
Both lecture series are curated by the studio special guest prof.ir. Dirk Sijmons (H+N+S Landscape Architects) under the framework of the MVI North Sea Energy Lab.
Transitional Territories Studio, TUDelft jointly with Diploma Unit 7, Architecture Association School of Architecture.
* The lecture series program and symposium are public.
Transitional Territories is an interdisciplinary design studio (architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture, hydraulic structures and flood risk, policy analysis) with a strong emphasis on the translation of research output into design concepts. During the graduation year students will develop an analytic, critical and conceptual approach to design and learn how to use research and design methods such as system analysis (spatial and temporal dimensions), perception/ phenomenology/ narration, performative/ process based design, and designing with uncertainty. The studio is founded on theories of complexity, territorialism, infrastructure space, landscape urbanism and ecology, environmental risk and transition management (dynamic adaptation).
For the academic year 2018-2019 Transitional Territories Studio focuses on the North Sea territory and its altered state as an outcome of increased urbanisation and environmental degradation, and by the consequences of extreme weather and resource scarcity. These modifications take place and are represented in different levels – from the transcalar and often invisible levels of processes to the scale of the architecture.
The studio will explore the altered geography of the North Sea territory and the possibility of a new development logic between land and sea. Therefore, in the North Sea: Landscapes of Coexistence Studio we would anticipate modifications that are expected to happen and project new spatial forms under a revised territorial narrative.
Historically, the North Sea has been a contested territory. While bordering the mainland Europe it has been often turned into a platform for geopolitical affairs with the UK as well as the Nordic countries. Such strategic role has manifested itself in various military, religious, economic, and social ties and divides, which has consequently made the North Sea a confliction common ground. The ongoing refugee crisis or the Brexit are only very recent examples of such a long history. As a result, the sea is not seen anymore a periphery of Europe but rather a central territory and a point of departure through which the idea of Europe would be defined or challenged. Therefore, in the North Sea: Landscapes of Coexistence Studio we would celebrate these controversial aspects of the sea, not anymore as an extra-territorial space and a limit to the land, but rather as the main point an autonomous entity through which the political, environmental, economic and societal questions could be addressed. In this way any spatial proposition, whether landscape, urban or architectural, would be challenged and revisited through the lens of the North Sea as a referenced territory for new spatial interventions. Students are encouraged to redefine the role of the territory of the sea and particularly its land borders/ coastal cities, addressing the complex, yet not so visible, spatial, juridical, environmental and geopolitical natures of the North Sea.
During the graduation year students will be asked to reflect on aspects of spatial morphology (scale, form, structure, performance), landform (geology, altimetry/bathymetry, topography), and the diachrony and diversity of mechanisms (e.g. logistics, energy production, coastal management, migration) re-shaping the North Sea continuously. TT studio individual projects will be sited in different geographic locations along the sea’s north and south coastlines. Within the scope of the TT studio, students will be able to formulate their fascination and choose their own assignment (design, engineering, policy) which can vary from buildings, constructions and public works to urban areas, landscapes and regions.