In the debate about smart cities, an alternative to a dominant top-down, tech-driven solutionist approach has arisen in examples of ‘civic hacking’. Hacking here refers to the playful, exploratory, collaborative and sometimes transgressive modes of operation found in various hacker cultures, this time …

This book discusses the way that a nature-driven approach to urbanism can be applied at each of the urban scales; architectural design, urban design of neighborhoods, city planning and landscape architecture, and at the city and regional scales. At all levels nature-driven approaches to design and planning …

INAUGURAL LECTURE The world is in disarray. Species are extinct, climates are changing, we are becoming unhealthier. To liberate ourselves from this doom scenario we need to take care of ourselves and our environment. The solutions of former generations offer no future solace. Moreover, these caused …

The city is nature. In many ways this bold statement can be contested, but at the same time wildlife is so abundant Rotterdam is called a wilderness park (Reumer, Wildpark Rotterdam. De stad als natuurgebied. Historische Uitgeverij, Groningen, 2014). One can discuss whether this is true or not, but more …

Urbanization around the world has taken a flight towards rapid, sometimes uncontrolled growth. Megacities expanded, whilst erasing the developable area and adjusting the existing landscape to artificial water and nature systems. This rampant expansion often leads to monotonous new neighborhoods, often …

In this chapter we move back in time, to when it was not an usance to base our city designs on the natural systems of water and ecology. By the end of the 1980s the dogma of separation of functions, and dividing the city in areas for working, living, leisure and traffic was slowly abandoned and especially …

Current urban design and urban planning aim to facilitate global, regional and local urbanization programs. This implies most of the planning documents give room to the types of land use that seem to require space ‘here and now’. The amount of new housing, office and other industrial and commercial space, …

Introduction: A space’s atmosphere is an important factor in how that space is experienced. In fact, festival visitors consider the atmosphere as the most important factor in how they experience a festival (Van Vliet 2012). Atmosphere is also what distinguishes physical shops from online web shops (Van …

Deciding what kind of smart cities do we, as a society, want is not only a political question but also a matter of envisioning possible futures. The speculative narratives that designers produce to support their imagination are called "Design Fictions." We share SUBMERGED, a cross-platform project that …

Small urban water bodies, such as ponds or canals, are commonly believed to solve urban heat problems but recent research shows that the cooling effect of large urban water bodies on hot summer days is quite limited and can actually induce a night-time warming effect. However, shading, vaporising water …