Weathering The Storm

from BDP 2020 The Big Conversation

by BDP – Building Design Partnership

THE WORKPLACE ECOSYSTEM: Extinction or Reinvention?

by Björn Bleumink

**A green and blue axis, workplace campus, Germany**

Large permeable areas that can filter rainwater provide an excellent starting point to create actively used green spaces

The Netherlands has always had an existential relationship with water; it is a central fact of life for its citizens, one that defines the country’s identity. In recent times the effect of climate change has made heavy rainfall more frequent – increasing by about 20% since 1950 - and this excess of water has impacted on urban development, creating challenges for architects, engineers and urban designers.

From a design perspective, finding a solution to this problem is not purely a technical or functional matter. Combining urban design, landscape design, engineering and architecture creates an integrated design opportunity to enhance the quality of the public realm and the wellbeing of users through the design of climate adaptive urban neighbourhoods.

Intense rainfall causes stress on sewer systems, resulting in flooded streets, tunnels and basements. The need for temporary storage for rainwater grows paramount, particularly in urban areas. In the city of Rotterdam, for example, a sequence of sunken water squares that can be flooded, or underground storage tanks in parking garages, provide a strategic buffer to ease pressure on the sewers.

Large permeable areas that can filter rainwater provide an excellent starting point to create actively used green spaces. In a recent masterplan developed for a large office campus in Germany, we placed a green and blue eco-axis at the heart of the design. Depending on the season or amount of rainfall, this axis transforms from a wet brook to a dry park. The brook uses the natural contours of the land, gradually stepping down from the highest point to a large water square at the lowest, maximising infiltration capacity. The brook’s gradually sloping soft shores form a continuous ecological zone, stimulating the site’s local biodiversity. Together with a new public art route, this forms the perfect setting for a stroll, or lunch by the pebbles alongside the brook.

**Learning through doing; children can control water levels in the playground**

In residential neighbourhoods, the design of public green infiltration areas offers another benefit; they can act as meeting places for residents, facilitating social encounters and so strengthening community ties. Increasing the sense of ownership stimulates neighbourhood social cohesion in a positive way. In our masterplan for Hoge Weide in Utrecht, residents were actively involved in the design process. They collaborated with the architects on the design of common spaces and a new playground has become a showcase of the elaborate water system in use. Pumps direct the flow of water into a basin. Children can open and close floodgates and thereby control the water levels in the playground themselves.

While parents have a chat on the shore, their children are learning the basics about the Dutch water protection system through play.

The use of green roofs is another means to buffer water and supplement infiltration capacity to the public and common realm. A functional green roof adds value by storing rainwater, reducing heat stress in summer, insulating during winter, and increasing biodiversity.

However, treating roof gardens as an extension of the public realm needs careful consideration. Outside metropolitan areas occupancy is too low to activate two public levels simultaneously. Under these circumstances, our focus is to activate ground floor usage as much as possible, giving precedence to a socially secure and active public realm.

By combining solutions for different scales of development together within a holistic design approach, the cities of tomorrow can become intelligent, flexible ecosystems, capable of adapting to new changes in use or need – whatever the weather.