EMERGEN|SEA|

On the afternoon of the 26th of February, BouT presented a symposium in the topic of building technologies on water, with the focus on preventive and reactive architecture to the world’s current challenges. These challenges ranged from how cities in the future should be conceptualized to how buildings that can adapt to the rise in sea level should be designed. The goal of EMERGENSEA was to bring the latest research and design on a key topic into one event

Symposium

This year, BouT’s symposium aims to raise awareness and equip young professionals with new insights and a head start when the tackle challenges of the future. Technology has become part of daily life, and although the construction industry is usually behind on applying these new technologies, with the recent state of the world, construction on the water is still on the development stage but aims to grow further in the future.

Although the potential of this topic remains on the extreme conceptual ideas that could be generated, from imagining complex new cities to solving structural problems with regards to fltoating buildings, the research potential is endless, bringing excitement for exploring and experimenting with technologies and innovative ideas.

The name EMERGENSEA comes from “Emergency” and “Sea,” which represents the main topic of the symposium. The planning and organization of the event started in September 2019, where the first vision for the symposium was pitched to Job Schroën, head professor of Extreme Architecture, who agreed to be the moderator of the event.

With the support of the Job and organizing team, an exciting line up of speakers was set, ranging from researchers to professionals from all over the world. During the whole duration of the events, the Orange Hall was filled by around 100 passionate people, willing to learn more about this emerging topic. The overall interest and feedback were very positive and promising. An overview of each lecture topic is discussed further.

United Plastic Nation

Noël Schardt and Bjørn Muendner, Freischeaerler

Noël Schardt and Bjørn Muendner from Freischeaerler, both graduated from Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. Their project addresses the problem of Coastal Cities, which are on the frontlines of an extreme threat. According to an estimated 90 percent of the largest global cities are vulnerable to rising sea levels. The vast majority of coastal cities will be impacted by coastal erosion and flooding, displacing millions of people, while destroying homes and infrastructure. In response to rapidly changing environmental conditions, new solutions must be considered concerning how future cities are built and how the most vulnerable populations are protected. The project initiates a discussion between the transition to more resilient and sustainable cities or facing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet.

Hope on Water

Sevince Bayrak and Oral Göktaş, co-founders of SO?

Sevince Bayrak & Oral Göktaş, co-founders of SO?, are architects and designers from Istanbul, Turkey. Their work has been awarded internationally and acclaimed by public media, including Architectural Review, Dezeen, Huffington Post, Fast Company. The lecture Hope on water talked about an interdisciplinary research project (architecture, sociology, and civil engineering), for the anticipated Istanbul Earthquake. The idea of designing a speculative prototype of a floating emergency house came out of this fact: what if the response is not about stable land, but manageable water?

Sustainable Floating cities: Extreme Design for Extreme Times

Marc Collins Chen, OCEANIX

Marc Collins Chen is a serial entrepreneur. His latest company, OCEANIX builds floating cities for people to live sustainably on the ocean. Marc developed his vision to build floating cities 12 years ago when he served as the government Minister of Tourism of French Polynesia. He saw first-hand the impact of sea-level, encouraging him to work on innovative solutions for adaptation and sustainable coastal expansion. He co-founded Blue Frontiers with partners in Silicon Valley, a pioneering company in floating islands. In 2018, he co-founded OCEANIX to pursue his passion for building floating cities as an alternative to land reclamation and adaptation to sea-level rise and climate change.

Floating Homes in the Pampanga Delta, The Philippines

Pieter Ham, Finch Floating Homes

Pieter Ham is a Ph.D. candidate at Delft University of Technology since 2017. He is also the co-founder of the Finch Floating Homes foundation. The foundation joins hands with the university to design and implement floating homes in flood-prone areas. The foundation believes that through analysing vernacular design strategies, answers can be created for contemporary design challenges. The research focuses on the Pampanga Delta in the Philippines, where they built the first floating pilot home. The building is inhabited by a Philippine family that tests the building.

Blue Revolution

Dr. Ir. Rutger de Graaf-van Dinther, Blue 21

Dr. Ir. Rutger de Graaf-van Dinther is civil engineering from the Delft University of Technology. He was trained by the best flood control engineers in the world. During the completion of his MSc and Ph.D., he started to work on sustainable floating cities as a solution to urgent global challenges such as climate change and land scarcity. In the lecture, he calls this shift of humanity to the oceans ‘the Blue Revolution.’ It includes sustainably using the water to make cities, produce food and energy, and create new ecosystems. He presented a global overview of the areas with both rapid population growth and high flood risk. To identify coastal areas that could benefit most from floating urban development. Next to the global vision of Blue21, realized floating projects and technologies were also presented that are stepping stones towards achieving the BlueRevolution. Also, the presentation showed the future trends of floating urban development in the next 5, 20, and 30 years.

The symposium represented an excellent opportunity for our Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment to get in touch with projects and research going around the world and broaden the possibility of future collaborations. TU Delft’s future-oriented vision and research-based study are instrumental in taking the next steps on innovation. So that this emerging technology on water architecture can continue growing.

Many thanks to all those who helped and made the symposium possible:

Job Schroën / Moderator Noël Schardt / Speaker Bjørn Muendner / Speaker Sevince Bayrak / Speaker Oral Göktaş / Speaker Marc Collins Chen / Speaker Pieter Ham / Speaker Rutger de Graaf-van Dinther / Speaker

Yarai Zenteno / Director Sasha Rodriguéz / Speaker Ambassador Shriya Balan / Operations Commander Yamini Patidar / Catering Manager Twinkle Nathani / Media Duties Manager Aditya Parulekar / Mission 1Capt Prateek Wahi / Mission 2 Capt Divyae Mittal / Audiovisual Manager Nikoleta Sidirop / Robot programmer Noah van den Berg/Robot programmer Jasper Sauer / Video Maker Siddharth Jain / Photographer

FAST University Funds / Sponsor STUD / Sponsor

By: Yarai Zenteno, Event Chair, Bout (2019-2020)