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The multi-dimensionality of BwN calls for the incorporation of ‘designerly ways of knowing and doing’ from other fields involved in this new trans-disciplinary approach. The transition out of a focus on rational design paradigms towards reflective design paradigms such as those employed in the spatial design disciplines may be a first step in this process. By extension, the knowledge base and design methodologies of BwN may be critically expanded by drawing on ways of knowing and doing in spatial design disciplines such as landscape architecture, which elaborates the agency of the term ‘landscape’ as counterpart to the term ‘nature’. Operative perspectives and related methodologies in this discipline such as perception, anamnesis, multi-scalar thinking, and process design resonate with specific themes in the BwN approach such as design of/with natural processes, integration of functions or layers in the territory and the connection of engineering works to human-social contexts. A series of installations realised for the Oerol festival on the island of Terschelling between 2011 and 2018 serve as case studies to elaborate potential transfers and thematic elaborations towards BwN. In these projects inter-disciplinary teams of students, researchers and lecturers developed temporary landscape installations in a coastal landscape setting. Themes emerging from these project include ‘mapping coastal landscapes as complex natures’, ‘mapping as design-generative device’, ‘crowd-mapping’, ‘people-place relationships’, ‘co-creation’, ‘narrating coastal landscapes’, ‘public interaction’ and ‘aesthetic experience’. Specific aspects of these themes relevant to the knowledge base and methodologies of BwN, include integration of sites and their contexts through descriptive and projective mappings, understanding the various spatial and temporal scales of a territory as complex natures, and the integration of collective narratives and aesthetic experiences of coastal infrastructures in the design process, via reflective dialogues.
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129
Building with
landscape
On-site experimental
installations informing
BwN methodology
René van der Velde1, Michiel Pouderoijen1,
Janneke van Bergen1, Inge Bobbink1, Frits van Loon1,
Denise Piccinini1, & Daniel Jauslin2
1. Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Landscape
Architecture
2. DGJ Landscapes
DOI 10.47982/rius.7.131
RIUS 7: BUILDING WITH NATURE PERSPECTIVES
130
Abstract
The multi-dimensionality of BwN calls for the incorporation of ‘designerly ways
of knowing and doing’ from other elds involved in this new trans-disciplinary
approach. The transition out of a focus on rational design paradigms towards
reective design paradigms such as those employed in the spatial design
disciplines may be a rst step in this process. By extension, the knowledge
base and design methodologies of BwN may be critically expanded by drawing
on ways of knowing and doing in spatial design disciplines such as landscape
architecture, which elaborates the agency of the term ‘landscape’ as counterpart
to the term ‘nature’. Operative perspectives and related methodologies in this
discipline such as perception, anamnesis, multi-scalar thinking, and process
design resonate with specic themes in the BwN approach such as design
of/with natural processes, integration of functions or layers in the territory
and the connection of engineering works to human-social contexts. A series
of installations realised for the Oerol festival on the island of Terschelling
between 2011 and 2018 serve as case studies to elaborate potential transfers
and thematic elaborations towards BwN. In these projects inter-disciplinary
teams of students, researchers and lecturers developed temporary landscape
installations in a coastal landscape setting. Themes emerging from these
project include ‘mapping coastal landscapes as complex natures’, ‘mapping
as design-generative device’, ‘crowd-mapping’, ‘people-place relationships’,
‘co-creation’, ‘narrating coastal landscapes’, ‘public interaction’ and ‘aesthetic
experience’. Specic aspects of these themes relevant to the knowledge base
and methodologies of BwN, include integration of sites and their contexts
through descriptive and projective mappings, understanding the various spatial
and temporal scales of a territory as complex natures, and the integration of
collective narratives and aesthetic experiences of coastal infrastructures in
the design process, via reective dialogues.
KEYWORDS
Building-with-Nature, landscape architecture, design methodology, hydraulic infrastructures, mapping
coastal landscapes, aesthetic experience, co-creation
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1. Introduction
Building with Nature (BwN) oers an alternative mode of praxis for in-
frastructural challenges such as hydraulic infrastructures and coastal ood
barriers, whereby nature and natural processes are actively engaged to serve
goals such as ood safety (De Vriend, et al.,2015). At the same time BwN aims
to address broader sustainability goals such as minimizing damage to natural
environments and increasing ecological value around hydraulic infrastruc-
tures. To this end, the knowledge base and methodologies of BwN include and
combine such elds as ecology, environmental science and engineering, as
well as other disciplines involved in the built environment. The interweaving
of these disciplines is commendable and promising, and resonates with in-
tra-disciplinary developments in other areas of applied sciences. Most BwN
results however, are still limited to multi-functional outcomes whereby na-
ture, recreation and other uses are accommodated. The fact that more elab-
orate or hybrid outcomes are rare suggests that a true hybridization has yet
to fully emerge, and that contributions leading to a further synthesis of these
elds are welcome and necessary.
A rst topic in this discussion is the elaboration of BwN in the area of
design and design thinking. Design can be considered a culture of thinking
aimed at altering an existing condition/situation/artifact into a preferred
condition/situation/artifact (Schon, 1983). Exactly how the designer moves
from the existing to the new, however, can dier markedly. Of these vari-
ous methods, Dorst & Dijkhuis (1995) elaborate two essentially dierent me-
ta-approaches to design: the Rational Problem-solving approach and the Re-
ection-in-Action approach (gure 1).
Figure 1. Matrix of rational problem solving paradigms versus reection-in-action paradigms. (Image:
Dorst & Dijkhuis, 1995)
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Broadly speaking, the present state of BwN can be said to articulate de-
sign and the design process predominantly in the rational problem-solving
paradigm. In the rst instance then, the evolution of BwN as design process
calls for its expansion out of a solely rational design paradigm, to include
paradigms from the reective design perspective. More unambiguously, the
multi-dimensionality of BwN implies a necessary venture outside the con-
nes of engineering towards ‘designerly ways’ found in other elds involved
in this new intra-disciplinary approach.
By extension, the knowledge base and design methodologies of BwN may
be critically expanded by drawing on ways of knowing and doing in disciplines
engaging with the reective design perspective, evident in some spatial de-
sign disciplines such as landscape architecture. As such, this paper elaborates
the potential of landscape architecture as part of BwN’s broader ‘interdiscipli-
nary venture’. Although sharing a similar focus (physical/built environment
planning, design and management), landscape architecture can be said to
predominantly engage the reection paradigm in the design process. Moreo-
ver, landscape architecture is of specic interest for its focus on ‘design with
nature’, a theme it shares with BwN. In landscape architecture discourse, de-
sign-with-nature is a notion that underpins the discipline and extends back
to mankind’s rst manipulations of the natural environment (Girot, 2016). As
such, BwN can be seen as a new chapter in an age-old tradition.
Of interest here is the way in which the term nature is interpreted; more
precisely, in landscape architecture nature is juxtaposed by the term ‘land-
scape’, which forms the operative idiom of the discipline. Within this idiom
three epistemological frames arise in the discourse: landscape as earth-life
system, landscape as habituated milieu, and landscape as experiential scene/
setting (Corner, 1999a; Van der Velde 2018). In turn these frames backdrop a
quartet of operative perspectives and related methodologies for spatial (land-
scape) design praxis, namely (1) Perception, (2) Anamnesis, (3) Multi-scalar
thinking, and (4) Process design (Marot 1999, Prominski 2004). These per-
spectives are relevant for this paper in that they resonate with three themes
found in BwN that deserve attention in expanding and sharpening its knowl-
edge base and methodologies: (1) design of/with natural processes, (2) inte-
gration of functions or layers in the landscape and (3) connection of engineer-
ing works to their human-social context.
To narrow down a review and migration of ways of knowing and doing
from landscape architecture to BwN, a selection is made from the reper-
toire of the discipline to those projects operating in the same context such as
coastal landscapes, or those engaging with infrastructural challenges such as
ood safety. Coastal landscapes formed the setting of a series of landscape
architectural projects realised for the Oerol festival on the island of Terschell-
ing between 2011 and 2018, under the auspices of the chair of landscape ar-
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chitecture at the faculty of architecture, TU Delft. The Oerol projects formed
part of the master of landscape architecture elective programme, a 12-week
long design-and-build module for students from landscape architecture, ar-
chitecture, urbanism and industrial design, led by researchers and lecturers
from the chair. Given the setting of the festival on the island of Terschelling,
the problematique of climate change and ood safety formed an implicit, and
sometimes explicit, backdrop to the studio. The cooperation between Oerol
Festival and the chair stemmed initially from the broad ambition to create
a synergy between art, science, nature and landscape. As such the projects
were positioned in the ‘expedition’ programme of the festival, an auxiliary set
of projects to complement the theatre and music agenda of the 10-day long
festival. In each of the projects student teams led by researchers and sta
researched, conceptualized and constructed temporary design-and-build in-
stallations to be visited by the (festival) public over a period of 10 days. For
master track students it was an opportunity to take part in a ‘live’ design as-
signment and build a physical installation, to learn how to collaborate with
fellow students and external stakeholders, work with a festival audience in a
multidisciplinary environment, and bring together dierent notions of nature
and landscape. A recurring conceptual frame for the projects was the notion
of place: understanding how landscapes form specic locales and what land-
scape architectural methods can do to reveal and engage a ‘sense of place’.
In the following, an examination is made of the collection of On-Site
projects in the period 2011-2018 to glean various ways of knowing and doing
relevant to BwN. In the rst part, an overview is given of the projects and
their thematic focus, followed by a discussion of these themes and their out-
comes in relation to the ways of knowing and doing in BwN. Lessons learnt
are summarized and related to the BwN perspective in the conclusion.
2. Landscape as agency in Oerol on-site projects
First generation: ‘Landscape Mirror’ & ‘Feed the Wind’
The rst participation in the festival’s project series, the 2011 ‘Landscape
Mirror’ project, explored dierent landscape types present on the island such
as polder, village, forest and dune, represented these landscapes in a built di-
orama on the beach using materials such as sand, wood and cloth. To recreate
the clash between natural and man-made forces provisory dikes were built of
beach sand on the shoreline, in an empirical attempt to spatialize and com-
municate erosion and sedimentation processes for the festival public (gure
2).
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Figure 2. Island landscape diorama, ‘Landscape Mirror’ project (Photo: Inge Bobbink)
Figure 3. Temporary water garden, ‘Feed the Wind’ project (Photo: Daniel Jauslin)
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A camera obscura installation close by in the dunes allowed visitors to
experience both the immediate and the distant polder, village, forest, and
dune landscapes simultaneously. The unpredictable island weather provided
some useful lessons as on one of the rst days, a storm surge washed away
the largest part of the project, oering an unpolished experience of the pow-
er of nature. In the 2012 project ‘Feed the Wind’ (Jauslin & Bobbink, 2012),
aeolian forces which incrementally shaped sand into the barrier islands of
the Wadden sea, and the ways in which man used this power to further shape
the island of Terschelling, were explored in an enclosed (water) garden. The
festival public were invited to bring in sand and use foot pumps to spread it
out in the pond in a pattern echoing natural sand transport in the Wadden sea
area (gure 3).
Second generation: ‘Institute of Place Making’ & ‘Institute of Time Taking’,
‘Pin(k) a Place’
A shift in focus to the design process and the landscape of the island
characterized the second generation of projects. In the 2013 project ‘Insti-
tute of Place Making’, detailed mapping studies by design teams revealed
the complex morphogenesis of the island including erosion, sedimentation
and vegetation, and their manipulation through grazing, cultivating, dune
and dike-building, and settlement (infra)structures (Pouderoijen & Piccinini,
2013) (gure 4).
Site experience and on-site experiments also became part of the design
process, through meetings and interviews with local inhabitants and festival
visitors. This was done by asking them to collect material from a place on
the island they related to and to give a short description about this relation-
ship. Feedback was analysed and classied into categories in an attempt to
generate scientic insights about people-place relationships. Findings were
communicated back to visitors in an on-site exhibition in which they could
browse through a range of possible relationships other than their own (gure.
5).
Figure 4 (left). Sectional representations of island morphogenesis, ‘Institute of Time-Taking’ project
Figure 5 (right). Cabinet of curiosities, ‘Institute of Place Making’project
RIUS 7: BUILDING WITH NATURE PERSPECTIVES
136
This approach was extended in the 2014 project ‘Institute of Time Tak-
ing’, with a focus on individual experience of landscape comparing senso-
rial and scientic approaches. Mapping the site and context of Terschelling
formed a foundational step in this project, whereby the design process in-
cluded a detailed set of descriptive and projective mappings of the spatial de-
velopment of the island. In 2017 the ‘Pin(k) a Place’ project explored the peo-
ple-place relationship further by examining what a specic forest landscape
meant to people in a real-time physical experiment whereby visitors located
and described the emotion of a certain point in a given forest environment
(Piccinini, & van der Velde, 2017). In what might be termed a form of ‘crowd
mapping’, multiple and alternative layers and meanings of a given landscape
were revealed, complementing professional understanding of sites and land-
scapes.
Third generation: ‘Institute of Poldering’ & ‘ForeSea’
In 2015 a collaboration with Vogelbescherming Nederland (VBN/Birdlife
Netherlands) led to a project highlighting the decline of meadow birds in ag-
ricultural landscapes. The installation was designed to both depict and ques-
tion the relation between (consumer) behaviour, landscape, and nature, and
to show how farming was a delicate balance between business and sustaining
a biodiverse and attractive landscape (gure 6). In 2016 a similar problema-
tique backdropped the ‘ForeSea’ installation, an immense three-dimensional
info-graphic depicting sea-level rise as result of visitor behaviour (gure 7).
Both installations were designed as ‘open-ended’ constructions whereby
visitor input decided the ultimate form. In this mode, the 2015 project saw
a timber construction ‘creep’ incrementally across the meadowlands and
the 2016 project developed into a dense three-dimensional airborne web of
coloured threads visible from increasingly further distances. Although the
primary purpose of this third generation of projects was communication, they
now also took on a role of exploring how landscape architecture can address
contemporary societal problems and spatial challenges by revealing the role
of humans in landscape change and development.
Figure 6 (left). interactive installation, ‘Institute of Poldering’ project
Figure 7 (right). Dynamic info-graphic, ‘ForeSea’ project
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Fourth generation: ‘Aeolis - Gap the Border’
The issue of sea-level rise and coastal defence became an increasingly
prominent theme in what can be seen as a fourth generation project realized
in 2018. Whereas the 2016 ‘ForeSea’ project raised awareness of the societal
challenge of sea level rise, the 2018 project ‘Aeolis - Gap the Border’ actively
engaged the agency of landscape in the problematique of coastal defence (Van
der Velde & Van Bergen, 2018). For the coastal defence of Terschelling it is
necessary for the fore and rear dunes to receive more (sand) deposits in order
to keep pace with sea level rise. This premise set the scene for the rst phase
of the project in which aeolian techniques for dune formation were explored
by students in eld workshops for rapid prototyping and compositions for
sediment accretion (gure 8).
By stimulating sediment accretion on the beach and in the dunes these
experiments explored how to assist dune growth and compensate for coastal
erosion. In early on-site workshops, ‘fencing’ in the form of hessian screens
turned out to be a promising technique for sediment accretion.
Figure 8 (left). Sand accretion prototype, ‘Aeolis-Gap the Border’ project
Figure 9. (right) ‘Stitching’ location, ‘Aeolis-Gap the Border’ project
Moving to the site and context of Terschelling itself, the design process
turned to detailed descriptive and projective mappings of the spatial devel-
opment of the island. This research revealed a complex history of natural and
anthropogenic processes interacting together, including erosion, sedimen-
tation and vegetation, and their manipulation through grazing, cultivating,
dune and dike-building, and settlement (infra)structures. In line with these
ndings a site for the installation was chosen where the two former islands of
Terschelling (Der Schelling & Wexalia) were united into one island during the
middle ages (gure 9).
The technique of projective mapping led to understanding the site as a
result of natural forces and anthropogenic interventions over many centu-
ries, which was then translated into a preliminary zig-zag line placed perpen-
dicular to the coastline from the foredune to the shoreline. This conguration
eectively spatialized a large-scale (historical) stitching of the two islands
RIUS 7: BUILDING WITH NATURE PERSPECTIVES
138
together (gure 10). The goal to capture and transport sand driven by the (an-
gled) winds across the beach with the hessian fences, led to the further de-
velopment of the scheme into a woven conguration of columns and screens
in the beach-foredune complex. As such the design became a connective as-
sembly of screens at dierent heights in a zigzag conguration, leading from
the dynamic surf zone to the less dynamic foredune zone over a distance of
200m (gure 11).
Figure 10. Screen assembly plan, ‘Aeolis-Gap the Border’ project
Figure 11. Installation elevation, ‘Aeolis-Gap the Border’ project
Figure 12 (left). Overview of installation from dunes, ‘Aeolis-Gap the Border’ project
Figure 13 (right). Accumulated in situ sand accretions, ‘Aeolis-Gap the Border’ project
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In the nal built installation, stepped fences were designed to trap dif-
ferent modes of sediment such as creep, saltation and suspension. The angled
structure was able to trap sediment from various wind directions, including
the less-favourable oshore winds, thus stopping sediment from blowing
back into the sea. Rows of fences also served as tunnels for sediment trans-
port to the inner parts of the installation while elevated ‘blowholes’ acceler-
ated trapped sediment to the inner chambers of the installation, were it could
settle further as start of embryonic dune growth. With the project forming
part of the ‘expedition’ program of the festival, the public visited the instal-
lation over a 10-day period. A route was set out for visitors, starting in the
mature dunes behind and above the installation. Here the public were intro-
duced to the necessity of dune formation, with a route along panels showing
the dierent phases of dune formation and ending in a panoramic overview
over the installation (gure 12).
From this point they could observe the various stages of dune formation,
including the eects of human intervention such as the decline in vegetation
around beach accesses, but also the eects of ‘tramping’ which helps keep
sediment mobile for transport. Descending to the installation, visitors passed
through the central axis of the installation where they could observe the pro-
gress of accretion in the installation, by measuring its progress at stops on the
route. As a BwN project exploring assisted dune development using natural
forces (sediment transport by wind), the installation demonstrated novel ef-
fects on wind and sand transport and performed well in many facets of sand
transport and accretion (gure 13).
In this way, although not intended purely as an installation to generate
scientic results, it contributed as a conceptual model and prototype to elab-
orate dierent means for sediment accretion in response to site, wind and
human dynamics. Some items of the installation, such as the stepped fences,
did not full their promise in the short timeframe of the festival. Other as-
pects, such as its angular shape did well in the prevailing south-west (o-
shore) wind, stopping dune sediment being transported back to sea. An unex-
pected outcome was the eect of higher screens which turned lower openings
into ‘blow holes’ during higher wind speeds, transporting sediment deeper
into the installation.This eect compares to beach pavilions on stilts, where
the carrying construction also functions as a medium for deeper sediment
transport due to higher ‘compressed’ windspeeds beneath the structure. It
shows the spatial eects of architectural interventions in the beach dune in-
terface that can inform future built form edices to enhance dune formation
in the fore dune zone. These insights were fed back into the ShoreScape re-
search project of the Delft University of Technology and University of Twente
to see how they can be translated to operational mechanisms for sediment
transport and new urban typologies for the beach-dune interface.
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140
3. Discussion
The contribution of the Oerol projects to the discourse and practice of
BwN are further elaborated by discussing them in the frame of the four op-
erative perspectives of landscape architecture (perception, anamnesis, mul-
ti-scalar thinking, and process design), in relation to the existing knowledge
base and methodologies of BwN (design of/with natural processes, integra-
tion of functions or layers in the landscape and connection of engineering
works to their human-social context).
Mapping Coastal Landscapes as ‘Complex Natures’
Mapping and modeling the successive (re)workings of the territory over
time was a dening aspect of early Oerol projects such as the ‘Institute of
Time-taking’. As methodologies, these activities draw on both the ‘anamne-
sis’ and ‘process design’ perspectives by revealing the incremental change of
the island over time. In exposing the interaction of both natural and anthro-
pogenic forces in this evolution, they demonstrate the historical complexity
of coastal environments with relevance to BwN initiatives (gure 14). More
critically, they reveal the essential interaction between man and nature on
the island, and by extension raise important questions for the BwN approach:
have not anthropogenic elements in these landscapes become an irreplace-
able appendix to the abiotic and the biotic?; and by extension: should BwN
restrict its understanding of nature to non-anthropogenic environments and
‘natural’ conditions?
Figure 14. Sectional study of landscape formation, ‘Institute of time-taking’ project, 2014
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In answering these questions - and before proceeding to applications -
BwN might rst attempt to dene its understanding of nature; as Williams
(1983) observes, nature is one of the most complex terms in the English lan-
guage, a predicament undoubtedly relevant to other languages. He goes on
to note that nature is an abstraction, a set of ideas for which many cultures
have no one name, “a singular name for the real multiplicity of things and living
processes” (Williams, 1980). From the perspective of landscape architecture
the meaning of the term nature can be said to be relative to the context of the
intervention; if natural and anthropogenic forces in a locale have conated to
such a degree that their distinction is irrelevant, the ‘nature’ of the territory
is just so. By extension, a Building-with-Nature project should creatively en-
gage with the amalgam of natural and anthropogenic forces present, within
the framework of its broader sustainability objectives.
Mapping as Design-generative Device
As a methodology, mapping implies a deep understanding of the natural
and anthropogenic forces at play in the territory, their interaction over time,
and critically, their interpretation towards the infrastructural challenge at
hand. As such, while the outcomes of these rst projects had little relevance
for BwN as solutions for ood defense or other civil engineering challenges,
the 2018 project took this thematic through towards a solution with method-
ological relevance for infrastructural outcomes. The ‘Aeolis-Gap the Border’
project used mappings of the island to inform the location and conguration
of a system of screens, which accreted sediment by capturing wind-blown
sands. Leaving aside a discussion of the ultimate success of the screens in
dune development (impossible to judge in the short time of the festival), the
linking of the island’s historical development to the solution is useful for BwN
in that it engages not only the natural processes of the island, but also with
the cultural forces that worked with the ‘nature of the island’ over centuries
to shape it. As such, by translating the results from landscape mappings (his-
torical development, layers etc) into a spatial concept, the incorporation of
the embedded, deep-time working-with-nature character of the island was
revealed and engaged. An implicit position here is that the island itself har-
bours vital information for the rollout of BwN for coastal defence, which in
turn has a potential for elaborating and incorporating new patterns of occu-
pation in coastal landscapes with benets for the acceptance of large-scale
infrastructural interventions in coastal environments.
In respect to the process itself, unlocking the island’s ‘DNA’ is rarely a
deductive process, but instead uses the agency of mapping selectively and
even subjectively. Corner (1999b) observes that mappings are not neutral or
passive devices for measurement and description, but, instead, (should be)
seen as imaginative and operational tools. He goes on to note that ‘… map-
RIUS 7: BUILDING WITH NATURE PERSPECTIVES
142
ping enables the designer to construct an argument, to embed it within the
dominant practises of a rational culture, and ultimately to turn those prac-
tises towards more practical and collective ends’ (Corner, 1999b). The possi-
bilities (and implications) of this stance for BwN are signicant; it suggests
that an operative relationship can be constructed between mappings of the
territory and infrastructural interventions, but that this process demands a
combination of close readings and creative (re)constructions, competencies
that do not exist in one single discipline as yet.
‘Crowd-Mapping’, People-place Relationships & Co-creation
If mapping is to be seen as an imaginative operation, then constructive
mappings as a generator for design solutions might also include non-profes-
sional mapmakers. This notion emerges from the second-generation projects,
which shifted investigations of the territory towards (human) perspectives
of the landscape & the mapping of the social dimension of place. This shift
responded to an emerging theoretical frame for the projects: understand-
ing how landscapes form specic locales and what methods can reveal and
engage a ‘sense of place’. As such, the teams explored not only the identity
of a particular site and territory by mapping its bio-physical and urban-in-
frastructural form, but also its socio-cultural ‘DNA’. How landscape are per-
ceived and appreciated by locals, visitors and other user groups thus became
a central theme. In the 2013, 2014 and 2017 projects perception of landscape
and dierent ways people connect to it led to several interactive ways of in-
vestigation to structure visitor observations, such as imaging, mapping, de-
scription and classication (gure 15). What these outcomes may mean for
BwN solutions are yet not entirely clear, but they do show that perceptions of
landscapes (and by inference dierent ideas of what ‘nature’ is) are more di-
verse than those held in professional circles. By extension, non-professional
contributions as generative devices to develop BwN solutions could be much
more fertile than generally assumed. At the very least, revealing and working
with the ‘embodied knowledge’ of coastal landscapes has a critical advantage
over conventional BwN approaches in terms of public relations. In the rst
place, by working with what people (can) know, and by extension relate to.
More fundamentally, for local communities who have been part of the shap-
ing of the island in the rst place (and see how this is used to develop a new
approach for dune development) there is a shift in the authorship of the work
from the engineer to the island and its people. By extension, the acceptance of
(innovative but uncertain) BwN measures can be expected to improve. Thus,
while co-creation within BwN remains largely underdeveloped, its potential
is much greater than currently acknowledged and may be even more so when
inhabitants are allowed to adopt a BwN project and develop it further in dif-
ferent ways. This can be seen in the Sand Motor project on the South Holland
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143
coast, which shows that BwN projects may be more suitable for this kind of
shared use than traditional, ‘hard’ solutions.
Figure 15. Landcape preferences mapping, ‘Pin(k)-a-Place’ project, 2017
Narrating Coastal Landscape infrastructures
‘Crowd-mapping’, people-place relationships and co-creation also
prompt a parallel topic critical to (the future of) BwN. In the context of in-
creasing demand for innovative and sustainable solutions for hydraulic infra-
structures, there is a need to not only embed BwN projects in their bio-phys-
ical context but also to develop social acceptance of these measures as an
alternative response to challenges such as climate change. In this frame,
while the outcomes of many Oerol projects may seem in the rst instance to
have little relevance as solutions to ood defense, they do engage the public
to experience environments in various ways, with potentially important les-
sons for BwN.
These approaches arise through the perspective of landscape (architec-
ture) as an understanding and the choregraphing (perceptions) of outdoor
environments. Early projects were conceived as narrative installations to
transfer ideas to the festival audience through interactively building replicas
of island landscapes with students and visitors. They explained how land-
scape works by immersing visitors in an experience of how dierent island
environments evolved, thus making the public aware of the tradition of the
barrier island landscape and the constant struggle between land and sea. Lat-
er projects such as ‘Institute of Place Making’, ‘Institute of Time Taking’, and
‘Pin(k) a Place’ brought to light the importance of landscapes as settings for
RIUS 7: BUILDING WITH NATURE PERSPECTIVES
144
experience and identity for individuals and communities. In the third-gener-
ation projects, awareness became an interactive component to make people
conscious of the role they play in shaping landscapes through their own be-
havior. This was elaborated through public interaction with the installation,
transforming it through the actions and opinions of individuals. For BwN,
these approaches can serve as an example to engage communities by mak-
ing people aware of sea level rise, and the need for BwN responses to it. The
‘Aeolis-Gap the Border’ installation for example begins by making aspects of
the landscape that are normally invisible (such as sand transport, or eects of
recreation, loss of beach vegetation, beach development) visible. In fact, the
sand landscape of Terschelling can be said to have become the main feature,
and the installation a facilitation and visualization of it. A necessary broad-
ening of BwN involves making invisible landscape-forming processes visible,
translating them architecturally, and sharing them with a larger audience in
order to increase awareness of the landscape.
Public Interaction and Aesthetic Experience in BwN Design Processes
A more structural engagement with individuals, communities and soci-
eties in various phases of BwN projects is a nal theme, not just as informa-
tive moments but as an integral part in the phases of hydraulic infrastructure
projects (initiation, plan development and construction). Openings in this
direction can be seen in the ‘Aeolis-Gap the Border’ project, where visitors
and residents became aware of the history of this coastal island, of climate
change and vulnerable coastal landscapes, and became familiar with succes-
sion in the dune landscape as a necessary step in response to sea level rise.
However, the project also made them critical; is this science? Is this art? Is
this disturbance of the landscape? As such, the project engaged the collec-
tive memory of the audience to evaluate new BwN techniques, not just in a
technical way but also in a cultural sense, as an act of ‘landscape building’.
The physical installation served as a testing ground for people to understand,
accept and participate in science, and engage with the adaptation of the dune
landscape that results from it. The design of prototypes is thus not just about
investigating scientic questions and technical solutions but also to bring
science to a wider audience, to start a dialogue about science and its role in
the transformation of landscape. This kind of approach is exemplied by the
BwN projects such as the Sand Motor, which is not only the result of tech-
nical parameters but also incorporates recreational and cultural practices.
Some even suggest a step beyond this paradigm. Meyer (2008) argues that
while ecological health, social justice and economic prosperity are the three
dominant modes of sustainable landscape development, aesthetic environ-
mental experience is the crucial missing link to eectuate this goal. She ob-
serves that ‘the performance of a landscape’s appearance, and the experience
BUILDI NG WITH LAN DSCAPE: ON-SITE E XPERIMENTAL INSTALL ATIONS INFORMING BWN METHODOLOGY
145
of beauty, should have as much currency in debates about what a sustainable
landscape might, and should be as the performance of its ecological systems’
(Meyer, 2008). As such, what may be considered as a purely artistic aspect of
installation works such as the aesthetic constellation of hessian screens in
the ‘Aeolis-Gap the Border’ project (and thus removed from the ‘real work’ of
BwN infrastructure), can be viewed as a necessary part of the wider practice of
BwN which aims to sustainably address the eects of climate change. In this
way BwN projects may also be expected to contribute to public debate on the
role of science and its cultural transition in the context of the future of coastal
landscape of the Netherlands.
4. Conclusion
BwN is a new approach now being implemented in several pilot pro-
jects. The approach is still in an early stage of development and in need of
elaboration in terms of its knowledge base and design methodologies. The
multi-dimensionality of BwN calls for the incorporation of ‘designerly ways
of knowing and doing’ from other elds involved in this trans-disciplinary
approach. As such, the successful evolution of BwN implies a transition away
from purely rational design paradigms towards attitudes and procedures in
reective design paradigms employed in related spatial design disciplines.
Centring in on the knowledge base and methodologies of BwN, these may be
critically expanded by drawing on emerging ways of knowing and doing in
spatial design disciplines such as landscape architecture, which presents it-
self as a potential source through its elaboration of the agency of the term
‘landscape’, as counterpart to the term ‘nature’. Landscape forms a relevant
idiom with a set of operative perspectives and related methodologies for spa-
tial design praxis, such as perception, anamnesis, multi-scalar thinking, and
process design. These are relevant to BwN as an approach which engages with
natural processes, synergizing functions and connecting solutions to the cul-
tural component of coastal environments.
A series of festival projects in the period 2011-2018 elaborate these themes
in dierent ways. The rst generation of Oerol projects were directed towards
the understanding of landscape as natural and cultural mosaic and the social
perception of landscape. Second and third generation projects made the step
towards an architectural intervention in the landscape as a result of public
dialogue, which also raised awareness for societal challenges such as the vi-
tality of polder landscapes or the threat of sea level rise. A fourth generation
project brought the problematique of BwN to the landscape of Terschelling,
revealing how a broader elaboration of coastal defence is possible that not
only addresses ood safety (and ecology) but also the deeper bio-physical and
RIUS 7: BUILDING WITH NATURE PERSPECTIVES
146
human-social characteristics of the territory. Themes emerging from these
projects include: ‘mapping coastal landscapes as complex natures’, ‘map-
ping as design-generative device’, ‘crowd-mapping’, ‘people-place rela-
tionships’, ‘co-creation’, ‘narrating coastal landscapes’, ‘public interaction’
and ‘aesthetic experience’. Specic aspects of these projects relevant to the
knowledge base and methodologies of BwN, include integration of sites and
their contexts through descriptive and projective mappings, understanding
the various spatial and temporal scales of a territory as complex natures, and
the integration of collective narratives and aesthetic experiences of coastal
infrastructures in the design process, via reective dialogues.
For a further elaboration of BwN it may be productive to examine and
develop its epistemological foundations. The landscape epistemes ‘landscape
as earth-life system’, ‘landscape as habituated milieu’, and ‘landscape as ex-
perintial scene/setting’ are a useful starting point for this work.
Acknowledgements
The On Site Oerol projects were made possible by nancial and organi-
zational support from the Delft Deltas, Infrastructures & Mobility Initiative
(DIMI), the NH Bos foundation, the Chair of Landscape Architecture, TU Delft
and the Oerol Festival Organization.
Detailed project documentation is available online at: http://iopm.nl
BUILDI NG WITH LAN DSCAPE: ON-SITE E XPERIMENTAL INSTALL ATIONS INFORMING BWN METHODOLOGY
147
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Corner, J. (1999a). Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes. In: J. Corner (Ed.), Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture (pp. 153-170). Princeton Architectural Press.
The course of landscape architecture: A history of our designs on the natural world, from prehistory to the present
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Girot, C. (2016). The course of landscape architecture: A history of our designs on the natural world, from prehistory to the present. Thames & Hudson.
The Reclaiming of Sites
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Marot, S. (1999). The Reclaiming of Sites. In J. Corner (Ed.), Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture (pp. 45-57). Princeton Architectural Press.
Institute of place making: A project by the chair of Landscape Architecture at the TU Delft
  • M Pouderoijen
  • D Piccinini
Pouderoijen, M. & Piccinini, D. (2013). Institute of place making: A project by the chair of Landscape Architecture at the TU Delft. Oerol 2013: Sense of place. Delft University of Technology.