^{DOWN TO EARTH: THE HIGH GROUND}

^{image: Aad Hoogendoorn}

It’s now 600 years ago that Dordrecht was struck by what was perhaps the greatest flood disaster in the history of the Low Countries: the Saint Elizabeth’s Flood. It made the city into an island, which to this day is very vulnerable to flooding. So water safety is clearly of the highest possible priority.
Over the past two years, the IABR–Atelier Dordrecht, under its lead designer Adriaan Geuze (West 8), has investigated how the future need for self-sufficiency in the event of a major flood can be deployed in the search for an answer to the current sustainable area development challenge: How can water safety be used as leverage?
The conclusions of the research are presented in the exhibition THE HIGH GROUND, curated by the chief curator of DOWN TO EARTH, George Brugmans.

^{DOWN TO EARTH: THE HIGH GROUND}

^{image: Aad Hoogendoorn}

THE HIGH GROUND
The results of the five substudies by VenhoevenCS, PosadMaxwan, DVMB, EGM architects and West 8 that the Atelier has commissioned, make clear that De Staart – now an isolated area with many problems and few prospects – can play an unexpectedly important role in realizing the Dordrecht water safety agenda. If water safety is wielded as leverage to accomplish sustainable and inclusive urban development, opportunities suddenly arise. Indeed, this approach requires that there be flexible space on De Staart at all times, to make it possible to quickly realize the extra square meters needed for peak absorption in the event of a disaster. By making room in the design process for the accommodation of evacuees and other emergency facilities, a city can be created where people not only live and work, but where there is also plenty of room for recreation, education and other public facilities, both through a different approach at the building level and in the outdoor areas.

^{THE HIGH GROUND - build for flexibility}

^{model: EGM/Made by Mistake - image: Aad Hoogendoorn}

^{DOWN TO EARTH: THE HIGH GROUND}

^{model: West 8 - image: Aad Hoogendoorn}

^{THE HIGH GROUND - choose to connect}

^{model: VenhoevenCS, Studio KU+}

^{DOWN TO EARTH: THE HIGH GROUND}

^{(detail) model by Made by Mistake - image: Aad Hoogendoorn}

^{DOWN TO EARTH: THE HIGH GROUND}

^{model by Made by Mistake - image: Aad Hoogendoorn}

The leverage approach also requires that De Staart is always easily and quickly accessible. This calls for new, good connections in and with the city, and between the city and the region. It also facilitates access to greenery and water. The Wantij can be laid out as a Tidal Park: beneficial for nature, for recreation, and for the quality of life on De Staart. And living on the water, in and with space for nature, becomes a serious option.

^{THE HIGH GROUND - Live on the Water - PosadMaxwan}

^{drawing: Merel Corduwener for IABR–Atelier Dordrecht}

Hitting many pins with one ball
Dordrecht has the opportunity to hit many pins with one ball: increase water safety and at the same time build housing and stimulate employment, optimize connections in the city and with the region, and improve the quality of life and recreational opportunities for all of its inhabitants. Thanks to the water-safety-as-leverage approach, an opportunity map of De Staart reads like an unmistakable invitation to seriously contribute to the Growth Agenda Drechtsteden 2030 and the sustainability ambitions of Dordrecht.

^{THE HIGH GROUND - ready, set, go: the exhibition as a workshop}

^{image: Aad Hoogendoorn}

DOWN TO EARTH in Dordrecht
With THE HIGH GROUND, the biennale takes a trip to Dordrecht.
The exhibition is open to the public from July 3 through August 14, from Wednesday through Saturday, from 1pm until 5 pm.

Please note that the exhibition is closed on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

^{Biesboschhal, Dordtyard, Dordrecht}

THE HIGH GROUND can be visited in the Biesboschhal on De Staart, Maasstraat 11, 3313 CR Dordrecht.
Admission is free and registration is not necessary as long as the current corona measures are in force.

For all other pertinent visitors information, click here

Given the pandemic, IABR follows the current guidelines of the Dutch Health Authority. So please remember that because of Covid-19 all dates are subject to change.

Drought in the Delta

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

If scientists worldwide tell us change is urgently needed and on a scale for which ‘there is no documented historical precedent,’ then nothing is self-evident anymore. Even the fact that the Dutch, like no other people, know how to deal with water no longer offers any certainty.
In the delta that the Dutch live in, climate change is generating completely new problems. More and more often there is too much water, but we are also – and this is really new – now confronted with drought and shortages of fresh water. For hundreds of years, we’ve worked hard to make our country better at draining water as quickly and efficiently as possible for reasons of safety and agricultural productivity. But now we are suddenly facing a new challenge: how to retain water in order to be able to use it when we need it.

Building blocks for a new freshwater strategy
The dry summer of 2018 prompted George Brugmans, director of IABR and chief curator of DOWN TO EARTH, to start an investigation into opportunities and frameworks for the large-scale storage of freshwater, both aboveground and underground.
The IABR–Atelier Drought in the Delta was set up and lead designer Marco Vermeulen and his SMV-team were commissioned to map the situation and explore possibilities for increasing the delta's water buffering capacity and the opportunities that this would create. The aim of the research was to provide building blocks for a new freshwater strategy in conjunction with other transition challenges, such as the energy transition, food production, and urbanization, which always involve increasingly intensive use of the topsoil and subsoil. A new strategy is urgently needed, because, as Vermeulen puts it: "Climate change is forcing us to re-design the Dutch water machine back into a resilient delta."

Drought in the Delta

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

DOWN TO EARTH: DROUGHT IN THE DELTA
The results of the research by design done by the Atelier Drought in the Delta are central to the first exhibition of DOWN TO EARTH. They are visualized by means of an animation of a cross section of the Dutch Delta. Looking in the direction of Germany, France and Belgium, upstream along the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt, we see the Alps in the distance. In about seven minutes, Studio Marco Vermeulen en Tungsten Studio demonstrate how our delta is currently functioning, what problems have arisen due to climate change and what possible building blocks for a new freshwater strategy in conjunction with other transition challenges there are.

For more information about the presentation of the results of the Atelier in the exhibition, click here

Drought in the Delta

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

Four explorations
In addition to the results of the Atelier, the curator, George Brugmans, selected four other exemplary Dutch projects. These already, and very concretely explore aspects of the solution directions as proposed by the Atelier: COASTAR, Panorama Waterland, Water Mosaic Groene Hart and Sponstuin.

Viable proposals for action
DOWN TO EARTH: DROUGHT IN THE DELTA is also and foremost a call to action. It presents concrete proposals for solution directions, in order for local and regional authorities to appreciate opportunities and to make it possible for them to work on their own specific challenges, necessarily in such a way that they fit into the inevitably comprehensive transition of the entire delta.
The exhibition advocates a radical change in thinking and acting. We need to move from a naturally wet delta, which must drain excess water as quickly as possible, to a smart delta that can retain fresh water so that we can use it when we need it.

DROUGHT IN THE DELTA is another fine example of how IABR bridges the gap between research by design, public presentations and action by purposefully using the free cultural space for a continuous open and cultural development process aimed at the real-world implementation of results.

The key texts of the exhibition can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

^{The Sponstuin, by De Urbanisten, with the Keilepand in the background}

^{© IABR, 2020}

The exhibition took place in the Keilezaal and was open to the public from September 19 to November 1, 2020.

Drought in the Delta

^{© IABR}

^{Down To Earth: Whose Energy Is It, Anyway?}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

The exhibition DOWN TO EARTH: WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY? focuses on the energy transition at neighborhood level. On the energy district as an energetic district. Urgent issues converge at this scale level and large and small players –governments, companies, civil society and residents– must reach a new covenant. In and with the neighborhood, it is also possible to explore how the energy transition can be used as a lever for broader, comprehensive transformational change.

^{WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY?}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

Natural gas-free neighborhoods for a post-fossil world
In the Netherlands, according to the National Climate Agreement of 2019, circa 5,000 districts will have to become gas-free. Initial experience shows that this is not at all easy. There are many complications, for instance with implementation and, above all, financing and local support. Actually, we just don’t know yet how to wean our districts off of natural gas.
At the same time, this operation is part of a much larger challenge, the global transition to sustainable energy, which is not only politically and ecologically urgent, but at the same time unimaginably far-reaching. Everything we do, individually and together - living and working, study and leisure - is largely determined by access to and use of energy. The energy transition is not only a technical and financial, but also a social and cultural challenge. The decisions that are made and will be made concern us all. The energy transition is the elephant in the room of politics. There can be no energy transition without a thoroughly democratic discussion about the ownership of that transition.

^{DOWN TO EARTH: WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY?}

^{image: Aad Hoogendoorn}

The transition to sustainable energy can be readily used for such a debate. After all, sun and wind, and soon hydrogen, belong to everyone, why not the energy that we can generate with them? We have approach the energy transition as an opportunity, as a lever for much broader change. This requires new collaborations, new roles, at all levels of scale. The neighborhood is the scale at which these new collaborations can best take shape. There, the idea of a new energy commons can be explored, a playing field in which citizens can play their part in addition to governments and companies.

^{WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY?}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

IABR–Atelier Rotterdam in BoTu
In Rotterdam too, all districts have to be weaned off of natural gas. The city pointed to five to lead the way. One of these is Bospolder-Tussendijken, also known as BoTu, one of the poorest districts in the Netherlands. But it is not only fragile, it is also resilient: culturally diverse, empowered and self-aware. That is why the IABR chose BoTu.

IABR in BoTu

Here, the IABR–Atelier Rotterdam, a collaboration between IABR and the municipality of Rotterdam, has spent the past two years exploring how the energy transition that is inevitable can be a lever for what is aspired to. Can residents really become co-owners of the transition and in such a way that it contributes to social inclusion and the sustainable improvement of their living environment and quality of life?

^{WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY?}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

From building blocks to action plan
Atelier Rotterdam first researched the social and spatio-energetic building blocks needed for a future, truly resilient BoTu, for it to become clear what the specific energy challenge in BoTu actually is. How much energy is used? How much less energy will be needed after the houses are modified? How much renewable energy can be generated in the district itself? Which spatial interventions will help? How much energy will still be needed and where will it come from? An investigation into the choices that still need to be made, and the possible returns.
An anthropological exploration by the Atelier of the known and unknown, often invisible social networks in BoTu provides insight into the potential power of residents. To what extent can and do they want to be co-producers of their living environment and take responsibility for the transition? An identification of the social building blocks needed to link the energy transi­tion to other, more integral local challenges, such as the sustainable improvement of quality of life and the living environment.

^{Towards a LEAP}

^{© IABR, Ooze}

In order to actually realize a transition that is broadly supported and implement it spatially, a LEAP is required, a Local Energy Action Plan, which the IABR–Atelier Rotterdam has developed together with many partners in and residents of Bospolder-Tussendijken. The LEAP is presented in DOWN TO EARTH: WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY? which makes the exhibition also a launching pad for activities which we float in the spring of 2021 in BoTu itself.

^{WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY?}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

IABR–Atelier East Flemish Core Area
The exhibition also includes space for the IABR–Atelier East Flemish Core Area, which the IABR set up in 2017 together with the Province of East Flanders. Particularly for the Demonstratieproject Eeklo, an exploration in this East Flemish municipality of how the already built-up environment can be redesigned, as it were, by putting the opportunities that the inevitable energy transition offers in the lead.

^{WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY?}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

Curators
The curators of the exhibition are George Brugmans (IABR), Eva Pfannes (OOZE Architects and Urbanists) and Thijs van Spaandonk (Bright and Head Master Urban Design of the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Urban Design).

Brugmans and Van Spaandonk developed the narrative of the exhibition. You can download their key texts at the bottom of this page.

^{from the left: George Brugmans, Eva Pfannes and Thijs van Spaandonk}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY? is open to the public from Friday November 20 through Sunday December 20, from Tuesday to Sunday, from 11 am to 5 pm. The exhibition is closed on Mondays.

Please note that, given the pandemic, IABR follows the guidelines of the Dutch Health Authority. This way, we can ensure that there are never too many people present at the same time and that every visit is a safe visit. Therefore, visitors have to reserve times slots, which you can do by clicking here

For all visitors information, click here