The project ‘WHAT-IF: NL 2100’ was prepared by architects from the MVRDV architectural firm. Their vision is, on the one hand, a manifesto reminder of the need to halt climate change and, on the other, an attempt to show how the country could function if the Netherlands were largely flooded.
The surface of today’s Netherlands was once largely a marshy area with wetlands. Many areas were occupied by the sea. Technological development and the desire to expand farmland made this previously inhospitable environment one of the most densely populated in Europe. However, man will not overcome the forces of nature. What will happen when climate change intensifies with greater force and intensity? Will the Netherlands disappear?
In the project ‘WHAT-IF: NL 2100’, the MVRDV team and the urban and landscape design studios IMOSS and Feddes/Olthof ran a simulation in an attempt to predict what the country might look like in almost a century. In the study, they propose how the Netherlands can learn to live in harmony with nature and provide its inhabitants with a good quality of life, while protecting its cultural heritage.
The project developed is not just an exercise. The designers want to work with the Dutch government to make the appropriate changes to the law – a new spatial planning policy. The concept presented is a starting point and an attempt to encourage debate about the country’s future. Interestingly, the solutions developed are not only relevant to the Dutch, but to the several hundred million people around the globe who live in floodplains.
The planners considered various scenarios, more or less radical. They decided to build on the one anticipating the most far-reaching changes. They considered that in the future Dutch society would stop fighting against the sea penetrating the country. Instead of adapting the landscape to its lifestyle, society would adapt its lifestyle to the changing landscape. How will this attempt at adaptation go?
An extreme rise in sea levels would mean that the low-lying western parts of the Netherlands would no longer be protected from the sea. The country would be divided between the ‘flooded cities’ in the west and the higher-lying dry ‘sand cities’.
The sand cities in the east of the country will become densely populated. The economic life of the country would be concentrated in these new areas. Vertical farms would be built to cope with the nutritional needs. The roof of each building would be like a small farm or garden.
What about monuments? Architects propose that important buildings and historic city centres like Amsterdam be surrounded by large flood barriers, but it will not be possible to protect all historic areas in this way. Cities that would be flooded would still be inhabited. The architects predict that a network of hanging walkways would be created between the buildings.
It may be hard to imagine now, but we could live in a flooded landscape if we had to, asserts Winy Maas of MVRDV.
source: MVRDV
Also read: Netherlands | Interesting facts | City | Greenery | whiteMAD on Instagram | MVRDV
