Designing Floating Urban Realities: On the Urban Design of Floating High-Density Environments in the Dutch Context

Integral climate-adaptive solutions in urban development are urgently needed to protect the safety and security of people’s lives around the world. Especially in delta regions that contain some of the densest concentrations of cities, such as the Netherlands, there is a large demand for flood-resilient developments. As the Dutch long tradition of managing water by fighting against it is expected to not suffice to protect the country in the long term, a need to adopt alternative strategies that work with water, rather than against it, is finally recognised by the Dutch national government. The recent administrative agreement to make ‘water en bodem sturend’ (water and soil as a guiding principle) in developments bears witness to this. In delta regions as dense as the Netherlands, flooding threats call for solutions that combine space for water retention with space for other large transitions, such as urbanisation, energy and mobility. This forces urban planners and designers to invent new types of living environments where the large transitions are tackled integrally. It requires including socio-economic, ecological and climate-adaptive considerations all in one urban environment. This paper discusses a research-by-design project that explores floating, high-density urban developments in various Dutch contexts as a fitting solution. It also discusses the most important findings of the research, an answer to the question: how to design resilient floating cities in a Dutch context? The research has indicated key urban design principles for the design of floating city development in the Dutch context, following the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and preparing for the long-term ‘next SDGs’. The key principles address how to achieve a high quality integral urban design in terms of urbanity (density, function mix), inclusivity (affordability, accessibility), ecology and feasibility (financial, constructive). These principles have been developed in close collaboration with experts from various backgrounds, such as construction engineers, ecologists and financial advisors. Together, the principles provide a toolkit for floating developments that can be transferred to multiple location typologies, such as regenerated harbour areas, polder landscapes and lakes or lagoons. These are presented along two case studies: the harbour of Rotterdam and the polders of Utrecht.