Climate Adaptability
Design Studio
The Climate Adaptability design studio has been conducted in collaboration with the Spatial Transformations lectureship of the Research Center for the Built Environment (NoorderRuimte Kenniscentrum) of Hanze University of Applied Sciences, jointly with the Master of Architecture program at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Lake District, UK was selected as a casestudy of an ultra-low density region facing significant climate change challenges (high flood risk region), whilst also being a UNESCO world-heritage site, characterized by massive tourism and tending towards museumification (sic). Designing for resilience to the effects of climate change was the collective theme. The students conducted individual design projects of various scales (from one building scale to urban
and regional scale). The design proposals focused on various aspects of climate adaptation challenges in the study area (extreme weather phenomena, amphibious architecture, (slow) tourism, food production, preservation of cultural heritage, renovation of historical buildings, etc.). Common ground of these design projects was embracing uncertainty by converting the threats of climate change into opportunities, and generating place-based, adaptive and innovative solutions, which took into account both the physical and the mental sphere of the study area.
