Two-day session ‘Water as Leverage: Wadden Sea’ in Carolinensiel (DEU) – News – Architecture Workroom Brussels

Group picture on the Wad, 9/5/2022, Harlesiel, photo: Architecture Workroom Brussels

Say Wad?! Together with the Dutch Water Envoy, the Program Rich Wadden Sea, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, Deltares, and OAK consultants, AWB organized a two-day session for the Water as Leverage exploration in the trilateral Dutch-German-Danish Wadden Sea! During these two days in the German Carolinensiel, we have been crafting different cases as stepping stones for a regional program.

Following the successful story of 'Water as Leverage: Asia', where AWB contributed to the ‘Setting the Scene’ document as a base for the ‘Call for Action’, the Wadden Sea is now being tackled. The Wadden Sea is known as the largest tidal flat ecosystem in the world and is therefore a UNESCO World Heritage. It is a front line where different (climate) challenges must be tackled together: declining biodiversity, rising sea levels, droughts and floods, salinization, demographic stagnation to shrinkage, tourist pressure, etcetera. Architecture Workroom, commissioned by the Dutch Water Envoy and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, supports the exploration of the program by examining the challenges of the entire Wadden Sea, as well as those of the various Dutch, German and Danish cases.

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Since 2010, Architecture Workroom Brussels has focused on the future of our living environment. The organisation began as a safe haven to address the link between space and societal transitions, aimed at fostering a futureproof design practice, commissioning and building culture.

It has now become evident that the transformation of our streets, neighbourhoods, and landscapes is both a prerequisite and a lever for achieving societal goals in synergy. Yet we observe that these transformations remain difficult to imagine and implement. They span so many sectors and involve so many actors that responsibility falls on everyone, and therefore, ultimately, on no one.

That is why we make it our mission to create the space that connects them. And with this refined mission comes a new name: WORKROOM, House for transformation. WORKROOM is the shared space where the future of our living environment is not only imagined but also organised.

We are currently taking the lead on three mission-driven transformations:

SOCIETAL INCUBATORS - By 2030, stakeholders from the youth, culture, sports, care and education sectors will join forces to create renewed societal spaces that tackle loneliness and counteract the fragmentation and pressure on public infrastructure.
FOSSIL-FREE NEIGHBOURHOODS - By 2030, at least ten neighbourhoods will be underway with the transition to fossil-free energy in an inclusive and affordable way, with a view to completely phase-out fossil fuels by 2040.
SPONGE LANDSCAPES - By 2030, we will have achieved our water, agriculture and nature goals through a single, coherent approach at catchment area level, in which strong regional coalitions collectively enhance the landscape's sponge capacity.

To make these transformations a reality, WORKROOM works shoulder to shoulder with pioneering designers, local authorities, organisations and businesses, governments, knowledge institutions and impact investors.

Through co-creative design, we imagine shared pathways to the future in exhibitions, publications, innovation programmes and public programmes. These are the workrooms where we connect the actors capable of realising these transformations. From there, we design shared ownership and the organisational, funding and policy models that lead to real change.

The name is simpler. The stakes are higher. WORKROOM is the shared space where we tackle the social and spatial transformations that no one can achieve alone. In an era of polarisation, compartmentalisation and instability, that is perhaps the most radical thing we can do.