To a Resilient Wetland – News – Architecture Workroom Brussels

Cover report Weerbaar Waterland

In the summer of 2021, a so-called ‘water bomb’ hit Wallonia, which Flanders managed to elude in the nick of time. If the storm clouds would have displaced over Flanders, IMDC and De Vlaamse Waterweg estimated a damage of up to 8 billion euros. Ministers Lydia Peeters (Mobility and Public Works, Open VLD) and Zuhal Demir (Environment, N-VA) commissioned an expert panel to write an advice on flood protection. The panel was led by Dutch ‘Water Envoy’ Henk Ovink and was supported by De Vlaamse Waterweg, de Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij and Architecture Workroom.

The result of the panel: a report called ‘Weerbaar Waterland’, containing a ten-point plan to better protect Flanders against floods and drought. The report is not just an advice concerning dike protection and readiness, encouraging measures on all levels: from main water sources to the smallest capillaries, granting attention to all possible methods for buffering and infiltrating in cities, villages and landscapes.

‘If water does not get the space it needs, it will take this space itself, as we have seen last summer’, writes Henk Ovink. The report does not only state what we need to protect us against future periods of rainfall, but also pleads for an integrated approach with measures against periods of drought – a big challenge, as we have encountered this summer.

The report focuses on feasibility and efficiency, advising on necessary steps, possibilities for funding, mandates and learning environments that can help achieve a better resilience.

Read the report here (in Dutch).

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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.