Floating Soils: (Co)Designing for the Wadden Sea Landscapes

Description

Like many other littoral areas around the globe, such as lagoons, wetlands, islands, and their inland areas, the Wadden Sea territories struggle between two opposing forces: permanence and transformation. The war between man and nature is waged on various fronts (i.e. geo-morphological, climatic, ecological-environmental, architectural, and landscape) and in urban settlements.
Discussing the Wadden Sea landscapes means talking about soil and water. Better yet, we could even try to mint the oxymoron ‘floating soils’ to describe this land and its formation: sediments had been floating in the water and their progressive deposits formed the land over time.
This soil-water fluidity is a geomorphological characteristic that has extended to urban settlements for centuries. To protect from the recurrent floods, the first settlements adapted to the water action by transforming into raised islands during the tidal period a sort of temporary ‘floating villages,’ called ‘terps.’ With the arrival of the first dams around the 13th century, the villages and their surrounding landscapes suddenly lost their relationships with the sea and the adaptive dynamism at the basis of the continuous exchange between soil and water was interrupted forever. Today, despite being a UNESCO World Heritage Site of extraordinary environmental value and beauty, the Wadden Sea, its territories, and its people now face an uncertain future while wrestling with latent climatic, economic-productive, and social crises. Subsidence increased by gas extraction and peat oxidation, soil erosion, saltwater intrusion, eutrophication, and agricultural water pollution testify to a territory in the throes of long-term repossession by the sea. Lands reclaimed from the sea over the centuries now require the radical transformation of agricultural practices and an urgent response to climate change. Can we (co)design the Wadden Sea landscapes starting from soil and water? Will this land ‘float’ again? Based upon applied research work in regional scenario-making and local design projects, we attempted to imagine the present and future of the Wadden Sea and its hinterland. Peatlands, agriculture, energy, and heritage all intersect to encourage economies and social inclusion projects where the landscapes of soil and water become the driving force to overcome the crises and imagine an alternative future.

Period	28 May 2024
Held at	Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Degree of Recognition	International