nai010 publishers, Rotterdam

Publication 'The design of the Marker Wadden

For centuries, the Netherlands has been making land out of water, but the Marker Wadden archipelago was not designed for man, but with and for nature. In terms of design, all levels of scale (landscape architecture, urban planning and architecture) meet at The Marker Wadden and it represents the renewal of the Dutch tradition of making land. Climate change, partly inspired by densely populated deltas elsewhere in the world, raises the question of how to build in areas exposed to storms and high water, how to minimise the ecological footprint, and how to create forms of self-sufficiency and circularity. The Marker Wadden offer a kind of laboratory in a nutshell. The aim of the publication 'The design of the Marker Wadden' is to provide insight into the design process of this unique landscape development. By doing so, the publication makes the target groups aware of the role and significance of the design in the creation of the Marker Wadden and unlocks new knowledge and insights into the transformation process of water into nature. The Marker Lake had entered a downward ecological spiral in recent decades and a more integral, nature-inclusive approach - similar to that of Van Eesteren - gained new relevance for its recovery. The publication aims to shed light on the context, the task and the process as well as the design craftsmanship, thus exploring a number of themes from the final publication of the Van Eesteren chair (2013-2018), "IJsselmeer area - a spatial perspective".