The Ministry of Make! called on 100 designers!

With this initiative, the Ministry of Make! is applying an approach that operates at a national scale while remaining rooted in local contexts, taking the specific circumstances of 100 concrete Test Locations as its starting point. It is a national planning framework of the kind that existed in the past, but this time brought to life through local design expertise.

ECHO Urban Design is one of the participating design studios. Here is our result!

Oud Gastel 2.0: Battling the growing threat of rising sea levels, protected by a “super dike”

Like many villages in the low-lying Netherlands, Oud Gastel faces an increasing risk from rising water levels, both in the hinterland and along our coast. In our design, rather than building a conventional dike around the village, we propose a “super dike.” The first two levels of this dike accommodate distribution centres and data centres—functions that do not require daylight—allowing the remaining space to be used optimally for living, working and recreation.

We bring greenery into the village from the surrounding landscape via rooftops, façades and public spaces, while ensuring that the surrounding landscape remains accessible through a series of lock structures.

By locating social and community functions alongside these locks, we minimise the number of blank façades and keep public spaces vibrant. The locks can be closed during high water to provide optimal protection in severe weather, and opened during low water to encourage greater interaction with the surrounding landscape. In the longer term, rising sea levels will eventually necessitate keeping these locks permanently closed.

This design exercise has once again sparked a great deal of optimism within our studio. If we dare to tackle these challenges in an integrated way and on a large scale, we can harness the economic power associated with housing production to help mitigate ongoing transitions, such as climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Intensive construction should be able to achieve ecological neutrality, allowing the Earth to benefit from our investments.

Tonight marks the festive opening of the 10th edition of the Architecture Biennale Rotterdam’s architecture exhibition, bringing everything together in what will be the largest architectural scale model ever made in the Netherlands!

Location: Ferro, Keileweg 25, Rotterdam
Exhibition dates: 14 October – 13 November 2022