2017 / Lead organiser and research support
Challenges in Flooding


Both the Netherlands and Japan are threatened by coastal flooding, fluvial and pluvial looding need to be considered in urban engineering, landscape architecture and urbandesign.

For the Netherlands, this is a very prominent threat as large parts of the country are below sea level and the precipitation patterns change in such a way that the pluvial flooding occurs more often. In Japan, most of the population centers (e.g. Tokyo, Osaka) are in coastalareas that are threatened by risks of coastal storms, typhoons and tsunamis, moreover, they suffer from earthquakes. In the future, the coastal flood risks and pluvial and fluvial flood damage are expected to increase due to increased urbanisation, economic growth, changingprecipitation patterns and sea level rise. In recent decades’ new scientific concepts for assessing and managing risks have been developed, but many questions remain and policyimplementation of new concepts is often lacking.

The aim of the workshop was to research and evaluate the existing infrastructure in the urban floodplain in Edogawa ward, Tokyo by using the research method of “Research by Design”, andcompare it to the existing condition in Rotterdam. The participants of the workshop were students of urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, sustainable design, hydraulic engineering from 7 different nationalities. The exhibition “Challenges in Flooding Study of Multi-Disciplinary International Design”presents this result of the 3 day workshop to hold aplace for a discussion about interdisciplinary design process and also the future collaboration
between the Netherlands and Japan, and engineers and designers to face the challenges inflooding.


Research Themes
Urban Flooding
Vital subsurface infrastructure
System Thinking – Working with Layers, Times and Scales
Landscape Infrastructure Design (Building with Nature – Green/Blue Infrastructures)


Exhibition Team: Supriya Krishnan, Bill Lin, Maayan Daniel, Johannes Simanjuntak, Ayano Yamaguchi, Daiki Mabuchi, Manami Hasegawa  | Mentors: F.L. Hooimeijer, Yuka Yoshida, Jeremy Bricker, Ono Akihiko.