Future Cities: think global, act local

Future Cities is a collaborative European project that seeks structural solutions to the problems of urban warming and flooding through the use of vegetation, water, alternative sources, and more appropriate forms of urban design.

Climate change will lead to hotter summers. The number and length of heat waves and dry periods will rise. Rain showers will become longer and heavier. The burden on cities will therefore increase: heat will linger for longer, air quality will fall, and water will become harder both to drain and to supply.

Together with its partners from four countries, Arnhem, Nijmegen and Tiel are collaborating under European Interreg IVB Future Cities on projects intended to respond to climate change and its effects on cities in summer (in terms of heat) and winter (in terms of flooding). Overall, the key words are flooding, water shortages, heat islands, air quality, green and climate adaptation (i.e. structural urban adaptation).

Partners in the Future Cities project are researching how towns might use water and vegetation to prevent excessive temperatures and to improve air quality. Important roles in this are played by the drainage and storage of surplus water – using vegetation and other techniques – and also by urban designs that take account of sun and wind.

Urban climates are determined by a town’s morphology – the form of buildings, vegetation and open spaces; and their orientation with regard to the sun and wind. Better insulation and the use of alternative energy sources can both help to limit heat-loss from buildings. Similarly, current and future expertise can both help ensure that better use is made of the wind in keeping towns cooler in summer.

Seven partners are involved in the European Interreg IVB Future Cities project : Arnhem, Nijmegen and Tiel (Netherlands); Hastings (England), Rouen Seine Aménagement (France); West-Vlaamse Intercommunale (Flanders, Belgium); and Emschergenossenschaft und Lippeverband (Germany).

To tackle future climate change and to exchange experiences, each of these partners is working on a specific issue (see below). The aim is to develop a coherent set of measures for countering the changes they anticipate.
Ieper (Ypres) (Flanders): sustainable energy, water, vegetation and social structures
Lippe (Germany): increasing industralisation and pollution
Bottrop (Germany): water protection and water control
Rouen: urban transformation, energy-efficiency and rainwater management
Tiel: climate resistance and water resistance in building projects
Emscher (Germany): fossil fuels
Hastings: sustainable economic growth

The objective of the Arnhem-Nijmegen project is to make the urban district climate-proof. There are four main objectives:
• to reduce the so-called urban heat-island effect;
• to improve air quality;
• to reduce the demand for energy;
• to ensure that water control is sustainable.

Another objective is to ensure that the forms of climate change caused by human activity find their way onto the agenda of a broad section of society. This is because awareness of energy consumption (and energy waste) will be an important step towards finding different ways of approaching the design of public space.

Small international groups of Lanscape architecture students, helped by students from ‘Land and Water Management’ and ‘Forest and Nature Management’, made several masterplans for the project area, each group focussing on one or more of the above mentioned topics.

  • English Title : Future Cities: think global, act local
  • University : VHL University of Applied Sciences, NL
  • Project was done for Course Unit : Landschapsbouw ( Landcape architecture (large scale) )
  • Coordinates - Longitude: : 5.890731811523437500
  • Coordinates - Latitude: : 51.914732265861204000
  • Notes : This project is the third year project 'Landscape Architecture and Ecology'. The project area and assignment changes each year.
  • Academic Year : 2009 / 10
  • City : Arnhem
  • Project Language : Dutch
  • Supervisor : Jos Ulijn, Madeleine Dambrink Marianne van Lidth de Jeude Margreet van Kuijk
  • Location of project : Netherlands
  • Image Title : Masterplan Flood it
  • Image Desc : This is one of more masterplans for the region Arnhem-Nijmegen, that were made at VHL, as part of the Future Cities project. In the second stage of the project this group of students was asked to transform their masterplan for the region in such a way that it could provide safety for the inhabitants of the region, in case the dikes of the rivers Rijn and Waal would brake, in a high runoff situation.