From a plan to contain rising waters in the river landscape to a proposal to tackle the dykes around the island of Marken — all the landscape architecture graduation projects deal with climate change adaptation in one way or another. But I also see proposals for new recreational functions seeking to benefit from this major societal challenge. That combination is interesting. One of the plans demonstrates that the river area provides many more opportunities than for just water buffering alone; a series of designed objects hold back the water and direct it, but also mark spots where you can sit down for a while, at the same time as lending a poetic undertone to the landscape. What I like is that large landscape assignments are ultimately translated into design, as a result of which they are also given a cultural layer. One example is the project for the embankments of the IJsselmeer lake. The embankment vegetation that is introduced here curbs the beating of the waves on the dyke, which does not have to be raised as a result. But those plant fields also work beautifully in a graphic sense. Another project focuses on the redesign of the fragmented peatlands in the Green Heart (Groene Hart) of Holland. The map that has been drawn for this shows a new spatial cohesion and is a thing of unbelievable beauty.
Maike van Stiphout
Introduction