Taking an uncertainty perspective!

In our quest for future wellbeing unpredictability is for many too exciting. We are looking for grip and we find this often in the well-known past. This way we muddle through and are improving bit by little bit. When the future can be predicted this is no problem at all. Indeed, in this case the future is a lookalike of the past or can be estimated pretty well. We can build on with the means we are already familiar with. But if the unpredictability is larger, the solutions from the past no longer suffice. At least, it is more likely they do not work than the will help us in times of trouble. 

Currently, people often talk about the transition era. This presumes we are moving from the current era towards a new future. It is strange the transition itself is qualified as an era. This implies we have ample time to implement the necessary changes. It would be better to talk about transiting from one era to the next. The current era being oriented on profit, individualism, using all raw materials available, replaced by an era that returns to us being in equilibrium with our environment, using less resources and becoming reciprocal, and where togetherness came into place instead of own gain.

We’d rather call this a transformation, because a transition implies we adjust current practice while the unpredictability of the future urges us to implement more fundamental changes. Transforming is not simple, is not happening by itself, and touched on our deeper self. Are we as humans really in control of our environment? Or are we part of a bigger system, natural forces if you wish, which determine within which boundaries we operate and stay alive? Given the rise of natural disasters in the world it seems humans can be a bit more modest about their own influence and leave it to what nature represents: self-organisation, succession towards maturity, biological responsibility and evolution.

Indeed, major changes are knocking on the door. As a matter of fact, they are already among us. Since the 70’s approximately 68% of species has been lost, land ice is melting at an accelerated rate, and the way we produce our food comes with pandemics. Therefore, we shall change course in the way we build our (not yet or unbuilt) environment and change our attitude and approach. First, think about the way nature would solve it, before we decide on how we fit in this context. To speak with Darwin: How can we find our best ‘fit’ in the ecosystems of the urban landscape?

This requires transformative thinking decisionmakers and the building sector alike, in three crucial sectors, climate, food and ecology. What could emerge?

Climate.

?In the field of climate change we firstly need to recreate the landscape and help it becoming resilient. Without throwing our engineering capabilities overboard, but using our intelligence to understand dynamic systems, emergence and succession. The current landscape of Northern Netherlands for instance, is harnessed in strictly controlled dikes and rules. Though changes are low the dike, of which its strength is calculated in detail, will break, but when this occurs the misery will be incalculable. Constructing a dike is building in the risk of a dike breach. Without the dike this breach would be an impossibility. The alternative is centuries old. The northern coast has been capable of guaranteeing its own safety for millennia. The sea brough sludge, clay particles and sandy sediments and build its own land whenever sea level rose. A firm buffer of peat bog completed the protection of the higher grounds in a natural and resilient way. We have expelled this power of nature from the landscape. This ultimately led to an increased flood risk and raised danger for all. By now, projects such as the Markerwadden and Sand Engine proved that if we leave our safety to the building capacity nature, we may be better off. In the northern parts of the Netherlands, it is therefore better to let the water in, let the land raise and introduce new forms of land use, than to bite ourselves into a vicious circle of dewatering, soil subsidence and salinification. Moreover, it opens up the way to new forms of living in places that were not allowed beforehand, in a landscape in which innovative agriculture, water management, nature and residential could form an idyll. 

Not only do we need sea water to let our food grow, we also need all the rainwater we can capture. To grow crops, for our drinking water and to supply nature. To keep water is to have water, pump it away is a waste. Keeping the water in the landscape, the public spaces and in our buildings makes sense because subsequent drought records have shown we’ll need every drop we can get. This will become an economic factor of importance since scarcity will have its price. So if you can create your own resource in your house, office or city you’ll be safe.

And what about energy? We do have a huge task called the energy transition, didn’t we? Is the way forward to allocate solar fields on former fertile soil? And have wind turbines become the new symbol of resistance in society? Or do we start where we can gain the most: by building better buildings. Constructing them in a way they keep warm when kit’s cool outside and stay cool when a heatwave hits the city. Thick German walls for instance, which turn every building into its own little energy plant, being a Passiv-Haus or Büro.  

Food.

Looking at the way we produce our food, we can no longer afford to transport it over long distances. Viruses get the opportunity to travel along and it is polluting air, soil and water. On top of this, local food is way more interesting. Crops from the local area keep the taste of the region intact and offer dishes the uniquity that has been lost in the menu of all hamburger chains. Therefore: own food first! 

In every house or office, we can grow our own menu and cook it. Along the coast saline crops and seafood offer the ingredients for high-end cuisine. Such a transformation meets resistance amongst the farming community, but tides can turn when new forms of agriculture could be more profitable than persevering growing crops that are increasingly more difficult to be viable. Move along salinity and making use of the changing growing conditions is as profitable as current practice, but on only 20% of the current land. Calculated differently, if we keep 50% of current land productive, farmers become 2.5 times as rich! A beckoning transformative perspective, isn’t it?

Ecology.

In order to survive as the human species, it is a no-brainer we should adapt to our environment, even more pressing when conditions change rapidly and significantly. Here we can learn a lot from ecology, which is used to act like this all the time and everywhere. No species we can think of will behave against its environmental conditions, as this would be suicide. Therefore, as humans we can only benefit if we allow nature to fully develop and grow as it wishes. Moreover, it is demonstrated that if we base farming on ecological principles this is more profitable than regular farming. We therefore should transform our land for more than 50% into nature. The essay ‘Natuurrijk Nederland’ (www.natuurrijknederland.org) illustrates how this can be achieved in a feasible way: we generously buy land of the farmers that are open for sale, create new nature on these lands and we pay for this transformation by allowing sparsely dense paradise-housing. This is not only profitable, it also provides a large number of new jobs, just like the land reclamation in the 19th and early 20th century did. 

In urban environments green takes over stone, ecology over concrete. Planting on top of, attached to and inside buildings is good for its market value and lets these colossuses regulate itself in extreme heat or cool days. Nature thrives and can also be harvested. What to think about vertical grapevines as cooling facades of office buildings of the Amsterdam South-Axe? Or Aquaponic fish farming on the roof of the Groninger Forum, the building recently chosen to the building of the year in the Netherlands? Tasteful, healthy and cooling! To speak with Winy Maas of MVRDV: this way entire cities may undergo a Green Dip.

As mentioned, unpredictability makes uncertain. Real transformations require imagination. Besides not knowing what the future beholds, it also offers a hopeful perspective. We need a courageous administration, which has the guts to transform, jumping ship. Which understands that taking risks is always better than be confronted by the effects of not taking risks. Let imagination be the inspiration for people, countries and the world so drizzliness can be expelled by confidence. For the Netherlands this means it can be seen as leading the way forward, showing that taking faith in your own hands can make a difference in shaping the way to live on the edge between land and sea. Pay tribute to the old saying: God created the world, but the Dutch created their own land. Let’s get it done.