Our longstanding partner Delft University of Technology is involved in a variety of interesting projects, but we would like to highlight two Time Machine relevant ones, where the PortCityFutures initiative plays a major role. A common initiative by the TU Delft, the University of Leiden and the Erasmus University Rotterdam, PortCityFutures brings together researchers from humanities, social, and design sciences in the named universities. It focuses on the particularities of the port city region where these three universities are located.
TimeTravel – Crossing socio-cultural datasets and the Covid-19 pandemic in space over time to improve long-term urban planning in response to pandemics
Funded by: Volkswagen Foundation
Partners: TU Delft (Lead Partner), HafenCity University Hamburg, Statistic Office Netherlands (CBS), PortCityAtlas Project TUDelft
Leading staff: Dirk Schubert, Carola Hein, Christoph Lofi
The Time Travel project proposes to collect, display, and cross diverse, non-pre-determined spatial, socio-cultural, and Corona-related datasets (Covid-19 cases, vaccinations) in space and time, in order to help provide new (planning) strategies for healthier urban environments now and in the future.
City Planning, Architecture and Planning History, Computer Science disciplines are involved in this project. The project embraces the idea of “Digital Humanities” as interdisciplinary scholarly activity shared between digital/computer science and humanities/social science.
Using a supervised machine learning methodology allows crossing some hundred non-predefined, multi-source, fine-scaled and historical (“time travel”) socio-cultural, economic, and environmental datasets with different COVID-19 factors – i.e., COVID-19 disease spread, hospitalization, or vaccination rates. Such an explorative and computer-based approach can help reveal unexpected relationships between spatial forms, social determinants, and COVID-19 over time (complementing the results from the traditional methods).
By identifying unexpected relationships and patterns between linear or even non-linear combinations of geospatial and corona factors, new research trajectories open up. These findings can serve as foundation for further analysis to validate potential correlations or even causalities between corona-related data and the built environment.
Drawing conclusions from overlapping large multi-source datasets at diverse spatial and temporal scales within a transferable framework/methodology can help planners, decision-makers, and civil society with evidence-based planning strategies to promote adaptive and liveable urban environments.
Bauhaus of the Seas
Funded by: New European Bauhaus (NEB) / Horizon Europe
Partners: 18 partners from Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium
Staff involved: Carola Hein, Ingrid Mulder (PortCityFutures/TU Delft)
The Bauhaus of the Seas (BoS) was the first thematic network proposed in the context of the co-creation phase of the New European Bauhaus. The Bauhaus of the Seas, as “marhaus” (literally “the sea as our home”) or “baumar” (“the sea as a space for creation and impact entrepreneurship”), aims to promote renewed ethical and aesthetic regenerative development from a widely diverse range of dimensions of our continued relationship with the sea. This network will involve fostering a school of interdisciplinary experimentation and entrepreneurship, bound to shape a generation of designers, architects, engineers, artists, managers, and scientists around sustainable design solutions for coastal regions and the sea.
The vision of the Bauhaus of the Seas is to demonstrate and archive solutions for climate neutrality with a particular focus on coastal cities as an interface to healthy seas, ocean and water bodies envisioning a new triangle of sustainability, inclusion, and design focused on the most important global natural space – our water bodies. The BoS will offer opportunities to engage with communities for an environmentally sustainable, socially fair, and aesthetically appealing transition. Currently, seven cities, located in four different regions and aquatic ecosystems in Portugal (estuary), Italy (lagoon and gulf), Sweden/Germany (strait/river), and the Netherlands/Belgium (delta) have committed to the Bauhaus of the Seas network supporting mission-oriented pilots of the New European Bauhaus and showcase innovative solutions.