WATER: A DRIVING FORCE TOWARDS HEALTHY URBANISM
A research by design practice.
Irene Luque Martín
Global challenges of air pollution, climate change, increasing socioeconomic inequality and the disruption of the phosphorus cycle have given rise to several globally shared ambitions such as the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These ambitions have profound spatial implications, including large-scale implementation of infrastructures for renewable energy, expansion of green-blue networks and providing better accessibility to services to vulnerable populations. Such complex issues require a new generation of tools and methods in order to make adequate decisions; we cannot design the 21st century with the tools of the 20th. In this lecture, the focus will be on FABRICations experience with leading water based projects as key examples of a research by design approach. It brings water to the core of the issues, but also as the leverage for potential future opportunities for diverse localizations. From South East Asia to Latin-America, this lecture will reflect on practices developed which aim to contextualize the responses to diverse water driven issues, speculation on how this leads to holistic proposals, and also provide benefits to promote a more sustainable and healthy living environments. The reflection will not just be about what the solution is by itself, but how designers have potential methods and tools to tackle these issues.
Irene Luque Martín is a PhD in Planning and Urban Technologies where she was awarded Cum Laude and received ‘International Mention’ during her stay at the Centre of Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Her thesis and current expertise focuses on understanding the role and application of urban technologies (Geographical Information Systems , artificial intelligence, urban simulations and visualization tools) in design practice. Her main role in the diverse institutions she is involved is to bring academia outcomes into daily practice methods and research. At FARBICations, she leads projects related to regional-urban scale with a participatory approach which aim to provide a more sustainable and healthy living environment. They range from diverse context such as Asia, Africa and Latin-American, as well as in Europe. Besides, she leads the research projects aiming to promote the shift from “data vs design” towards “designing with data” through implementing her expertise in technology and methods.