The Urbanisation of the Sea: from concepts and analysis to design

Abstract

The book tells the story of the sea-land continuum based on the case of the North Sea – one of the world’s most industrialised seas– in which the Netherlands plays a central role. The North Sea region has been the nexus of northern European technological, cultural, and economic advancement. It is also an exemplary case of intense interactions across the land-sea threshold. The “commons” of the North Sea has long been central to the region’s climatic and ecological balance, but also to its economies. After centuries of shared use, maritime and industrial processes have led to international border regulation, uninterrupted traffic along major transport corridors, intensified offshore capture and distribution of energy, and the erection of a multitude of structures. Related transfer sites have also created important nodes in coastal and hinterland areas. The sea itself has been so transformed that it has become an enigmatic urbanised space, charged with the task of increased economic production both from traditional and new maritime sectors. At the same time it has been emptied of cultural significance. Contemporary urgencies, such as flooding and other extreme weather events, ecological degradation, and predicted sea level rise, are increasing. These effects highlight the vulnerability of a continued industry-led sectorial approach to the North Sea and have drawn public attention to the unstable status of the sea itself. While collective policies and plans are needed, and EU Directive 2014/89/EU requires that all EU maritime areas must have strategic management plans in place before 31 March 2021, it is not clear whether such a transnational approach will be established at a time of dissolving European collaboration as signaled by Brexit. To meaningfully address the challenges raised by the urbanisation of the sea, to avoid further overexploitation and to ensure foresight in management and stewardship, we need a comprehensive approach with collaboration among diverse stakeholders and disciplines. Such an approach could make the North Sea the epicentre of a paradigm shift of spatial considerations, from conceptualisation to design. The urbanisation of the sea and its relation to land-based developments cannot meaningfully be studied or undertaken through the lens of a single discipline or from a single national perspective. It requires a long-term historical and large-scale understanding of the space, different tools and new perspectives that help bring together diverse sources and languages. To initiate conversations, the editors present 20 chapters containing 26 author’s voices from many disciplines and geographic positions. The book builds upon discussions that took place during the Marie Curie Fellowship held by Nancy Couling in the Chair History of Architecture and Urban Planning from 2017–2019 at Delft University of Technology and brings together selected contributions from the 2018 TU Delft conference “Viscous Space: The Offshore Physicality of the North Sea between Solid and Liquid.” The contents of the book are heterogeneous, combining artistic research, policy and urban design projects in maritime contexts, and speculative proposals as well as academic papers, essays, contemporary and historic maps, photographs, and contemporary fiction. Presenting plural starting points offers potential for cross-fertilisation and opportunities to rethink cultural positions, spatial history, and practice. This variety is intended to capture the richness and complexity of the topic, to facilitate different points of entry for readers who can then follow journeys from concepts through analysis to the design of possible futures. Together, these multiple perspectives present an illustrative overview of some of the ways that we can think of, think with, and represent the sea as an urbanised space. Our approach therefore promotes a three-dimensional understanding and calls for a trans-disciplinary investigation that is focused on space, society, and culture. The book argues that such an approach can help develop new directions in representation, design, and planning along the sea-land continuum and help dislodge inherited binary assumptions. We also aim to identify tools, methods and frameworks that can help reconceptualise the sea space as an integral part of our historical urban realm and restore its cultural relevance, thereby testing the role that narratives and representations play in such a reconceptualisation. The urbanisation of the sea has yet to be specifically defined. This book opens up a range of possibilities and calls for further discussion, using the North Sea as a point of departure. The geographic focus on the North Sea is not exclusive: we include perspectives from the Mediterranean, the Singapore Strait, the Pacific, the Barents, and the Baltic Seas. This allows us to gain a better understanding of what a paradigm shift from a land-based logic with fixed spatial and legal delineations to a more fluid, integrated, sea-based approach can mean for research, representation, and ultimately policy-making, planning, and design. This book begins by providing an analysis of the sea from two perspectives in Part I “Foundations”; an urbanised space of transformed nature in relation to resources and not in relation to existing urban nodes, and the expanding urban development from port cities encroaching further into the sea. These two spheres of inquiry are dealt with unsystematically in current literature. Addressing this absence, we set out to investigate how the urbanisation of the sea is reshaping our regional economic, social, cultural, and human environments at sea, through the spaces of the coast and to the hinterland. In particular, we draw port city regions into the analysis of the sea-land continuum, providing a diversified context for a networked approach. Consisting of four parts, the book is organised to assist the reader in establishing a perspective from the sea to the land, to gain a sense of what is at stake in the space of the North Sea and in imagining future possibilities. The book progresses from preliminary methodological foundations in Part I to explorations of concepts of the sea in Part II “Conceptions”. Part III “Extensions” discusses extensions across the land/sea threshold, with a particular focus on the North Sea. Possible future orientations are presented in Part IV, “Cultivations,” which offers examples of art and design projects that have traced new pathways of understanding and representation. As a place that has absorbed, facilitated, and forged divergent histories, the sea also offers us a place for creative futures. Therefore, we focus on ways forward for designers regarding questions of the sea space and issue a call for greater involvement from the creative industries in collaboration with complimentary experts. The book aims to inspire such involvement and encourage further collaborations in this emerging field.