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Port-Cities: People, Projects, Paradoxes

At a time of climate change, new design strategies are needed at the edge of water and land. Scheveningen as a fishing, yachting, regional port city serves as an example for this investigation and its opportunities and challenges for analysis and design.

Like port cities around the world, Scheveningen, struggles to align multiple values—liveability for citizens, logistics for port transportation, spaces for tourist parking, places for beach goers, and swimmers. Spatial designers—architects, urban designers, landscape architects, industrial designers, and managers—need to develop new strategies, establish new tools, and build upon current research and societal debates. 

How will the port work with sea-level rise, what do we do with the dune areas?

Students will explore the particular history of Scheveningen and its multiple stakeholders; they will identify a topic and collaborate with the City of The Hague/Port of Scheveningen and the Deltametropolis Association, to develop and test tools of engagement. In the first part of the course, they will collectively identify a challenge, do research, and develop a design vision/policy recommendation. In a second part they will individually prepare design solutions (such as design of public spaces, public buildings, public facilities, public amenities) and discuss possible impact with stakeholders.

The results of the two parts - the research and the design – are presented in a booklet and drawings. The research and design product, the approach and communication are together assessed on the entirety of significance, coherence, correctness, and elaboration.

Students pass the course with a 6.0 or higher. With a lower grade, the course can be repaired to change the grade into a pass. The repair is unsupervised and needs to be completed within 2 weeks after the end of the course. When the repair is unsuccessful, the student needs to follow the entire course again, or possibly another Q5 elective in the first education period of 2026-2027.