Inaugural address Steffen Nijhuis: ‘Landschapslogica’
Urbanisation is one of the biggest challenges of this century, alongside biodiversity loss and climate change. By 2050, two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities. That implies a doubling of the number of people living in cities and a tripling of the urban footprint. Landscape-based urbanism is an approach in which the landscape is the basis for designing future-proof urban environments. On 2 February, Steffen Nijhuis will give his inaugural address 'Landschapslogica' (Landscape logic).
Urbanisation comes at the expense of fragile ecosystems that protect and provide us with food and water, not to mention the associated increasing vulnerability to flooding, drought and social inequality.
Designing with nature, people and history is central. In landscape-based urbanism, understanding landscape systems and their associated ecological and cultural logic is the starting point for spatial design across scales. Landscape provides structure, coherence and variation, but is also flexible and multifunctional. "By using landscape logic, we can build nature-inclusive and climate adaptive and ensure a healthy and safe living environment for everyone," says Steffen Nijhuis.
More information
Steffen Nijhuis has been Professor of Landscape-based Urbanism in the Department of Urbanism at the Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft, since March 2023. On Friday 2 February 2024, Steffen Nijhuis will deliver his inaugural address 'Landschapslogica'.
The inaugural address will start at 15:00 in the auditorium of TU Delft's auditorium. The speech is in Dutch, but will be recorded and subtitled in English.
Read the interview with Steffen published at the time of his appointment. View his professors' page here.
You can watch the inaugural address 'Landschapslogica' of Steffen Nijhuis here.