Delta Urbanism is a line of work in which flood protection, soil and water management strategies are synergized with urban design, landscape architecture and spatial planning. The specific aim of this approach is to improve spatial forms and structures and innovate urban systems in urban and metropolitan delta regions. The group Delta Urbanism at the TU Delft develops research, design and planning approaches and methods that contribute to the making of more sensible and informed decisions within the fragile context of urban delta landscapes.
Founded on an interdisciplinary approach in which designing and engineering disciplines activate innovation in design, technology and governance the Delta Urbanism approach has international impact as specific interdisciplinary field. This field is characterized by a firm body of knowledge organized into four research premises, which emphasize the agency of design and technology and the development of specific methods of analysis, design, visualization and interdisciplinary work.
As this is a journal in an extremely interdisciplinary and constantly adapting and innovating field, contributions expressed in diverse modes are welcomed and a variety of forms and stages of design and knowledge development, e.g.; design renderings, drawings or maps with annotations; essays; position papers; columns; representations of practical exercises; and of course traditional academic papers will be accepted. A contribution will be susceptible for review as long as it adds a new perspective, insight, tool or reflexive practice to the field of Delta Urbanism.
Focus, Scope and Aims
The Journal of Delta Urbanism (JDU) is dedicated to discussing future design as a collaborative enterprise of the disciplines of spatial design, ecology, engineering and policy and as a leading method within the research premises of the Delta Urbanism research community.
The journal aims at exploring the scope, representation and future of delta design in times of climate crisis, looking through the lens of four research premises: ‘Land-Water-Atmosphere Continuum’, ‘Drawing the Delta’, ‘Reversed Engineering with Nature’, and ‘Extremes’.
These research premises examine the multi-layered phenomenon of urbanization between land and water and thus the scope of design in highly dynamic landscapes. What we are now experiencing as the era of climate crisis – the effects of the Anthropocene – aggravates this condition, requiring to look at urbanization in delta, coastal and river landscapes as a formative, operational and performative process. Therefore delta design is discussed here not only as an approach to highly dynamic landscapes but rather as a fundamental shift in the way urbanization is addressed by design, technology and policy — as drivers of environmental change.
The expectations of submitted papers are the following: First and foremost, we are a scholarly journal. This implies that only papers that explicitly contribute to relevant academic literature, as documented in international peer-reviewed journals are taken into consideration. The introduction of every paper submitted to JDU is expected to contain a review of past work on the paper's topic, which is used to explicitly identify an academic knowledge gap. In addition, submitted papers should clearly mention in the introduction the aimed for contribution in terms of filling the identified knowledge gap.
Beyond contributing to the academic debate, the journal aims to reach out and contribute to practice. Primary interest lies in publishing research that makes a real difference in addressing the immense and growing challenges of today’s urban deltas and coastal areas. This means that JDU encourages submission of scholarly papers that explicitly aim to support design, technology, decision-making and policy-making in the field of delta urbanism.
Ethics
Editors, authors and publisher adopt the guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
ISSN
2666-7851 online