About

The works presented in the exhibition “A TOPOGRAPHY OF CHANCE” close the three year-long cycle on the North Sea. Inspired by the ‘Topographie Anecdotée du Hasard’ by Daniel Spoerri, the studio engaged in an open conversation amid six lines of inquiry (the coexistence between different claims at sea, ranging from extractivism, energy, fishery, ecology, logistics and migration to carbon storage and climatic shifts) regarding the future of the North Sea region. After having disclosed, represented and analysed its past, present, and future geography, in this closing cycle the studio projected and delineated a radically different space for the North Sea territory: a topography of chance. The “table of conversation” presented in the first session of this exhibition website is the topos and, the same time, a performative act. We used it as a non-conventional method to guide the non-hierarchical dialogue between the six lines of inquiry and the consequent development of the projects. It invited participants to explore and experiment with the role of ‘rhetorical object’ in communicating issues, to look at and reflect on relations between intention and concepts, but also between research understanding and design intentions. At the outset, each project positioned itself with respect to the claims on the North Sea. Subsequently, through an iteration of conversations seeking for assonances and dissonances amid the lines and projects, a topography of displacement emerged. An unexpected aesthetics of shift into the imagination and spatio-political representation of the six lines of inquiry. The tablecloth provided a physical record of the iterations (positioning-assonance-dissonance), which moderates itself without the need to ‘tie up loose ends’. Ultimately, this guided dialogue among projects – and therefore among points of view – draws a Topography of Chance, an overture towards a new development logic of the North Sea (and exceptions).

Six lines of inquiry:
1. ‘Flux, erasure and terraforming’
inundation, erosion, ice

2. ‘Capital’
oil / minerals / sand / food

3. ‘The dual nature of externalities’
polluted grounds, salt intrusion, carbon and methane emissions, extreme weather

4. ‘A pervasive ecology of flows’
energy, fishery, logistics, migration, data

5. ‘The oceanic project’
edge, island state(s), power

6. ‘Crises of representation’
political divisions, cultural heritage, assemblages and dissonances

Projects* geographic locations:
Land, coastal or sea locations/ cities and specific sites at the North Sea countries Norway, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, England, Scotland. In addition, three case exceptions are displayed: Indonesia, India, and Italy.

*Links to the completed thesis project reports will become available upon graduation.

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Transitional Territories is an interdisciplinary design studio focusing on the notion of territory as a constructed project across scales, subjects and media. In particular, the studio focuses on the agency of design in territories at risk between land and water (maritime, riverine, delta landscapes), and the dialectical (or inseparable) relation between nature and culture.

The studio explores through cross-disciplinary knowledge (theory, material practice, design and representation) pathways of inquiry and action by building upon Delta Urbanism research tradition, yet moving beyond conventional methods and concepts. During the graduation year, students develop an analytic, critical and conceptual approach to design by means of system and data analysis, critical cartography, scenario planning and new media. The scales of individual projects vary from buildings and (infra)structures to entire landscapes and regions. The theoretical discourse to which the studio refers includes notions of critical zones, territorialism, infrastructure space, (landscape) ecology, environmental risk and transition theory. The studio builds upon a collaborative platform (science, engineering, technology and arts) on ways of seeing, mapping, projecting change and critically acting on urbanized landscapes. At the core of the Delta Urbanism Research Group (Section of Urban Design), the studio is embedded within/and supported by the interdisciplinary TU Delft Delta Futures Lab, working in close collaboration with the Faculties of Civil Engineering and Geosciences and Technology, Policy and Management (TUD).

TUDelft
Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment

Transitional Territories Graduation Studio 2019/2020

North Sea: Landscapes of Coexistence
A Topography of Chance

Studio Leader
Taneha Kuzniecow Bacchin

Studio Coordinators
Taneha Kuzniecow Bacchin
Luisa Maria Calabrese

Special Guest Professors
Dirk Sijmons
Han Meyer

Instructors | Mentors
(core group: first/second mentors)
Taneha Kuzniecow Bacchin
Luisa Calabrese
Fransje Hooimeijer
Diego Sepulveda Carmona
Daniele Cannatella
Geert van der Meulen
Jacques Vink
Kaveh Dabiri

(second mentors)
Machiel van Dorst
Carola Hein
Alexander Wandl
Janneke van Bergen
Marcin Dabrowski
Claudiu Forgaci
Rodrigo Ordenhas Viseu Cardoso
Arie Romein

Tutor
Francesca Rizzetto

Graduation Sections | Chairs
Urban Design
Architectural Design Crossovers
Spatial Planning & Strategy
Environmental Modelling
Landscape Architecture

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A Topography of Chance

Curated by
TT Studio
dr.ir. Taneha Kuzniecow Bacchin | dr.ir. Luisa Maria Calabrese

Graphic design and website
Taneha Kuzniecow Bacchin
Geert van der Meulen | Robert Reinartz

Texts
Luisa Maria Calabrese | Taneha Kuzniecow Bacchin | TT Studio