Abstract
Many people associate Building with Nature with its flagship project, the Sand Motor. This mega-nourishment redefined the role of natural processes in civil engineering projects, demonstrating that instead of ‘do no harm’ as the highest possible supporting goal of coastal infrastructure, the design could incorporate natural processes to attain societal and ecological goals. As such, the Sand Motor represents a key example of the integrated design of civil infrastructures. In this contribution, we pursue an improved understanding of the integrated design of civil infrastructures, by comparing the illustrative example of the Sand Motor against a framework based on transport infrastructures and the occasional flood defence. It turns out that application of a framework from one domain to another - a conscious act of interdisciplinary learning - results in a modification of that framework. Although the domain of Building with Nature fits well with many existing attributes of integrated design for civil infrastructures (the life cycle approach, adaptive design and adding functionalities), its key attribute (dynamics) adds a unique box to the integrality index. This intellectual effort raises two issues. It demonstrates that our understanding of integrated design is rather specific for different infrastructure-domains. Second, it is likely that the bandwidth of uncertainty that is key to the incorporation of natural processes in infrastructure design, and the changing behaviour of the structure itself in the maintenance phase, has implications for the governance regime of such infrastructures.
Highlights
Despite ubiquitous calls for interdisciplinary research, the conscious, strategic pursuit of such learning is often an exception to the rule (INTREPID, 2019)
Four out of six attributes associated with different forms of our current understanding of integrated design fit with Building with Nature’s flagship project
The rather dynamic nature of the engineering project, and the fact that the mega-nourishment cannot be broken down in smaller components that can be designed and controlled upon completion of the project, is the attribute that sets this Building with Nature project apart from the current collection of integrated projects
Summary
Despite ubiquitous calls for interdisciplinary research, the conscious, strategic pursuit of such learning is often an exception to the rule (INTREPID, 2019). Interpersonal, collegial connections in team-collaboration within a university department are systemic, especially among disciplines that are closely related to one another such as urban planning and urban design Such curiosity-driven interactions occur daily and are likely the engine behind the creation of new academic disciplines (Lyall, 2008; Gibbons et al, 2010), as a rule of thumb, integrative learning is not done explicitly (Tress et al, 2005). It is possible that interdepartmental, cross-field connections on topics that sit at the intersection of multiple disciplines may be the most challenging type and this is where awareness about the methodology of interdisciplinary learning could facilitate integrative learning This is especially the case when such problem-oriented research engages multiple stakeholders outside of academia, and a full inter- and transdisciplinary research project develops How does the Sand Motor fit into our current understanding of integrated design of civil infrastructures and should that understanding be adapted? After a discussion of results, we conclude with the implications of this study, including a reflection on interdisciplinary learning
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