Abstract
Special session by Carola Hein (TU Delft, LDE PortCityFutures) Transitions in Port City Regions: Planning Beyond Oil How provocative and bizarre can visions about the future be? In this article we will answer this question through the eyes but above all the projects of the students of the MSc 2 design studio “Architecture and Urbanism beyond oil” run by Prof. Carola Hein at the Department of Architecture at Delft University of Technology in collaboration with Henri van Bennekom, Paolo De Martino and Ollie Palmer between 2016 and 2019 (De Martino, Hein, & Russo, 2019; C. Hein, 2017; C. Hein & De Martino, 2018). The article argues that comprehensive design solutions can help in the redevelopment of former oil territories by exploring new urban forms and spatial opportunities. The article presents and analyses a selection of medium, short and long-term scenarios on the future, without oil, of three port city regions: Dunkirk, Naples and Rotterdam. Planning authorities in all three port cities, although in different ways and at multiple scales, relate to the challenge of having to rethink entire portions of the territory when oil will run out, hopefully very soon. In the port area of Dunkirk there are two dismantled refineries waiting for redevelopment; East Naples hosts fragments of a refinery closed down in the 1980s and functioning oil storages close to the historic city. Finally, the port of Rotterdam together with Antwerp and Amsterdam forms the most significant European port cluster for oil storage and distribution. Current global urgencies such as energy transition, climate change and circular economy, are central issues and place ports and their relationship with cities and regional territories at the center of the contemporary debate. These challenges raise the questions: will refineries and oil infrastructures such as pipelines be demolished and replaced with other kinds of industries? Will the left-over territories between ports and cities be recovered and redesigned? Who will pay for the remediation and according to which processes? How will the cities of the future work from an energy perspective? How much space will be needed to allocate new forms of energy and where? How can we rethink the nature of ports in a scenario without oil and what the role culture is going to play into this? Therefore, rethinking the nature of ports has to do with reimagining the relationship with their cities. We inherit from the modernity, specifically since the beginning of 20th century, zooning plans that divided the territory into enclaves, fragments often disconnected from each other, where different public and private actors have flighted for the use of space. This logic, based on rigid and not very resilient practices, has created sectorial approaches, environmental degradation and fractures between ports and urban communities. Port cities therefore need new visions, scenarios capable of relating to the complexity of the territories in a more systemic way. The idea of the scenario, presented in the article in the form of “what if”, fits perfectly within contemporary design approaches and the spaces that Bauman has defined as liquid (Bauman, 2011). In a liquid and porous environment different visions coexist and collide and the role of the scenario is that of defining a vision, a fascination, an image capable of tracing a direction, leading the current, in a context made up of differences, complexities, and conflicts. These scenarios represent reflections, points for discussion, which do not claim to plan the territory in an assertive way rather to point out possible new narratives for the future. The scenarios developed within the design studio Architecture and Urbanism beyond oil, presented and discussed in this article, respond to this need and the necessity to build new interpretative models, planning approaches and cultural mindsets.
