Spons/LAB

It's too dry. And too wet. The Netherlands needs to hold and make room for much more water and we need everyone on board to get this right. Water also offers opportunities to enhance biodiversity, provide cooling, promote health, and create attractive places for people to meet each other.

At the centre is our new model City as Sponge, a collaboration with the municipality of 's-Hertogenbosch and the Aa en Maas water board. Here, we show how a city is a mountain landscape that can hold, distribute and purify water.

Around it, you'll find illustrations from our research with De Urbanisten into the different layers of sponge action in a neighbourhood.

With our main partner Dura Vermeer, we've also created a Sponge Cabinet with stories and innovations that are already contributing to water solutions in construction and infrastructure.

Through the Water Cabinet by Studio Inscape, you can also see how we can design entire regions differently. And discover how historical heritage can contribute to a climate-adaptive landscape, seen through the eyes of the burbot, in a design by Buro Lubber.

Finally, the Waterambassade shares its findings and coalitions on healing bridges.