This year, the Architecture, Landscape and Transitions design studio (Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ghent University) is focusing on the water issues in the Dender Valley in East Flanders. Three strategic and topographically different locations in this valley were defined as the subject. The students chose a location themselves and are investigating how urban (re)development can be combined with the water problems of a much larger area. They are studying the problems and mapping them out, devising a hypothesis for an area of their own choosing and developing a design based on this.

Flore Soens and Enriqué Ramael conducted their research in the De Mattein neighbourhood in Affligem, a valley located between three ridges. The residential area was built in the 1980s at the source of a stream that has been covered by the land division. The two overflow points of the sewer system regularly overflow due to heavy rainfall, causing the streets to function as rivers – resulting in flooding.