Research leaders

Taneha K. Bacchin

Urbanism

T.Bacchin@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Taneha K. Bacchin is an architect, urban designer, and researcher working at the intersection between urban design, landscape architecture, and environmental sciences. In her projects and teaching, she investigates the nexus between space, ecology, culture, and politics in the design and planning of critical and highly dynamic landscapes. Her current work focuses on situated (site/context/culture-sensitive) forms of urban design related to environmental fragility, increasing extreme weather events and climate, and resource depletion, with projects in the North Sea, the Arctic, Brazil, South Africa, and India. Her interest lies in the role of urban design and territorial architecture (morphology, composition, materialisation) in places characterised by high dynamicity, fragility, and projective change: ‘extreme/ transitional territories’ altered by the effects of the climate crisis, large-scale extractivism, resource scarcity, and new frontiers of urbanisation. 

Fransje Hooimeijer

Urbanism

F.L.Hooimeijer@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Fransje Hooimeijer studied Architecture at the Willem de Kooning Academy and Arts and Culture Studies in Rotterdam Erasmus University. Since 1997 she works as an independent researcher in the fields of architecture, urban design and landscape architecture. In addition to various publications and exhibits, she has done research for governments and corporate clients. She received her PhD in Urbanism from the Faculty of Architecture at the Delft University of Technology in 2011 with the dissertation investigating the relation between water management and urban design. From 2009-2012, she has worked as a researcher at the TU Delft and at TNO, investigating the technology of urban development in the light of climate change and the energy transition. One of her main research topics is integrating the subsurface system into above-ground spatial development. Since 2012 continuing research and teaching at TU Delft into system integration of technical systems of urban development in national and international context. She is specialised in interdisciplinary design processes, methods, tools and theory, transferring this to students and practice.

Chris Zevenbergen 

Coastal and Urban Risk & Resilience

C.Zevenbergen-1@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Chris Zevenbergen is a Professor at the Water Engineering Department of IHE Delft and at the Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering of the TU Delft, The Netherlands. He is a visiting professor at the Southeast University (SEU), China. He is also Project Director of DeltaCap, a Capacity Development Program funded by the Dutch Government to support the implementation of the Delta Plan in Bangladesh, and of AFMA, a seven year SWF program to develop and implement Anticipatory Flood Risk Management in Alexandria, Egypt. As of 2016, he is advisor of Bax & Company (Barcelona, Spain), a leading European innovation consultancy. From 1999 to 2012 he was Director Research and Development and member of the Management Team of the Dura Vermeer Group NV, one of the largest contractors in The Netherlands. He was a Member of the Board of the Public Private Innovation Platform Clean Tech Delta, The Netherlands in 2013 and 2014.

Program members

Prof. Dr. Steffen Nijhuis

Landscape Architecture

S.Nijhuis@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Trained as a landscape architect and gardener, I have been a Vista landscape and urban design project leader for several years. I was an advisor to the Dutch government, regional and municipal authorities and private parties there. I gained experience in urban planning and design combined with using GIS (geographic information systems) as a research instrument.

In 2006 I entered academia and obtained my PhD in landscape architecture from Delft University of Technology in 2015. In Delft, my work focuses on theories, methods and techniques, as well as their practical applications in the fields of landscape architecture, urban design and GIS in an international context, primarily related to GIS-based design research, regional design, history of cultural and designed landscapes, mapping, delta urbanism, and visual landscape assessment.

Now I am Head of the Section of Landscape Architecture and Full Professor of Landscape-based Urbanism that focuses on developing and strengthening landscape-based urbanism as an academic field and increasing awareness of its importance in society and academia. Landscape-based urbanism is an interdisciplinary design approach that uses landscape as the basis for sustainable urban development. The ambition is to embed and expand landscape-based urbanism as a way of thinking in the research and education programs at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.

Currently, I am the Research Leader of the Department of Urbanism (six Sections, about 100 FTE personnel) and project leader, as well as Editor-in-Chief of RiUS (Research in Urbanism Series, a peer-reviewed and indexed journal) and advisor to (inter)national NGO’s, and governmental and regional authorities. I am also a Board member of the Department of Urbanism at TU Delft, a member of the Board of Directors of the Chabot Museum Rotterdam and several scientific committees and review boards.

I am also a Visiting Professor and Guest Lecturer at Universities in Europe, Asia and North America. Furthermore, I supervise PhD, post-MSc and MSc projects and Coordinate MSc design studios and PhD methodology-courses.

Dr.ir. Inge Bobbink,

Landscape Architecture

I.Bobbink@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Inge Bobbink focuses on landscape architectonic design with a particular interest in the relation between water and land, including flora, fauna, and people. In her work, she explicitly stresses the importance of form and composition as an expression of culture and identity. Four perspectives on the analysis and design of (urban)water landscapes form the backbone of the research: (urban)landscape perception, (urban)landscape as a palimpsest, (urban)landscape as scale continuum and (urban)landscape as an ecological, economic and social process. She develops research methods to analyse traditional water systems and elements that are deeply rooted in the landscape and linked to human activities, focussing on its circularity and beauty. The results of this research form a theory that helps to transform today’s water systems into circular (integral, sustainable) water systems — an inclusive, tangible space for all.

Diego Sepulveda Carmona

Urbanism

D.A.SepulvedaCarmona@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Diego is a designer and urban planner. He possesses professional and research experiences on infrastructural development and socio spatial, socio-environmental integration with special interest into fast transformative economies and the integration of the changing socio environmental dynamics. The emphasis of his work is on the interrelation between spatial planning,spatial and environmental structures.
His particular interest in regional development and its design is on the conditions for integration of the local levels on the Metropolization processes. Lately His work is defined on how to integrate the climate change adaptation-(actors and systems as complex adaptive systems) within a developing and transformative context.

I am interested into the operability of socio environmental justice.
This with the search of alignment of people’s interest and values, planning frameworks, spatial and time scales of complex adaptive systems through explorative design (intersectoral and inter scalar). Aspects as socio cultural approaches, environmental based adaptation, Informality and metropolization.

Marcin Dąbrowski

Urbanism

M.M.Dabrowski@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Marcin Dąbrowski teaches and researches spatial planning and (multi-level) governance issues related to sustainable urban and regional futures. His recent work explores questions of integration of flood risk management with spatial planning, policy transfer, stakeholder engagement in water-linked heritage valorisation policies, co-design of territorial circular economy strategies, participatory carbon-neutrality experimentation in cities and engagement of marginalised communities in just sustainability transitions


Juliana E. Goncalves

Urbanism

j.e.goncalves@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Dr. Juliana Goncalves is an Assistant Professor in the section of Spatial Planning and Strategy, Department of Urbanism, TU Delft. She is also the co-director of the Centre for Urban Science (CUSP), a member of the Delta Urbanism Interdisciplinary Research Program, and a member of the Climate Action Program at TU Delft. She has an interdisciplinary background with expertise in socio-technical systems, urban data science, and policy analysis. Her research interests include urban inequalities & spatial justice, climate change adaptation & urban resilience, energy transition, public participation & citizen empowerment, and related planning and policy implications. She looks at these questions from a socio-spatial intersectional perspective, often combining quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Irene Luque Martin

Urbanism

i.luquemartin@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

I have worked at the convergence of academia and practice since the beginning of my career through the combination of research projects and design projects in the realm of consultancy and spatial design thinking. I hold a PhD in Collaborative and Innovative design processes coming from the University of Seville together with international collaboration with the University of Amsterdam. This is combined with more than ten years of experience in leading and coordinating urban planning and urban design through research-by-design (RbD) projects with a strong focus on vulnerable territories in rapid transition. At TU Delft, specifically through the Urban Design section and the Redesigning Deltas movement, I aim to focus on accelerating practice towards leveraging RbD as an actual alternative to conventional practices in Delta transformations. To do so, my research focuses on understanding the value, the role, and the business case in diverse international cases of delta transformation.

Francesca Rizzetto

Urbanism

F.Rizzetto@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Francesca is an architect by education and urban designer with more than 10 years of experience in practice, from regional planning to urban design, from self-promoted studies to public commissions. Since her graduation she has been involved in several education and research programs at TUDelft. In her projects and teaching, she inquires the liaison among the imbalance of politics, economics, polluted landscape and built environment. Her current work focuses on situated forms of urban design related to environmental fragility from large scale to micro public space, from public decision to private actions. From 2016 she is freelancing for urban planning offices in Italian and Dutch municipalities, and for private commissions, at the architectural scale. Within Studio for New Realities, she has led the urbanism team working among other projects at the Districts Regeneration Framework of Glasgow and ‘A tot Z’ urban strategy for the eastside of Rotterdam, (from Alexander to Zuidplein). In 2008 she has co-founded UNLAB, with whom, among other projects have worked at the General Local Plan of the great Tirana (Albania). She is currently covering the position of researcher in the project of Redesigning Deltas at TUDelft, in her research she focuses on space, ecology, culture, and politics in the design and planning of critical and highly dynamic landscapes with a lens on the relationship between practices and academic’s projects in the fragile and complex territory of the Delta.

Koen Olthuis

Urbanism

J.K.Olthuis-1@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Koen Olthuis (1971) studied Architecture and Industrial Design at the Delft University of Technology. In 2007 he was chosen as no. 122 on Time Magazine’s list of most influential people in the world due to the increasing worldwide interest in water developments. In addition, the French magazine, Terra Eco, choose him in 2011 as one of 100 green persons that will change the world.

Daniele Cannatella

Urbanism

D.Cannatella@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Daniele Cannatella is an Assistant Professor specializing in Urban Data for Design with a focus on Sustainable Development. With a pragmatic approach to urban planning, he combines data-driven insights and design principles to address real-world challenges in sustainable urban development. Cannatella’s work revolves around integrating data analytics into urban planning processes to create more efficient and environmentally-friendly cities. His contributions to the field highlight his commitment to practical solutions that can enhance the quality of urban life and contribute to a more sustainable future.

Luca Iurio

Urbanism

L.Iuorio@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

I graduated in architecture from Iuav University of Venice, where I also obtained the doctorate in urbanism. I am currently an assistant professor in the faculty of architecture and the built environment of TU Delft in the department of urbanism, section of environmental technology and design
My academic work spans from the study of the territorial dimension of engineering infrastructures to the design of spatial interventions to adapt to climate change. I am interested in understanding and explaining how technology affects our society and shapes the places where we live. 
Recently, I have been focusing on coastal areas and deltaic systems doing interdisciplinary research and design in relation to the water and flood protection infrastructure. Physical modeling, scenario making, ethnographic fieldworks, archival research and site-specific designs are the main tools, methodologies and outputs I support to scientifically develop climate adaptation projects. 

Post-doc Researcher

Sophia Arbara

Urbanism

s.arbara@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Sophia is an architect and urban designer. She has worked across the fields of urban design, mobility and cultural heritage studies aiming to address socio-ecological challenges and unveil both familiar and untold narratives through spatial approaches. As a post-doctoral researcher in the Delta Urbanism program, she focuses on food systems as spatial agents in the shaping of territorial and local dynamics in deltaic areas. Sophia has completed her Phd at Roma Tre University (Italy) and engaged in teaching and research activities at UC Berkeley (US) and the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil). Previously, she worked as an architect and urban designer in the Netherlands, Greece, and Spain. She holds a Master´s in Architecture from the National Technical University of Athens and a Master´s in Urban Design from the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley.

Elena Longin

Urbanism

E.Longhin@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

ELENA LONGHIN works between architecture, urbanism, and political ecology. PhD in Urbanism, she is a registered architect (OAPCC Venice/ARB London) and a post-doc research fellow at TUDelft, part of the Delta Urbanism group and the Redesigning Deltas research programme. She is an executive member of the Habitat Research Centre (HRC) at EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland, where she focuses on the Landscape Habitat research field and manages the Campus in Transition – Living Lab Grants projects. Since 2016, she leads the Architectural Association VS Terrain Lab, a research and educational platform investigating the spatial palimpsests of the Anthropocene. Prior to joining the Urban Design section of TUDelft, she was Unit Master at AA Intermediate School, tutor in the postgraduate Landscape Urbanism Programme, as well as in various international Visiting Schools worldwide, and taught at the IUAV University of Venice, Italy.

Elena develops projects at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and urbanism in diverse contexts, exploring the idea of a spatial practice that recognises the inherently conflicting dynamics that drive human occupation, whether urban or remote. Her current work explores the systemic understanding of land (onshore and offshore rare earth mining dynamics), scarcity, depletion, extremes, and complexity, focusing on materiality, fluidity and raw resources exploited on land and sea, to draw out latent relationships across scales, addressing intensifying social injustice and ecological crisis.

Maryam Naghibi

Urbanism

m.naghibi@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Maryam Naghibi is a postdoctoral researcher at TU Delft, focuses her research on resilient urban landscapes and leftover spaces. With a background in Urbanism, Landscape Architecture, and Architecture, her research explores the potential of urban leftover spaces and sponge city design interventions to address climate change, water storage, and landscape fragmentation, while also reducing social inequalities and revitalizing communities. Maryam employs an interdisciplinary approach that combines landscape design, urban public spaces, urban acupuncture, and temporary interventions. Her goal is to create social-technical-environmental resilient urban systems in delta cities and contribute to making urban regions more sustainable and equitable, with a particular focus on the challenges faced by delta cities and sponge cities.

PhD Researchers

Raquel Hädrich Silva

Urbanism

r.hadrichsilva@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Trained in oceanography and social sciences, my research work combines coastal governance, urbanism and qualitative social analysis. I am interested in the discursive, material, and political dimensions of water – assemblages that compose water cultures – that, ultimately, give form to unequal waterscapes in cities. I favour an interdisciplinary approach, seeing planning and design as processes in which water cultures are re-assembled to achieve water sensitivity in cities. The effort to bridge the critique of Urban Political Ecology to the practice of Ecological Urbanism is central to my work, with explicit attention to cities in the Global South.

My current research looks into experiences of water sensitivity and climate adaptation in coastal cities in India to question whether planning and design imaginaries and processes have the potential to enable cultural change in a way that is socially just. I for instance study how networks of actors interact through design competitions and research projects to make global water cultures reach India from the Netherlands. Moreover, I look at how these processes are marked by power relations that implicate water sensitivity and climate adaptation as particular imaginaries in the construction of urban identities that do not fully capture the socio-cultural diversity of Indian cities.

Julio Montenegro Gambini

Urbanism

J.I.MontenegroGambini@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Julio Montenegro is a Civil Engineer graduated from the National University of Engineering (UNI) in Lima, Peru where also studied a M.Sc. in Hydraulic Engineering, specialising in the field of climate change impacts on the hydrological cycle of Peruvian catchments. He also holds a M.Sc. of Water Resources Engineering from The Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium, focused on the study of spatiotemporal variability of hydrological extreme events. Currently his PhD research project is related to spatio-temporal urban flood risk assessment, fully funded by the Peruvian Ministry of Education. His interest is related to flood risks assessment and management, flood modelling, scenario-based assessments with land use/land cover – climate change impacts and general topics involving spatio-temporal analysis of hydrological extreme events.

Sarah Calitz

Architecture in (post)mining environments

s.calitz@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

I am an educator and researcher with an interest in the crosscultural frictions, collaborations, and negotiations that produce and circulate architectural knowledge

Introducing Serah Calitz, a researcher specializing in the study of crosscultural dynamics within the architectural realm. Her work delves into the practical frictions, collaborations, and complex negotiations that underpin the evolution of architectural knowledge. With a keen focus on real-world applications, Calitz explores how cultural interactions shape the built environment, offering valuable insights that resonate with architects, builders, and communities alike. In her pursuit, she unveils the tangible impact of crosscultural exchanges, making her research not just academically significant but also profoundly relevant to the everyday world of architecture.

Qiaodan Liu (Jordan)

Urbanism

Q.Liu-7@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

 

Qiaodan Liu gained his master’s degree in the Water Resources section in Civil Engineering and Geoscience apartment of TU Delft. After that, he worked as a hydrological engineer at the Bureau of Hydrology and water resources in the Pearl River water resources commission of the Ministry of water resources, China. His interest lies in the integrated framework of extreme cyclone compound flooding, nature-based infrastructure, and multi-goal decision-making. With his strong background in hydrology and hydrodynamics, the goal of his PhD research is to extend the engineering adaptive pathway to a spatial and temporal hybrid strategy of coastal city design and planning.

Isabel Recubenis Sanchis

Urbanism

i.recubenissanchis@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Arch. Ir. Isabel Recubenis Sanchis is an architect, urban designer and researcher. She holds a B.Sc and a M.Sc. in Architecture by the Polytechnic University of Valencia. In 2020 she completed her second Master in Urbanism at TU Delft with an annotation in Infrastructure and Environment Design. Her interest lies at the intersection between urbanism, ecology and infrastructure in regards to the design and planning of critical territories. Over the past years she has worked on the topic both in practice and academia as part of Delta Urbanism Research Group in TUDelft. Currently She is a PhD candidate in TU Delft focusing on the Longue Duree of WEF in post-extraction landscapes in South Africa.

Boaz Peters

Urbanism

b.a.peters-1@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Boaz Peters is an urban designer, researcher, and filmmaker specializing in the nexus of urbanism, justice, and ecology. His work explores expanded territoriality and the transient dynamics of space, politics, ecology, and culture. Holding MSc and BSc degrees from TU Delft, his thesis, Confronting the Norwegian Paradox, investigated socio-territorial tensions between Sámi communities and oil industry expansion in Arctic Norway. As part of this, he co-directed Northbound (2019), showcased at festivals such as the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR). Currently, he is a PhD candidate within the RUGBIS project, focusing on bridging exogenous and endogenous knowledge in green-blue infrastructure research and design in low- and middle-income countries, fostering holistic and contextual solutions to pressing urban challenges.

Laura Thomas

Urbanism

L.Thomas@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Laura Thomas is a PhD candidate at Delft University of Technology, where she focuses on integrating soil knowledge into spatial planning and design through her work in the European SPADES (Spatial Planning and Design with Soil) project. Before pursuing her PhD, Laura was an urban designer at PosadMaxwan, an office for urban design and strategy in The Hague. Building on her practical experience, Laura’s research aims to bridge the gap between academic research on soil and spatial planning and design, and spatial planning and design practice.

Barbara Dal Bo Zanon

Environmental Technology and Design

b.dalbozanon@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

I am an architect and researcher with over a decade of experience in water-based urban development, spanning both commercial and research projects. Currently, I am a PhD student within the Floating Future project at TU Delft’s Faculty of Architecture, Department of Urbanism (2024–present). My research focuses on the challenges of scaling up floating developments, approached through an urban design lens with a strong emphasis on multidisciplinary integration. Alongside my PhD research, I work as a senior architect at Blue21 (formerly Deltasync), a Dutch consultancy firm specializing in floating urban development. Since 2011, I have contributed to innovative research projects such as FloodProBE and Space@Sea. I hold a MSc in Architecture for Sustainability from IUAV (Venice, 2010).

ir. Tara Kanj

Environmental Technology and Design

t.kanj@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Natalia Rudik

Physical Geography and Environmental Sciences

natalia.rudik@deltares.nl

Deltares page

Natalia Rudik, a PhD candidate at TU Delft/Deltares within the SPADES project, brings expertise in Physical Geography and Soil Science to sustainable land development. With an MSc in Water and Environment from Radboud University, she focuses on integrating soil-water dynamics into landscape design in the Netherlands. Her research pioneers nature-based solutions to create climate-resilient environments, advancing the intersection of soil science and spatial planning.

Sridhar Subramani

Urbanism

s.subramani@tudelft.nl

TU Delft page

Sridhar Subramani is a PhD candidate at Delft University of Technology. He focuses on integrating dynamic floating solutions to improve urban performance through multi-agent modeling. In addition to his academic pursuits, he collaborates with Waterstudio.nl, contributing to research and computational design for floating solutions. His research aims to bridge the gap between adaptive spatial planning and urban resilience in addressing water-related challenges.