Micro-topography and Water Urbanism: Jakarta as a case study

The research will focus on Jakarta’s transformation (now the fastest sinking city in the world) through the specific lens of water, soil and topography. It will critically evaluate ways to settle in the water-sick landscape—all —exacerbated by sea level rise, continued water table depletion, subsidence and the increase in flow volumes from increased runoff as well as (more) heavy rain. The city urgently requires a radical paradigm shift in relation to how to settle with water and needs adequate strategies to implement settlement practices and urban development. Drawing will be a primary research tool. Ultimately, the research will seek to understand in which ways Jakarta can continued to be inhabited, albeit it a very different mode. It will create projective scenarios, water urbanism design strategies, that begin from a fundamental understanding of water, soil and topography and transform in practical terms the city’s urban morphology and typologies.