Way Beyond Bigness: The Need for a Watershed Architecture
A lecture by architect Derek Hoeferlin (St. Louis, United States) on the importance of designing alternative river landscapes based on ecology and resilience. With an introduction by Fransje Hooimeijer. Tuesday 21 October, 17:00 - 19:00
Way Beyond Bigness
At a time of rising sea levels, extreme floods, and accelerating climate uncertainty, the traditional model of water management, based on levees, dams, floodwalls, and channels designed to contain or redirect water, is reaching its limits. In response, alternative approaches are emerging. In the Netherlands, Room for the River has sparked a paradigm shift by restoring space for rivers through the relocation of dikes, lowering floodplains, and creating bypass channels. And globally, the sponge city concept is transforming how landscape architects design with water, offering a model for urban areas to naturally absorb, store, and reuse rainwater.
Based on over a decade of field research, photographic documentation, mapping, speculative design, and community-engaged work in the Mississippi, Mekong, and Rhine river basins, architect Derek Hoeferlin has developed a simple, three-part framework for designing and planning in complex river and water systems: "Appreciate + Analyze," "Speculate + Synthesize," and "Collaborate + Catalyze." Given future uncertainties of climate change, infrastructure and the built environment, the methodology advocates for new multi-disciplinary, trans-boundary models that span across multiple scales and across entire river basins.
On this afternoon, organised in collaboration with Deltametropolis Association (Vereniging Deltametropool), Derek Hoeferlin presented the insights of his research, that recently resulted in the publication "Way Beyond Bigness: The Need for a Watershed Architecture." The presentation was introduced by Fransje Hooimeijer, Associate Professor Environmental Technology and Design and lead of the Delta Urbanism Research Group at TU Delft.
Programme 21 October 2025
16:45 - 17:00 Doors open
17:00 - 17:15 Welcome by the Independent School for the City
17:15 - 17:30 Introduction by Fransje Hooimeijer
17:30 - 18:15 Presentation by Derek Hoeferlin, Way Beyond Bigness: The Need for a Watershed Architecture
18:30 - 19:00 Q&A with Fransje Hooimeijer and Derek Hoeferlin
About Derek Hoeferlin
Derek Hoeferlin is Professor of Architecture and chair of landscape architecture at the The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and principal of [dhd] derek hoeferlin design, an award-winning architecture, landscape, and urban design practice based in St. Louis. Over the past decade he has done extensive research on water-based design approaches all around the world, worked on various ward-winning design projects, including Designing Resilience International Open Competition (first prize), Chouteau Greenway Competition, and the Rising Tides Competition (first prize).
Fransje Hooimeijer specialises in system integration of technical conditions in urban design and interdisciplinary design. She is trained as a designer at the Willem de Kooning Academy, as a researcher at Erasmus University, and after having been an independent researcher for six years fulltime, she carried out PhD research at TU Delft. In her research and teaching at Delft University of Technology, she takes the perspective of the city as a technical reconstruction of the landscape. She is passionate to understand how nature can be brought closer to people with concepts such as ecosystem participation and reversed engineering with nature as the foundation for a climate-resilient, natural city. She is involved in national and international practice and research projects, and coordinator of the interfaculty Delta Futures Lab and faculty lead in Delta Action Program.