THE WATER’S AMBASSADOR

17.05.2022

How can we accommodate rising water levels in a way that also provides social balance? Katrina Wiberg does research into the way the water meets the city.

As a young woman, Katrina dreamt of becoming a biologist or documentarian – and longed to save the rainforest, she says with a smile. It is therefore hardly a coincidence that today’s sustainable architecture is Associate Professor Katrina Wiberg’s line of work. Although the roads she has taken which led to her doing what she does today have been winding like streams of water. For she has always attached great importance to social commitment and the ideal of sustainability.

Katrina sees the world from the perspective of the water. Where would it prefer to go, and how does this affect us? Being an ambassador of the water, her research aims at mediating between the interests of man and the interests of the element. Her goal is to create sustainable solutions on the large as well as the small scale.

Perhaps this is a result of growing up in the progressive “Ø-gade” area of Aarhus in the late 70s. Or perhaps it resulted from her meeting with the open country – and a completely different way of life – when her family moved to Hyllested Skovgårde in Djursland.

‘This was the first time I saw a couch in nappa leather, an electric organ, a red Opel Kadett. I was completely blown away, and it was all very exotic,’ she says.

But the city soon drew her in again. And at the age of 16, she moved to a small room in Aarhus where she earned her living as a cleaning assistant. Later she went to art school, and she also worked in a goldsmith’s workshop for a year.

‘At home we always had workshops in the living room, where we worked with leather, jewellery, metal, bone, etc. Perhaps that is why the large-scale work I do with cities and landscapes invariably relates to the site-specific and aesthetic’.

Blown away

She discovered the architectural profession by chance when she attended a presentation by a student from the school.

‘After three minutes I was completely won over. Blown away. It was the combination of the practical – art and graphics – with socially relevant and intellectual aspects that I had been looking for.’

Katrina thus set out on a course that has taken her back and forth between the school of architecture and practice over the past 25 years.

‘Studying at the school of architecture was really tough but doing five cleaning jobs was also tough. It makes you more grateful for the opportunity to immerse yourself in something that’s so exciting.’

After graduating from the school in 2003, she joined Desmond Fitzgerald Architects in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland, where she also taught landscape architecture at University College Dublin. Following this, for a short time she worked as a volunteer in Gellerup, where she ran workshops for ethnic minority children, this was followed by several years in practice as an architect at Møller and Grønborg in Aarhus.

The worn-down playground

But she then again experienced the urge to immerse herself deeply in a subject. And in 2013, she started working on her PhD, Waterscapes of Value, which was when she truly began to embrace the watery element.

‘I was working with the influence of water on everyday landscapes. Not on high priority areas like e.g. Store Torv (a central square in Aarhus). Places like that can usually get funding from special initiatives. But the rainwater reservoir, the worn-down playground and the parking lot, which you walk by every day, represent quite large areas that are part of everyone’s lives. And here funding does not come so easily. Examining solutions for the neglected spaces was a good match for my interest in social cohesion and relevance to society’.

More extremes

Today, rises in sea levels and the ability of our urban areas to respond and manage these are at the heart of Katrina’s research. Rather than looking at individual solutions, she looks at how we can connect our efforts on different scales.

‘Everywhere in Denmark we get more water. Coastal areas are experiencing sea level rises, but many areas will also experience longer periods of drought. We will be experiencing more extremes, and we have already seen the results of cloudbursts and floods.’

Who will pay the bill?

When it comes to discussing this, Katrina’s major concern is also social cohesion – for the advance of water forces us to prioritise our efforts.

‘We’re still building too much and in the wrong places. When we build prestigious buildings from concrete on unstable soil in river catchment areas and on waterfronts. Who will be paying for it when these areas require protection from water? All of us? And will this be at the expense of schools, care for the elderly, etc.?’

Katrina examines the inherent potential in already existing plans: the bike path that needs to be repaired or the house that needs to be transformed. If we think about the landscape and the built environment as connected issues, we may advance a little, and faster.

The deep time

Her research connects the past, the present, and the future: Katrina Wiberg studies historical maps in order to understand the ancient paths taken by the water through the landscapes.

‘The city of Aarhus is more than 1,000 years old, and the traces are still there for us to see – the roads that lead into the city are where they have always been. What we are doing now will be just as important to the future. And this temporal aspect is hard to grasp in the planning stage, due to electoral periods and because building is a process that takes a long time. Investors need to profit from investments, and the municipality needs to make room for new citizens.’

Meanwhile, the water flows towards the same places it has always flown towards – in the built environment it just makes detours through cellars and along roads. When this happens, you need to examine the terrain from the architect’s perspective and see the potential. And the potential is about ethics as well as aesthetics.

“If we create blue-green solutions, we can also facilitate “soft” connections: nature, biodiversity and social cohesion. Then we may also be able to offer future generations shared, publicly accessible spaces; spaces that might even be beautiful. Spaces where everyone is welcome.”

This is how it all hooks up: the ambassador of the water is also an ambassador of the community.