Dutch Dialogues VA: Life at Sea Level

WPA was excited to partner with the City of Norfolk and City of Hampton to assist in hosting the Dutch Dialogues VA: Life at Sea Level. People living in the Netherlands are surrounded by water and have suffered through flooding for centuries. Due to this experience they realized that the answer was not to build higher barriers, but to figure out how to live more naturally with water. The “Dutch Dialogues” workshops bring together Dutch engineers, urban designers, landscape architects, city planners and soils/hydrology experts and local counterparts to explore creative and innovative solutions to the challenges inherent in living in a coastal city.

The Slover Library was the perfect venue for the five day workshop where we explored creative solutions for Hampton Roads as a region, Hampton’s Newmarket Creek Watershed, and Norfolk’s Harbor Park and St. Paul’s sections of the city. The end result was an insightful and motivating presentation that delivered planning solutions and water management strategies for each focus area. The questions asked and ideas that started to form will continue to be developed as we move forward in our work in the region.

The Dutch believe that collaboration is the key to problem-solving, and that this problem cannot be solved in a vacuum. In this spirit, www.lifeatsealevel.org will continue to evolve as the primary source of information as the region continues to expand upon the thoughts, ambitions, and challenges presented from the Dutch Dialogues VA: Life at Sea Level workshop.