There is a space that defines the future of both food production, water security and biodiversity, and that can have a relevant impact in restoring the global water cycle and in tempering effects of climate change: the SPONGE LANDSCAPE. The 2nd edition of the open workroom brings together pioneering sponge work across Europe to collectively lay the foundation for a strong, empowered practice of implementing Sponge Landscapes!
Organising ourselves around the natural sponge function of our territories offers a hopeful, integrated response to extreme periods of drought and rainfall, while investing in biodiversity, healthy and sustainable environments and resilient economies. Yet we are far from seeing sponge landscapes realised as a collectively embraced societal project.
Rather than grand infrastructure projects, sponge landscapes emerge through many modest, local interventions that collectively build resilience. They require action in places where people live, farmers cultivate, cows graze, forests thrive, and businesses operate.
Many actors and sectors – nature organisations, farmers, drinking water companies, municipalities, policymakers – are starting to test new types of measures, operate from a source-to-mouth perspective, build coalitions and innovate in policies. How do we further activate the physical and sectoral interconnections and realise many small-scale measures in a way that makes us collectively more resilient? How do we create a safe and brave space for building just sponge landscape partnerships? Who takes the lead – and is that even necessary – when responsibility lies with many, yet no one at the same time? In short: how do we shape Sponge Landscapes as a collective mission?
Both as an exhibition and as a public programme, the open workroom SPONGE LANDSCAPES make the state of an emerging practice. It builds upon the broad range of materials gathered through our Call for Projects & Objects. Submissions come from all corners of Europe – from around our corner in Brussels to the outskirts of the continent – and were sent in by a great variety of practitioners: regional coordinators, landscape designers, researchers, nature organisations, farmers and farming organisations, volunteers, and policy innovators. In the open workroom, we build upon their experiences by working across four dimensions.
- Valuing sponge chains: understanding and activating interdependencies between actors, sectors, land uses and measures
- Cultivating sponge landscapes: design the transformation of diverse watersheds into sponge landscapes
- Sponge Coalitions: build the necessary cross-sectoral public-private-civil coalitions
- Enabling Sponge Landscapes: explore and adapt the regional, national and international frameworks to bundle knowledge, instruments and investment logics.
Four dimensions to explore and develop together. Yes indeed, just as the last edition, the open workroom invites you to roll up your sleeves and join in! The open workroom functions as a setting for a programme of closed workshops and public debates, bringing together anyone with a stake in replenishing the sponge landscape.
PROGRAMME
KICK-OFF of the open workroom SPONGE LANDSCAPES
20 November
Everyone is warmly invited to celebrate the opening of the open workroom SPONGE LANDSCAPES and to kick off our collective four-month deep dive into the sponge landscape. Before we take you on a guided tour of the exhibition – with a festive drink in hand – we’ll put the ‘work’ in open workroom into action. During the day, the Sponge Summit will take place (by invitation only): an intensive working session mapping the state of sponge practices across Europe, informed by cases from France, Greece, and Flanders. The insights emerging from the Summit will feed into an evening conversation with Victoria Manfredi (Director for Zero Pollution, Water Resilience & Green Urban Transition at the European Commission) during the opening event, alongside the presentation of the full programme. In doing so, we set the tone for the months ahead: what should we develop within the open workroom to accelerate the shift from a conceptual sponge mission to a robust practice of implementation?
With Veronica Manfredi (Director for Zero Pollution, Water Resilience & Green Urban Transition), Henk Ovink (Executive Director and founding Commissioner for the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, Board of Governors of the International Water Management Institute), Dr. Ellis Penning (Expert Nature-based Solutions and Aquatic Ecology at Deltares, coordinator of SpongeScapes & co-coordinator of SpongeWorks), Dr. Andreas Panagopoulos (Hydrogeologist, Co-founder of LTER-Greece and the Pinios Hydrologic Observatory).
• 09:30 – 16:30 SPONGE SUMMIT – Mapping the readiness of a practice around Sponge Landscapes in Europe [invitation-only]
• 18:30 – 22:00 OPENING NIGHT – Open workroom SPONGE LANDSCAPES with guided tours, launch of the public programme by Bram Vandemoortel (Architecture Workroom Brussels, lead Sponge Landscapes), a conversation between Veronica Manfredi, Henk Ovink and Joachim Declerck, setting the mission for the open workroom SPONGE LANDSCAPES as a four-month deep-dive [register here].
Thursday 4 december 2025
SPONGE TALK – Designing Sponge Landscapes
19:00 – 21:00
No two sponge landscapes are alike. From the high alpine areas to the edges of the delta and every landscape in between, sponge strategies rely on a complex interplay between hydrogeology, topography, soil, land use, and even green water flows. Even within a one river basin, a close reading of the landscape is required: strategies that tend to work well on upstream sandy hillsides differ from what’s needed in downstream grasslands. With sponge landscapes, the outlines of a new field of design are taking shape. New roles come into play: coherently mapping the complex water flows in the landscape, designing in interaction with hydrological modelling, designing with a coalition and navigating between the interests of various land users, making a broad interpretation of the river basin a guiding principle in implementation, etc. Through various cases, we explore Sponge Landscapes as a new design discipline.
Thursday January 15
SPONGE TALK – Understanding the sponge web
19:00 – 21:00
Soil nitrogen content, fish migration targets, beaver effects, water retention capacity in plants, de-draining, run-off reduction... Grasping the physical process in sponge landscapes is no walk in the park. Sponge measures are being tested and explored from multiple sectors – through rigorous scientific modelling, hands-on field experience, or ideally, a combination of both. The parameters are numerous, and we are still discovering how they interconnect. Can and should we make them add up to clear and shared Sponge targets? We invite cases from different sectors to better grasp the interdependencies in the sponge function of the landscape. Together, we puzzle out how we can map the cumulative impact of many sponge measures.
Thursday February 12
SPONGE TALK – Sponge Coalitions
19:00 – 21:00
It takes a village to realise a Sponge Landscape. Behind the physical transformation of our living environment lies the work of many local Sponge Coalitions. They unite agriculture and nature organisations, local initiatives, municipalities, landscape managers and water managers. But these coalitions do not form overnight and need to keep on evolving to respond to ever-changing conditions. Who should be around the table to do what on which scale? Who takes the lead when no one is responsible, and everyone at the same time? And how do we form interregional sponge coalitions? Building on the lessons learned from Weerbaar Water+Land+Schap (Resilient Water+Land+Scape), project coordinators exchange insights on the necessary preconditions for forming and managing coalitions in the process towards resilient sponge landscapes.
Tuesday March 31
CLOSING EVENT – A new practice working on implementing the Sponge Landscapes
09:30 – 18:00
After four months of diving into Sponge Landscapes, we conclude with a next phase. The insights shared in the open workroom are brought together in a Cahier, serving a practice in the making. By the closing event, we will have a better understanding of how to comprehend our sponge landscapes, shape their transformation, build them together, and make them collectively more resilient!
Speakers for the Sponge Talks will be announced soon, and dates are to be confirmed. The opening and closing events will be held in English. For the other sessions, participants are welcome to use their preferred language, depending on who is present.
PARTNERS
The open workroom SPONGE LANDSCAPES is an initiative of Architecture Workroom Brussels, with the support of the Flemish Government, Department of Culture. The Call for Projects & Objects was launched in partnership with the International Water Management Institute, the Global Commission on the Economics of Water and UHasselt's REWORLDING doctoral network.
Expressing our gratitude to the quality committee for their valuable contributions and sharp eye in de development of the exhibition and the programme: Henk Ovink (Chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, International Water Management Institute), Sarah Garré (Flemish Institute for Agricultural, Fisheries and Food Research), David Verhoestraete (CLUSTER landschap & stedenbouw), Patrick Willems (KU Leuven), Joep Fourneau (Regionaal Landschap Haspengouw & Voeren), Griet Celen (Flemish Land Agency) and Ine Soenen (Province of West-Flanders).
Would you like to become a partner, contribute to the open workroom programme or request a guided tour? Contact us: openworkoom [at] architectureworkroom.eu.