Restoring the Balance Together

The water balance in the Netherlands has been disrupted in many places. Our water system is designed to drain water away as quickly as possible, while there is too little space to retain and infiltrate it. Artificial management of groundwater and surface water levels, groundwater extraction and a rapidly changing climate are also putting pressure on the water balance. This leads to challenges around water safety, drought, water quality, food production, nature and health.

At the same time, the Dutch water system is complex. Different interests come together, including those of nature, drinking water, industry, agriculture and housing development. As a result, the water challenge can seem to belong to everyone and no one. Many parties are involved, but no one feels fully responsible for the system as a whole.

With this Co/Lab, Heijmans, Dutch Design Foundation and the system partners involved are exploring how we can work together differently on the water challenge.

A healthy water balance requires not only technical solutions, but also collaboration across the stakeholder system. Different parties are involved in water management at different stages and have different interests. The question is how we can look beyond the obstacles in existing collaborations and discover new, workable solutions that are not yet visible.

The Co/Lab also explores how to encourage a sense of ownership among stakeholders, including parties that do not have a direct interest of their own. Rather than immediately looking for solutions, the Co/Lab first focuses on redesigning collaboration around water. By allowing people to experience and engage with the situation, space is created to step outside their comfort zones and explore new forms of collaboration.

Buitenplaats Kraaijenberg in Vught serves as the concrete case study. Heijmans is exploring whether a new neighbourhood can be developed here. The area consists of both higher- and lower-lying land. The challenge is to prevent future flooding in the lower areas while also avoiding drought in the higher areas.

For this Co/Lab, social designer Fides Lapidaire was selected. She explores how new forms of collaboration can contribute to shared ownership and a healthy water balance.

Lapidaire makes complex societal challenges tangible by connecting unexpected perspectives with lived experiences. Within this Co/Lab, she is not only exploring how the water system works, but, more importantly, what happens between people, organisations and interests.

She maps existing collaborations, roles and obstacles, and then works with the parties involved to develop guiding concepts for shared ownership.

The Co/Lab consists of two interconnected phases. In 2026, new forms of collaboration around the water balance challenge are explored and tested. Together with Heijmans and system partners, the Co/Lab examines what works, what motivates different parties and how choices can be made tangible and visible. Based on these insights, guiding concepts are developed to show what collaboration and shared ownership could look like.

In 2027, these concepts and insights will be translated into concrete ways of working, interventions and tools. These resources will support Heijmans employees and partners in their work and collaboration around the water transition, while creating space for new forms of communication, co-creation and shared responsibility.

The Co/Lab therefore does not aim to provide an immediate practical solution to the water challenge. Instead, it focuses first on creating different forms of collaboration, in which people also communicate with one another at a different level. In this way, restoring the water balance does not begin with a single solution, but with a different way of working together.