In short:
Designer: Katinka Versendaal
Client: PWN together with other partners
Lab manager: Kathelijn Voets
Focus area: West-Friesland, in connection with other regions
Question: How can we make what is currently invisible visible, so that people can reconnect with water and nature and take shared responsibility for a healthy living environment?
For this Co/Lab, designer Katinka Versendaal has been selected as the project initiator. In 2026, she will work with those involved to explore how the relationship between water, nature and people can be made visible, tangible and open to discussion. Thereby the West Friesland area provides a concrete starting point for a challenge that is also connected to other regions. The aim is not to come up with solutions straight away, but to create space for new perspectives, questions and conversations about the future of our living environment.
From an abstract challenge to a personal experience
For Katinka, design does not start with a solution, but with gaining a better understanding of a situation. In her work, she explores how complex societal challenges can be brought closer to people by making them tangible and experiential. This is particularly relevant when it comes to drinking water: many people experience water as something they can take for granted, while a complex ecosystem underpins every glass of water we drink.
Katinka sees an opportunity to help people look differently at their relationship with water and the landscape. Not simply by providing information, but by creating experiences that invite a different perspective, (self-)reflection and open conversation. Which stories currently remain out of sight? Which relationships do we fail to see? And what changes when we look not only at human needs, but also from the perspective of water itself and the needs of more-than-human water users? These are some of the questions she wants to explore throughout the project.
Exploring a living system
The first year of the Co/Lab will focus on research, defining the challenge and building connections with both human and more-than-human stakeholders. Katinka will explore the area in and around West Friesland, speaking with residents, experts, designers, policymakers and others involved, while mapping existing initiatives and developments. The area is not treated as a defined case study, but as a place where broader questions about water, nature and the living environment become visible. Her research will look beyond the technical aspects of drinking water to explore the ecological, cultural, historical and social dimensions of the water system.
The insights from this exploration will be brought together in a shared narrative and an exhibition that invites stakeholders to engage with the project. This exploration will also provide the basis for several design questions for designers, helping to shape the next phase of the project in 2027. The aim is not only to develop a better understanding of the system, but also to create new and unexpected collaborations and connections. After all, the future of clean drinking water and healthy natural environments is not a question for one organisation or even one sector, but for everyone who is part of this landscape.
Impact that reaches further
It is precisely the scale of the challenge that appeals to Katinka. Drinking water, nature, agriculture, spatial development and climate are closely interconnected. Changes in one part of the system have consequences for another. She therefore sees design as a way to make underlying connections visible and bring people with different perspectives together around a shared question.
The ambition of Co/Lab Drinkable Nature extends beyond a single area or organisation. Although the research has started in the context of West Friesland, water and nature do not, of course, adhere to geographical boundaries. The challenges that emerge here are therefore connected to other regions and contexts. This is why the project is looking for insights and ways of working that emerge from this specific context, but can also be recognised and applied elsewhere. The project is therefore not only about developing local insights, but also about developing an approach that can contribute to broader conversations about the future of our water system.
During Dutch Design Week 2026, and the partners involved will show where this collective exploration has reached at that point. Not as an endpoint, but as an important milestone and an invitation to join a longer process of learning and designing. Visitors are invited to look, think and engage with a question that affects us all: What if we all wanted to be able to drink from nature again?
