Learn about how urban design can enable resilient Southeast Asian cities, with Herbert Dreiseitl
00:00:04:06 – 00:00:32:12
Joshua VARGAS
Welcome to the first full episode of URBANovation, a podcast on innovative ideas for emerging cities in Asia. In this episode, we will dive into nature based solutions, or ways of designing urban environments inspired by and in support of natural ecosystems. Our guest is Herbert Dreiseitl, a renowned landscape architect who is one of the pioneers of sponge parks in Europe and Asia.
00:00:32:14 – 00:00:47:21
Joshua VARGAS
We will learn from him about what it means to design with water; how to design for the future by looking at the past; and how to make our cities resilient in an ever changing world. This is URBANovation.
00:00:47:23 – 00:01:03:03
Joshua VARGAS
00:01:03:05 – 00:01:36:22
Joshua VARGAS
Welcome again to URBANovation. I am Joshua Vargas, an urban science researcher from the Philippines, and I am proud to present URBANovation alongside my co-host Dao Nguyen from Vietnam. In this episode, we are going to uncover urban nature-based solutions. We will specifically learn from the experience of renowned landscape architect Herbert Dreiseitl. Herbert founded the award winning practice Atelier Dreiseitl, which designed many groundbreaking projects, notably the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park in Singapore.
00:01:36:24 – 00:02:00:21
Joshua VARGAS
He now continues his work as a consultant under Dreiseitl Consulting, and is also a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore. We are honoured to have him with us. Now, Dao himself has been working on urban nature-based solutions, but more from the policy side. Before we dive into our conversation with Prof. Herbert, I wanted to ask, Dao, if you could give our audience a brief overview.
00:02:00:23 – 00:02:03:21
Joshua VARGAS
What are urban nature based solutions?
00:02:03:23 – 00:02:34:17
Dao NGUYEN
To be honest, there are different definitions from international organizations, scholars in the field. But for me, urban nature-based solutions can be simply understood as solutions that are inspired and supported by nature, which are cost effective and at the same time can provide environmental, social and economic benefits and have been resilient for the cities in general. Urban-nature based solutions aim to bring nature and nature processes into cities and landscape.
00:02:34:19 – 00:03:04:21
Dao NGUYEN
This is a definition that several European Union agencies officially use as well for their work. And since I first encountered this concept in Europe, so that is how I understand the concept of urban nature based solution. Another important point to remember is that this is actually an evolving concept. From the early 2000s, city-makers only focused on solving agricultural land and also water use management problems.
00:03:04:22 – 00:03:46:14
Dao NGUYEN
But only ten years later, they realized that urban nature-based solutions can be conceptualised as an approach to address climate change and know now to also incorporate the social challenges into the framework. I think it will continue to be evolved and developed in the future as we encounter new urban challenges and even urban crises as well. Actually, I just mentioned that urban nature based solutions should be cost effective, but in practice many solutions are pretty costly and it requires a high level of engagement from various stakeholders in the cities, such as parks or forests or street trees, constructed wetlands as well, or river restoration.
00:03:46:16 – 00:04:12:19
Dao NGUYEN
But some types of urban nature-based solutions are really, really easy and cheap to create, such as green indoor areas, green and green groups, or community garden. Particularly in my country, urban nature-based solution is still a new concept. But architects and city makers and urban planners, as well are quickly catching up with it and implement several urban nature based solutions across different Vietnamese cities.
00:04:12:21 – 00:04:41:02
Dao NGUYEN
Last year, when I work on a project of Asia-Europe Foundation and the EU called Urban Nature Atlas, where we have collected more than 1000 inspiring nature-based solutions from European, South Asia and South Asian cities, I focused more on reporting the urban, nature based solution in my country, and one of the famous urban nature based solution is the work from Vo Trong Nghia, who is a leading architect
00:04:41:02 – 00:05:12:12
Dao NGUYEN
applying the concept of urban nature-based solutions into the residential and also office in apartment and house, mostly in high achieving city. His office, also the most famous work of him so far, is the Urban Farming Office, a concrete framed structure covered in a vertical firm of vegetable, fruits and herbs. It aims to promote production of seafood while reintroducing green space to the city, with the facade covered by fruits and vegetables.
00:05:12:14 – 00:05:41:17
Dao NGUYEN
Furthermore, the project also seeks to address the absence of green space that contributes to a number of socio economic issues in Ho Chi Minh City, including air pollution, flooding, and the heat island effect. And even though I can go on and on with different interesting examples and types of urban nature-based solutions, our main focus today is blue infrastructure, the water component in urban natur-based solutions,
00:05:41:22 – 00:06:09:11
Dao NGUYEN
because we have a distinguished speaker here with us, Herbert. Herbert is most famous for his distinctive and innovative approach to landscape design, centered around water. Instead of fighting against water or seeing water as a competitor or rival. his projects use natural techniques like bioswales or mangroves to absorb flooding. This can be seen in the case of Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park
00:06:09:11 – 00:06:15:19
Dao NGUYEN
that we will discuss shortly. Welcome, Herbert.
00:06:15:21 – 00:06:25:24
Joshua VARGAS
We are here in Singapore with Herbert Dreiseitl, a renowned landscape architect, urban designer, water artist and interdisciplinary urban planner. Herbert, it’s great to meet you.
00:06:26:01 – 00:06:32:12
Herbert DREISEITL
Thank you so much for having me here on board, and I’m happy to be invited for your interview.
00:06:32:14 – 00:06:45:23
Joshua VARGAS
I am Joshua, one of your regular hosts also here in Singapore, with Herbert. Calling in is Dao Nguyen in Vietnam, currently based in Beijing, China. And also here with us is one of our observation team members, Dunya Gurses.
00:06:46:00 – 00:06:51:23
Dunya GURSES
Hi everyone. It’s great to be here and a part of this conversation. I’m looking forward to the topics that will come up.
00:06:52:03 – 00:07:22:07
Joshua VARGAS
We were really excited to have you here with us on URBANovation, our podcast on innovative approaches for urban issues in emerging cities in Asia. Really, this is something that is very important for many cities in the region. Water is indeed a very important part of the environment of East and Southeast Asia. Some time ago, you had an interview with Citygreen, that was the magazine of Singapore’s National Parks Board, and you had a number of fascinating insights.
00:07:22:09 – 00:07:31:03
Joshua VARGAS
You said that water is the most important and critical topic for urban life and urban society. Could you elaborate a bit more? What did you mean by that?
00:07:31:05 – 00:07:57:15
Herbert DREISEITL
Yeah. You know, I mean, especially here in Asia, but all around the world, basically water is the most critical element if it comes to life. Water is such a fragile thing. You know, I mean, it’s very interesting if you look at the total globe, how much surface it looks blue. But if we would suck out all the water, it is just a small pearl on a huge globe, which is very, very little and very fragile.
00:07:57:15 – 00:08:25:04
Herbert DREISEITL
And if you see the water we have available for drinking or for even our plants, and our vegetation can actually get, by rain, by humidity in the air. It is even less, it is very, very little, very fragile around the world. And actually now with all the, I would say, stress factors, we have because we get more and more higher temperatures on this planet, we get more and more extreme weather conditions.
00:08:25:04 – 00:09:02:19
Herbert DREISEITL
So, thunderstorms, super floods, long dry periods. We see that the most fragile element is actually water. And water affects directly well-being, on efficiency, on economy, on agriculture, on food systems, even on transportation, everything is actually affected by water. That’s sort of I would say the coin, which is the flip side or the negative aspects when water actually is critical. On the other side, I’m always interested in whatever I do to see also the positive factors.
00:09:02:19 – 00:09:25:18
Herbert DREISEITL
You know, what is the beauty of water? How can water actually enrich our life? And if I think, in Asia, if I think the wisdom we have in this part of the world, you know, about old temples and thinking about, you know, how it actually practices water systems in Asia, I think about this wonderful celebration of water in the urban environment.
00:09:25:20 – 00:09:46:03
Herbert DREISEITL
Think about temple tanks in India. They are the most beautiful creations of humans, actually, in a city, beautiful architecture. So I think there is something we can learn by looking back. We need much more wisdom to look forward to use the opportunities that water has.
00:09:46:05 – 00:10:08:17
Joshua VARGAS
I love the point about the existing wisdom in the region. I recently came back from India for work and I went to Rajasthan and it’s a very water scarce environment and I absolutely love the ancient water infrastructure that was there. The baoris, the stepwells, how the temperature was, quite different from the bottom of a stepwell
00:10:08:17 – 00:10:32:07
Joshua VARGAS
than from the top. And I guess that’s one great example of how water has been at the core of design in Asia, which is a huge region, a huge and diverse region. And that seems to contrast, I think, with some of the thinking about water that has proliferated in modern infrastructure engineering. Not to oversimplify, but there has been a lot of talk about trying to fight against water.
00:10:32:07 – 00:10:57:07
Joshua VARGAS
Indeed, in the face of the polycrisis that we are facing, needing to control it with dams, for example, needing to channel it with drains. And one of the phrases that you often use in your teaching is designing with water, not for or against it. What does it mean to design with water? How does that change the mindset of a designer?
00:10:57:09 – 00:11:14:14
Herbert DREISEITL
Yeah, maybe. I mean, just your example about India is, just take one, I just take the city of Udaipur, you know, if we’ll just look at the structure, what we still have left over from history, about to see how the city is created. It’s created on a hill. It’s a dam. It was all manmade, actually.
00:11:14:15 – 00:11:43:10
Herbert DREISEITL
The entire catchment was completely controlled, but in a very smart way. You know, I would say really, nature based solutions we can find in the history, how our forefathers actually, really or foremothers actually were dealing with water, capturing water, holding it back, having even cleansing systems, having the agriculture and forestry completely adapted to water systems, evaporation, cooling systems, recycling water, all that.
00:11:43:10 – 00:12:04:08
Herbert DREISEITL
What we are talking today, actually, we have already in the historic context. Today, to your question, what do I mean when I talk about nature based solutions is maybe to frame it a bit like this? I mean, let’s take Singapore here where we just are sitting in, having this interview. Singapore had more and more industry coming up, more and more density.
00:12:04:08 – 00:12:33:05
Herbert DREISEITL
So space was getting short and by that we started to come up with pollution problems. And then engineers, often from Great Britain or European, thinking about, ‘get rid of water as quick as possible because it’s a problem, it’s polluted, it brings lots of diseases.’ And at that time, it was absolutely clear that you had to manage it and to bring water in monsoon rains out very quick and bring it into the ocean.
00:12:33:07 – 00:12:58:14
Herbert DREISEITL
That created a kind of mechanic engineering where we only look at the material of water to get it out as quick as possible. And that is not a nature-based solution. That is just the opposite. It’s actually grayinfrastructure. It is mechanic. It’s using only the hydrology to get rid of the water in a straight line. And today we know that can’t solve certain things.
00:12:58:14 – 00:13:27:01
Herbert DREISEITL
We know that with our drainage systems, their capacity is limited and they are too small today, often in many cities around the world. And what nature based solutions is, is just doing the opposite is thinking more like natural environments are working like it, like a natural forest. If you think about a natural forest, if you have rain, most of the rain actually is captured on a tree, even on the surface, on leaves, on the ground, it percolates.
00:13:27:01 – 00:13:56:06
Herbert DREISEITL
It goes very slowly. Finally down, a lot of the water is evaporating, goes back into the atmosphere. By doing so, we have actually many side effects, positive side effects like it’s cooling. because evaporation needs energy, so the temperature of the surface is actually going down in order to evaporate water. And if you go in a forest, like in a city, even if you go to a park, you can feel immediately there is a much cooler air.
00:13:56:08 – 00:14:23:07
Herbert DREISEITL
The rainfall is actually captured like a sponge. So it’s held back and it slowly goes out. So in areas in landscapes where we have a healthy forest or even a healthy agriculture, we have much less erosion. We keep the water, we have better control of temperatures. We don’t have super extreme and dry weather conditions, we have less dust problems and so on.
00:14:23:10 – 00:14:48:09
Herbert DREISEITL
And we have, of course, an enormous increase of life or biodiversity, biodiversity is very much depending on the resource of water. So all these things are positive side effects to nature-based solutions. So nature-based solutions means basically how is nature working. And can we bring some of this intelligence of nature by studying it and transform it to a kind of urban environment?
00:14:48:11 – 00:15:13:13
Herbert DREISEITL
And can we create a kind of, I would say, manmade nature, which is not a direct copy, but it is actually using the principles and the intelligence, how natural environments, systems work. Can we bring that into cities, and can we actually be smart enough to come up with solutions in small scales, but also in large scales, but also very much decentralised?
00:15:13:13 – 00:15:34:21
Herbert DREISEITL
And that’s an interesting question, because you cannot transform it in one quick fix. Yeah. It is actually like a kind of breathing system, like a network in an entire city, which you have to implement. And I think we are just at the beginning of how to understand this. And I think there are some cities. Like, Singapore is a good example with the ABC water guidelines.
00:15:34:23 – 00:16:06:17
Herbert DREISEITL
We have started almost 20 years now ago with very intelligent leaders here, very good leadership in the city, but we also find it in European cities and American cities. I think in general, this is a global trend. Just last week, we announced the Global Commission on the Economics on Water, and Henk Ovink, who is actually a very interesting person from the Netherlands, who actually was the Principal of Rebuild by Design after Superstorm Sandy.
00:16:06:18 – 00:16:21:08
Herbert DREISEITL
And in New York City, such people are really on the cutting edge. And I’m trying always to help these kind of movements around the world that we have a totally different approach and it all goes direction, more nature based solutions.
00:16:21:08 – 00:16:22:06
Joshua VARGAS
Dao, anything to add?
00:16:22:08 – 00:16:56:12
Dao NGUYEN
Yeah, I have one point regarding designing with water because I… so my background, I do a lot of urban study in architecture in China and Vietnam as well. And when we talk about water, the architects, and also urban experts here, often link it with the term feng shui. Basically this mean like, wind and water. So it’s kind of like Chinese geomancy, in which they try to evaluate yin and yang, also the five different elements of nature and that it’s really, really important for the ancient Chinese architecture to design based on the nature.
00:16:56:14 – 00:17:21:20
Dao NGUYEN
But I think up to the reform and industrialization in China, they started to spring away from the nature based thinking and also like elements, just because they want to catch up with the Western industrialization. But in the last 10-15 years, architects in China started to adopt urban nature-based solution and urban elements in their design again. So that’s why I do think that’s a good point,
00:17:21:20 – 00:17:28:12
Dao NGUYEN
regarding designing with water as treating water as an element as important as humans. It’s really important as well.
00:17:28:14 – 00:17:48:00
Herbert DREISEITL
Maybe we could, we could talk a bit about what is, very special here in Asia, before we go to cities, what is actually special here on nature? Because I think that’s something it could be like a driver or starting point beside that, that we have a lot of wisdom, that a lot of knowledge in religion and in philosophical questions.
00:17:48:00 – 00:18:15:00
Herbert DREISEITL
And so in very interesting traditions in the Chinese philosophy, like, water is an extremely interesting element. We can actually just look at landscapes here. I mean, what is very special, what is always fascinating here is that you have a lot of interaction between ocean and land, for example. I mean, we have especially in Southeast Asia, we have lots of islands, we have lots of areas with coastlines.
00:18:15:02 – 00:18:48:03
Herbert DREISEITL
We have lots of changing forms of landscape which are extremely fragile. So we have, for example, the interaction of, estuaries or way of brackish water between saltwater and freshwater. We have these transition zones where suddenly plant lives and animals are extremely rich. It’s the areas where we have different types of mangroves. You know, the mangrove structures we have on coastlines in many, many areas here in Asia is extremely rich.
00:18:48:03 – 00:19:14:20
Herbert DREISEITL
And we still don’t understand actually how such systems actually work in a way that they protect land and that they create a kind of resilient edge between water and land. And that that is actually what I find fascinating. And there is no other part in the world which has such enormous rich coastlines with vegetation, with mangroves. And we could do much work on that.
00:19:14:20 – 00:19:40:07
Herbert DREISEITL
I think some countries are working on this. They do research, they try to bring it up, even for avoiding, for example, Superstorms, or if you have, tsunami waves or sea level rise. So that kind of nature-based solutions with vegetation is extremely interesting. What we can learn. That’s how the nature actually is. A starting point for nature based solutions.
00:19:40:09 – 00:20:16:19
Herbert DREISEITL
Then the other thing is about sedimentation and erosion of rivers. So we have enormous interesting river systems which are bringing actually sand and clay and substance into the shoreline of the ocean, very rich with nutrients and with phosphorus, creating habitat for enormous biodiversity. And also finally, we have river systems when we go a little bit back upstream, which are most dynamic if we think about lakes, if we go to Vietnam or other places, we have extremely interesting river systems.
00:20:16:19 – 00:20:44:22
Herbert DREISEITL
And if we go even higher, then we have, still transition going on, erosion and sedimentation of big rivers. We can learn that we need to be adaptable to adapt our systems to change process. This is something I find always fascinating. I call it fluid thinking. It’s teaching us to come up with a different kind of mindset. Before, I would say in the tradition, we were thinking, we build something, Bang.
00:20:45:01 – 00:21:03:08
Herbert DREISEITL
That’s it. It will stay and will stay for generations. But now and today we know with the materials we have, with the methods we have, the buildings last, like in this city here where we have the interview. 30 years, 40 years, 50 years is maximum and then the building is torn down. Then we come up with the next building.
00:21:03:10 – 00:21:25:12
Herbert DREISEITL
And today we think about reconstruction of buildings. We think about recycling of material. We think about closing loops of resilient materials. That’s what water is showing us all the time. Because a river never stays in the same place. It’s in a permanent flux, in a permanent change process. And I think there’s something we can actually transform to many, many other forms of life.
00:21:25:14 – 00:21:57:06
Herbert DREISEITL
And what I see, we have to learn to understand more about that. Our engineering approach has to be more process-oriented then product-oriented. You know, it’s more the process which we actually create and come up with. And therefore I think what Asia could actually do is, and what we could do much more here and also give some examples to the world, is actually that we are more coming up with experiments, with trying out new things, testing things out.
00:21:57:12 – 00:22:27:04
Herbert DREISEITL
And a big danger is that we are too quickly too bureaucratic. But when I think about, you know, Singapore, for example, how we started here with the ABC Water Programme, with lots of ideas, how to implement new things. It was always, in the beginning, something like, we did try out, we did test out and try to experiment. And so fluid thinking started to help us to also develop our imagination about the future.
00:22:27:06 – 00:22:48:18
Herbert DREISEITL
And of course we need regulations. We also need very good mathematics. We need all the technical equipments we have today, but we have to go beyond that. We have to learn how living systems work. If we don’t learn this as humans, we will come to an end because we will only know how to work with materials to make everything fixed.
00:22:48:23 – 00:22:56:06
Herbert DREISEITL
But we are not actually in the process of re-creating things. And that’s very much what water is always doing.
00:22:56:08 – 00:23:15:24
Joshua VARGAS
For the benefit of our audience, the ABC Water Guidelines, Active, Beautiful Clean Waters, is a national initiative started in, I think, 2006 by the Singapore government to have a whole of nation strategy for how to design infrastructure with and around the water, and Herbert was involved, from I think the very beginning.
00:23:15:24 – 00:23:36:21
Herbert DREISEITL
Yeah, right, we did we did actually the first guidelines and then several engagemens. But you know, Joshua, let me explain a bit how this actually came about, because Singapore is a very fragile city and country, because it’s an island, there is no hinterland. There’s nothing where you can actually say, okay, I have a lot of water, which I can get from here.
00:23:36:23 – 00:23:58:15
Herbert DREISEITL
So Singapore has basically they call it the four different water tapes. One of that is desalination and the other one is actually recycling water, it’s called NEWater here. But a big part still is a pipeline getting water from the neighbors, from Malaysia. The last one is actually talking about rainwater. Well, rainwater is the water we have always at the beginning.
00:23:58:15 – 00:24:22:23
Herbert DREISEITL
Right. It’s the first- the first thing is rain. And before the ABC water guidelines, most of this water was just drained out into the ocean. So all that what was coming down on the island was not captured. And then the Public Utilities Board, which is actually the agency here for water, responsible for wastewater, for freshwater, everything connected to water…
00:24:23:00 – 00:24:46:03
Herbert DREISEITL
There was a very interesting process. And actually also I think a very good leadership by Professor Khoo, and he was the CEO at that time. Coming up with the idea, what can we do? Can we actually use the catchment of the city as a source to collect water? So they had an eastern and western and central catchment, and I was actually working in the team for the central catchment.
00:24:46:05 – 00:25:09:21
Herbert DREISEITL
And then of course, it was a lot of engineers, and the engineers said, okay, we need just huge concrete tanks and pipes and so on. I said, no, no, no, we have to work on the surface. We have to have, you know, nature based solutions starting from the rooftop. It actually goes on. It’s on buildings, it’s on terraces, it’s on the streets, is on the little green corridors
00:25:09:24 – 00:25:36:09
Herbert DREISEITL
we have, it’s pocket parks, everywhere where we can collect water and treat it. So we do two things. We collect water, to recycle and to reuse the rainwater. So in Singapore now we have about 18, 19, almost 20 reservoirs and more are coming up. And the second is that we want also to clean it. So we should clean it not at the end of the pipe or of the system,
00:25:36:09 – 00:26:02:12
Herbert DREISEITL
we should clean it already in the beginning when it gets to the surface. So what can we do? Rooftops, which are green bioswales, rain gardens. And then we started actually with first pilot projects. These ABC water guidelines was also very interesting because A stands for active, B for beautiful and C for clean. You know, usually you would think the other way around.
00:26:02:12 – 00:26:27:04
Herbert DREISEITL
First we have to clean it. And no. Singapore said, it was very smart, it’s that it has to do something with people. It’s activity, it’s a resource which actually should belong to everyone. It’s not a private thing. It’s not something for a rich company or so. It’s a common good. That’s at least the meaning here. And the political agenda here in Singapore, which I think is right and is very, very good.
00:26:27:06 – 00:26:53:00
Herbert DREISEITL
So what can we do to activate the connection to people, opening our reservoirs, making the water catchment systems available, showing how systems work. School kids already should know why it is important to take care of the surface, not to litter it, because this will be basically eventually your drinking water. You drink, every drop actually will be coming back to you.
00:26:53:05 – 00:27:14:08
Herbert DREISEITL
So you know. it needs some kind of education and knowledge of that. And that is actually the active side. And the B is also very, very interesting because if something is beautiful, you care. If something is ugly, you don’t mind, you know, I mean, there’s a direct connection we call biophilia effect, psychological effect about the environment.
00:27:14:10 – 00:27:34:12
Herbert DREISEITL
And that’s why, you know, nature based solutions are much more than just treating water. It’s actually that we reconnect to the environment. You feel directly connected with your spirit and with your soul. Do you have the feeling that okay, I belong to that. It’s not isolated. I’m part of it. And that’s actually the B and C. Of course it has also to be cleaned by that.
00:27:34:17 – 00:27:54:17
Herbert DREISEITL
And that’s how we started the ABC water guidelines. And we are still on a journey. We are not at the end. I think the ABC was a very good start, and it is a transition which still now is an ongoing transition because it needs education, it needs systems. But the ABC actually is now implemented here as a rule.
00:27:54:18 – 00:28:10:00
Herbert DREISEITL
So everyone who is planning in Singapore has to have, every office must have someone who is licensed to be an expert on the ABC. Yeah. And we have lots of people who are now using this. That’s a real success story.
00:28:10:02 – 00:28:30:01
Dunya GURSES
So I want to ask, so this is like some, like, 20 years ago, right? Yeah. So when you came here from Europe, you didn’t actually have much experience in this region, working with people in the streets and working with the mindset. And the Singapore context is really unique. But what were some of your initial thoughts of being like, “oh, this is really interesting to me,
00:28:30:01 – 00:28:34:05
Dunya GURSES
I had never seen this before in my career before,” or like, things like that.
00:28:34:07 – 00:28:56:21
Herbert DREISEITL
Yeah. You know, when I came here, it was for me. It was first, completely shocking. It was almost a surprise, you know, how things work here. And also for me, it was totally clear. I have to be very humbling or very careful not to come as someone from Germany who knows all the engineering and comes here and tells people how to do it.
00:28:56:23 – 00:29:23:09
Herbert DREISEITL
No, no, no, no, that doesn’t work like that. Because I have done some bigger projects already, so I was not a beginner. I did Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, I did the World Exhibition 2000 in Hanover, I did projects in America, I did lots of participation and involvement of citizens, which is a very important part. So with this kind of rucksack of knowledge, I actually also came here, but I, I left it beside, I said I first really want to dive in here into the culture.
00:29:23:15 – 00:29:44:08
Herbert DREISEITL
So what I did, we decided to say, ‘you know, it’s a good concept, but it needs a reality check.’ So we need to implement it in a way that we have pilot projects and we need, good examples to make a change. And one of the first examples, we were just looking around, we had about ten different options.
00:29:44:08 – 00:30:05:01
Herbert DREISEITL
I picked the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio park as a very interesting part of this island was the Kallang River. And I said, this might be a very good way. And the way how I did do the first is just answering your question. What I did, I basically brought a team from Germany and mix it together with people from here.
00:30:05:01 – 00:30:33:01
Herbert DREISEITL
So we had a joint group, and we were having a workshop for one week, actually in a shed without any air conditioning, in the park. And what was interesting, we had heavy rain showers. We had seen how people behave. We have seen how badly it was drained. We have seen how the school kids were going from one side to the other, people in the umbrella and walking through rain and mud and all this.
00:30:33:03 – 00:30:56:07
Herbert DREISEITL
And we have seen how straight this line was and how little actually water was treated and how poor it was, and how there was no fish, nothing. No animals, no vegetation connected to water. It was just seen as ugly stuff needs to be, transported from A to B as quick as possible. So all this experience brought us, up to come up with.
00:30:56:07 – 00:31:21:07
Herbert DREISEITL
How could it be different? So we made sketches, drawings, perspectives and at the end of this week, I could present this result of this workshop to actually the two CEOs from Singapore’s authorities. One was the Public Utilities Board, the water bureau here in Singapore, and the other was the green park bureau. It’s called here NParks, National Parks Board in Singapore.
00:31:21:09 – 00:31:47:00
Herbert DREISEITL
So at that time, both CEOs were listening to my presentation, and then they said, that’s really interesting, because, as I said, when you want to do something good with water, then you always have to do more because the water is always connected. Water is connected to green, water is connected to air. Water is connected to the topography, what is connected even to buildings.
00:31:47:02 – 00:32:19:00
Herbert DREISEITL
So what is connected? Even questions about traffic and about space. All is actually somehow connected with the water question. So what about if we bring different disciplines and different budgets together? Park restoration, some traffic solutions, walkways and recreating the water course. And of course, at that time they had a budget just to use new concrete and to make this concrete canal a little bit bigger, but again, making big concrete.
00:32:19:00 – 00:32:49:24
Herbert DREISEITL
And they had some budget for the park restoration. And then I said, okay, let’s be more smart. Bring the park budget and the canal budget restoration together. And we do something different. We make a seamless, planning between water and let on and green. So blue and green will be seamless coming together. And let’s work something out of it that was actually the starting point, which came out of this one week workshop on site.
00:32:50:01 – 00:33:16:08
Herbert DREISEITL
And then they told me, well, Herbert, that sounds like a good plan, but if you want to do it, we need you here. You have to commit yourself. You have to open up an office here. And you are personally responsible. We want you to be here and be personally responsible for the project. So if you really believe in it, you have to do it.
00:33:16:08 – 00:33:45:15
Herbert DREISEITL
And there is no one backing you up. Okay. I took a deep breath and I said, yes, I believe that this story will work and it will actually make a big impact. It will also have kind of a starting point for a big, big move going forward. And actually it did because this was a really successful project. Nowadays. I mean, now like ten years later, we have many, many, many projects which are based on vision and local parks principles.
00:33:45:15 – 00:34:05:23
Herbert DREISEITL
So it did open up doors and not even here in Singapore. It actually started to bring up new ideas for Indonesia, for other countries here in Asia. And I think this is a success story, it’s basically something which shows a different kind of thinking. You know, when I see about fluid thinking, it’s basically a mindset question for us.
00:34:05:24 – 00:34:08:14
Herbert DREISEITL
You know, what do we imagine for the future?
00:34:08:16 – 00:34:15:04
Joshua VARGAS
And there we go. That’s the story of how Herbert Dreiseitl came to the Asian region.
00:34:15:05 – 00:34:39:18
Dao NGUYEN
Yeah. Just to build up on the point that you mentioned. So I think in Asia it’s different from Germany or Europe. You just mentioned that water is constant flux. So it has so many benefits. For example, is connected to different elements and infrastructure, and also flexible. But I think you also mentioned that it at the same time also challenges the human desire for like beauty or safety or comfort.
00:34:39:20 – 00:35:11:11
Dao NGUYEN
And then in the context of Southeast Asia, where I think almost like all of the countries are vulnerable to natural disaster, like floods or hurricanes, especially like when I work with policymakers. And then they constantly consider water where they create project, which is to rebuild restoration, and it is impossible to fully control water. So my question is, how can we deal with the uncertain nature of water and kind of find a common ground to design, work and live with it in the context of Southeast Asia or Singapore in particular?
00:35:11:16 – 00:35:39:23
Herbert DREISEITL
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it is very much for Southeast Asia, very relevant. But it’s also actually a question for all around the world, how could we actually prepare ourselves and our cities and our urban structures and also actually agricultural and the open field areas to unexpected disasters, you know, like hurricanes, superstorms and so on? The answer is very much about you have to give water time and space.
00:35:40:00 – 00:36:34:10
Herbert DREISEITL
Space is often… if we get short of space, we squeeze water systems to a very short and very narrow line. And I think the problem is often not in the city itself is also on catchment areas. So everything we can do to have more awareness about retention and detention facilities in the landscape. That needs to be done, and another one is working with risks to be more resilient in our expectations, that we say we cannot make everything absolutely safe so that we don’t get wet feet, but if we come to points that we say maybe some parks or some areas or even some streets, if there is really a super storm or a hurricane or
00:36:34:10 – 00:36:58:22
Herbert DREISEITL
enormous amounts of water, then what’s the worst case scenario? And where would the water go? You know, where do we have corridors where the water actually can be flood areas? You know, how high do our entrance have to be? You know, how do we have to create new buildings which are higher so that everything we build is basically adaptable to possible scenarios of worst case?
00:36:59:01 – 00:37:02:06
Joshua VARGAS
So giving water room to do its thing rather than constraining it.
00:37:02:07 – 00:37:29:21
Herbert DREISEITL
And, and that is actually what we should do much more in the planning. And it needs always discussions and it needs awareness. I mean, we have some good examples. Copenhagen is a good example, the Cloudburst project, which is basically saying if there is a superstorm or an extreme rain event, then we have streets which can be flooded. This will be like a super corridor for water actually to run out of the city or into certain points.
00:37:29:23 – 00:37:43:14
Herbert DREISEITL
So we have to put into our planning that there might be some areas which can be flooded or can have a lot of water, and we have to live with these risks and we have to adapt our lifestyle to that. Yeah.
00:37:43:16 – 00:38:09:01
Joshua VARGAS
Thanks so much, Herbert. Just to pull us to the big picture, it sounds like we’re talking about raising awareness on a micro and macro level, on a micro level, raising awareness that there are these things you can do technically, like bioswales and like mangroves to improve water resilience. But there’s also a macro story, trying to communicate this narrative that a nature based approach is fundamentally better for addressing these problems.
00:38:09:01 – 00:38:44:16
Joshua VARGAS
I think one frustration I face when promoting nature-based solutions is that there’s often a narrative of nature based solutions being attractive because of their aesthetic value, or because they promote livable environments. And that is true. But that’s not the only value add, to use that word, that nature-based solutions have. It’s also able to restore that resilient edge, as you mentioned earlier, that nature has that resilience that we don’t yet adequately understand of nature to adapt to itself rather than to constantly fight against it.
00:38:44:16 – 00:39:08:23
Joshua VARGAS
And it really is trying to restore that kind of adaptiveness that we have lost with our modern engineering paradigm. And I think that’s something that’s very, very important, as you mentioned, for our region, given how extreme weather events are going to be even more common in our region. Just last month, even, UNICEF estimated that nearly 6 million children in Southeast Asia were affected by Typhoon Yagi.
00:39:09:00 – 00:39:18:19
Joshua VARGAS
And that has definitely raised interest in trying to finally put an end to the problem of flooding. But there’s still a lot of chatter about how do we make that happen.
00:39:18:21 – 00:39:40:11
Herbert DREISEITL
You know, because you mentioned the macro level and the macro level. The macro level is actually, we have very, very little awareness about the macro level in the water because what is so interesting is that water is, universal. It’s not one country. It’s not one city. It is completely connected. Today, we know that water actually is traveling around the world.
00:39:40:11 – 00:40:08:11
Herbert DREISEITL
It is traveling by evaporation. Wind is bringing it over. Sometimes some people call it actually flying rivers. So we know that, for example, in Southeast Asia, all the different countries, if it is, the Philippines, if it is, Indonesia, if it is Malaysia, if it is Singapore and Vietnam and so on, they are all completely depending on each other and they are completely connected by these flying water streams.
00:40:08:13 – 00:40:46:05
Herbert DREISEITL
We know that the water connections around the world are not having any borders. There is no political way of saying, you know, I’m owning this. It is actually completely a network. So we have somehow to learn to think about this global and macro level on what is stories, and coordinate our actions also much more. And that’s why I think the United Nations is in the position about how to think also different about the economy, because, you know, we influence the water body in the way what we eat, we influence the way how agriculture is going to be.
00:40:46:11 – 00:41:07:09
Herbert DREISEITL
We influence it even in the way how much meat we eat, how much vegetables we eat, we influence the water structure on the global level, on the macro level, by every action. If we go in a supermarket and buy something, and that’s really that’s really in the consequence, you know, something we are just starting to see this point.
00:41:07:11 – 00:41:39:18
Herbert DREISEITL
People often think we are fantastic and good here, for example, in Singapore. But in reality our lifestyle here depends on taking crucial water from other places which need to use this water, to fulfill our lifestyle for our products. And that’s also the same in Europe. That’s the same even in my home country, in Switzerland and Germany. So we are much more depending on each other and we have to find much better ways to think on this macro level.
00:41:39:20 – 00:42:00:04
Joshua VARGAS
Going back to when Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park was being incubated, back before people had a growing awareness of nature based solutions, what was it like trying to achieve that mindset change? How do you communicate the necessity of this? How do you achieve acceptance from people who may be skeptical?
00:42:00:06 – 00:42:27:07
Herbert DREISEITL
That is very interesting. People who grow up in a city, very often in urban contexts, in Asian countries, that people are so much living inside air conditioned systems a whole week, probably no one is going almost out. We go to the MRT station and take the train and go from here to here, and then we are in air conditioned offices at home, everything as well, so that kids who grow up have no idea how to touch us.
00:42:27:07 – 00:42:48:12
Herbert DREISEITL
They think it’s dangerous. How to take a little drop. There might be a mosquito in, or a little dragonfly while no stay away or frog even can be dangerous, you know, so there is a kind of bio phobia effect. We have the biophilia and we have the biophobia. Biophobia is actually being scared of that.
00:42:48:14 – 00:43:06:20
Herbert DREISEITL
And that is actually a real big problem. I experienced also in Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park. And a lot of people said, why do you want to open the water? Why do you want to get as close to water? We are scared about it. Let’s build a fence. And I had to say no, please. It’s just the opposite.
00:43:06:20 – 00:43:30:02
Herbert DREISEITL
We need this kind of new experience to get close to the water. And so Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park was also, in this aspect, a big change of building trust. Seeing that it is not dangerous. You can walk to water. We have even stepping stones where you can go over when there’s a lot of rain. The stepping stones will be flooded so you cannot cross.
00:43:30:04 – 00:43:53:04
Herbert DREISEITL
There’s little signs if there’s even more water coming there, or signboards. And there is also signals where people get a warning and this works very well. So we use this system actually now for new parks – a new one just opened up, it has the same system. So it was a learning process how to overcome fear and how to start to reconnect.
00:43:53:08 – 00:44:11:00
Herbert DREISEITL
And you know what’s interesting? If you talk to people who live there, I know a lot of people because I was always interested. I was very interested to have some friends in the area, you know, some of the buildings around. I often see them when I go there, I just ask them, how is it? And they absolutely love it.
00:44:11:00 – 00:44:34:06
Herbert DREISEITL
They say, you know, it’s such a pleasure. Now, before I had no connection to it. It was just a concrete canal, two fences. I could look at it. It was ugly. And then that’s it. Now I love to go with my grandchild on weekends or in the evening to see the fish, to see, you know, what’s there. Sometimes we see the fish, otters.
00:44:34:08 – 00:44:56:12
Herbert DREISEITL
We see a lot of birds coming back. We have enormous biodiversity increase. We have lots of photo shooting clubs who come there and make beautiful shots of rare birds. So there is a complete change. And I think that’s really so important. It’s actually the activity and the connection is also very important. You have to get people on board for a change process.
00:44:56:14 – 00:45:16:22
Herbert DREISEITL
It’s not just a top down approach, it’s a bottom up approach. You know how our society is appreciating things and on all what we do. Also for the next generation, we cannot do any more top down. We have to get people on board. Singapore is also making big learning steps on that.
00:45:16:24 – 00:45:42:01
Dunya GURSES
Earlier we talked about how, like in a lot of ancient cultures and traditions, it was pretty much at the core of these values to just design with water and live with water. So like, where do you think that disconnect was and is there a way we can get back to that as a society and like in building and our cities, or are we too far ahead in urbanization, globalization, that it’s like we can’t get back to that thinking or like having those values into this?
00:45:42:03 – 00:46:04:19
Herbert DREISEITL
That’s actually a very, very good question, which I probably don’t have a final answer on that, because that’s really a point where I’m still trying to do research and finding out. I think that old wisdom, what we had, for example, in India, India had extremely interesting sustainable systems about keeping water after the monsoon rain holding it back.
00:46:04:19 – 00:46:30:02
Herbert DREISEITL
Would I push this one? I mean, there are many, many around India everywhere, and there still exist a lot of them, but they are actually forgotten. And to your question, what happened? Of course, what happened was very much industrialization, density. Then also our economic thinking, that we think different about values in the old terms. it was not just everything has to be quick,
00:46:30:02 – 00:46:53:18
Herbert DREISEITL
we have to earn a lot of money. In older cultures, there was much more thinking about different values. What is quality of life? What is quality for next generations? What is a long term process? Today we are seeing only ‘I,’ what is for me ‘good,’ and each company wants to make billable hours and so much money as possible,
00:46:53:20 – 00:47:16:01
Herbert DREISEITL
the government tries to squeeze these companies and so it’s getting even worse. They want to make income and we don’t want to pay tax because we want to keep everything for us. And then we see the government going, okay. but we only give so and so much out. And then we get to the very worst scenarios we have often in the Western kind of democratic systems, which are also starting to crumble.
00:47:16:07 – 00:47:43:09
Herbert DREISEITL
So this old wisdom was less and less. And I don’t think to your question that we can actually reverse this process. We were more spiritual, maybe in the past, and now we are more materialistic and we have to go through this process, but we have to find a kind of new spirituality about wisdom, about values. And this whole value discussion has to be more on a question on science, how to include research and science into this.
00:47:43:11 – 00:48:14:01
Herbert DREISEITL
I mean, I’ve been working since 1975 or, 80. I have seen a lot of progress and a lot of change that we start to learn about ecosystems, we learn about ecology, we see that systems are much more complex than we were thinking. So we actually start to overcome this very sort of pragmatic, materialistic point of view. And for me personally, I’m also very much inspired, often by people who try to get over this naturalistic things.
00:48:14:01 – 00:48:34:17
Herbert DREISEITL
I mean, in my culture, for example, I was always interested in the philosophy of good here. You know, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, he was a very interesting guy because he was not only a poet, he was actually starting to think different about nature and about values and his whole approach about change process and about thinking and processes is really fascinating.
00:48:34:19 – 00:49:06:20
Herbert DREISEITL
I’m not, in a way, hopeless for the future. I don’t think we can go back to recycling the old wisdom, but we have to get to a point where we have to overcome this very one sided, materialistic thinking of only to create a lot of money. Because we see even our money system is getting to an end, you know, I mean, if we only think about that water matters if we can sell it to someone, or if we say nature-based solutions, they have to be as cheap as possible.
00:49:06:22 – 00:49:32:08
Herbert DREISEITL
And if we think we cannot make value out of it and we don’t count lifestyle and health higher than having just a big TV at home, then something is wrong – though we see our value system has also start to change slowly and it actually does. It also does. And I have very big hope that the next generation and young people are able to make this kind of change process.
00:49:32:10 – 00:49:52:12
Joshua VARGAS
Thank you for that. I did not expect at first this question to come to culture and values. But, yeah, when I was growing up in the Philippines, I think the are version for the story around the world,. There was a story where a prince was finding for the woman with the most beautiful hands and all the princesses came in with their, like, very clean hands, their very neat hands.
00:49:52:12 – 00:50:19:10
Joshua VARGAS
And in walked a farmer who had soil on her hands, wide callouses on her hands. And he said, she has the most beautiful hands. And I think a lot of the values I was given growing up was about the value of hard work, the value of being part of your community, helping feed each other… And of course, with economic boom, since the 1970s, 80s, we’re now in a state where I’ve heard children say, when you ask them, where do fruits come from?
00:50:19:10 – 00:50:54:06
Joshua VARGAS
They’re going to say, FairPrice (Singaporean supermarket chain). And so that is very right, a lot of it is not just our mindset about the environment or mindset about so-called serious matters as like infrastructure, but even about how we structure our understanding of the world around us and how we arrange our societies accordingly. In addition to built environment projects and consulting, Herbert is also now a lecturer at NUS Cities, that is the Cities Science programme of the National University of Singapore, where he does courses on designing with water.
00:50:54:06 – 00:50:54:19
Joshua VARGAS
Anything else?
00:50:54:21 – 00:51:19:05
Herbert DREISEITL
Yeah, it’s about bringing different disciplines together. I’m teaching on different universities for the last ten years. I was deciding that after I have done so many projects, and I was the CEO of a company with four offices around the world, I was actually saying, okay, I should give it to the next generation. And they do very good. They’re also in a network of a large organisation called the Ramboll Group from Denmark.
00:51:19:07 – 00:51:59:20
Herbert DREISEITL
Now they even have a new name called Henning Larsen. But it doesn’t matter. I would probably even do it today differently, but I wanted to have my impulse not to be depending on me. I wanted to actually to spread this idea bigger. Yeah. And that’s why I’m also now actually teaching. I do research and teaching in different parts of the world, but I love to be here in Singapore because especially here, the new Cities programme – which is new, I’m the first visiting professor here – is trying to bring different disciplines together and it’s very much on water because the professor who started it is actually, Professor Khoo, he’s-
00:51:59:22 – 00:52:00:01
Joshua VARGAS
Khoo Teng Chye?
00:52:00:03 – 00:52:19:14
Herbert DREISEITL
Yeah, Khoo Teng Chye. He’s the one who was actually, at that time, the responsible CEO for public utility board, who started Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park. And he was actually the one who pushed for the ABC water guidelines. So I was working for him for a long, long time already together. And I really respect him very, very much about what he’s doing.
00:52:19:14 – 00:52:48:20
Herbert DREISEITL
He’s also very well respected here in the city. So he has a fantastic good network, also international… NUS Cities, we have, a very, very good global network of interesting people coming here. So we discuss a lot of things and we bring students from different disciplines of the university together to special courses and seminars or studios. So I’m teaching some of these studios, and we have, for example, one especially on water.
00:52:48:20 – 00:53:14:19
Herbert DREISEITL
And it’s not only about technical solutions or about design is about process. It’s about policymaking is about putting yourself in different shoes. For example, how is a mother with two kids seeing water in a city was some kind of interest? What is, actually a park? What means to go out with the children? How can actually they explore or have a joyful afternoon or evening?
00:53:14:19 – 00:53:40:12
Herbert DREISEITL
And how can I get my drinking water? Is my water clean enough? Or can I use it? Or a developer who wants to build, and his workers, what does he need? Or what is a politician doing, or other people, you know… so we actually put the students in different positions to think on, for example, water. How interesting it is that you have to bring different points of view together to find a solution.
00:53:40:14 – 00:53:56:22
Herbert DREISEITL
And that is actually what is really needed. It’s not a one way street. It’s actually something where we come from many, many different roles and many different sides. And we have to find solutions which are like networks. And that’s what we basically train here. And that’s why I’m teaching here.
00:53:56:22 – 00:54:19:08
Joshua VARGAS
And that bringing together of different disciplines is very important, especially in our context, where professional pathways, I think, in urbanism are starting to emerge. And at the Young Urbanists of Southeast Asia (YUSEA), we do believe that many people from the region coming from different industries, different backgrounds, even students and young organisers want to make an impact in their cities.
00:54:19:08 – 00:54:41:04
Joshua VARGAS
And it’s really up to us to create those pathways and create the spaces for people to be engaged, to contribute to building the urban future of the region. As a lecturer at NUS, you no doubt have mentored many youth from Singapore and the region who hope to become the future of their region. What is one piece of advice that you often give to your students?
00:54:41:06 – 00:55:30:07
Herbert DREISEITL
To my students, I tell them very much. Learn and look basically for the basic common sense and principles, which I just try to explain. You know, for example, what is behind the systems of, nature based solutions? What are the basic principles on that? Train your thinking, train your knowledge in a way that you don’t need to look in a guidebook, but that you know, really from your learning experience and your observations, if you are confronted with a new problem, to at least have a kind of sense where the solution might be. The advice I would give, and that is actually what in Asia often is a problem, is that we
00:55:30:07 – 00:56:02:18
Herbert DREISEITL
are too quickly putting everything in rules and being very bureaucratic. So we often overdo in the way of ‘everything has to be written down’ and processes are getting very, very complicated and bureaucratic. And this is- actually, as more advanced as society is like Singapore, more and more we have all kinds of regulations and documents and they kill creativity. And my advice would really be, be careful, next generation.
00:56:02:24 – 00:56:27:16
Herbert DREISEITL
Don’t overdo with all your regulations and all. Look more to educate, really, the common sense because basically the driver to make everything so complicated is fear and is putting responsibility to someone else. No one wants to take any more responsibility because no one wants to take risk, because everyone is starting to point on someone. He did something wrong, she did something wrong.
00:56:27:21 – 00:57:11:15
Herbert DREISEITL
And this is also wrong. I mean, Bishan-Ang Mo Kio would never have been happening if I would not have been able to say ‘yes, I take a risk and I do it and I stand for it.’ I of course, if I would just be afraid, I would not do it. You know, we should be careful, or Asia should be careful, not to be too much overregulated and that people are so much afraid about making mistakes that there is no action anymore, that we only listen to what we are told to do, and we don’t have, way to look at our common sense and our human instincts, which are looking always for the common good and
00:57:11:15 – 00:57:39:21
Herbert DREISEITL
not only for my ego trip. We have to see this as an opportunity. We have to see, okay, we have probably not done right in the past or in the way how we develop things. So this disaster is like almost, it’s hard to say this, but it’s almost like a present to rethink, to say, okay, we cannot go on like this because if we would not have, from outside, a correction, I think mankind would never learn.
00:57:39:23 – 00:57:50:07
Joshua VARGAS
That was excellent. Thank you so much, Herbert. It was a pleasure and honour to have this conversation with you and to learn a lot about fluid thinking and what that might mean in our region’s context. Thank you.
00:57:50:09 – 00:58:06:05
Herbert DREISEITL
Thank you so much for the invitation.
[closing music]
00:58:06:07 – 00:58:20:12
Dao NGUYEN
URBANovation is hosted by the Young Urbanists of Southeast Asia, or YUSEA. To learn more about us, please visit our website at yusea.org. URBANovation is made possible with the support of Bai Xian Asia Institute 2024 Project Award.
Hosts: Joshua Vargas, Dao Nguyen, Dünya Gürses
Research: Dünya Gürses, Joshua Vargas
Post-production: Joshua Vargas
Communications: Joshua Vargas, Dünya Gürses, Dao Nguyen
Music: Joshua Vargas
Special Thanks: Raymond Yong, Darshan Lineswala
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