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Auteur: Tracy Metz

Social design with water makes the world better

Geschreven door Tracy Metz op . Gepost in Bijdragen, Boeken, Landschap, Publicaties, Water.

A film, an app, an artwork, a Twitter-campaign, a product: those are just a few examples of social design with water. They can get an issue on the agenda, create a community and launch new products. For the book compiled by Anne van der Zwaag on social design, Looks Good Feels Good Is Good, I wrote the chapter on water. The world is ready for designers who, rather than adding yet another chair to what is already there, devote their time and creativity to solving the world’s (water) problems.

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Nova: Megastorm Aftermath (PBS Documentary)

Geschreven door Tracy Metz op . Gepost in Boeken, Eigen werk, Video, Water.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, PBS – the American Public Broadcasting System – came to the Netherlands to learn about the Dutch approach to water. How should the New York region protect itself from the next Sandy? Thanks to my book ‘Sweet&Salt: Water and the Dutch’ I was one of the people interviewed. I talked about the Dutch attitude to water as a ‘frenemy’. In Europe only the trailer can be viewed: ‘Nova: Megastorm Aftermath’.  

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Sweet&Salt: with the New York Times to the Overdiepsepolder

Geschreven door Tracy Metz op . Gepost in Artikelen, Boeken, Eigen werk, Landschap, Publicaties, Water.

When a cow gives more than 100.000 liters of milk during her lifetime, her owner gets a small silver-colored statuette with a plaque with her name on it. Dairy farmer Nol Hooijmaijers and his wife Wil have had three of these prize animals: Mies 30, Henny 144 and Pietje 60. Their statues take pride of place on the countertop in their brand-new kitchen.

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Architectural Record: the canaries in the global warming-coalmine

Geschreven door Tracy Metz op . Gepost in Artikelen, Boeken, Eigen werk, Landschap, Publicaties, Stad, Water.

The Dutch are the canaries in the global-warming coalmine, writes James Russell in his review of Sweet&Salt: Water and the Dutch in the December print issue of Architectural Record. ‘Sweet&Salt is a profoundly humanistic consideration of the culture of water, with many ideas by designers about how to deal with water’s myriad challenges.’ He describes the book as ”an intensely visual consideration of the history, culture and engineering of water that engages our senses and our emotions – not just our intellect – with its ravishing photography, cartography and art.”...

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Sweet&Salt: Water Is Their Frenemy

Geschreven door Tracy Metz op . Gepost in Artikelen, Boeken, Eigen werk, Landschap, Publicaties, Water.

Sweeet&Salt: Water and the Dutch is ‘a beautiful and important book’, writes Armando Carbonell of the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy in his review of the book for the Loeb Fellowship site. ‘The ever-increasing Dutch reliance on engineering solutions to keep the water at bay does not come without costs, and they go beyond the never-ending building and maintenance of structures. There are increasing conflicts between the sweet and the salt, with serious worries about  fresh water for drinking and agriculture.’ And now comes the ‘hot breath of...

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Designing for water: the sweet & the salt of it

Geschreven door Tracy Metz op . Gepost in Artikelen, Bijdragen, Boeken, Design, Landschap, Publicaties, Stad, Water.

Water is life – and death. As floods and droughts assume Biblical proportions in many areas in the world, the magnitude of the water issues we face is penetrating our awareness and our political and spatial agenda. Nowhere is that clearer than in the Netherlands, where mastery of the water has always been a condition for survival. If there is one element which is crucial to the Low Lands – for its sheer existence, for its landscape, for its identity – then that is water. The Dutch created land by pushing the water out with dikes and keeping it out with pumps. Now, however, the country that...

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‘Sweet&Salt’ presented to the crown prince

Geschreven door Tracy Metz op . Gepost in Boeken, Eigen werk, Events, Landschap, Publicaties, Water.

February 12th, 2012: I present the first copy of the Dutch edition of ‘Zoet&Zout: Water en de Nederlanders’ to crown prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands. The English version, ‘Sweet&Salt: Water and the Dutch’ will appear later this week. The prince also opened the eponymous exhibition in the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, curated by Maartje van den Heuvel.

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