Circular Flanders. Urban landscape design supporting place-based circularity transition.

 This research initiates a transdisciplinary research lab for Flemish circular city transition. The methodological basis was developed and tested in FWO funded PhD research “Circular Economy Transition in Flanders. An Urban Landscape Design Contribution” (‘14-‘18). This research further mobilizes urban landscape design as a medium, bridging related disciplines and expertise, such as quantitative modeling and digital resource data management tools. It adopts place-based forward looking design scenarios approaching circularity as a multi-dimensional paradigm shift. Even though innovations in circular production processes and business models are increasing, enormous knowledge gaps remain on how to realize circular cities. Evidently, a circular city is not simply the sum of circular economies. In practice however, focus on quantitative indicators and technologyreliance so far have only produced urban models ignoring the inherently contradictory nature of cities and transition processes path dependencies. Furthermore such cities bypass circularity’s primary potential resource base: existing land, buildings and societal resources. This research proposes iterative and interactive design in two Flemish cities in circularity transition, to identify stakeholders and existing initiatives, collect site specific knowledge, formulate placebased circularity projects, inspire future visions, facilitate crosssectoral discussions, mobilize stakeholders and define pilot projects.