The Rain is Coming – How climate change adaptation can create better cities
Exhibition
Jan 16 - Apr 6, 2015
The exhibition The Rain is Coming – How climate change adaptation can create better cities in DAC in 2015 showed how rainwater can be managed in urban space through green and blue, recreational solutions. It traced the shift from sewer-based solutions to today’s cloudburst challenges, presenting ways to handle water on the surface while improving urban life and public space.
Water running into our basements has become something that many of us are familiar with. We need to get used to increasingly heavier rainfalls. And we need to adjust our cities accordingly. What is the best way to do that? And in the process of adapting our cities to the climate changes, can we create better cities too? The exhibition The Rain is Coming – How climate change adaptation can create better cities showed us how we can avoid having our basements turned into swimmingpools, and how to create recreational urban spaces that are able to contain the rain water.
The exhibition The Rain is Coming – How climate change adaptation can create better cities took a closer look at how we can make sure our cities are ready for the changed weather of the future. The exhibition highlighted historical backgrounds and the challenges we face today, and it presented us with a number of solutions to handling water in urban landscapes in different ways.
In 19th century Copenhagen, water ran freely in the streets, but since this was highly unhygienic, sewers were built throughout the city. Today, however, the sewers can’t handle it when large amounts of rain fall in a short amount of time. The solution to this problem might be to handle the water on the city surface, in its green and grey recreational spaces where new systems can also be transformed into new recreational cityscapes.
As a community, we need to make big investments in years to come to adapt our cities to climate change. The Rain is Coming – How climate change adaptation can create better cities held the powerful message that when we adapt to climate change, we can make better cities and increase the quality of life in them. Instead of only thinking about expanding our sewer systems, we need to develop new methods, new collaborations and new assets to the city in order to adapt to the new reality of climate change that we already feel the consequences of.
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What was The Rain Is Coming exhibition?
The Rain Is Coming—How climate adaptation creates better cities was an exhibition at the Danish Architecture Center about adapting cities to heavier rain while improving urban spaces.
When did the exhibition take place?
The exhibition ran from 16 Jan to 6 Apr 2015.
What problem did the exhibition address?
It addressed heavy rainfall and issues such as flooded basements and sewer systems that cannot cope during intense rain events.
What kinds of solutions did the exhibition present?
It presented solutions for managing water in urban space in different ways, including handling water on the surface through green and blue recreational areas.
What historical background is mentioned in the exhibition?
It notes that water once ran freely in Copenhagen’s streets in the 1800s, leading to sewers for hygiene, but that today sewers cannot solve the problem during heavy rain.
What should I know if I only read one thing?
The Rain Is Coming (16 Jan–6 Apr 2015) argued that climate adaptation can manage rainwater on the surface and at the same time create better public spaces and urban life.