Dynamic Urban Ground:
Flooding as Urban Ontological Disruption
Contemporary urbanism is built upon an aspiration of control - of land, infrastructure and matter. Yet in moments of flooding, this logic is undone. Water asserts itself non as passive matter but as an acitve agent that reorganizes spatial orders an redefines urban ground. The research develops the theory of the dynamic ground, proposing that the urban ground is not a stable, inert surface but a shifting, relational materiality co-produced by human and nonhuman forces. Through the lens of urban flooding, the project examines how ground and water interact to expose the fragile ontologies of the city, where architecture, infrastructure and environment constantly renegotiate their roles. By tracing these material and political transformations, the research asks how a deeper understanding of the city's dynamic ground can inform new design methodologies and challenge prevailing assumptions about permamence and control. Ultimately, it seeks to reframe water not as a problem to be engineered away but as a co-designer of urban form, revealing new socio-political conditions.
Flooding as Urban Ontological Disruption
Contemporary urbanism is built upon an aspiration of control - of land, infrastructure and matter. Yet in moments of flooding, this logic is undone. Water asserts itself non as passive matter but as an acitve agent that reorganizes spatial orders an redefines urban ground. The research develops the theory of the dynamic ground, proposing that the urban ground is not a stable, inert surface but a shifting, relational materiality co-produced by human and nonhuman forces. Through the lens of urban flooding, the project examines how ground and water interact to expose the fragile ontologies of the city, where architecture, infrastructure and environment constantly renegotiate their roles. By tracing these material and political transformations, the research asks how a deeper understanding of the city's dynamic ground can inform new design methodologies and challenge prevailing assumptions about permamence and control. Ultimately, it seeks to reframe water not as a problem to be engineered away but as a co-designer of urban form, revealing new socio-political conditions.