︎︎︎ Urban Design TUDelft

(curatorial lead)

︎︎︎ Delta Urbanism
︎︎︎ Transitional Territories Studio
︎︎︎ Water4Change Bi-Lateral Programme India-The Netherlands [2019-2025]
︎︎︎ RDD Redesigning Deltas [2021-2023]


Taneha K. Bacchin is an architect, urban designer, researcher, and educator working at the intersection between urban design, landscape architecture, environmental sciences, and humanities. She is Assistant Professor of Urban Design and Research Coordinator Section of Urban Design, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). In her projects and teaching, she investigates the nexus between space, ecology, culture, and politics in the design and planning of critical and highly dynamic landscapes. Her current work focuses on critical spatial practices which are sensitive to site and cultural history (spatial form and materialisation) in contexts defined by increasing environmental fragility, extreme weather events and climate, and resource depletion, with projects in the North Sea, the Arctic, South Africa, Brazil, and India. She is co-leader of the Research Group Delta Urbanism, head of Transitional Territories Graduation Studio and chief-editor of the Journal of Delta Urbanism. Her work has been funded and published internationally and exhibited at the São Paulo Architecture Biennale 2013, the Venice Architecture Biennale 2002 and 2018 (Dutch, Brazilian and Venetian Pavilions), and the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam IABR 2022. For the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale Architettura 2018, she was co-curator of the project ‘The Port and the Fall of Icarus’ part of the extended program of the Dutch Pavilion, ‘Work, Body, Leisure’, curated by Marina Otero Verzier, with the construction of a public installation (pavilion) at Riva dei Sette Martiri in Venice. Her forthcoming book with b-r-u-n-o publisher, titled ‘The North Sea Project’ explores the changing nature (and image) of the sea and its socio-political histories as baseline for future critical spatial practices: The (territory of the) sea as object, subject, image, and narrative.

Current research
She is Principal Investigator and Lead Coordinator of the NWO-DST ‘Water4Change’ (W4C) Research Programme, Cooperation India-The Netherlands (2019-2025): a transdisciplinary programme by eleven knowledge institutions focusing on water sensitive and cultural situated design for secondary cities in India. W4C is a flagship programme of the govermental Cooperation India-The Netherlands and part of ‘Water for Impact’ – projects under ‘actionable science’ by TU Delft Global Initiative. For TU Delft. Theme leader ‘Design, Planning and Governance of the Built Environment’ for the TU Delft – Brazil Interdisciplinary Exchange Program on Water, Energy and the Built Environment (TU Delft Global Engagement). Under the framework of Delta Urbanism Interdisciplinary Research Programme. Founding/ core-member of ‘Redesigning Deltas’ (RDD), flagship movement of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft. For RDD, she was the scientific coordinator and lead organiser of the International Delta Conference ‘Redesigning Deltas’. Founder of international research exchange initiatives (long-term research forum and seminar series) with leading scholars in landscape architecture and urban design in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), AHO Oslo School of Architecture (AHO), Politecnico di Milano (Polimi), and the Agricultural University of Iceland (AUI), focusing on the discourse and critic on ‘The New Urban Water Project’ and ‘Coastal Landscapes—Northern Europe, Arctic Grounds’.

Teaching and dissemination
She is supervisor of PhD, post-MSc and MSc graduation projects of which five Archiprix Finalists and one Honorable Mention and Best Graduate 2020 of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft. Guest lecturer, speaker, and design critic at Universities and Schools of Architecture internationally. Joint design studios with AA Architectural Association School of Architecture, UK (2020-2022); Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of São Paulo, Brazil (2014-2018 / 2021-); Dalhouise University, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Canada (2017-2020); and UC Berkeley, USA (2016-2017). As Research Leader of Delta Urbanism and Head of Transitional Territories Graduation Studio she curated and organised 14 design exhibitions of graduation studio work (students from the MSc tracks Urbanism, Architecture, Landscape Architecture) (2017-ongoing), a compendium exhibition of Delta Urbanism (2020), 6 transdisciplinary lecture series (2017-ongoing), 7 international symposia ‘Territory as a Project’ (2017-ongoing) / ‘Constructed Natures’ (2019). She organised and fully curated 2 international conferences: ‘Delta Urbanism: Delta Design in Times of Climate Crisis’ conference (2020) at TU Delft and ‘Redesigning Deltas Conference. Design for transformative change: evidence, agency, cross-disciplinary knowledge’ at the Kunsthall Rotterdam and TU Delft (2022) with national news coverage and impact.

Together with Michaela Büsse, she curated the PhD International Seminars of Delta Urbanism ‘Lines of Flight’ (2021 / 2022). In parthership with the University of Sao Paulo, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU-USP), She curated and organised 4 international seminar at FAU-USP (2014-2018). In 2011, she curated and organised an international winter school and seminar ‘Adaptive Waterscapes: Designing Water Resilient Urban Environments’ at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Education, in partnership with 10 universities between South-America (Brazil and Chile), South-Africa, Europe and UK.