A Design Perspective of Hidden Flood Risks

Across Europe, urban waterscapes have been reshaped through centuries of intervention. Rivers have been confined, redirected and at times removed from the surface altogether. Under present climatic pressure, engineered interventions are reaching their limits. Flooding is no longer only the consequence of an external event. It also arises from the mismatch between rainfall intensity, sealed ground surfaces, constrained river corridors and infrastructure systems designed for different conditions.

The research is developed through the Milan case study, where the layered history of waterways and urban growth makes today’s risks legible. From this lens, the booklet argues for a clear architectural role once water is treated as a civic and spatial condition. Flooding unfolds inside the built environment, along the thresholds, surfaces, and ground planes we design and these are the spaces where rainwater can be captured, slowed, stored, and redirected before it overwhelms the sewer system.

There is the need to shape flood risk management decisions into spatial strategies that can be designed, delivered and maintained. This contribution is intended as a small step toward clarifying how the profession can contribute, at a time when design is still too often positioned outside the decisions that shape flood risk and its consequences.