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UN Commitments

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UN Commitments

Archipelago Agenda: While they are surrounded by water, urban archipelagos ironically share issues of water scarcity, limited resource/water independence from mainland counterparts and issues of water access and/or safety. They are the canary in the coal mine of the coming decades of permanent climate change; they are hit first and hardest. They must swiftly move beyond mitigation. They need to adapt, borrow lessons learned from one another and develop scalable, rapid, nature-based solutions for living with and harvesting multiple types of water. As a network of centers, we pledge to work across institutions, between architecture, engineering, science, law and business, with local community partners and with industry partners to develop realizable, nature-based solutions in the coming five years. We will add one to two urban archipelagos a year to expand our research beyond Singapore and New York City. This will include (by 2024) the Chiloe and Patagonian Archipelagos in Chile and the Daman/Diu Islands in the Western coast of India, launching partnership with Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD) and Anant National University (ANU) respectively. Archipelagos provide unique insight into the climate challenges threatening the entire planet, our social politics and economics which can be boiled down into one simple binary fable: it is only because we think of the planet as water versus continents that we defend one against the other. Archipelagos have been inundated for centuries. There are indigenous cultures, rituals and practices that live with, on and under water in archipelagos in unique and meaningful ways. Each offers insight as to how we might develop sustainably in the most vulnerable regions of the planet. Expected Impact: The Archipelago Agenda seeks ultimately to move fast, yet study close. We seek to build partnerships within these complex geomorphic and geopolitical regions. Archipelagos have yet to be fully recognized as a third amphibious condition on the planet and can contribute to urban development and research within and surrounding them in impactful ways. We advocate for the archipelagos in which we live through design and with partners in the UN to recognize the importance of these areas for collaborative research. Partners: Singapore University of Technology and Design, Architecture Sustainable Design Piller, Pace University Environmental Law/Environmental Business, Universidad del Desarrollo Faculty of Architecture and Arts, Anant National University, Anant Fellowship.

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