………………

Manabas began as a request: to construct, on dry land, a full-scale test arrangement in preparation for the Fluctoforum - a place where the dynamics of our common coasts and water would ultimately shape both form and experience. Yet what emerged at Laguna Beach in Camperduin was more than a mock-up. It became a rehearsal for collective thought.

Fifty scientists and policymakers from across Northern Europe gathered within this temporary wooden topography. Language diverged. Professional vocabularies overlapped yet misaligned. Cultural habits shaped how - and whether - one spoke. Architecture here did not offer spectacle; it offered structure.
Four platforms articulated the space. Four coloured cushions marked positions without prescribing hierarchy. The arrangement subtly choreographed attention and presence. Facilitator Inge Wallage* activated the spatial logic, inviting not only the confident voice but also the hesitant one. The setting made room - literally - for difference. In doing so, it revealed how design can operate as an instrument of governance: not by imposing consensus, but by cultivating the conditions in which it might arise.

The installation stood only temporarily. Yet its ambition was durable: to test how spatial form can support shared responsibility in an era defined by environmental uncertainty.
(*Inge Wallage currently serves as Director of Communications at Wageningen University & Research.)

With special thanks to Inge Wallage (WUR), Petra Giessen, Ruby Neervoort (HHNK), Helen Nieuweboer (RWS) and Richard Leidekker (DJUS).