Navigating a Greener Tomorrow
A Sustainable Navigation Design Challenge for Inland Waterways
Sustainable Inland Waterways Design Challenge
"Industry 5.0 meets the waters"
Navigating inland waters—such as lakes, rivers, and canals—differs fundamentally from open-sea navigation due to the extreme spatial constraints and complex, multi-user dynamics of enclosed ecosystems.
Unlike the open ocean where vessels contend with vast horizons and deep-sea currents, inland environments are characterized by narrow channels, shallow drafts, tight turning radiuses, and unpredictable river flows or locks, in addition to the occasional storm that affects lakes as much as the sea.
The congestion on water bodies like Lake Como is uniquely dense, and heterogeneous working vessels, high-speed public transport, and heavy tourist traffic are forced to share the same limited surface area, while also respecting the life of the local residents, the rich cultural heritage of the site and its biodiversity.
Design by its original system thinking methodologies, combining research, attentive field works, both hard and soft sciences and relying on trial and errors prototyping, has he potential to address the complexities of eco-socio interdependencies to find novel interventions to address the challenges of navigation needs and life with the lake.
