From mysterious and magnificent subsurfaces to Seoul’s smart automated metro farm — and automated underground farm with robots growing plants in a previously disused part of the station —cities around the world have been and are increasingly making more and better use of underground or subterranean spaces. Singapore, Bangkok, Paris, Helsinki are some of the many other cities that are increasingly rejuvenating underground spaces and unlocking spaces in cities to accommodate growth, improve the liveability, and resilience of cities and citizens.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo in 2017 identified subterranean spaces as “an incredible wealth for the city, and we should be doing something with them”. For a metropolis where car use has declined by 32% since 1992, Paris has several underused underground carparks, as well as 32 square kilometres of abandoned quarries, 16 disused metro stations, and other unused facilities such as tunnels and cellars. It thus focuses on and engages with communities to redevelop existing underground spaces.

To prepare itself for further population increase, the Hong Kong government has been exploring ways to carve out more underground space for critical but non-public-facing infrastructure, including sewage and water treatment plants, data centres, and reservoirs. Singapore and Helsinki are leading a positive change in underground urbanism as well. In essence, comprehensive planning, design, and management of underground spaces in the present will guide the future of cities.

ITACUS in collaboration with ISOCARP hosted the first of its 3-part Cyber Agora entitled Underground Urbanism on June 29, 2021. Dialogues, discussions, debates, and deliberations in the Cyber Agora focused on the role of underground spaces in planning, development, and management of territories for our sustainable, resilient common future. The Agora engaged planners, urban designers, architects in a discourse that is often thought to be a field of engineers. Hosting a panel of experts, the Agora addressed the opportunities and challenges in realizing the potential of subsurfaces — for a resilient, inclusive, and sustainable future.

We were thrilled to welcome the following speakers at CA#5:

1. Nikolai Bobylev is an environmental scientist working on sustainable urbanization and urban underground space. He is a consultant to United Nations Agencies (UNECE, UNHabitat, UNDP) and an Associated Editor of the Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology academic journal (Elsevier).
Download Nikolai’s presentation here.

2. Michael Doyle is an assistant professor at the Université Laval School of Architecture in Québec, Canada. In his research and teaching activities, he seeks novel ways to travel the high-dimensionality of the contemporary city. He conducted his PhD work as part of the Deep City Project at the EPFL in Switzerland.
Download Michael’s presentation here.

3. Klaus Wachter was appointed Managing Director of SCAUT Association in 2018. His credo is to drive innovation in all industry sectors and to strengthen exchange and cooperation within the industry. Prior to SCAUT, Klaus’ business experience includes working in various multinational companies in the field of civil and geotechnical engineering.
Download Klaus’ presentation here.

4. Elizabeth Reynolds is a Chartered Urban Planner and Director of Tapestry, an east London studio focused on planning, design and problem solving for urban environments. Over the past 15 years Elizabeth has worked in multidisciplinary teams on major infrastructure and regeneration projects including the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Crossrail. Tapestry works from macro scale strategic city plans to detailed street design, with a common theme of making cities creative, productive and resilient places. She is a co-founder of Think Deep UK and has undertaken extensive research into the overlooked but important places beneath our cities, including through writing the book, Underground Urbanism.
Download Elizabeth’s presentation here.

5. Felicia Atmadja is an architect, interior designer and urban designer who’s recently graduated from the University of Auckland with a Master of Urban Design in January 2020. She is currently working as the Head of Planning & Design in a real estate strategic consultancy in Jakarta while also actively working on urban design research. She was a New Zealand ASEAN Scholarship Awardee and the 1st winner of an eco-friendly house design competition.
Download Felicia’s presentation here.

6. Ximena Finschi Architect, in charge of the Executive Secretary of the Table for Underground Space. Project Coordinator of the Technological Development Corporation (CDT) of the Chilean Chamber of Construction. Architect specialized in planning, coordination and execution of projects, both public and private, on industrialization issues, underground spaces, construction waste and innovation.
Download Ximena’s presentation here.

This session was moderated by ITACUS Co-Chairs:

Han Admiraal trained as a Civil Engineer (University of Applied Science, Rotterdam) and is co-chair of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association’s Committee on Underground Space (ITACUS) and a past member of the Urban Planning Advisory Group of United Nations for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), advising the Special Representative. As President of the Dutch-Flemish Pipeline Industry Guild, he promotes underground freight transport as a sustainable and economically efficient model.

Over the course of his career, Han worked for the National Department of Public Works and Water Management, acting amongst other positions as Project Manager for the first machine excavated (TBM driven) tunnel in soft soil in the Netherlands. Later, as Executive Director of the COB, the Netherlands Centre for Underground Construction, he implemented visionary concepts on underground construction and was a part-time professor of Underground Space at the Zeeland University of Applied Science. Since 2008, he is the Owner and Managing Director of Enprodes Management Consultancy in Delft, consulting in the fields of underground space and road tunnel safety.

He is passionate about urban planning and interdisciplinary dialogue between various stakeholders and professional disciplines dealing with urban and underground development. Having published numerous articles on this topic, he published his first book, written together with Antonia Cornaro, in 2018.

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Antonia Cornaro, MA Urban Planning (1996), studied at New York University and then gained valuable experience working for the City of New York’s Planning Department (DCP) in their Transportation Division on bicycle and pedestrian schemes.

She has 25 years of working experience as an urban and transport planner from the public and private sector from New York City, London, Vienna, and Zurich, having worked for NYC Department of City Planning, Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB now WSP), the Austrian Institute of Regional Planning (ÖIR), and the Zurich based multi-disciplinary engineering consulting firm EBP.

In her current work as Expert Underground Space for Amberg Engineering, an internationally active Swiss firm specializing in underground infrastructure design and management, she focuses on Urban Underground Space with the aim to increase mobility, livability, and resilience of urban areas (since 2010 until today).

This is also central to her work as Co-Chair of ITACUS (the International Tunnel and Underground Space Association’s Committee on Underground Space. Antonia is passionate about cities, global and sustainable development, and has presented and published extensively on this subject, often jointly with Han Admiraal. Together with Han, she authored the book “Underground spaces unveiled: planning and creating the cities of the future” (more info: www.thinkdeep.net) which was published in 2018 and has received the ISOCARP Gerd Albers award on best book.

She also teaches part time at the Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich. The course is a Semester lecture Planning of Underground Space and is taught to Master students in architecture, spatial development and civil engineering.