KCAP & Felixx

KCAP is a leading international design firm that specializes in architecture, urbanism and landscape design.

KCAP was founded in 1989. Today, the firm has offices in Rotterdam (NL), Zurich (CH) and Shanghai (CN) and a staff of more than 100 talented international professionals working on a wide range of projects throughout Europe and Asia.

KCAP is known for its expertise in the development of sustainable urban living environments. In our designs, new concepts for living and working, culture, sustainability and infrastructure go hand-in-hand with social considerations for current and future generations. We use our collective experience in architecture, urban planning and landscape design to create social and spatial cohesion. Our projects are developed with the necessary flexibility to adapt to the individual needs of users and new social developments.

The great challenge of our time is to build environments that protect the world’s precious resources and habitats, and that address - and possibly counteract - urgent ongoing climate changes.

As a team of architects and urban designers, KCAP is well aware of the complex interdependencies between social, environmental, economic and cultural factors and challenges associated with any design intervention we propose. We recognize the intrinsic value of water and its essential role in all aspects of life, but also the risks it poses to people, property and prosperity. The protection of limited water resources and associated ecosystems for present and future generations is a crucial aspect of the sustainable and resilient urban developments we are working on across Europe and Asia. We also work on protection measures against the increasingly evident water-related challenges associated with climate change.  

Projects such as the Shenzhen coastline or the development of Hamburg’s new city district in the flood zone of the Elbe river are clear examples of the complexities related to water resilience that we are facing as a design team. We find integral design solutions for productive urban environments where water and waste management, mobility and ecosystems, and the built and natural environments are considered as complementary systems.

Felixx landscape architects and planners is a Rotterdam-based office for proactive landscape architecture.

Felixx was founded in 2014 by Michiel Van Driessche, Marnix Vink and Deborah Lambert with the funadmental principle that a better world requires a better organization of our environment. We specialize in addressing urgent global challenges with locally-embedded design solutions. Our work has a broad international scope and our projects range from spatial research, landscape transformation strategies and masterplanning, to public space and product design. The office is named after our self-invented modest hero Felixx, who travels the world looking for opportunities to realize happy environments.

Felixx has developed into an office with an international scope, with ongoing projects in Europe, Asia and Africa, run by an international group of 30 enthusiastic professionals. The team has a diverse set of skills, with backgrounds in landscape architecture, architecture, urban design, planning, science, and industrial design. We are proficient at managing high-profile, complex projects. Teams are tailored for each assignment; comprehensive experience is merged with uninhibited enthusiasm and creativity for excellent results. We remain engaged with our projects from initiation until completion, working in full collaboration with our clients and partners during the research, design, technical and construction stages.

We design striking functional places. Our environment is facing increasingly urgent challenges: from adapting to shifting climate conditions, facilitating migration movements, anticipating on water- and flood problems, moving towards clean energy production and improving biodiversity, to recalibrating the organization of both urban and rural areas.

These elements and their demands force us to move away from monofunctional environments, turning landscapes into complex hybrids that unite scenic experiences with intelligent functional systems. Therefore Felixx is both engineering and designing landscapes - maximizing environmental impact by creating powerful places.

Our projects are idea- and research-driven. A comprehensive understanding of existing conditions allows clear identification of challenges and potential solutions that are incorporated in conceptual designs for the future of these places. Felixx creates powerful, collaborative and inclusive environments by designing spatial stories that generate enthusiasm and commitment with all parties involved.

We realize innovation by engagine in strategic research and using our findings to deliver captivating built works. This enables us to bring theoretical models and innovative techniques into practice. We build on close partnerships with various universities and renowned knowledge institutions. Our clientele includes governments, NGO’s and private developers. Each Felixx project is the result of an interdisciplinary effort and an intensive process with clients and partners. We have mastered the process of turning ground-breaking ideas into feasible plans.

East Dike Shenzhen is located in Dapeng, a mountainous peninsula located east of Hongkong and Shenzhen.

In September 2018, the typhoon Mangkhut caused extensive damage to infrastructure on the peninsula.

An international competition was launched to develop a plan to restore the 130km coastline and raise protection standards against the more frequent occurrence of extreme weather events.

KCAP+Felixx developed the ‘Triple Dike Strategy’, a multifaceted dike system that allows for an integrated approach towards the climate adaptive reorganization of the shore.

With the ‘Triple Dike Strategy’, the team developed an integrated approach towards the climate adaptive reorganization of the shore. In the concept, water safety strategies are connected to eco-development and nature restoration and merged with social and economic growth.

The triple dike moves away from a generic protection wall along the coast, towards the creation of three development zones, carefully embedded in current conditions and responding to the specific future needs of every single area.

The 1st ‘outer’ dike zone increases the resiliency through wave attenuation, erosion reduction and the enhancement of sedimentation. The 2nd ‘middle’ dike is an elevated embankment, to stop the storm surge and the water pushed up by the waves. It’s not a big wall but a multifunctional zone: an exciting hilly park, an elevated waterfront with urban promenades, a tidal park or even a public building. The 3rd ‘inner’ dike is a hybrid structure which manages the rainwater following the principle of a sponge city. All runoff from adjacent villages and mountains is buffered, delayed and temporarily stored in rain-parks, raingardens, wet forests, wetlands and green streets.

For 18km of coastline, KCAP + Felixx developed this concept into six strategic implementation projects. For the six villages along the shore, all originating from fishers’ communities, the strategy is turned into strategic design projects, creating unique and site-specific realms. The triple dike is composed of three development zones, carefully embedded in the local conditions and responding to the specific future needs of every village.

The small-scale identity will be protected and their different characteristics reinforced. The construction started in 2019 with the triple dike demonstration zone in Yangmeikeng as the first of the six projects. This demonstration zone has been realized and opened to public on May 1st, 2020. It marks the first milestone in the construction of the entire project to be completed by 2021.

“In the Netherlands, we moved away from solutions which offer only protection. We try to work with forces rather than fight them to find solutions that serve not just one single goal but several goals at once,” says Ruurd Gietema, partner KCAP.

“The main idea behind the triple dike strategy is that we have changed a one-line defence structure into three zones. The central zone is a multi-functional dike. The zone behind it deals mainly with water management and rainwater runoff from the mountains, while the zone in front of the dike structure reduces the impact of waves.” says van Michiel Van Driessche, partner Felixx.