Taneha K. Bacchin is an architect, urban designer, and researcher working at the intersection between urban design, landscape architecture, and environmental sciences. In her projects and teaching, she investigates the nexus between space, ecology, culture, and politics in the design and planning of critical and highly dynamic landscapes. Her current work focuses on situated (site/context/culture-sensitive) forms of urban design related to environmental fragility, increasing extreme weather events and climate, and resource depletion, with projects in the North Sea, the Arctic, Brazil, South Africa, and India. Her interest lies in the critical role of urban design and territorial architecture (morphology, composition, materialisation) in places characterised by high dynamicity (continuous and/or disruptive change): ‘extreme/ transitional territories’ altered by the effects of the climate crisis, large-scale extractivism, and new frontiers of urbanisation. She is co-leader of the Research Group Delta Urbanism, acting as a core member of ‘Redesigning Deltas’ (RDD) initiative, a flagship program of Convergence Alliance-Resilient Delta, head of Transitional Territories Graduation Studio, and editor of the Journal of Delta Urbanism. Her work has been funded internationally and exhibited at the São Paulo Architecture Biennale 2013 and the Venice Architecture Biennale 2002 and 2018 (Dutch, Brazilian and Venetian Pavilions).
She is the Principal Investigator and Lead Coordinator of the NWO-DST ‘Water4Change’ (W4C) Research Programme, Cooperation India-The Netherlands (2019-2024): a transdisciplinary programme by eleven knowledge institutions focusing on water sensitive and cultural situated design for secondary cities in India. W4C is a flagship programme of the Cooperation India-The Netherlands and part of ‘Water for Impact’ – projects under ‘actionable science’ by TU Delft Global Initiative. She is theme leader ‘Design, Planning and Governance of the Built Environment’ for the TU Delft – Brazil Interdisciplinary Exchange Program on Water, Energy, and the Built Environment (TU Delft Global Engagement).
She holds a PhD (joint) degree in landscape architecture and water science and engineering from Delft University of Technology jointly with UNESCO-IHE Delft (distinction), a master’s degree in architecture (summa cum laude) and an advanced master’s degree in territorial planning and technology from University IUAV of Venice, and a professional diploma degree in architecture and urbanism from University of Brasilia (validation of foreign degree).
Kuzniecow Bacchin was a postdoctoral researcher at TU Delft in the project ‘Green/Blue Infrastructure for Sustainable, Attractive Cities’ (JPI Urban Europe). Prior to that, she was guest lecturer at IUAV University of Venice, parallel to practicing architecture. She is a licensed architect in Italy (2007-2010) and the Netherlands (2015-present) and member of the NVTL Nederlandse Vereniging voor Tuin-en Landschapsarchitectuur (2021-present). Before starting her academic carrier, she practiced architecture and urban design as individual and associate architect in Brazil, Italy, and Denmark, with built projects in Brazil and Italy.
Her work has been published, among others, in OASE Journal of Architecture, Cities Journal, Water Science and Technology Journal, Abitare, and several book chapters and conference proceedings. For the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale Architettura 2018, she was the co-leader of the project ‘The Port and the Fall of Icarus’ together with Hamed Khosravi and Filippo La Fleur, part of the extended program of the Dutch Pavilion, ‘Work, Body, Leisure’, curated by Marina Otero Verzier, being responsible for the public installation at Riva dei Sette Martiri in Venice. Her forthcoming book with b-r-u-n-o publisher, titled ‘The North Sea Project’ explores the changing nature (and image) of the sea and its socio-political histories as a baseline for future critical spatial practices: The sea as an object, subject, image, and narrative.
She is supervisor of PhD, post-MSc, and MSc graduation projects (over 90 thesis), guest lecturer, and design critic at Universities and Schools of Architecture internationally. Joint design studios with AA Architectural Association School of Architecture, UK; Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of São Paulo, Brazil; AHO The Oslo School of Architecture and Design; Dalhousie University, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Canada; and UC Berkeley, USA. Since 2019 she is the course coordinator, course designer and principal instructor of the edX MOOC Nature Based Metropolitan Solutions by TU Delft, WUR and AMS-Institute.
Since 2015 she curates annually mid-term and end-term exhibitions of graduation studio work (MSc tracks of Urbanism, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture), international lecture series and symposia. Since 2021 she co-curates with Michaela Büsse, from HU Berlin, the Delta Urbanism PhD Seminar series on discourses and methodologies at the intersection/ fringes of the fields of urban design, architecture, and engineering and in connection with arts, design, social science, and humanities. In 2022 she was nominated by a public inquiry and jury at ArchDaily.com as representative scholar among 25 female professionals—pioneers, established practitioners, activists, and scholars—contributing to the critical development of the disciplines of architecture and urban design: “International Women’s Day 2022: On Rebalancing Forces and Narratives”.