Simon Richter is member of a team of Dutch, Indonesian and American landscape architects, engineers, ecologists, and social and climate activists, led by Matthijs Bouw, Rockefeller Urban Resilience Fellow at Penn Design and director of ONE Architecture in Amsterdam and New York. Semarang is a city on the Northern coast of central Java. Water as Leverage seeks to intensify efforts to make Asian cities resilient as they deal with subsidence, sea level rise and other water related issues. At the heart of the design team’s approach is an adaptation of the polder model which links watersheds with self-governance by citizens. Simon’s research on the Banger Polder in Semarang and the SIMA district water authority proved helpful in creating the design. Simon will join the team for workshops with stakeholders and site visits during the fall and early spring.  Interested in the connection between climate change and the humanities? Check out Simon’s article “What Water Teaches: Wissenschaft in the Age of Sea Level Rise.”