Walking with Water in Common
What does it mean to notice a stream that is sometimes visible, sometimes hidden, yet shapes where and how we live?
This walking workshop invites you to get to know Hobson's Brook from a new perspective, both its visible presence and hidden absence in Cambridge. Together we will engage creatively with the river, discover ways that water connects us, and explore how we might care for water collectively.
Along the route we uncover and engage with historic and contemporary hydro-realities, and investigate practical, solution-oriented approaches to living with and as bodies of water.
Thinking with community-led design and research practices we ask: How can collective making on-the-move be a methodology for knowing, caring, relating and prefiguring worlds with/as more-than-human agencies and communities?
We start our walk at the north entrance of Nine Wells Woods—home to the chalk springs of both Hobson’s Brook and Vicar's Brook—and end by the fountain in Market Square in Cambridge city centre. The walk will take approximately five hours including stops for discussions, creative activities, and lunch at Empty Common Community Garden (roughly halfway).
The workshop is co-led by Gustav Nielsen and Violeta Tsenova of the Community Design Research Lab (CDRL), and Clara Todd of Water Sensitive Cambridge (WSC), with support from the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge.
This event is part of the Cambridge Nature Festival 2026, a celebration of Nature on our doorstep.
What to bring?
Suitable clothing
Your favorite walking shoes
Lunch pack and drinking water
Accessibility
This walk is about 5 km (~1.5 hours) in varied but generally flat terrain. If you have specific accessibility questions or requirements please contact Gustav on [email protected].
For those needing transport to Nine Wells from Cambridge city centre, we will meet at 9:30 at in front of 1 Scroope Terrace (Department of Architecture), from where taxis will take us to the entrance of Nine Wells (free). Please check the box in your registration so we know numbers.
For those finding their own way to Nine Wells, meet at 10:00 @ what3words //woke.cheek.rider https://w3w.co/woke.cheek.rider