Atlantis#26 1 Draw The Line

ATLANTIS MAGAZINE FOR URBANISM & LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

#26.1 OCTOBER 2015

DRAW THE LINE URBAN AND LANDSCAPE WEEK EDITION

FROM THE BOARD Committees 2015

Dear Polis Members,

We could not be as visible as we are without the great effort of a lot of active students. With the help of them we can organise excursions, lectures, workshops, drinks and events. The Polis board wants to thank all the people involved for their great efforts and positive input!

The new academic year has started at TU Delft. This September, we welcomed 115 new students, including 62 international students, into the MSc track of Urbanism and Landscape Architecture. We present to you our first edition of this academic year titled ‘Draw the Line’, another remarkable achievement of our Atlantis committee.

We are always looking for enthusiastic people to join.

Interested in one of the Polis committees? Do not hesitate to contact us at our Polis office (01.west.350) or by mail: contact@polistudelft.nl ALUMNI ANNIVERSARY ATLANTIS BIG TRIP SMALL TRIP EDUCATION EVENTS

Polis board Rakesh Naduvath Mana – President Kim van Doesburg – Secretary Nikita Baliga – Treasurer Daniela Haug – Events Mark Disco – Public Relations Ting Wei Chu – Atlantis

The magazine derives this title from the theme of this year’s Urban & Landscape Week (previously known as the Urbanism week) scheduled from October 12-16, at our faculty. The UL week is the premier event organised by our students, and the UL week committee has been diligently planning this event over the past months. All are welcome to the event, as we eagerly await for this week. For more details on the workshops, speakers and events, please check the website (polistudelft.nl/category/ urbanism-week).

We are also continuing to celebrate the 25th year anniversary of Polis during the UL week, through an international alumni event scheduled on 14th October. The event comprises of social activities, dinner and a cultural evening. Through this event, we provide an opportunity for alumni of Urbanism and Landscape Architecture at TU Delft to meet each other, network and share their experiences with the students. For further information on the alumni activity, please check the website (polistudelft.nl/ event/alumni-event-2015).

From now until December, we have more events coming up. The Small Trip to Western garden cities of Amsterdam took place in the last week of September. This year, the Big Trip will travel to the cities of Krakow and Warsaw, Poland in the first week of November. Both our excursions are open to students and professionals, so please apply soon before the seats are filled.

We also look forward to continuing the monthly international movie nights, which were a great success during the previous months. It is a student initiative where they can showcase their country of origin through a short movie related to Urbanism or Landscape Architecture. So far, we exhibited short movies from Indonesia, China, The Netherlands and India.

If you are interested in joining us to organise or participate in any of the events, please let us know. Any ideas for new events are welcome too.

We wish you pleasant reading, and look forward to welcoming you to our faculty during the UL week and Alumni event.

Polis board 2015, Daniela Christine Haug, Kim Van Doesburg, Mark Disco, Nikita Baliga, Rakesh Naduvath Mana, Ting Wei Chu

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ATLANTIS

EDITORIAL

MAGAZINE FOR URBANISM & LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Atlantis Volume #26 Are you passionate about urbanism and landscape architecture and would like to contribute? Contact us at: atlantis@polistudelft.nl

Lines define our field. Even the most complex of designs starts with lines on a page.

We package space and actors in to delineated entities in our efforts to understand ‘city’ ‘nature’ ‘resident’ ‘designer’... But reality renders these lines more complex and blurred than it originally seems. Where does one end and the other begin? When does the drawing shape reality, and when is it reality, and your position in it, shaping the drawing? We explore these questions, among others, in this edition of Atlantis and at the Urban and Landscape Week (UL Week) that takes place at TU Delft this October.

The UL Week team open this issue by introducing us to this exciting annual event.

Our section on ‘duality’ begins with a manifesto from URBZ/Urbanology and a cry for the natural city, challenging the separation of the urban from the organic. Blurring lines is a theme that persists as we showcase two recent graduation projects - from Juliana Guevara S. (Landscape Architecture) and Henriette van der Hee (Urbanism).

Diverse topics (riparian landscapes and knowledge clusters), show interesting parallels in how both design disciplines can work with lines and boundaries to positive effect.

Drawing itself is something that can be incredible powerful, as Eva Prats argues passionately in her article on ‘Drawing by Hand’, in the chapter ‘discovery’. Tanya Chandra illustrates how using drawing and making gave direction and expression to her graduation project in Delhi and you can have a go yourself on our ‘Draw the Line’ page - see if you can guess which cities are which!

‘Disposition’ takes a reflective turn, as we discuss issues of illegality in design (Konstantinos Lalenis), urban fabric in the divided city of Hebron (Chris Venables), (re)interpretation of historic lines in the landscape (Gerdy Verschuure-Stuip) and urban edges in Buenos Aires (Alkmini Papaioannou & Putrikinasih Santoso).

Finally, in ‘dialogue’, we discuss collaborative practice with Frits Palmboom, in an attempt to understand the complexities of this in reality, and what this means for the design process. Lilla Szilágyi presents fascinating examples of cross-border planning and to close, Ting Wei Chu (Alley) takes us to Taiwan to illustrate the power of ‘bottom-up’ in urban regeneration.

Also, with the new academic year, comes new talent to Atlantis. It’s wonderful to be back with so many of last years team, and to welcome new members: Emmanouil Prinianakis, Francesca Mavaracchio, Ruben Hanssen, Ijsbrand Heeringa, Iulia Sirbu (whose illustrations adorn this cover) and Kritika Sha. I know we will thoroughly enjoy their contribution to both the magazine and the team.

We hope you enjoy this issue, and on behalf of the editorial team I would like to thank all of the contributors, and also to invite you to contribute! Please check inside the back cover for details of the themes this year, or email us at altantis@polistudelft.nl. I am sure that a rich and interesting debate will flow from the UL week itself, so keep up by following the UL week Facebook page (facebook.com/Urbanismweek). Hopefully see you there in person!

Kate Unsworth

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CONTENTS DRAW JAN

THE

LINE

MAARTEN

//

VAN

5

URBAN

HEMERT,

FLOOR

AND

LANDSCAPE

VAN

DIJK

&

WEEK

WAHYU

2015

PRATOMO

DUALITY // 9 NATURAL CITY MATIAS ECHANOVE & RAHUL SRIVASTAVA // 11 RIVERSCAPE 15

IN

CREATING

BASEL

REGION

KNOWLEDGE

JULIANA

LOCATIONS

GUEVARA

SALAMANCA

//

HENRIETTE

VAN

HEE

DISCOVERY // 19 DOT-TO-DOT GIJS DE HAAN BY

HAND

EVA

PRATS

//

23

PRODUCTS

OF

// 21 LINE

DER

DRAWING

TANYA

CHANDRA

DISPOSITION // 27 ILLEGAL CONSTRUCTION IN GREECE KONSTANTINOS LALENIS CHRIS

// 31 LIVES, LINES AND DIVIDES IN THE CITY OF HEBRON VENABLES

VERSCHUURE-STUIP

//

//

ANCA

IONESCU

PLANNING

IN

THE

NEW

DUTCH

WATERLINE

GERDY

// 37 ORA ALKMINI PAPAIOANNOU & PUTRIKINASIH SANTOSO

DIALOGUE IOANA

35

41

COLLABORATIVE //

45

CROSSING

CROSS-BORDER

PRACTICE THE

LINE:

ENVIRONMENTS

FRITS

PALMBOOM

&

COMMUNICATIVE LILLA

SZILAGYI

//

47 BOTTOM - UP POWER IN URBAN REGENERATION TING WEI CHU 4

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Urban & Landscape Week 2015

Monday 12/10

DUALITY

Tuesday 13/10

DISCOVERY

Wednesday 14/10

Thursday 15/10

DISPOSITION

DIALOGUE

Draw the line between the line: drawing changingDraw the line on ethics Draw the line between "Having to deal with aDraw constantly environment is a major part of urban and landscape as a skill and moral and bottom-up being an urbanist or landscape architect. The variables which top-down influence our processes work, whether they are physical, economical or societal, force us to constantly Built environment duality has the way Drawing designour directions productsWe are significantly In Dialogue, we learn the reflect on weembodies act in field ofDesign work. find ourselves encountering never been as simple as building to think about, to contemplate, to influenced by designer’s complexity of actors from new situations, reading about unexpected developments and adapting to new circumstances. Change has its impact on our views, questions our values and pushes our boundaries, up to the moment that something goes beyond the zone we find acceptable. That is the moment that we discover for ourselves: “This, is where I Draw the Line”.

Draw the Line is this year’s theme of the 5th Urban & Landscape Week, the annual symposium organised by Polis from 12 to 16 October 2015. Originally known as Urbanism Week, the organising committee aims to broaden the scope as they feel that the challenges that are faced in our professional arena are intertwined: It is both about the Urban and the Landscape.

Urban & Landscape Week 2015 is a 5-day event of international lectures, workshops and network meetings for the urbanism and landscape architecture community, but that also invites architects, planners and policy makers who are interested in the built environment. This event is an attempt to understand routes, practices and issues in contemporary urbanism and landscape architecture, while trying to find its future possibilities.

The Urban & Landscape Week aims to form an international platform for dialogue and discussion through a series of lectures and symposiums given by professionals from both academic and practice background. It is an event that has a strong visibility and resonance, the perfect place for sharing opinions and ideas on the future of urbanism and landscape architecture with relevant personalities in the field.

Draw the Line acts as an overarching theme, dealing with various subjects and topics. During the week, many different issues will be addressed, but all are directed to inspire the audience to (re)think their position in the fields of urban and landscape design.

We believe that being aware of your own boundaries can help in developing as a designer or planner but also as a human being.

Draw the Line covers five daily topics: Duality, Discovery, Disposition, Dialogue and Diorama. The structure of the week is set up to create a mix of inspiring stories and interactive workshops. We believe that a mix of listening and participating, indoor and outdoor activities and debating and creating results in a coherent program to discuss the boundaries in our profession.

By the time you read this, Urban & Landscape Week will be well underway, and we hope you were able to take part. You can see a round-up of all the activity on Facebook (facebook.com/Urbanismweek) and we look forward to welcoming you to Urban & Landscape week next year!

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Friday 16/10

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DIORAMA

Exhibition day

Jan Maarten van Hemert

After looking into the 4 days MSc4Diorama Urbanism discussion, is a day of

Floor van Dijk MSc2 Urbanism

Wahyu Pratomo MSc3 Urbanism

Monday Speakers 1. Dirk Sijmons (TU Delft, H+N+S) 2. Francisco Colombo (TU Delft) 3. Jeroen van Schaick (Zuid Holland Province) 4. Bas Driessen (.FABRIC) 5. Frits van Loon (TU Delft) Tuesday Speakers 6. Jongens VD Tekeningen 7. Frits Palmboom (TU Delft, Palmbout Urban Landscapes) 8. Paul Broekhuisen (TU Delft) 9. Paul de Ruiter (Design Informatics TU Delft) 10. Johan Meeus Wednesday Speakers 11. Peter Kroes (TU Delft) 12. Dana McKinney (Harvard GSD) 13. Imola Berczi (UN Studio) 14. David Gianotten (OMA) Thursday Speakers 15. Kristien Ring (AA Projects/ Univ. of South Florida) 16. Hans Venhuizen (Game Urbanism) 17. Kristian Koreman (ZUS) 18. Francesca Rizzetto (UNLAB) 19. Andreas Faoro (UNLAB) Debate (Thursday) 20. Michiel van Iersel (Non fiction/ IABR 2016) 21. Zef Hemel (Uni of Amsterdam) 22. Wouter Vanstipout (TU Delft/ Crimson) 23. Maurits de Hoog (Amsterdam Municipality) 24. Jeroen Zuidgeest (MVRDV) 25. Rients Dijkstra (Maxwan/ TU Delft) 26. Bart Cosijn (Moderator, Debating cafe)

Urban & Landscape Week 2015

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Monday 12/10

Tuesday 13/10

DUALITY

DISCOVERY

Draw the line between urban and landscape

Draw the line: drawing as a skill

Built environment duality has never been as simple as building

Thursday 15/10

DISPOSITION

DIALOGUE

Draw the line on ethics and moral

Drawing embodies design directions to think about, to contemplate, to

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Wednesday 14/10

Draw the line between top-down and bottom-up processes

Design products are significantly influenced by designer’s

In Dialogue, we learn the complexity of actors from

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Friday 16/10

DIORAMA

Exhibition day

After looking into the 4 days discussion, Diorama is a day of

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Duality

Built-Unbuilt Coexistence – Draw the line between urban and landscape

Monday is the first day where we will try to Draw the Line, between the Urban and the Landscape: Duality.

In earlier ages, the definition of what was part of a city and what was non-city was rather clear, mainly due to the need to defend these cities. As they had walls and defence canals, they were easy to identify.

Only after the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, the need to expand and increase urbanisation led to a redefinition of this urban – landscape balance.

Since the 19th century, various movements in Urbanism offer different points of view regarding the presence of nature inside of the city. The Garden City Movement was well-known for its picturesque design of the city, trying to reel the landscape into the urban environment. Over a century later, the 20th century offered policies including CIAM and the Post-War reconstruction, where urban blocks were put in a green environment. More recently, the balance between urban and landscape is seen differently.

Some argue that urbanisation has become dominant over nature, and that the city, in its own way, can also be seen as a landscape. Others apply structures and mechanisms found in nature on the urban, regarding it as a living organism with its own metabolism.

Duality aims to search for the current balance between the Urban and the Landscape and to discover, debate and answer the questions that come with it.

Try to discover where your line between Urban and Landscape is drawn: what are differences and in what ways do we find common grounds? The committee aims to inspire you with a lunch lecture by one of Dutch founding fathers of Landscape Architecture, Prof. Dirk Sijmons, known as curator of IABR 2014, Urban by Nature. Afterwards, three workshops are offered on the subtopics of long term planning, city metabolism and the urban fringe. The closing debate offers an exchange of views, ideas and common grounds, to Draw the Line together.

Discovery

Translation of Ideas – Drawing as a skill

After the first day, the Urban & Landscape Week continues with a rather explicit example of Draw the Line. Discovery – drawing as a skill – is intended to increase awareness, knowledge and skills of various ways and meanings of drawing. The phrase ‘a picture tells a thousand words’ might be obvious but there is more to drawing than just visual expression, as it is a major part of communication between human beings.

In the master programmes of Urbanism and Landscape Architecture in Delft, much attention is given to drawing, for various learning goals. As drawing is a cooperation between the hand and the mind, drawing is used to enhance the analytic skills of students. It helps to analyse and store information, to understand and discover structures that might otherwise stay hidden. Drawing can also act as a very strong medium of communication, especially once modern computer techniques are involved. A drawing can create a reflection or construction of reality, but with modern skills, images that are more beautiful than reality can also be constructed which play an important part in how designs are perceived.

Discovery aims to unravel some mysteries of the various ways of drawing. We want you to be aware of the power of drawing, whether you would use it for analysis, presentation or simply to explain an idea that’s very clear in your mind, but hard to understand in a bar chat. Be aware of the manipulations of constructed ‘reality’, but also use the value and power of image to your advantage.

Viewpoints and Implications – Draw the line in design moral and ethic

Disposition

Design products are significantly influenced by a designer’s professional education and experience. The current translation from theory to practice creates a new generation of designers. Through international perspectives and comparison of multiple case studies, we will be asked where to draw the line in design ethics and moral issues. As students of the design and planning practices, we believe that the awareness of the weight of these decisions and designs is crucial in becoming a better designer. Disposition offers a programme which inspires the audience to actively think about their own position and decisions and to debate what is acceptable and what isn’t.

By inviting foreign professionals and students, we aim to address moral issues in designing itself and our design practice. For example issues of race, justice and equity in urban design will be reviewed.

The awareness of these social consequences can be increased to improve the way that designers and policy makers deal with this kind of challenges.

Collaborative Practices – Draw the line between top-down and bottom-up processes

Dialogue

As the popularity of the bottom-up approach to design management is growing in our field, we bring together three parallel workshops in order to understand this practice and its implications. Kristian Koreman, the owner of Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS) and 7

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Francesca Rizzetto from UNLAB, will give workshops in bottom-up management style in interventions and the challenges in communication with municipality, local associations and neighborhood communities respectively.

Hans Venhuizen completes the workshop package with the simulation of his Game Urbanism. It aims to simplify complex situations to reveal the wishes and interests of parties involved in decision-making. The discussion of the three speakers will reveal methods to draw the line between top-down and bottom-up design processes.

Debating café Urban & Landscape Week 2015 Draw the Line has its focus on engaging in debate with each other, to search for boundaries, positions and viewpoints together, to discover for ourselves where we would Draw the Line. The final evening is a new setup in the ULWeek series and revolves entirely around engaging in debate. Our mission is to create a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere where speakers and audience feel encouraged to share their ideas of design, being a designer and the future of our fields of work: we call it, the Debating Café.

We invite the audience to react on several keynote statements provided by the invited professionals and designers, guided by TUDelft alumnus Bart Cosijn as moderator.

Floor van FloorDijk van Dijk PRESIDENT PRESIDENT

Kim Schotting Kim Schotting PR PR

About the committee A mixed group of enthusiastic students is organizing the Urban & Landscape Week in the name of Polis.

Up next is a short introduction of our committee: Kim van Doesburg is part of the board of Polis and is responsible for the communication between the committee and the board. She studied in Amsterdam and has just started her graduation in Urbanism. Floor van Dijk is the president of this year’s committee. She is responsible for the planning and structure of the process of organizing this event. As preparation for her graduation she is doing an internship at plein06 until February 2016. From February she will start her graduation project. Eli Dorsman is a DJ in his spare time and within the committee he is responsible for the logistics of the UL Week. He finished his bachelor in Architecture at the TU Delft last summer and has started his master in Architecture. Jan Maarten van Hemert and Wahyu Pratomo are responsible for the program of the week. They are in contact with speakers and are arranging the many workshops. Jan Maarten is halfway through his graduation project on political ideology in urban design. Wahyu from Indonesia is graduating in July 2016. Kim Schotting and Axel Buysschaert both studied in Delft and have started the Urbanism graduation project. They are in charge of both the promotion design and the marketing campaign. Elan Redekop van der Meulen is the treasurer of the committee and responsible for the financial plan. He is a Landscape Architecture student and will start his final graduation in February 2016. •

Eli Dorsman Eli Dorsman Kim Schotting LOGISTICSLOGISTICS PR

Jan Maarten van Hemert Kim Doesburg Kim Doesburg POLISPOLIS REP REP SPEAKERS

Pratomo Wahyu Pratomo WahyuWahyu Pratomo SPEAKERS SPEAKERS SPEAKERS

JanAxel Maarten vanvan Hemert Jan Maarten Hemert Buysschaert SPEAKERS SPEAKERS PR

Axel Buysschaert Axel Buysschaert PR PR

Eli Dorsman Élan Redekop van der Meulen LOGISTICS TREASURER

1. "draw the line" schedule 2. Speakers 3. Committee 8

atlantisduality

Natural City #ReclaimGrowth

Organic metaphors for cities have been in fashion since at least Patrick Geddes (1854 - 1932).

A biologist by training, Geddes turned to city planning when his eyesight became too defective for him to use a microscope. A city, he thought is after all not fundamentally different from any other living organism. It seems to be driven by some internal logic that is complex and spontaneous. It grows, evolves and sometimes mutates.

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Matias Echanove & Rahul Srivastava

URBZ/Urbanology, Mumbai

The only difference between a city and an organism, seems to be our conviction that we can actually shape and plan the former, while we see the latter’s capacity to self-organize as a divine expression.

Tampering with biological cells, whether animal or vegetal, is seen as sacrilegious, as the strong movements against genetically modified organisms (GMO) testifies. The biggest fear is that we, the human race, could create types of organisms that could impose themselves widely and destroy diversity (which is the stuff of life itself), and ultimately produce a generic biological landscape that will ultimately affect the earth and our own species. The related worry we have with GMO is that extra-dominant forms of modified tomatoes, wheat or rice become the property of corporations that control use it to impose their terms on farmers and consumers.

At one level these fears are real. We don’t want anyone to dominate the food industry. The organic food, farmer’s market and guerrilla gardening movements are a healthy reaction to a form of capitalism that has gone out of hand threatening the autonomy of producers and consumers alike. At another level, we can’t treat nature as something that should be preserved from human interference. We’ve always been tampering with it and always will, just because however much we are corrupted and polluting, we are also a part of nature, along with everything we produce.

Forests for instance have always been natural human habitats, as dependent on human engagement as the other way round. Even pristine forests are contingent on intricate knowledge systems which humans living in and around them possessed for their survival. Reducing the forest to pure nature or raw resource means that humans must be physically and conceptually evacuated to make way for their total sacralization or total devastation – both of which often goes hand in hand.

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Nature is messy, contradictory, predatory. Harmony exists only is our imagination. As green architect and nature lover Michael McDonough once told us pointing to a harmless-looking weed creeping around a serene-looking tree: “it is a war out there.” There is a lot humans can do to keep nature in check that doesn’t involve destroying it.

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Could the same thing be true of cities? Can we manage them without killing their diversity and spontaneity? Geddes certainly thought so.

We are only barely starting to understand how we can alter an organism’s DNA, while we have been planning cities and neighbourhoods since Sumerian times. The problem is that we have never been very good at it, or perhaps it may be that we lost those skills in modern times. Master planned cities usually turn out to be disasters and our proud global/mega cities, which are colonizing the planet from Shenzhen to Santiago are the result of the same Monsanto-brand of capitalism that is killing diversity in the name of profit and efficiency.

Maybe it is time we start working with human agency as an active principle in urban habitats. We must move away from using planning, engineering and technological structures as the dominant ways of creating cities and work with methods that involve impulses and dynamics of users and residents. Maybe it's time to see people as part of the building blocks of urban life, as much as brick-and-mortar.

blobs in architectural design. Others are suggesting “tactical” interventions, which as Neil Brunner puts it may not amount to much more than ““camouflage” for the vicissitudes, dislocations, and crisis-tendencies of neoliberal urbanism.”

What we need instead is a fundamental reshuffling of our conception of what is a city, who makes it, and how it grows. The good Doctor Geddes nailed it a century ago. If what we want is a city that is diverse, fertile, creative, but also inclusive, beautiful and resilient, we may have to stop trying so hard to engineer it and become urbanologists and urbiologists interested in nurturing and promoting the city’s inherent diversity, and its capacity to morph and enchant us. •

1-2. Cutouts from URBZ’s mural at the Uneven Growth exhibition opening at the MAK Museum in Vienna June 11th till October 4th, 2015, and previously shown at the MoMA in New York (Nov. 22nd to May 25th, 2014). Art

by Ismini, Matias, Rahul and team.

There are a few concepts that we love to use because they evoke an oxymoronic world where nature and city not only coexist but blend into each other. The natural city is one of them. This vision is not one of smart cities surrounded by green belts, and made of LEED compliant buildings with floral facades and well kept lawns. We do not intend to preserve the city from nature or vice-versa. Far from it.

The natural city is one where human nature is alive and kicking. Where the act of building a home is as natural as plucking fruits from trees. It is a place where homes are developed over time following the needs and means of the people who inhabit them. And where not only food is homegrown but also objects and buildings – that is produced by local people using native skills. Where the architect is also a builder and a resident. Where the developers and the users are the same people. And where rules follow forms rather than the other way around.

While this sounds like a Biblical utopia straight out of a Jehovah’s Witness’s leaflet, it is actually a reality existing in rather unromantic habitats everywhere, from Mumbai to Madrid. Destitute people everywhere have shown what the dark side of this vision looks like.

They live in homegrown neighbourhoods, built locally by resident contractors in vernacular fashion, using whatever materials and resources are available to fulfil people’s basic needs.

What planners and architects have systematically done when confronted by the reality of this feral urbanization is to contain it in ghettos or destroy it altogether. At best, some are praising the “informal” – a catch-all word that is as lame and old-fashioned as

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Riverscape in Basel Region

This graduation project was framed within the Graduation LAB of Flowscapes, which explores infrastructure as a type of landscape and landscape as a type of infrastructure. The studio postulates a framework among the themes of flow, movement related with ecological, social and spatial evidences. In the case of the project, it shows an awareness and interest on the theme of the water infrastructure, especially in the changes of the relation between the rivers and the surroundings. Comprehending that the rivers have two kinds of flows, the stream and the riparian zone, hence there are two types of spatial relations that need to be addressed.

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Juliana Guevara Salamanca

Graduate MSc Landscape Architecture TU Delft

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The studio is spatially delimited on the basin area of the Rhine-Danube Rivers, which gives to the students a series of social, spatial and ecological situations and opportunities with which to work and research. Focusing on the Rhine River, the project is motivated by the impressive transformations of the river through the years and the consequences that they have brought.

The aim of the project begins and expands around the integration of the river borders with the new built riparian zone in the area of Basel, one of the places that clearly illustrates the spatial complexity created as a result of the human interventions. The project uses water and ecological processes as approach, in order to evolve spatial transformations.

Over time, the Rhine River and its riparian zone have been intervened with since the establishments of the Celts and suffered mayor modifications during the 19th century, by Gottfried Tulla. All these changes cre-

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ated an imbalance between the natural and the built environment. The natural environment of the river system was broken, causing damage to the ecological qualities. Species habitats were deteriorated and in some cases destroyed, the ecological structure of the river is fragmented, producing a disconnection not only with the riparian zones but also within the stream. The built environment is facing new challenges, the overlapping of different land uses is increasing and the resources are reducing. The need of better public and green spaces and the effort of providing a better quality of life are proliferating.

This imbalance between the natural and the built environments keeps increasing in such a way that the built environment is using all the resources and therefore the natural environment is diminished. Now we have a situation where increasing potentials for people and nature are becoming limited.

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1-2. Overzone 1 & 2 3-4. River objectives 5-6. Ecosystem restorationarising nature 7. New riparian zone 8. New riparian zone-habitats green areas 9-10. New riparian zoneagriculture 11-14. Overzone 3 - 3.1 - 3.2 &4

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After 1950, a concern arose between the countries of the Rhine, an initiative bringing the opportunity to give the river a new look to the future. To recover the balance between the natural and the built environment we should take into consideration a next phase based on the current situation; not thinking on recreating what used to be before the human interventions. Based on a positive interpretation of the widely diverse and overlapping functions like industry, agriculture, residence, recreation and nature, allow and benefit the involvement and evolvement of both environments.

So then the concern is centred on how we as landscape architects can provide a spatial balance where opportunities for people and nature can develop in the Rhine, reinforcing the relation of the river with its surroundings through the river borders in the region of Basel.

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Today, we see nature as an element that needs to be protected from further devastation. For this reason we have created untouchable areas, but will this help us to develop and increase our natural environment? Most of the solutions are given on small or local scale, so we need to plan on a bigger scale; if we plan a new nature in a large scale the effect could be different. The large scale permits the formation of cohesive structures that unify the regions making the natural elements the backbone of such structures and allows the possibilities of a further evolution. This arising nature should create a network that will involve not only disused sites and decayed landscapes, as Adriaan Geuze and Matthew Skjonsberg suggest, but also the protected areas and new areas, such as industrial, living and agriculture. Changing the natural structure and network of the built environment can empower the existing green and natural spaces.

Then, in the case of Basel with a new green structure connected to the Rhine River and the green spaces through agriculture and industrial areas, it will have a new riparian zone that will develop and benefit both environments. The new structure will set a system of local biotopes, water management that will allow the development of the ecology and provide a better quality of open and public space. The river edges and riparian zone need to be redefined and should look forward to provide the ecosystem restoration and the accessibility to the river. To start changing the image and the dynamics of the river, new spaces should be introduced. They will provide a more effective environment, where the natural environment and the built environment work hand in hand for the benefit of both.

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ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION was divided into three objectives. The first one to create a functional river and riparian zone that provides habitats for plant communities, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates and fish. The second objective was to reduce the flow velocity by opportunities for selective expansions for the river and opportunities for water storage adjacent or connected to the river. The third objective is to connect the river with other significant habitats. To accomplish these objectives some modifications on the river edges should be made, providing space for an easy adaptation of the species and more places where small habitats and biotopes can develop.

Modifying the artificial edge can provide more opportunities.

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This ecosystem restoration has a sub-topic determined as CONNECTIONS – RIPARIAN ZONE SETTINGS. Within the new uses found in the riparian zone, incorporate them in an emerging green space system. For these new systems the countryside, industrial areas and the river should be a functional unity, where we can strengthen the existing ecological potentials and develop new scenes; including recreational spaces throughout the river and the built elements to provide a green and built arterial connection with the river.

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ACCESSIBILITY TO THE RIVER: The project will reshape the river corridor to create open spaces with public amenities. Increase visual and pedestrian access to the river, improve public awareness of the river and increase recreation related with the river. Some of the solutions to provide more space for people along the river are: Promenades, observation points and platforms.

Considering the project, one of the main onsets is the need of setting the natural environment in our context and make it part of our daily dynamics. This arising nature needs to contribute to human welfare, it can provide health and wealth. A change ought to be made on the human behaviour against the concept of nature and make us understand that it not only brings personal benefits but also economical benefits. Smart designs and planning decisions could start varying our settings and provide a more careful management of our resources, that will improve and reduce environmental damage. In this way, we can create a balance and a progress involving the natural and the built environment, helping each other and generating a life dynamic cycle. Empowering the public spaces will increase the feeling of connection with the space and thus strengthen the sense of identity. Then the river can develop its natural process and also integrate with the human activities around it. •

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14 Mentor team: Inge Bobbink & Leo Van den Burg

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Creating Knowledge Locations

How can urbanists influence the success of knowledge locations?

In current society the creation of knowledge is of major importance. Instead of making money with new products, money is often made by creating new information and new knowledge. This is one of the main characteristics of the knowledge economy (OECD, 1996). To strengthen the position of the Netherlands in this economy, different strategies and policies are implemented.

Many science parks, creative hotspots and technopoleis are created to stimulate the creation of innovations and new knowledge. These parks, hotspots and polis are all places where people with knowledge are concentrated; knowledge locations. Knowledge-intensive companies, university faculties, incubators and/or research institutes are settled in such areas. Urban designers can influence the success of knowledge locations by changing small things in the urban environment. In this article the spatial interventions that can be made to increase the creation of knowledge and exchange of new ideas are discussed and applied to the case of Delft: the Sports and Culture Centre.

How does knowledge arise?

The chance for new knowledge to occur increases by the clustering of knowledge-intensive institutes, companies and knowledge workers, because in this way knowledge spill-overs can arise. Knowledge spill-overs occur when people are ‘working on similar things and hence benefiting much from each other’s research’ (Griliches 1992, p. 29). To create these knowledge spill-overs however, social interaction is needed, because work on similar things can be done without being aware. Different kinds of interactions are needed.

The strong tie/weak tie theory of Granovetter (1973) explains the different meetings that can occur between knowledge workers. He states that two kinds of interactions should be facilitated. First, the interaction between knowledge workers from similar sectors (strong ties), and second, the interaction between knowledge workers from different sectors (weak ties) (Granovetter, 1973) (figure 1). When knowledge stays within a community, people usually approach it in the same way. When knowledge is transferred to another community, it can be seen from a different perspective.

So, interaction between different communities as well as interaction within communities is necessary for innovation.

In Delft, the main difference between knowledge workers can be found in the type of sector they work in; the technological or creative sector. People in the technical sector can be called nerds and those in the creative sector can be called bohemians (Florida, 2002; Kotkin, 2001; Marlet, 2009). People working in these sectors have different preferences in working environment. Nerds prefer places that are easily accessible, comfortable and orderly (Kotkin, 2001). These kind of places can be found in the city centre, along the Mekelpark and at the newly built ‘Technopolis’ in the south of Delft. Bohemians

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prefer vibrant places with authenticity, sufficient urban amenities and large shares of higher education institutes (Marlet and van Woerkens, 2004). The bohemians are currently present on the Schieoevers, the TU North and in the city centre (den Heijer and Curvelo, 2011) (figure 2).

The design should facilitate interaction between nerds and nerds or bohemians and bohemians (strong ties) or between bohemians and nerds (weak ties).

How does a meeting arise?

Designing locations for these strong tie encounters is related to designing for communities. To create a community, social cohesion is very important.

Facilitating a weak tie relation between two knowledge workers requires more effort, because weak ties are about relationships with acquaintances or new people.

Establishing new relations between people is a very complex social process which cannot be created, but can only be facilitated. The public space is a place where all different kinds of people meet each other every day, but it usually will not come to interaction, because people find it scary to start conversations with new people. The barrier for interacting with new people should be lowered to stimulate interaction and therefore innovation.

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Henriette van der Hee

Urbanism graduate TU Delft

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interaction. The field, on the other hand, is suitable for the facilitation of active engagement. However, the field/frame theory has no spaces for the people who don’t want to have engagement with the public space.

This is why flow is added to the theory; the frame/ field/flow theory. The flow space is suitable for the movement of people, as I will describe below.

The theory can be explained with the example of a street artist (Figure 3). The artist stands in the field, the place where he performs. Around the artists, people who listen will gather around the artist; the frame.

There are also people who do not want to listen or are in a hurry. These people walk in the flow. The artist has an active engagement with the public space, the people who listen have a passive engagement with the environment and the people who walk by have no engagement with the public space.

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Literature talks about three types of interaction that can occur in relation to urban space; active engagement, passive engagement and no engagement (Carmona, 2010). Passive engagement is about people-watching. Carr describes it as ‘the need for an encounter with the setting, albeit without becoming actively involved’ (1992: 103). Active engagement is a more direct engagement with a place and the people in it. The people who have no engagement with the public space are the people that are on the move and in a hurry.

The encounter area should facilitate spaces for passive engagement, active engagement and no engagement.

This means a comfortable public space with fields, frames and flows. A field is a flat empty space, which can have different functions and can differ in height from the flow or the frame. The flow is a space in which people are allowed to move easily. This means that it should not have obstacles and too much distraction. In the frame something to look at and a comfortable place to sit should be facilitated. People can look at fountains, public art or other people. Next to this, people need places to sit like terraces, stairs or benches (Carmona, 2010).

How do you facilitate these kinds of engagement with public space?

These three kinds of engagement can be combined with the field and frame theory of Childs (2004). He states that civic rooms have two milieus: Field and frame, which have different physical requirements and defining characteristics (Childs, 2004). ‘Central field’ is the portion of the floor that is compositionally centred in a room. It is the place which should be open and easily set and reset with props (p124). ‘Frame’ is the portion of the floor that surrounds the central field. It is the place people sit, meet or hang out. Within the frame there may be subspace or alcoves that provide a degree of enclosure, but open to the larger place (p26).

When the frame/field theory is combined with the active/passive/no engagement theory of Carmona et al. (2012), similarities can be found. The frame of a public space is perfectly suitable for passive

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What does this mean for Delft?

The sport centre in Delft is a place where already a lot of meetings between knowledge workers happen and is situated right between a place where the nerds and the bohemians work. With some adjustments it could become a place where more people can meet each other and where more knowledge can be created (figure 4). The sports fields at the sport centre all have their own field and frame, which differ because of the differences in sports that are played in the field or the way the frame has been designed. The fields differ in size and relation to each other. Sometimes multiple fields are sharing one frame, the tennis courts for instance.

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1. Strong and weak ties 2. Nerds and Bohemians in Delft 3. Street artists

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Frames differ from each other as well. Sometimes there is a high fence between the spectator and the player and sometimes there is no fence at all, which is the case with beach volleyball fields. Besides this, there are different places for spectators to sit, stand or hang. People in the frame can sit in the dug-out or sit, stand or hang behind the fence. To make it more comfortable for people in the frame to watch the games, grandstands are designed. The grandstands are movable along different paths of the plan and can be connected as a big grandstand when a grand finale is played.

The flow is the residual space defined by the field and the flow. The flows are situated between the fields and have maximum width of 4 meters, which make it almost impossible for frames to arise. The other type of flow is designed wider with a maximum width of 12 meters, and has space for trees and grass in the middle. The movable grandstand can be situated in these streets. Here is more space for the frame to arise because it is a comfortable place to sit and hang out.

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How do you lower the barrier for new meetings?

By creating the field, frame and flow, the public space is more suitable for different kinds of engagement. The facilitation of fields, frames and flows however is not enough to encourage interaction between different people. Even the most sociable people will not randomly speak to a stranger in public space. Events can stimulate interaction between strangers. Public spaces should therefore create opportunities for different interactive events. Another way to encourage interaction between strangers is ‘triangulation’.

Triangulation is ‘the process by which some external stimulus provides a linkage between people and prompts strangers to talk to other strangers as if they knew each other (Whyte, 1980:94).

Triangulation can be facilitated by placing something interesting or strange in the public space (Project for Public Spaces, 2000). People can use the object to interact with, stand around or talk about it (Figure 5). This way the attention is focused on a third thing instead of each other. This makes interpersonal engagement more comfortable.

information about the current state of innovation in Delft. For example, it can show the amount of start-ups, patents, graduates or inventions. When you walk along or sit near a blue board and it changes with a lot of noise, you know that a new invention has been done. These triangulation objects can be the perfect topic to start a conversation and to show how successful Delft is.

The role of the urban designer?

Urban designers can have influence on the success of knowledge locations by improving, creating and facilitating qualities. However, the role of the urban design in the success of a knowledge location has to be seen in perspective. Knowledge locations can become a success without meeting all the qualities and requirements. On the other hand knowledge locations can meet all the requirements, but still be unsuccessful.

This does not mean that the role of an urban designer is not important. Phenomena like knowledge spillovers or communities cannot be created, but can be facilitated. This way, the chance they arise increases.

So, urban designers are important for the success of a knowledge location, in a facilitating role.•

How does an urbanist stimulate a meeting?

Accidental meetings between different knowledge workers can occur all over the sports centre, but will happen mostly at the places where triangulation objects are placed. In my design, these objects are inspired by the blue boards that were used at stations and showed travel information (Figure 6). Instead of showing the travel information, these boards will show

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This article is based on the graduation thesis Creating Knowledge Locations; Designing efficient and inspiring knowledge clusters in Delft by Henriette van der Hee. Mentor team: Leo van den Burg & Arie Romein.

References Carmona, M., Heath,T., Oc,T. and Tiesdell, S. (2010) Public Places Urban Spaces;The Dimensions of Urban Design.Architectural Press, Elsevier, Oxford.

Carr, S., Francis, M., Rivlin, L.G., and Stone,A. (1992). Public space, Cambridge University Press. Cambrige Childs, C. M. (2004). Squares:A Public Place Design Guide for Urbanists. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Florida, R.L. (2002) The Rise of the Creative Class: And how It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York, Basic Books.

Granovetter, M. S. (1973) The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology Vol. 78, No. 6 (May, 1973), pp. 1360-1380 Griliches, Z. (1992), “The Search for R&D Spill-Overs,” Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 94,29-47 Kotkin, J. (2001).The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape. New York, Random House Inc. Marlet, G.A. (2009). De aantrekkelijke stad; Moderne locatietheorieën en de aantrekkingskracht van Nederlandse steden.

Nijmegen,VOC Uitgevers Marlet, G.A. and van Woerkens, C.M.C.M. (2004). De creatieve klasse in Nederland in: Atlas voor gemeenten 2004. Utrecht OECD (1996).The knowledge-based economy. Orgaisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Paris

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4. Final proposal 5. Triangulation 6. 3D Impression

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DOT-TO-DOT

connect the dots and find out what cities are portrayed Let us k now the answer s (atlan tis@ polistud elft.nl) b efore Novem ber 6th for a chanc e to win a prize!

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DRAWING BY HAND Drawing is communicating, it makes visible what we are thinking in order to confront it with others and with ourselves.

We draw at the beginning of a project. Later, during its construction, we draw for the builder. And we can also draw to record the occupancy. The drawing that interests us is the one which researches and fixes our thoughts. It is not about skill.

One can explain a project only with words, but drawing sets a precise geometry that language cannot give. It fixes an option. A drawing brings to sight a thought. When discussion on a project goes into drawing, it incorporates dimensions and proportions, a scale in relation to things around them. Drawing tests what has been talked. To draw with measurements has to do with its materiality, and it brings our thoughts closer to construction, thoughts get prepared for action.

This is a special aspect in architecture: thoughts and actions go together. Our architecture studio is not interested in intellectual speculations, we test our thoughts into a built reality, so they get into the freedom of interpretation of any built work.

Communication by hand The lines used to explain a thought are a selection and an observation. Each line is something, no lines unnamed: sidewalk, step, door, mailbox... When you get tired of drawing, you leave it. The more elaborated parts are where thoughts have taken more time, and where there is more information. During the evolution of the drawing, the information is at sight, and it has a scale, a measurement, it is an open document on which to think and to reflect.

We realize that this communication in the class is faster if the drawings are drawn by hand, and what we see in the documents has been observed and selected by each author. They are faithful to what they are thinking.

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Eva Prats

Associated professor, ETSAB (Barcelona) & Architect, Flores & Prats

When I returned to the University as a teacher, 10 years after having left as a student, I had to position myself into the discussion about the change from hand drawing into computer drawing. It took me a few months to realize that communication in the classroom did not work because the computer drawings were full of lines that meant nothing. What is this? Is it the line of the sidewalk? Many of the lines drawn in the AutoCAD files, provided to all the students, were information that had not been appropriated by the students, they were in their drawings but didn't belong to their thoughts. Students didn't know what these lines were.

One of my goals as a teacher is that students gain confidence in drawing as thinking, to understand it as the tool to develop their proposals. I assist them in documenting, this is my responsibility. Therefore in the class, each drawing has to be identified with the individual thoughts that develop each proposal. For this, hand drawing is more accurate, the computer is still too unintuitive nowadays. Connection between mind and hand is faster and more intuitive, raises more questions and is aware of boredom, which makes us more aware of the extent and limits of things.

This can only be achieved when drawing by hand, as drawing on a large sheet of paper on the studio table is much more public than the computer screens. Both in our studio and in the classroom at University, we ask collaborators and students to draw by hand, in order to get a direct communication. In the classroom, the student's drawings belong not only to its author but to everyone else there, so we ask for large drawings that we are all able to look at. These are public documents that make the classroom a market of opinions, with influences and contrasts going from one design to another. A good drawing permits to be communicated and it identifies with the student speech, it allows other students to learn from other possibilities on the reality and on the project we are all involved in.

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To doubt, a process at sight Our thinking is not linear, and drawing must adapt to its jumps and doubts arisen during the process. It should help thinking, instead of cutting possibilities.

Double options appear, and drawing should let us doubt. Drawing without erasing: if new options are drawn on new pieces of tracing paper, we can follow our doubts and the process remains at sight.

Sometimes we stop and go backwards, we can follow the traces registered on paper.

Having doubts drawn around the working table permits the coexistence of different thoughts about one thing. Tracing paper on top of another tracing paper overlaps different ideas about the same subject, in our head it overlaps doubts and possibilities. There is not an absolute option, there is a debate of opinions to draw. The doubt is installed on the working table as an element to go forward.

Measure and Limit For many years I have been teaching Third Year at the ETSAB, where collective housing is the academic program. A question: Do we have to draw by hand 100 equal houses? This question led immediately to another: Are these 100 houses going to be equal? The awareness on the project is bigger if you draw it by hand; if you foresee that you are going to be bored in drawing these identical 100 homes, then: How is it going to be like living there, if you think that drawing these houses is a task that can be saved? Is it not this laziness or boredom that you see coming, a signal to think about the project in another way?

The title of the book "Thought by hand" about the work of our studio, has this reflection implied. In our hands, and what can be drawn with them, there is a measure of the real world. Hand is a tool to question about the size of the projects and about its area of influence, about what exists around them and what you decide to incorporate in your thinking, because the spaces around will be immediately affected by the project you are designing.

Drawings get their structure by adding observations, it is impossible for us to think through erasing. How many of the surroundings of a project do we draw?

How much environment accompanies our thoughts?

We have tried to draw a situation plan by erasing the AutoCAD file that you can find on the web, but it hasn't worked out. This is a work of adding observations, it is very difficult to use a graphic method of subtraction, when your head is adding data.

Reflection on the measure and the limit seems a topic to be discussed in class. The hand helps to give human measure to things. The title of our book has to do with this. It is not on the skill or on the craft, but on the help of reflecting by hand as a tool that activates thought.

So in both our architecture studio and classrooms, we develop mainly documentation by hand. We use hand or computer depending on the document that we plan to make. The computer tool is very useful when we have to share documents with external studio partners.

In the studio, the set of Construction Drawings contains both hand and computer drawings. They are different tools, you choose when to use them. • 22

1. Process Drawing of the upper staircase at Casal Balaguer © Eva Prats 2. Situation plan of the Mills Museum © Eva Prats

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PRODUCTS OF LINES During graduation year, all students are struggling to find different ways to explore and express their ideas. Tanya Chandra, 2015 MSc Urbanism graduate, found the way to direct her thoughts into singular ways of representation, making products such as drawings, models, booklets, smart cards and flipbooks. A whole exhibition for her graduate project that inspires us to discover new ways to draw the lines.

Under the umbrella of the Design as Politics studio, my graduation project dealt with a utopia of accessibility in the city of Delhi resulting in a potential technology City-on-Demand. There were two aspects to my way of presenting my project through the year.

Firstly, as the topic was under urban mobility, I wanted to present each product as a dynamic experience.

Secondly, due to the graduation project being a technological and spatial intervention, the content and framework either reflected the lingo of the technological world or were digital products in itself.

I followed a similar line of thought from designing a project to designing the products for the project.

Poster, mass model and report have their pros and cons but are a limiting medium of choice to create a dynamic effect. I started looking at physical graphic styles that one would need to get involved in, to see the entire picture. The age old flip-book, foldable, pamphlet and slide projector type models came to mind. These every day and simple information tools gave me a leverage to make my drawing lines move. At the same time, I could break down information into smaller packages of information, highlighting different aspects of the project with each medium. This also gave me the opportunity to clarify aspects that didn’t

fall in the design category but made the story stronger like the books on India and fictional story simulating user’s daily lifestyle changes due to design, thus highlighting the softer elements of an urban project.

My biggest challenge was in translating the technological circuit of the design into spatial lines of a product. So I started with how one would use the technology, which brought in the making of the demand card, which meant that there had to be a user interface for the card, in came the demand meter and its location, resulting in the phasing and policy intervention required for the design to be successful.

The slide projector-sectional models showed the dynamic nature of the demand technology, whereas the rendering cards reflected when the system was active or non-active as per the demand made.

Finally to take a full circle, I created a website which showcases the project as a potential technology, and asked for inputs from practitioners, academicians and users who had informed my graduation project, as simulation beta testing. These products of line helped me present, understand and enjoy my graduation project. •

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Tanya Chandra

Graduate MSc Urbanism TU Delft

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Partial Models

Converting 2D methods of presentation with 3D objects to show dynamic processes of design

Process of technology via fold-able, pamphlets , boards and posters

Booklets

Story telling through foldable items, users as characters and flip books

City-on-Demand: Graduation project under Design as Politics studio, 2015 24

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http://tanyachandra.wix.com/city-on-demand

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UTOPIA : WALK DELHI | CHALO DILLI - 22 million people

AS PER THE SYSTEM ONE CAN ACHIEVE IN DELHI :

1. Bus stop or train station maximum at 1km from any house 2. Takes 1% (densest district) to 13% (least dense district) of the density to make it a walkable neighbourhood.

3. From 2sqm/ person it increases to 16sqm / person of open public space.

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Illegal Construction in Greece:

historical phases, legislation, policies, and implementation Illegal construction seems to be an inherent element of Greek urban history. It has definitely affected the shape and function of Greek cities from the past to the present. Urban and rural areas throughout the country have been suffering by the old and widespread phenomenon of illegal constructions. The numbers are alarming: some 93,000 legal and 31,000 illegal houses and apartments were constructed each year in Greece between 1991 and 2001. Most of them are in Attica and along the coastline (Technical Chamber of Greece, 2004).

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Konstantinos Lalenis

Associate Professor DPRP, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

Since the early 1980s, efforts have been made to face the problem of illegal construction, through the production of a series of laws and decrees. Usually, a much elaborated - but also complex and often rigid - legal framework had been synthesized, implemented, and replaced by a new one, and most of the times without any evaluation of the implementation up until then. In the meantime, research on the subject proved that the phenomenon of illegal construction continued exhibiting the same intensity, with periodic subsidence and peaks - after the inaction of a new law, and respectively, when the implementation of it faded because of bureaucratic procedures and political interventions.

Our hypothesis is that illegal construction cannot be tackled only by the production of continuously newer legislation, usually increasingly complex and with an alarmingly increasing pace of succession. Illegal construction will further increase if law enforcement is not subsequent and combined to policies.

Illegal construction in Greece is a trans-temporal phenomenon. It seems that it has been developing in a manner equivalent with the development of the Greek State. According to historical archives, the first reactions of the administration in Greece against illegal construction were recorded back in 1840 (Leontidou, 1989:90). Since then, it has been based on a broad social basis, and - contrary to the legal efforts against it - it has acquired a “popular legitimization” and an ethical acceptance. Some analysts claim that the State was deliberately avoiding to effectively fight illegal construction, since it was an indirect way to provide residences, making up, thus, for the ineffectiveness and inability of the State to formulate and implement effective housing policies.

This might be the explanation of the phenomenon of controversial legislation concerning illegal construction, which, on the one hand prohibits and punishes illegal buildings, and on the other hand, it periodically legalizes them (Kalogirou, 1979:42).

The first peak of illegal construction was in mid ‘20s, after the disaster of Asia Minor at 1922. This period was marked by a sequence of wars with grave consequences on life and development of the Greek society. The Balkan Wars (1912-1913) were followed by World War I, at the end of which, the national territory was doubled. Four years later (1922), there was the disaster of Asia Minor which brought 1.5 million refugees to the country

DEFINITION: Illegal constructions are considered the ones: • without building permit or • with excess of their building permit or • with a building permit which was retracted or • in violation of the existing building regulations or • with change of its use without issuing a permit for it.

(L.1577/85 – L.2831/00: General Construction Code, art. 22)

(already with a population of 5 million). Due to the urgent need to resettle them, a committee was established which designed new settlements at the fringes ofthe existing cities, revised existing plans, granted small pieces of land to refugee families and built "temporary" homes for them. One can still see those settlements, still inhabited, and with no major improvements in facilities and quality of housing.

That reallocation of land, however, was the final blow 27

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to large land properties in the suburban districts and the countryside - the social unrest demanding their redistribution to the farmers, that had started from the end of the previous century (Ghizeli, 1984 in Tsoulouvis, 1987). It was impossible for the housing policies of the government to effectively deal with the high number of refugees, and satisfy the urgency of their need for a shelter. Thus, it was mostly in an informal and spontaneous way, in which almost 50% of the 1,5 million refugees tried to solve their housing problems. Illegal construction of the time was developed mainly in the periphery of the cities, and concerned the construction of low quality houses. Nevertheless, there were also illegal additions to the buildings of the housing projects mentioned above. Almost a century later, many illegal houses built on public land with particular uses (forest land, agricultural land), have not been legalized yet, due to constitutional constraints, and they still pay fines for avoiding demolition.

For the interwar period there are no studies examining in depth the relationship between the attempts of the state to formulate social policies and planning objectives, and the development of illegal construction.

Political instability was a feature of this period, ending and culminating in the Civil War (1944-1950).

Political intimidation and repression were used for the purpose of curbing wages and salaries, but more positive measures, like controlling urban land values, formulating long-term housing policy programmes and establishing a strong welfare state were missing (Tsoulouvis, 1987). In this very much centralized system, the process of implementation of City Plans was always controlled by central government, while local authorities had been powerless. Considering the importance of patron-client relations that has always been the case in Greek politics, central control of local processes meant that political personalities who had access to the government could exercise pressure for the extension of the City Plan and the modification of the building regulations to the benefit of their clientele. The extremely slow pace of legal approval of City Plans and the inability to control and protect the much faster "development" around the urban space allowed for the phenomenon of illegal construction to steadily grow out of control.

The second wave was around the '50s and '60s, as an effect of the internal migration from rural areas to the cities (mainly Athens, Thessaloniki). This period (1950-1971) found the country destroyed by World War II and bitterly divided by the Civil War. In 1951 the population in cities with more than 10.000 inhabitants, was 39% of the total population of the country, while in 1961 this percentage was increased to 44%. In 1951, 8% of constructions in the area of the capital were illegal, while in the period 1951 – 1961 there was a further 13,7% increase of the number of illegal buildings. According to estimates for the period 1950-1974, illegal construction came up to

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10% of the total value of construction activities, with the percentage of the number of illegal constructions estimated between 17% and 27% of the total (Getimis et al, 1994). During the period 1945-1956, 282.257 illegal constructions were recorded in the peripheries of the urban centres, and mainly around Athens, while in the period 1945-1966, 380.000 people were residing in illegal houses.

The agreement of Greece with the EEC in the '60s made the need for structural transformation and modernization quite urgent (Linardatos, 1978:471472). Institutional reforms were attempted, in order to help the process of industrialization (i.e. merging of financial institutions, creation of new ones), and projects for the construction of working class housing estates were implemented in the early '60s. Those developments gave the impression that right wing governments had decided to broaden the spectrum of objectives and means used for the exercise of planning, even if only to strengthen Greek capitalism (Tsoulouvis, 1987). But this did not last for long: since the mid '60s, state involvement in new dwellings construction had fallen to the level of 3%-4% of the total number of new dwellings (Emmanuel, 1996:217) while since 1968, the total number of new dwellings per year, per 1000 inhabitants, was one of the highest among the countries-members of OECD (OECD, 1983:36). The internal migration of population to the cities, the absence of state policies for housing, the domination of private sector in the provision of houses, and the exclusion of the low income internal immigrants from the official housing market, combined with the patron-client relations in Greek politics which guaranteed impunity for the ones who had access to the state apparatus, further encouraged illegal constructions.

The beginning of the '80s found Greece with an overcentralized urban system, with uncontrolled urban development, and with no implementable planning legislation. The urban hierarchy was dominated by two major cities, the Athens/Piraeus conurbation, and Thessaloniki. From 1951 to 1981 the population 28

1. Neighbourhoods of Chillia and Pentakosia in the city of Kavala, (http://www.archaiologia.gr/ blog/2012/ 12/10)

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of Greater Athens increased from 1.4 to 3.1 million approximately, and that of Greater Thessaloniki from 300.000 to 800.000 approximately. In 1981 the population of Greater Athens represented 31% of the total population of Greece. Illegal construction grew out of proportion and dominated the housing problem. Illegal houses were estimated to reach 25-30% of the total number of houses. For decades, cities had been growing by a process of integrating illegal construction. Mostly in election times, illegal buildings were made lawful, and the City Plan was, after all, revised. The speculator, operating at the fringes of the city, became one of the central figures among the agents producing the urban structure. His role was to buy cheap rural land or appropriate public land outside the City Plan area, subdivide it into small plots, convert it into urban land by constructing narrow streets and sell it to people who became legal owners of their land but illegal town settlers striving to achieve the extension of the City Plan - and the process would start all over again (Tsoulouvis, 1987).

From the mid '70s, speculators started using in large scale an even faster - and more disastrous - way: they were setting forests on fire and they would start the old process on the burned land, which, since it was not a forest any more, was easier to be included in a revision of the City Plan, under certain political pressure.

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Law 1337/1983 was introduced as a transitional urban planning law, which was supposed to last for a limited period in order to cover the current urgent needs in the urban environment. According to the "Urban Reconstruction Operation (EPA) 19821984", illegal houses constructed after December 10, 1981, were supposed to be demolished while those constructed before that date could be legitimized with a declaration, a certificate by an engineer that they fulfilled certain standards of safety and quality, and a fine in cash payment (Lalenis, 2001).

of pressures exercised by the illegal house owners demanding the legitimation of their houses, and extensions of the City Plans to include them. The then Minister - who inspired the whole operation of the EPA - rejected these pressures and as a result, was summarily replaced. His successor was keen on giving priority to any kind of extensions of plans to include illegal housing areas. At the general elections that followed, EPA lost its momentum. A lot of the initially ambitious objectives were now left aside and as it concerned illegal constructions, the state started “being soft” with them again, as it had been doing for decades before EPA. A new era of illegal buildings was developed in the ‘80s and ‘90s, with partially new characteristics. The trend was not for immediate shelter any more, but for holiday houses.

This was in accordance to the rise of living standards in Greek society. In order to realize the magnitude and endurance of the phenomenon, one has to consider that at the period 1985-1995, 20%-25% of constructions in Greece were partly or totally illegal, while at 1997, from a total of 4.643.379 of residence buildings, 1.000.000 were partly or totally illegal (Lalenis, 2001).

EPA, and in particular the process of managing illegal construction, was one of the few examples in Greek history of spatial planning, in which there was an effective integration of the constitutional level (law making) and the institutional level of action (policy making). Unfortunately, the same degree of integration and cooperation did not occur between the two previous levels of action, and the third one, that of implementation. Lack of adequate planning in terms of time, finances, and personnel, soon put EPA in stalemate. The whole process was further jeopardized by the general election of 1985 and the municipal elections of 1986, mainly because

Another characteristic of the post-EPA period concerned the legal barriers to the continuous legitimization of illegal construction, contrary to what was the case before EPA. The implementation of law 1337/1983 –as mentioned above- was not allowing any legitimization of illegal building that was constructed after December 10, 1981, and in fact, it provided for its demolition. Because of this, the political establishment was at risk of losing a serious part of its popular support, since legitimization of illegal constructions had traditionally been a source of development of political clientelism (photo 2). Thus, there were efforts to circumvent these

In 1981 the first socialist government of postwar Greece came to power with a very ambitious programme, part of which was a new urban and regional planning policy and the effective management of illegal constructions. The expression of this policy was twofold: Law 1337/83 and the Urban Reconstruction Operation (EPA) 82-84.

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legal restrictions, by inventing new definitions and formulating legal instruments with which new illegal constructions could be exempt from demolition and fines. The haste in formulation of these laws is indicative of the unwillingness of the state to seriously tackle the phenomenon of illegal construction. An indicative example is the establishment of the term “regularization” for illegal constructions, which meant that by paying specific fines, demolition of constructions, legal penalties, and/or extra fines would be abolished for the next forty years after their regularization.

The recent economic crisis in Greece hit hard the construction sector, due to the lack of capital for financing constructions. Furthermore, the formulation and implementation of effective policies against illegal construction, was included in the Memorandum signed by the Greek Government, the International

Monetary Fund, the European Bank, and the Eurogroup at 2010, as part of the agreement for financial help to Greece, in order to overcome the crisis. As a result, the number and - mainly - the scale of illegal constructions were reduced, and at the same time, there was an excessive production of related legislation. An assessment of the new legal framework would lead to the conclusion that the recent efforts were mainly to the direction of reducing and controlling illegal construction through the implementation of a rather complex system of fines and penalties for all involved parties (owners, developers, engineers, workers, notary publics), rather than diminishing it completely. Thus, the main inadequacies of the new legal tools were that the public has faced them with skepticism, characterizing them as measures for the State to make money, rather that aiming to seriously tackle illegal construction. •

References Getimis P., Kafkalas G., Maraveyias N. (1994): “Urban and Regional Development: Theory – Analysis and Policy”, (Αστική και Περιφερειακή Ανάπτυξη: Θεωρία – Ανάλυση και Πολιτική), Themelio publications, Athens.

Kalogirou N. (1979): “The housing problem” (Το πρόβλημα της κατοικίας), in “Studies about housing in Greece”, edited by Fatouros D.,

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Paratiritis, Thessaloniki.

Lalenis K. (2001): “Planning by Decree. Incompatibilities of planning laws and planning policies in Greece, during the 20th century. Analysis, perspectives”, paper presented at World Planning School Congress, Shanghai, July 2001.

Leontidou L. (1989): “Cities of Silence, urbanization by workers of Athens and Peiraeus, 1909-1940” (Πόλεις της Σιωπής, ο εργατικός εποικισμός της Αθήνας και του Πειραιά, 1909-1940), Cultural and Technological Foundation ETBA, Athens.

Linardatos S. (1978): “The 1958 Greek Elections: a Reassessment”,

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Tsoulouvis L. (1987): “Aspects of Statism and Planning in Greece”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. II, No 4, 1987. http://www.tovima.gr/default.asp?pid=2&artid=260431&ct=16 http://www.minenv.gr/ http://www.domiki.gr http://www2.rizospastis.gr/story. do?id=4974392&publDate=1/3/2009

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http://www.enet.gr/?i=issue.el.home&date=20/07/2009&id=65148 http://www.enet.gr/?i=issue.el.home&date=23/07/2009&id=66235 http://www.imerisia.gr/article.asp?catid=12336&subid=2&tag=9464 &pubid=13207190

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2. Article (one of many) in a daily newspaper reporting interventions of a Member of Parliament of the governing New Democracy party, for stopping demolition of illegal constructions in his electoral area (Newspaper Eleftherotypia, 3-6-2008) 3. Illegal constructions in urban areas, occupying public space (Personal archive) 4. Illegal constructions in forest areas (Personal archive) 5. Illegal constructions of coastal zones (Personal archive) 6. Closing of semi-hypethral spaces, pilotis, and converting parking spaces to flats.

(Personal archive)

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LIVES, LINES AND DIVIDES in the city of Hebron The Palestinian city of Hebron is a tense, divided and often violent place. It is a site of special religious importance to all the Abrahamic faiths because of the Ibrahimi Mosque (also known as The Cave of the Patriarchs). Many believe this is where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are buried.

Home to a small number of extremist Israeli settlers, Hebron has been under the occupation of the Israeli military since 1967. In a situation often compared to apartheid in South Africa1, and the forced displacement of the Balkans2, the basic human rights of the Palestinian population are systematically undermined3.

Under peace agreements signed in the late 1990s, the city is divided into two parts: they are formally known as H1 (Palestinian control) and H2 (Israeli control).

There are over fifty military checkpoints, hundreds of roadblocks, and thousands of obstacles to movement.

These barriers present ongoing challenges to the city and it’s people, disrupting businesses, transport, access to facilities and to public and sacred spaces. But these lines also have a deeper impact on the social structure of Hebron. Manipulation and policing of the urban fabric and function has reinforced a pattern of fear and distrust between the two sides and so it is time that the capacity of the city itself in peacebuilding is realized. •

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Just beyond sight at the bottom of the stairs stands an Israeli soldier.

If the Palestinian schoolboy turns rights upon reach the road he will be immediately arrested for crossing one of Hebron’s many hidden lines.

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2 Certain streets in Hebron, such as the one pictured above, have been completely closed to Palestinians. Infrastructures of connection are now lines of division, fundamentally impacting patterns of daily life.

3 Roadblocks prevent vehicles from passing between the H1 and H2 areas of Hebron. Once thriving thoroughfares, streets such as these become obscure and deserted corners of the city as businesses and residents are displaced.

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4 Beyond these gates lies the Ibrahimi Mosque, the burial place of Abraham. The checkpoint exploits a natural pinch point in the urban fabric to control access to this critical religious and cultural place in the city.

Chris Venables worked as an international human rights observer in Hebron during the Summer of 2014. His role was to report and document violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law. Chris is a campaigner and activist based in East London.

References ALAN DUNCAN MP (Conservative; former Int. Development minister)

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- “One should not use the word apartheid lightly, but as a description of Hebron it is both accurate and undeniable. In South Africa it meant pass cards, no free movement, forbidden areas, and first and second-class citizens.

burungaar.wordpress.com www.eappi.org

So it is in Hebron.” http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/14/alan-duncan-tocondemn-israeli-settlements-in-blistering-speech JAN KRISTESEN (Former Head of UN (TIPH) Mission in Hebron)

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- "The activity of the settlers and the army in the H-2 area of Hebron is creating an irreversible situation. In a sense, cleansing is being carried out.” http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/hebron-s-h-2-area-is-beingcleansed-of-palestinians-1.114119 B’TSELEM - THE ISRAELI INFORMATION CENTRE FOR

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HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES http://www.btselem.org/

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The New Dutch Waterline the story of a line

Nowadays, heritage is shifting towards a more structural approach, focusing on the urban landscape in which the intangible or the narrative of the place is used more often. The New Dutch Waterline is an example of this changing focus. This national transformation process (1999-now) led to high profile architectural and landscape architectural designs. But do we really experience a historic line in the landscape? And how is the narrative emphasised? For two years, MSc 2 landscape architecture students worked on this through a narrative- and structuredriven approach to urban landscape heritage. This contribution will research the immaterial aspects which were used by the students and try to identify different types of stories being used.

After most Medieval castles lost their role in the defence of sites and regions, Dutch defence was based on defence lines with different military strategies.

One of them was a water defence line, a vast amount of unbridgeable water to stop the enemy by inundation. The New Dutch Waterline (1815-1963) was a complete water defence line which included two castles, several tower fortresses, seven fortified cities and had two co-working systems. The first system was the main resistance line which combined a series of adjacent inundation fields with water works (inundation canals, water inlet sluices and such) to flood the land as quickly as possible. This flooded area was approximately six to eight kilometres wide and 40 to 60 centimetres deep; not deep enough for ships but too dangerous to wade through for soldiers in woollen cloth. The second system consisted of military objects (fortresses, bunkers, group shelters and such) for defending specific non-floodable places, the so-called access points, like crossings with roads, rivers and train tracks.

Later on, due to changes in warfare, this clear outline incorporated numerous casemates, lunettes and bunkers for group shelter.i The Waterline was spatially functioning on three scales; from an object level (fortress, bunker or so), from areas (access points) as well as the entire line.ii The main theme of the line was vision. How could you see as much as possible, without being seen by the enemy?

Heritage landscape When the line became outdated, fortresses, casemates and bunkers were gradually abandoned and nature took over, until it attracted new interest in the 1980s.iii The general thought behind the transformation was that the cultural history of this defence landscape would form the ‘backbone for current and future large scale spatial challenges’ and be ‘an inspiration to the urban and landscape quality’.iv The project started as a top-down process with many participating actors,

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Gerdy VerschuureStuip

Assistant Professor, Chair of Landscape architecture and Heritage, TU Delft

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means and conditions, which led to renewed attention for our military past and many transformations were published. Almost iconic is the cut-through Bunker 599. These transformations led to many renewed sites and functions like: campsites, hotels or B&B, living areas, museums and many places to drink and eat.

But although the main ideas for transformation were framed in the wider spatial context, we see a strong focus on the transformation of objects, like fortresses, bunkers and even group shelters. Large scale plans or even plans for the entire line are limited.

Material and immaterial heritage Students were asked to research and design with the narrative of the line and to show a transformation plan.v As the theoretical background for MSc 2, a heritage landscape (heritage site) was defined as a system of both material (physical; structure, objects, plain) and immaterial elements (narrative), changed over time by nature and men. A definition in line with the ideas on site specificity which was defined by Braae and Diedrich in the three terms: physical, immaterial and dynamic aspects.vi

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Images 1. Bunker 599 was transformed to tell the story on how the principles ideas worked.

2. The New Dutch Waterline is a combination of a large waterbody and many different military objects to defend access points. During the transformation process many of these military objects were transformed for recreational functions (C. Steenhorst, G. VerschuureStuip, 2014) Notes i Will, 2002; Brand, Brand,1986 ii Luiten et al, 2004, p.. iii Raats, 2011 iv Luiten, et al., 2004, p. 22. v Verschuure, 2015 vi Braae, Diedrich, 2002, p 25. vii Although students were introduced to methods of landscape biography, this notion was used later on in the process when a story was already chosen.

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Students were struggling with the complexity of many layers of and many types of stories and how to turn these into spatial designs.vii In general, two different approaches towards history were used: they used historic stories nowadays or used the (current) experience of the history and combined it with new functions related to the past. A large group used the historic narrative of mostly the line itself on aspects of use and meaning on different scales. Students tried to emphasise the main resistance line with small orange poles, white flags to show the ‘end’ of the inundation fields and even coloured biking paths with historic facts to keep the memory of the line. Other students worked with the site specific history, focusing on the day-to day activities like working, waiting to fight the enemy, fear, boredom and writing poetry. Here, students made plans to show even other functions in time like agriculture and focussing on ‘different’ histories on site. But there were even plans to show the consequences of inundation very literally in waterparks and playgrounds. The last set of plans tried to preserve the current, historic atmosphere and its historic relicts and nature, as part of the essence of the place. The (bodily) experience and visual beauty, uniqueness and quietness were essential for two plans that developed small and medium scale plans for retreats. This new function was referring to the waiting and boredom of soldiers.

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The wide variety of outcomes shows generally that sites have (mostly) different types of stories: of day-today use, stories of its specific use (defence) and what it was representing (meaning) over time; and stories referring to the memory of the history or to a specific moment in time, contributing to the atmosphere to the place. But to really understand the importance and construction of the narrative on heritage sites more research is needed. •

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Note: Student’s MSc 2 work is available through the TU Delft library (booklet). An article on the transformation process will be published in the near future by the author.

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References Braae E., L. Diedrich (2012) Site specificity in contemporary large-scale harbour transformation projects, Journal of Landscape Architecture, 7:1, 20-33 Brand, H., Brand, J. (1986) De Hollandse Waterlinie. Utrecht/ Antwerpen: Veen uitgeverij Luiten, E., Hezewijk, J. van, Joosting Bunk, E., Witsen, P.P. (2004) Panorama Krayenhoff, Linieperspectief Ruimtelijk Perspectief Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie, Utrecht, p. 4, p. 22, p. 22-23, p. 22-23.

Verschuure-Stuip, G. (2015) Heritage Landscapes New Dutch Waterline, Delft.

Raats, K. (2011) Het gemeenschappelijk offensief voor de Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie in de 21ste eeuw, Dillema’s bij het samen werken aan de Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie. Amsterdam, Will, C. (2002) De Hollandse Waterlinie. Matrijs, Utrecht

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Dealing with edges in the city of Buenos Aires This project takes place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and it deals with the problems of fragmentation in the South of the city (Comuna 8&9). As Buenos Aires was one of the most globalized cities in the world, various disadvantages such as social segregation and exclusion, urban fragmentation, and environmental degradation are among the main problems found.

Lack of spatial order, which resembles informality a lot, is often accused as the main reason behind the social segregation between the north and the south. However, privatization of the infrastructure and services as well as the commonly spread negative paradigm related to safety have also been setting the area further and further away from the city both physically and socially. The main goal of this project is to analyze this segregation, by locating all kinds of edges inside the area of Buenos Aires and then proposing a toolbox of possible implementations, able to work idividually or in groups, in order to erase these "uncrossed lines", from a local/ accupunctural level to a regional environmental strategy.

Working hypothesis

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Alkmini Papaioannou Putrikinasih Santoso MSc3 Urbanism

Project by Alkmini Papaioannou Amina Mnif Eirini Trachana Estefany Mena Nina Bohm Putrikinasih Santoso Yidong Yang MSc3 Urbanism and Landscape Architecture

After reviewing several literatures, we developed a working hypothesis based on Caroline Moser’s idea on the asset vulnerability framework (Moser, 2006).

According to the Ford Foundation, assets are stocks of financial, human, natural or social resources that can be acquired, developed, improved and transferred across generations (Ford Foundation, 2004).

Meanwhile, Caroline Moser’s vulnerability framework distinguishes five assets: • physical • human • social • financial • environmental assets.

In order to understand the complexity of the project, we use these assets as an entry point. We analyzed the presence (or the absence) of each asset in every scale (local scale, city scale, and metropolitan scale).

There are two groups of assets, protective assets and promotional assets. Protective assets are the basic needs for a human to exist, such as physical and natural assets; while promotional assets are including those to help one improve their quality of life, such as human, social, and financial assets.

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Analysis Our project was developed by an analysis of each asset at every scale (local scale, city scale, and metropolitan scale) in order to determine the most vulnerable locations, which areas we were to focus on in this particular project. By doing so, we expect to influence the current development trends in Buenos Aires in a way that is more favourable to those who are living in high risk areas.

Shown below are our initial investigations in search of the most vulnerable areas in the Metropolitan of Buenos Aires. From the analysis, we figured out that the project’s areas (Comuna 8 and Comuna 9) are among the areas with the highest risk, where physical, socio-economic, and environmental risks appeared.

The first analyses on the project’s site were done on the information found in publications, websites, and books which led us to several recognizable issues more than just the risks themselves. The negative paradigm about the project’s area has then become one of the most significant matters that encouraged social segregation between the north and the south.

There is a possibility to develop a dual approach to the city’s duality, which is the identity between the global districts and the local neighbourhoods as well as the risks and the opportunities which are interlaced in the lines of intensity. We learned that both sides can be antagonist or imbalanced and yet retain dormant potentials waiting to be explored. Thus we investigated further on the limit where the two extremities meet.

In the search for the definition of these extremities and their relation, we took a look into two analogies, i.e. the ecotone and the Japanese Kintsugi art, which helped us to comprehend the role of an urban edge.

We defined three categories of edges according the risks we were addressing in this project (environmental, physical, and socio-economic risks) and tried to locate these edges on the map.

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Diagnosis From the understanding about the edge, we developed a hypothesis that if edges in ecology are zones of intensity and in art are spaces of improvement, urban edges can also play a catalytic role to trigger change.

On the one hand, the edges can be environmental, socio economic or physical boundaries that lead to floods, segregation or fragmentation and, on the other, the areas of opportunities, where promotional assets are already thriving, can be more developed.

By looking into the analysis maps on the risks and the edges, we came to a finding that confirmed our hypothesis: the high risk areas tend to have more edges than the low risk areas.

Our strategic goals were then very much related to the findings from the analysis and diagnosis conducted beforehand. Since we were building our project based on three different kind of risks, we believe that

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it is relevant to develop strategic goals according to the same issues, i.e. environmental, physical (built environment), and socio-economic. However, each of the issues require different approaches and scales of intervention, thus we relate our strategic goals to a certain scale.

Although our proposed strategies should be applied at several scales, we focused our programs and interventions at the local scale. The local scale was considered to be an ideal starting point because it has more influence and contribution to the local inhabitant’s well-being. Consequently, we proposed a toolbox of implementations to perform as both

alternatives and guidelines of interventions to be done at the local level. Furthermore, at bigger scales, connectivity and environmental issues are dealt with, in the process of erasing edges arround Comuna 8 & 9 and the rest of the region of Buenos Aires.

This toobox is to be implemented in vulnerable edges as diagnosed beforehand, whether the edges are a point, line, or space. Most of the interventions indicated in the toolbox are those appropriate for community involvement. There are two alternatives of intervention-series within the proposals of the toolbox: a series of acupunctural interventions and possible linear developments.•

1. Buenos Aires / Duality of the city 2. Protective and Promotional assets 3. Risk map (degree of vulnerability) 4. Analogies of the ecotone & Japanese art "Kintsugi" 5. Identification of edge typology 6 - 8. Mapping the edges from local to metropolitan level 9 -11. Risks on edges from local to metropolitan level 12 -19. Toolbox of interventions in metropolitan, city and local scale

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Collaborative Practice Frits Palmboom is a professor in urban design at TU Delft, at the Van Eesteren chair. In practice, research and many publications he explores the relation between urban design and the physical conditions of the Dutch Delta Landscape. Since 1990, together with Jaap van den Bout he has run Palmbout Urban Landscapes, an urban design office located in Rotterdam. This interview is part of an ongoing research on collaborative design conducted by the interviewer.

interview with Frits Palmboom

Professor, TU Delft & Designer, Palmbout Urban Landscapes

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Ioana Ionescu MSc3 Urbanism

Could you briefly define what do you understand by collaborative design?

I thought: “Collaborative design? Collaborative design? I do not know what that is.� I can understand, I can imagine something about it, but as a concept I did not know it. I know of course when I am designing, we have to collaborate. For me there is not a special way that I should call collaborative design.

I approach this concept differently at different stages of the project. It might be about co-design or collective design. Different terms apparently define different types of collaboration in the process of design.

So then the central question could be‌ how in design processes people collaborate? Is the design an act that evolves in one mind or can it be something that evolves in the course of collaboration with different people? Most people think that creativity is something in your mind and there is one creative person, who is the designer that invents everything, puts it on paper and then others have to collaborate to realize it. I think for a part of it, it is true, but on the other hand, if I look at the reality of the process, designing is always collaborative in all the stages and in different ways.

We have the idea that the design process goes in cycles, it is not one way traffic and we always have our testing

moments. This method can be applied with different types of actors. We have discussions about what we observe on the site and its surroundings; we develop ideas and hypotheses, articulate the problems; we put all those steps on the table for people to react to and criticise. As we adapt plans, these cycles continue.

"...the design process goes in cycles, it is not one way traffic and we always have our testing moments..."

Are these talks organized by you or by the commissioner?

When we have a commissioner, mostly, we do it in an organized process. There is a commissioner or municipality who organises the process and invites the people to talk to us.

Do people respond to this invitation?

That is a process in itself: how to get the people together. Mostly, this is not a thing that we do ourselves, there are other process managers, cultural intendants and officials that organize it.

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Do we design together? Do we draw together? That is an interesting question! Sometimes we do, sometimes we have workshops and we discuss a problem or a commission. We put a map on the table and a transparent paper on top of it. People say things in words, and we try to turn words into drawing as a mean of communication.

In reality people are a bit afraid of drawing and mostly we are the ones that start the drawing. Many times it’s very simple when you have the map and the sketching paper and then the story starts: “there is a church over there and too many cars and there are not enough trees!” and the designer says: “you mean this church?” and “there are not enough trees here?” and “what do you think is the missing link?...here, here is the pencil!” Essentially, everybody can draw, and you can evoke this capacity in people, but it is part of our profession to make drawings and to make this step.

So, we can help them. In the end, you have a quite chaotic drawing - but a drawing is not a plan. We have to make the next steps, because, for example, in the drawing there are conflicts.

So, the plan cannot be just a sum of collaborations.

No, but the interesting thing is to introduce the design work within the process of collaboration. I am convinced that, as a designer, my task is not only to make the design, but also to explain the design process and to invite the people to be a part of it.

That is not the same as giving your pencil to them and say: “well, draw a plan and then we will make it”. In my opinion this is the true collaboration. You have to open yourself to all opinions, but you cannot neutralize yourself completely, you are an expert, you have certain skills, a certain way of looking, who recognizes hidden problems and patterns. You have to bring this in, so in a way, you have to educate them.

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Could you generally describe the category of actors that you as an urban designer and planner has to collaborate with at different design phases?

Could you name the main stages that you can identify in the process of design?

You have the commissioner: the city, the municipality, the developer of a certain area. Then you have the project leaders, project managers, and the specialists like the traffic engineer, water engineer, the landscape architects or a whole list of experts of all sorts. Then, of course you have the inhabitants that can vary, such as companies with a specific interest about the area, or the inhabitants that just live in the area and have ideas about it. Finally, there are your colleagues. And you even have those colleagues that were the generation before you, that even are not alive anymore, but put ideas or proposals on paper that are still in the air, in people’s minds.

Design can often be described as a linear process and I see that many students try to follow such an approach.

That is one side of the story. The other side of the story is that you should not only think in certain steps, but you should try to think in a kind of parallel worlds.

There are theories about design thinking, and they say: “in design thinking, it is all about the co-evolution of problems and solutions”. So, you can spend a lot of time in identifying the problem, but it is very important to develop the intuition about solutions at the same time. Certain solutions can change the problem. That is a thing that we as designers are very much trained in, in the course of time. We should not over-emphasize thinking in stages. It is important to think in those parallel worlds and that you have to go back and forth between problem and solutions.

This hierarchy of actors has an order in the course of time: you start with the commissioner and then you go to the project leader, etc. However, sometimes it is different. For example, we made a plan for a housing corporation in Amsterdam, where the project leader asked the inhabitants to choose the design office. They made two committees: one with the inhabitants and one with a team of experts. In that process, from the very beginning, the people that were at the end of the list were in front of the process. Still, in the end, the power belongs to the commissioners and the politicians. In this case, it was a social housing corporation, so they had a task to do this kind of things. When you have the owner of the ground he might just want to make profit out of it and be not so much interested in the inhabitants.

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1. "Further we did an excursion...It was a way to train their way of seeing things and to discuss about it." | Collaborative design story © Anca Ioana Ionescu

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How should the designer act when commissioned to a profitable, but not necessarily ethical project?

Well, of course you, as a designer, mostly you are not obliged a commission, you can refuse. Besides, you have your own mind and observations about a certain area, so you always have a problem statement of your own. That can be your ‘secret agenda’ while you just try to do it as good as possible without talking too much about it.

The most interesting question is how a spatial design relates to different interests and the related ethics .

People can look at a design with very different eyes.

When you open the process to other actors, you get people only interested in the price of their apartment, enough playgrounds for their children, park the car in front of the door, or people only interested in ecological aspects. The challenge is to recognize the main lines that create a common ground for all those different interests and to create a kind of framework that has enough flexibility to fulfil a lot of missions and ambitions of different actors. Without this, the project is just a sum of individual solutions without any common character.

I believe that in urban design, the common ground, is already there. It is the existing city and the existing landscape, in the form that it can be. That is the reason why in this collaboration process, we stress the importance of the observation phase mentioned in the beginning: to develop a language to speak with the people about the existing city. What kind of city do we live in? What can be changed, what can hardly be changed? It is important to recognize the different layers of time: what is constant, what can change, that’s a thing that you have to discover and explain and discuss over and over and over again.

What do you think is the most difficult aspect about collaborative design?

To share uncertainty! Because in the design process there is a question, but there is no answer yet. Many times the commissioner and the people ask the designer for the solution, but in the beginning we do not know the solution, because we need the design process. Sometimes, we start the process in this way and then people get a little bit afraid and uncertain.

The other way round is that people say: “well we know the solution: there has to be a road and there we create a lake and there will be the houses and you draw it for us!” It sounds clear and simple, but mostly it doesn’t function that way. Mostly there are hidden conflicts that people do not realize. In the first stage of the design process this is an important part: to understand the ideas they have already and look for the hidden conflicts. And there is no fixed algorithm to deal with this process. If you reduce it to an algorithm, you make it completely abstract, and then you take something away from the actors. You have to

"...the challenge is to recognize the main lines that create a common ground for all those different interests and to create a kind of framework that has enough flexibility to fulfil a lot of missions and ambitions of different actors..." recognize their specificity. Then, they recognize that you take their interests seriously and that you are not taking them as a case study.

Which of the collaboration processes do you think changes and shapes the physical design the most?

What changes the physical design the most is one question, and what changes the physical design the best is another. The most is when money meets power; when money meets power meets technique, it can change the physical design very strongly, but not always in the best way. The best way would be if ideas meet money meet commitment. So you need money, technique and power, but if you want to do it in a good way you need ideas as well and you need commitment.

Do you feel any significant changes in how collaboration in urban design has changed in the past ten years?

What you see in the last decades is that the commission itself is more complex. When I started thirty years ago, you could have one commissioner, one project that wanted one thing. Now you can

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have four actors: the developer, the municipality, the committee of inhabitants, province and they all want different things from one piece of land. They have to collaborate in the design process because they do not agree about the design. Then, we come in.

There is a tendency to talk about collaboration as something new. I do not believe in that. Design has always been linked to collaboration very deeply. If you look at history, you see a lot of plans that adapted in the course of time. Nevertheless, we see this growing amount of actors as commissioners and the growing self-confidence of the client and inhabitants. They have good skills, good education, they have cultural knowledge of what is around them, they have been travelling all over the world, so they have many more ideas about what should be done. There is also this exchange of images by internet, media, you can see everything everywhere. So the monopoly of the expert in knowing images of architecture in Italy is not there anymore. Everybody can look on the internet, on his telephone: “Look! Tajmahal, I want something like this!”

"...there is no fixed algorithm to deal with this process. If you reduce it to an algorithm, you make it completely abstract, and then you take something away from the actors..."

Also, in the older days you had to collaborate, but along very clear lines. Nowadays we have processes when you have to talk to everybody about everything.

So, it’s not very well defined what collaboration is about. But, as long as I can work with it in a professional way, use my expertise in this process of collaboration, teach something to people and learn something from people: it is just fine.

Could you briefly describe a collaboration story that you experienced as a designer, indicating the design phase?

There is a case I remember well with a neighborhood in Amsterdam that started with a collaboration process at its base. There was a whole process of social investigation. They used questionnaires, and interviewed people. They asked school children:

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“what is your idea about the ideal neighbourhood of the future? How would you like to live here?”

Children were asked to make models at school. They also created a committee of people whose task, for example was to choose the design office. So there were different levels of collaboration and participation.

In the beginning we asked them about their problems and what they wanted. There were conflicting ideas and conflicting generations, but we had to work with both of them and propose a plan that would make them all happy. For example, we made an analysis about subtle differences in typology between different parts of the area and with some rules and references of modernism. They liked it very much and sometimes criticized us.

When we made a proposal for the typology of the blocks and streets profiles, it got more precise, more recognizable for them: ‘where do I park my car?

Where can I put my bicycle, is there enough space to play ball games?” Later on, we discussed even about architecture. Further we did an excursion to Amsterdam and visited some of those reference projects. It was a way to train their way of seeing things and to discuss about it. How should we make the transition from the building to the street? Should we include little gardens, should we include inner courts or little walls? In the end, we drew all the ideas and put them in a booklet of guidelines for the architect. There were shops in the area where the model was exposed and we explained the project to the people. In the end there was a referendum - the housing corporation really wanted to know if the project was embraced by the community. 70% of people were involved and 70% voted positively. This was a very elaborated process of collaborative design.

The project started in 1996, the first phase was completed in 2009 and now the new inhabitants are living in the new blocks for five months, but it may take five to six more years to complete the project. • 44

2. "Do we design together?

Do we draw together? That is an interesting question!

Sometimes we do" | People respond to invitation © Anca Ioana Ionescu 3. Palmbout office, room with a view over Rotterdam and Collaborative Design © Anca Ioana Ionescu

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CROSSING THE LINE

COMMUNICATIVE

PLANNING

IN

CROSS-BORDER

ENVIRONMENTS

Borderlines in Europe have shifted location countless times during its diverse history. Cities and provinces often changed nationality by political decisions, while in certain cases, they were even cut in half. Strict border control in the second half of the 20th century designated different development paths to the once united structures. After 40 to 60 years of separation, the Treaty of Maastricht (1992), and later accessions to the European Union opened the first door for these broken entities to unite again. Cross-border planning is therefore a relatively new discipline within regional and even spatial planning. Despite the almost eye-popping opportunities, decision-making is hindered by the lack of harmonized national frameworks and the difficulties of coming up with a strategy in an environment that is influenced by political shifts and local demands from not one, but two sides of the border.

by

Lilla Szilagyi

MSc3 Urbanism

To present the opportunities and challenges of joint planning, two towns from the DutchGerman border and two towns from the Slovak-Hungarian border provide examples throughout the article.

Two halves of a whole: introducing twin-cities The most interesting subjects of cross-border planning are cities with a joint history. One of these twin-cities, Kerkrade-Herzogenrath is located along the DutchGerman border. The two settlements developed together until 1815 in the realm named Rode. During the almost two centuries of periodic separation, the two towns became individual entities. They could finally start formal cooperation within the EUframework, which soon led to the two municipalities forming their joint public body to facilitate working, finding housing on the other side and helping a wide range of joint actions to be brought to life. They share a street (called Nieuwstraat/Neustrasse) with Germany on one side and the Netherlands on the other (Ehlers, 2001).

The Hungarian Komárom and the Slovak Komárno have similar aspirations. These towns can be considered one of the most ideal subjects to study the implications of cross-border planning. They are located on the north and south bank of the river Danube. Prior to their half-decade long strict separation, each side had its designated role: with the railway connection and industry on the southern bank; the historic center, theaters and cultural institutions on the northern bank (Simon, 2011). When the sides were separated, they started filling the void of the missing other half, resulting in the contemporary KomárnoKomárom - with half the population of Delft - having two central train stations, two hospitals, twice the industrial zones, two city centers, and even a bilingual university (Bottoni, 2008). The years of separation led to a robust infrastructural network, that no other similar-sized city can take account for in the region.

After the first initiatives the municipalities decided to share a common future by elaborating the first joint urban development document in 2012.

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Cross-border planning: how it works Before ideas about a borderless Europe came in to existence, national frameworks dictated principles of planning and public financing uniformly within country borders. As borders became more and more permeable, inhabitants of border regions came to realize that the job they seek, or the business partner they need might be a lot closer if they look not inside their country, but in the neighboring town across the border. For the Dutch residents of Kerkrade for example, commuting to the German Aachen takes much less time than to Maastricht. The same realization occurred on higher levels: it is a lot more logical to use an already existing railroad on the other side than to build a second one. Regarding 45

1. Nieuwstraat between Germany and the Netherlands in 1945 © pinterest.com 2. Nieuwstraat today, Germany on one side, Netherlands on the other © fototrip.nl 3. Elisabeth Bridge connecting Komárom and Komárno © itthon.hu

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environmental protection and management, there is no other way than to cooperate. This logic-led approach resulted in the establishment of bodies that stand above national frameworks. Euro regions and European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) create a certain bubble around border regions that provides legal loopholes and EU financing for actions taking place within this bubble; actions that otherwise would have no place in national legislation (Schaffer et.al. 2008). Spatial and programmatic plans are also realized within this framework, but in a slightly different way than in the inlands.

to be up-to-date about the unique ways they can get around national legislation to, for example, be able to continue renting their property on the other side.

Top-down enabling bottom-up

The enabling attitude of the European Union created many possibilities of legalizing cross-border actions.

Cross-border actors are certainly proceeding towards eliminating many legal and administrational obstacles for social, economic and spatial initiatives, which, in most cases are triggered by inhabitants or local businesses. Regarding the integration of twin-cities’ spatial structures, some question marks still remain.

How can freshly re-joined twin-cities continue their development with double the facilities? Will these towns ever be able to erase such a prevailing inner line? If so, should they completely erase it?

Ideas for local cross-border actions and initiatives generally precede the establishment of a coherent legal framework (Bottoni, 2008). Locals seldom need to be convinced about the need for joint actions. In fact, they are often catalyzers of the enabling planning documents or policies. The neighboring Komárno (SK) and Komárom (HU) have been organizing joint cultural events since more than a decade before their accession to the EU, the body that enables formal cooperation. Fire brigades of Kerkrade and Herzogenrath took joint actions since the ‘70s, almost 30 years before their municipalities formed their joint public body called Europe (Toekomstvisie, 2015).

In this sense top-town planning is a facilitating tool that helps long-sought bottom-up ideas become reality.

Development does not follow a particular strategy; it is composed from a wide range of projects, let that be a new bicycle route, bilingual education platforms by local teachers or a joint TV-channel, which all add up to a portfolio of successful cross-border initiatives.

Communication instead of scenario-making

With so many frequently changing variables it is almost impossible to come up with a long term strategy within the current cross-border planning practices. Being constantly informed and being able to react are keys to keeping the border region in development (Hoever, 2015).

Future challenge: erasing the line?

To become influencing factors in decision-making, municipalities and sub-regions must think regionally.

As national identities merge into a unique dual identity, border lines are on their way to dissolving into large transitional areas. Based on such dynamically shifting pasts however, planning a joint long-term future in these marginal regions is still associated with great ambivalence and many obstacles to overcome. • References EHLERS, N. (2001) The utopia of a binational city, Geojournal. [Online]

To face the uncertainty of the long-term, inland cities and regions create scenarios based on the most probable variables. Cross-border planners however are faced with double the challenge. The smallest political decisions, such as the alteration of rules on highwaytaxation in one country can affect the direction and priorities of cross-border plans, as indicated by Hoever (2015). The task of the cross-border body is to harmonize or eliminate different regulations in the given region so it can function as a whole. These bodies therefore must continuously be updated on current trends, and expected changes on national and regional levels from the other side. Besides keeping a constant flow of information about the demands of local stakeholders to the upper bodies, locals also have

54. p. 21-32 Nijmegen Centre for Border Research Toekomstvisie Openbare Lichaam Eurode “Europees denken, regionaal handelen en lokaal actief zijn” (2015) Eurode SIMON, A. (2011) A kettéosztott város - Az államhatár és az etnikumok közötti választóvonal által kettéosztott komárom a két háború között.

FÓRUM Társadalomtudományi Szemle XIII. (2) p. 87-100.

BOTTONI, S. (2008) Komárom/Komárno - Hivatalos és informális kapcsolatok egy közép-európai ikervárosban (1960–1985). Regio: kisebbség, politika, társadalom 19. (3). p. 27-47.

HOEVER, H. (2015) Development and characteristics of cooperation between Kerkrade and Herzogenrath [Interview]. 3rd August 2015.

SCHAFFER, H. et al. (2008) The European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation - What use for European Territorial Cooperation and Projects?

INTERACT Programme Secretariat, Vienna.

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Bottom-up Urban regeneration is a natural outcome of urbanization. It aims to improve livability and safety, to promote sustainable development, to enhance social cohesion, and also to upgrade the quality of public space. Due to the diversity of benefits urban regeneration brings, the population, both directly and indirectly affected, is involved in different proportions and timing. It involves the commitment of a large number of stakeholders at different levels with the collective goals of re-launching the city and regional economy with new jobs, skills, entrepreneurship opportunities, while generating specific advantages for participating subjects (Bassett 2013). Therefore, once the government fails to reach a balance of welfare distribution, conflicts are easily generated. In terms of civil participation in the process of urban regeneration, what can we as citizens contribute to? Moreover, what can we as architects and urbanists contribute to? In this article we would like to bring you to Taipei, Taiwan, where urban regeneration is undergoing a huge dispute about its justice, to know its current context and learn from its diverse bottom-up power.

Urban regeneration in Taipei As the capital city of Taiwan, Taipei is the political, economic, educational, and cultural center, which accommodates a population of 2.7 million. At a fast pace of urbanization, the city has grown robustly and achieved prosperity. On the other hand, aging buildings have become an issue in recent years, because it poses a threat to the safety of people, and also the effectiveness of the city. Therefore, there is a need for urban regeneration.

Apart from the social conflict that Taipei encounters, urban regeneration also creates fragmentation of urban fabric in terms of spatial context. Instead of preserving the value of some interesting old patterns and building forms, many aging buildings in old neighborhoods were relentlessly wiped out. Boring grids and homogeneous high rise took its place, and the city gradually lost its identity and a sense of coherence.

However, in general, people in Taipei have a negative impression of urban regeneration, because it doesn’t help bring more public welfare but worsens the high housing price crisis. Triggered by the invisible power of capital markets, it turns out to be a money-maker for governments, developers and land owners in the game of property. Housing, especially luxurious housing, serves as the most profitable product, boosting severe growth in housing price. Neither the owners of houses expropriated nor the young generation with low wages can afford it. Thus, it stirs a huge controversy on the necessity of urban regeneration.

What is the core value of urban regeneration? Is it really necessary in some specific cases? After reflecting on those questions, urban regeneration now faces a challenge to keep its essence in Taiwan. Although the government has taken series of corresponsive measures, a proper solution still has a long way to go.

Encountering this plight, bottom-up power is thus stimulated. Among those groups we would like to raise two examples in both social and spatial aspect.

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by

Ting Wei Chu MSc3 Urbanism

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Power in Urban Regeneration Bottom-up power 1. Social aspect | Social Housing Advocacy Consortium Formed by 14 NGO groups, Social Housing Advocacy Consortium (SHAC) strives for living justice through a series of actions. They embarked on this long journey with “Nest Movement” in 2014, calling on the public to sleep one night on Ren'ai Road, in front of luxurious housing situated in the most highly priced area in Taipei (see pic 1). They made five appeals: put living rights in to the Constitution and terminate eviction demolitions; reform property tax and prevent speculation; construct more social housing; amend current regulation; and formulate better leasing act. They successfully aroused public’s awareness of their living right. Furthermore, they launched series of open speeches and salons, spreading the knowledge of justice, social housing references, and urban regeneration process to the public. They reveal the defects of the current system, helping people to stay on the same page, and preventing them from the information imbalance. Last but not least, they collaborate with different NGO groups, students and specialists to promote social housing, due to the extremely low rate of social housing (0.08%) and barely affordable house prices in Taipei. Nowadays they are still continually working on it from suggestions for policies to design proposals, devoting themselves to achieving spatial justice.

2. Spatial aspect | “Cities Meet Old Friends” programme Advocacy Consortium Seeing other social groups contributing to achieving better development of urban regeneration in many different ways, there is no excuse for spatial professionals to not participate in this domain. Tsaiher

Cheng, a young female architect who studied and worked in the Netherlands, brought her research and experiences back to Taiwan. Collaborating with architects, governments and relevant intuitions, she held a bottom-up programme called “Cities Meet Old Friends” (城市遇故知). It was an experimental programme including research, workshops, exhibitions and publications. It featured comparative research of urban regeneration development in East Asia, in which Taipei (Taiwan), Shanghai (China) and Seoul (South Korea) are taken as examples. In their research, they reflected on urban development in East Asia and discussed what an ideal model of regeneration could be, that should be used in the future. In the workshop, they guided participants to discuss bottom-up regeneration in selected communities. And finally, they spread knowledge to the public with a collection of exhibitions and publications. From her experience, it reminds us that as spatial professionals, our mission to society is to help the public generate more imagination and care for the space we live in, and which can be achieved in a more creative way.

In the future, we hope that bottom-up power in Taiwan can have good influence on the public sectors.

We hope that the dialogue between top-down and bottom-up ideas can integrate together, to achieve better development in urban regeneration. And most importantly, we hope the essence of urban regeneration can be appreciated and valued in everyone’s mind. • References BASSETT, S. M. (2014) The Role Of Spatial Justice In The Regeneration Of Urban Spaces

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1. Nest movement 2. Website of SHAC 3. Site visit in workshop 4. Discussion in workshop 5. Exhibition 6. Publication

Colophon ATLANTIS Magazine by Polis | Platform for Urbanism Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft Volume 26, Number 1, October 2015 Editor in Chief Kate Unsworth

Editorial Team Maryam Behpour, Laura Garcia, Ruben Hanssen, Ioana Ionescu, Luis Montenegro, Emmanouil Prinianakis, Kritika Sha, Sarem Sunderland,

Ting-Wei Chu, Gijs de Haan, Ijsbrand Heeringa, Francesca Mavaracchio, Alkmini Papaioannou, Iulia Sirbu, Jelske Streefkerk, Kate Unsworth

Editorial Address Polis, Platform for Urbanism Julianalaan 134, 2628 BL Delft office: 01 West 350 tel. +31 (0)15-2784093 www.polistudelft.nl atlantis@polistudelft.nl Printer Drukkerij Teeuwen Cover image Iulia Sirbu Atlantis appears four times a year.

Number of copies: 550 Become a member of Polis Platform for Urbanism and join our network! As a member you will receive our Atlantis Magazine four times a year, a monthly newsletter and access to all events organized by Polis.

Disclaimer This issue has been made with great care; authors and redaction hold no liability for incorrect/ incomplete information. All images are the property of their respective owners. We have tried as hard as we can to honour their copyrights.

ISSN 1387-3679

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