Chepos 59

CHEPOS built environment magazine

DISASTER ARCHITECTURE EINDHOVEN: HIGH AND RISING | WORKSHOP INTERVIEW | BIOMIMICRY

59

MAR. 2018

Building the present, Creating the future

Innovatief en duurzaam BAM heeft de ambitie voorop te lopen in duurzaamheid en innovatie. Robotisering, 3D-printers en drones bieden nieuwe mogelijkheden in het bouwproces. Met internet of things, data en virtual reality kan slim worden ingespeeld op de behoeften van eindgebruikers. En wat is het effect van zelfrijdende auto’s op de infrastructuur van de nabije toekomst? De klant, de eindgebruiker en de omgeving staan centraal in ieder project, daarom zoeken wij voor elke vraag een duurzame oplossing. BAM vernieuwt. Jij ook?

Wil je weten hoe het is om te werken bij BAM? Kijk op onze website en social media voor verhalen van jonge BAM-medewerkers en lees wat jouw mogelijkheden zijn: www.bamcareers.com @WerkenbijBAM @WerkenbijBAM @WerkenbijBAM

Leidende posities in Nederland, België, het Verenigd Koninkrijk, Ierland en Duitsland.

Wereldwijd projecten in meer dan 30 landen.

Actief in alle fases van het bouwproces.

Een familiaire sfeer binnen de verschillende bedrijfsonderdelen.

Stages

Startersfuncties

BAM Graduate Programme

Young Engineers Programme

▸ Meewerkstage

▸ BIM engineer

▸ Vier functies in twee jaar

▸ BAM International

▸ Afstudeeropdracht

▸ Technisch adviseur

▸ Technisch én strategisch

▸ Expat life

▸ Werkvoorbereider

▸ Zelf richting geven

▸ Two-year-programme

▸ Tenderstrateeg

▸ Persoonlijke ontwikkeling

▸ Projectontwikkelaar

in the same breath as the Empire State Building and Panama Canal: one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Entire structures are built to prevent earthquakes and floods, in South Korea alone there are 19.000 shelters in case of an air strike.

CHEPOS built environment magazine

What is there to say about disasters? They are horrible things by definition. It hardly matters whether they were man-made, natural or accidental. Because of their size and impact disasters become etched in our memories.

Every Dutch person will have heard of the Vuurwerkramp or the Watersnoodramp, and there is not a person in the world who will not think twice upon hearing the date 9-11.

Precisely because of the impact of disasters, the measures that are taken to prevent them are unprecedented. The Delta Works that were built after the Watersnoodramp are mentioned

In the prevention of disasters, engineers are able to show their best side. However, when it comes to the aftermath of disasters, architects, city planners and engineers join hands to create. They re-create cities or design completely new ones, as was the case in Hiroshima and Christchurch. This also means re-creating social structures in a place that has lost its history, and respectfully dealing with the memory of what has happened.

Not all cities will share the faith of rebuilding.

In the case of ongoing disaster, the inhabitants are forced to move. Globally, millions of climate refugees are expected in the coming years, already prevalent in for example the South African water shortage. They will add to the refugees that have fled their countries from war and conflict. The camps they end up in are no longer temporary, some will spend decades in these harsh conditions.

In the aftermath of disaster, the promise of the built environment has the ability to offer hope.

Architects have the opportunity to design new homes and return to people their dignity and humanity. Empty cities are a clean slate and an opportunity to listen to the inhabitants.

People become creative when they are in need and solutions are often more prevalent than problems.

This edition shows the broad spectrum of the built environment that is related to disasters.

Upon reading it, you might find that this type of architecture, planning and engineering is more than anything about humanity.

Besides these articles, this edition brings you news and critical notes on the development of both our faculty and city, investigations on the ways of nature on various scales and its influence on design. It offers a look into the architects of the future and the state of our built environment today. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it.

Have a great read,

Eva Pabon Editor-in-Chief

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16 NOW EDITORIAL NL NEWS CHEPOST Letter Joris van der Zwet SUSTAINABILITY AND OPEN BUILDING

Column John Habraken HIGH AND RISING

The future of Eindhoven is taking shape STRIJP: HOTSPOT OR DOWNFALL VACANCY_NL

2 INDEX

1 4 6 9 10 12 14

FILE: DISASTER ARCHITECTURE KNOW YOUR APOCALYPSE 18 CAMPUS SURVIVAL GUIDE 20 GRIDLOCKED 22 GUARD AMIDST THE WAVES 24 RECOVERING GROUND 26 ARCHITECTURE, APOCALYPSE AND CONTINGENCY 28

Column Kees Doevendans

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10 THAT’S WHY THE MEN BEHIND THE DESK THE SPACE ARCHITECT

Rise of a new generation of designers THE ECOSYSTEM OF THE CITY FOLLOWING THE TRAILS OF NATURE

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TOOLS 30 32 34 38

PANTHEON 41 A MARBLE IN A JAR 42 AGENDA 44 COLOPHON 45

INDEX 3

Seagull-like eco-duct in Haarlem

Text: Martha Boekestein

100 years ago, the Zeeweg between Bloemendaal and Haarlem was designed by L.A. Springer. During the summers in the Netherlands this road is covered by Dutchmen, on the lookout to cool down. The road does have a downside: it splits up the two major nature reserves Nationaal Park Kennemerland and the Amsterdam Waterleidingduinen. To solve this, the office Wurck came up with an ecoduct, called the seagull popularly.

Focus on the future in Arnhem Focus is a small movie theater in Arnhem known for its cult films and traditional way of showing movies. No 3D room, or moving chairs around, just three very small theater rooms with a rattling projector in the back. It is run almost completely by volunteers and does not stick to the mainstream menu like for instance PathĂŠ. It had special days for kids and twice a month, on Sunday morning, one could watch a movie and have breakfast for a decent price. The popularity of the movie theater was growing fast and after a few years it became too much for the small churchlike building in the middle of the night life of Arnhem. So plans for a new, modern theater right on the big market square were made.

The municipality liked these plans very much, since they were struggling to make something nice out of this location anyway.

Typically win-win. So now, after all these years, building has started and it is almost done: a whole new, great movie theater for everyone that loves cult films, French/Italian romances or just the newest Oscar winning movie with Meryl Streep.

Biggest bicycle storage in Utrecht After this year, the bicycle garage of Utrecht Central Station is going to be the biggest of the world. Past summer, the first part of the bicycle shed was opened with place for only 6,000 bikes. After 2018, it will have the capacity to store 12,500 bicycles. To get around more easily, there are actual bicycle lanes in the garage so people do not have to walk the big distances. Besides this, there are different categories for each bike. For instance daddy bikes, bikes with big crates or for cargo bikes and so on.

Do not worry when you are not sure where your bike belongs, there are enough employees who will help you find your way.

4 NOW

Swimming in the Southern hart of Rotterdam In the South of Rotterdam they were coping with a very unique problem. The local swimming pool was not meeting any of the building requirements anymore and they had an almost vacant sub municipality office. The municipality of Rotterdam had a very creative solution to this problem: renovating and transforming the office into a whole new, international swimming pool. The architectural bureau Kraaijvanger took its inspiration for the partially new façade from the existing one, through rhythm, colors and depth, making it a whole. The smaller windows are for the private rooms and the big windows for spaces that need more daylight. The new building is so incredibly big, it does not only store two pools, but also a complete shopping center. Furthermore, the plinth is decorated with several restaurants and other eateries. The new pool is fitting in a bigger picture, namely the project Hart van Zuid. The goal of this area development is to make a worthy city center out of the South of Rotterdam.

Moving mountains in Veldhoven Eindhoven is a Brainport, we all know that. But don’t you always wonder what that means exactly? Great news for you: a so called Brainport Experience Center is coming to Veldhoven, in the South of Eindhoven. But this is not the only special thing about this building. It will have the biggest wooden structure after it is done. Of the world that is.

Its name, the Dutch Mountains, is therefore well deserved.

Mountains had to be moved to make this plan possible, and it has been on the drawing table since 2011. Now, after the economic crisis is over and the built environment is booming, the plan is back. So what is to be found in this center? Well first of all, there will be a showcase for the newest technologies conceived in Eindhoven. Besides that there will be offices, saunas, restaurants, cafes, a child care, a supermarket and so on. You will have to be patient if you are looking forward to the Experience Center, though: the expected opening year of the Dutch Mountains is 2020.

Amsterdam can breathe again During the last weekend of January, the final open day of the North-South metro line Amsterdam took place. About 40,000 people came to the occasion, curious for what it would look like underground after 15 years. The plans for this metro line were made in the 60s, but they started the construction in 2003. Coming July the metro line will be officially opened, after a lot of test rides and fine tuning. To conclude with the words of engineer Ries Jelier: “Amsterdam was suffocating and now can finally take a deep breath.”

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Images: 1. Eco-duct Zeepoort (photo: Heemstede nieuws, 2017) 2. Focus movie theater (source: architectuur.nl) 3. Bicycle storage (photo: wikipedia) 4. Swimming center Rotterdam (source: top010.nl) 5. Render Dutch Mountains (source: E52) 6. Entrance North South line (source: wikipedia)

Sources: 1. Luchtig ecoduct in de Noord-Hollandse duinen.

2018. blauwekamerezine.nl 2. Focus filmtheater Arnhem. 2016. focusarnhem.nl 3. Grootste fietsenstalling van Nederland, volgend jaar van de wereld, geopend bij Utrecht Centraal. 2017. volkskrant. nl 4. Zwembad Hart van Zuid opgeleverd. 2018. nieuws.top010.nl 5. The Dutch Mountains. 2018. thedutchmountains.marcovermeulen.eu 6. Laatste open dag Noord/Zuidlijn: ‘Amsterdam kan weer ademhalen’. 2018. nos.nl

NOW 5

ChePOST JORIS VAN DER ZWET CHAIRMAN OF CHEOPS STRUCTURAL DESIGN 22 YEARS OLD

Is the Eindhoven Model still relevant?

Our faculty recently celebrated its 50th birthday and thereby its 10th lustrum. Early 2017 in April, the Board of the Department of the Built Environment presented the idea to split up the bachelor into two, namely Architecture and Civil Engineering. According to the Board, this would attract new students and solve the negative survey results the bachelor has been experiencing for multiple years.

However, the Program Committee disagreed.

They disapproved the idea because there was no research done to show that it would solve the problems it meant to address. Furthermore, it would kill the multidisciplinary education that makes our Eindhoven engineers distinctive in the world. But with support in the Executive Board, it is unlikely that this is the end of this idea. It might represent the underlying financial problems the faculty is facing, and as Dean Elphi Nelissen recently announced in a Cursor interview1, more austerity is yet to come.

This however is not the first time ideas are presented to change the way architects and engineers are educated here in Eindhoven. The Eindhoven Model has been tested in time and has so far remained relatively intact. But as student surveys remain to be relatively negative, and money is becoming scarcer than ever, the Model has to once more prove its worthiness.

In other words, is the Eindhoven Model still relevant?

6 NOW

To understand the Eindhoven Model, we have to go back to the 1960s. The Reconstruction that followed after the Second World war was ending, and the Dutch economy was becoming ever more prosperous. Furthermore, with all the children of the baby boom generation soon to become young families themselves, the housing market faced unprecedented growth.

The combination of a prospering and growing demography demanded not only for more housing, but also for more quality housing. The world was changing, as were technological developments. This asked for a radical change in the way we built houses. In short, we needed more houses of higher quality and we had to build them with new technologies. Industrial building was the new trend.

Founder of our faculty and first Dean John Habraken put this in words more eloquently in his acceptance speech of 19672. The working field of the Architect would no longer focus only on the extraordinary, like churches, palaces and stations, but also on the ordinary everyday architecture. The housing of the masses was added to their domain. Partly influenced by the democratization of the sixties and seventies, the role of the architect as a single ruler was broken down. In the new system, the architect, structural engineer and the climate engineer became equally represented at the table. This symbolizes the multidisciplinarity of the new age and was the new mind-set of how our new engineers should be educated. In

order to work together, they should be specialists in their professions, but they should also have knowledge about the other disciplines.

This is the Eindhoven Model.

In order to find out if the Model is still relevant, we need to define the big challenges of our time. And thereafter, find out how we need to be educated in order to deal with them.

How do we take the lead in fighting climate change? How do we deal with the increasing complexity of projects? How do we build in a more globalizing world and how do integrate digitalization in our professions? In brief, what kind of Architects and Engineers does the future society need?

These are the questions we need to answer, and we need to shape our education based on these answers. Right now, I think that is lacking in our faculty. Have the big changes in recent years, like the removal of Building Technology and the internationalization of the bachelor, been based on a sound and coherent vision? And what actually is the vision behind splitting up the bachelor?

In short, it is time that we have a broad and open discussion again about what kind of Architects and Engineers we want to educate here in Eindhoven. There are plenty of challenges in the world, and my vision is that

engineers from Eindhoven should take the lead in solving them. The history of our department shows us that we can certainly change and renew the construction industry, which I believe is necessary when we want to achieve the ambitious sustainable goals.

But, we can only take this lead on the basis of a broad and widely supported vision which reflects the current societal and economic developments. And that vision we have to develop together. The ending of the departmental vision of 2020 offers a good chance to do just that.

Hereby, I would like to ask everyone from within and outside the faculty to think about, form and share their opinion about the future of our professions, and how we should shape our education accordingly.

So, what do you think about the Eindhoven Model?

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Images: 1. Aerial photo Oud-Woensel.

2007. Jos Jansen Sources: 1. H. Konings. Built Environment celebrates 50th year but faces anxious future. December 2018, 2017. Cursor.tue. nl 2. N.J. Habraken. Het alledaagse: over het ontstaan van de omgeving van alle dag.

Rotterdam: Lemniscaat. 1967

Have something you need to share? Send an email to chepos@cheops.cc and your article might get published!

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NOW 7

CHE POS built

CHE POS

Call for Editors!

Next edition will be Chepos sixtieth and for this special occassion we, from the chepos commission, would like to solicit for your help! The Chepos is a magazine in which everyday Built Environment students tell their stories about all kinds of aspects of the architectural world. Do you enjoy writing and are you eager to indulge yourself into a particular topic for an article? Please contact us at chepos@cheops.cc

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60

JUN.

2018

John Habraken As architect, theorist and professor, Habraken has made innumerous contributions to the world of architecture. This is the second of three columns about the theory and practice of open

Sustainability and Open Building

How to keep an entire built environment up to date

From its early beginning in the sixties of last century the main argument for Open Building to give the user control over his/ her own dwelling has been socio-political. Social because our home establishes to an important extent our identity. Political because re-distribution of control is ultimately a political issue.

More recently sustainability is what we all are excited about and for good reasons. Waste is no longer acceptable in our pursuit of a better life. We look for new materials and technical systems that can be re-used and we look for sources of energy that renew themselves. What we can build today is already superior to the built environment that was created in the last century and which is still with us and expanding. We cannot just replace what took a century to get built but must find a way for the existing stock to transform itself; become up to date and be capable to quickly accept what is new and socially desirable in the future.

The way in which new technology can penetrate an entire national building stock today is limited, cumbersome and very slow. It is dependent on a professional culture that is more than a century old and entirely outdated. Early on, it was the result of a courageous political decision to make government money available to build dwellings for the workers who served the national industrialization. Until then, workers organized themselves in bottom-up societies funded by their meagre savings and by gifts from their church, from wealthy individuals or the socialist party. It was a slow and insufficient process.

The new top-down system proved much more productive but ended the way of working in which the users had a say about what was to be build. The government wanted to be sure that its money was well spent and talked only to professionals architects, builders, bankers and managers. These professionals listened to where the money came from: a ministerial bureaucracy which made rules about what was a dwelling that the government would pay for.

This professional culture is still fully entrenched today. It rightly considers Open Building disruptive of the professional process and therefor sees no merit in it. Yet without users who can decide for themselves it is very difficult for new technology to penetrate an entire national building stock before it has already become outdated itself. Each housing corporation or pension

fund debates for itself the merits of any particular innovation and, when it approves it, introduces a uniform solution block by block after a lengthy discussion with the collective of inhabitants who, inevitably, will each have their own priorities, preferences, and available funds. No one will be satisfied with the final result.

When the users can decide for themselves the housing corporations and pension funds remain responsible for the shared building as a collective ‘open’ infrastructure, while products for the individual units can be offered by the supplier to all users who are interested regardless of where they live. A new market becomes available for replacement or improvement of single units which in size is comparable with the automobile market.

In various countries policy initiatives already can be noted that seek to open up this market. Some governments begin to understand that built property can live longer when shortterm use is free to act within a stable long-term architectural context. In 2009 the Japanese congress issued the “Long Life Housing Law” to encourage a residential building lifetime of up to 200 years. Owners of buildings with subsystems that can be replaced or re-arranged with minimal disturbance of other subsystems get a substantial tax break.

This law, in turn, stimulated newly created “fit-out” or “infill” companies. The Japanese example is now followed in China where the largest company, named “Prefab Interiors” fits out several thousand units each year.1 Even uniform repetitive floor plans are fitted out individually because the company decided that this is less costly than the traditional, century old ‘conveyor-belt’ way of working. Units that are individually fitted out can later be replaced or improved individually as well.

Allowing the single unit for the user to be transformed individually is not a technical problem, it is a political one. Sustainable environments demand first of all that users can control their own homes2 and secondly that the government encourages the creation of fit-out companies.

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Images: 1. John Habraken (source: Martin Hogeboom) 2. Next21, Osaka, Japan (source: pinterest.jp) Endnotes: 1. See their website, in Chinese but well illustrated.

Henenghome.com/solutions. 2. Frank Bijdendijk. The well documented paper “The Future of Open Building Resides in the Existing Built Environment”. October 8, 2015. Thematicdesign.org, category: theory

NOW 9

High and Rising

The future of Eindhoven is taking shape

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Back in 2002, when De Regent was the only building on this list not being a church, the city council of Eindhoven adopted a new policy on high-rise. This policy defined all buildings over 15 meters as high-rise. What is more, it restricted high-rise over 70 meters to the city center and Strijp-S areas. The other areas could not facilitate such a high density residency, as well as high-rise would conflict with the easy living atmosphere of the low-level residential neighborhoods. Finally, buildings over 105 meters should be restricted to the railway station area. Notice that this is the precise height of De Admirant, of which building would commence one year later, outside of the station

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Furthermore, the areas which previously housed Philips will accommodate most of the other high-rise to-be-built. Nico, a residential tower designed for Strijp-S by Van Der Pauwert Architecten, will join the second District-E tower on the second place as tallest building of Eindhoven, reaching 110 meters as well. In the Emmasingelkwadrant, the area between the PSV stadium and the Witte Dame which is being redeveloped, another residential tower by Diederendirrix will rise to 84 meters.

Moreover, Powerhouse leaves a particularly large impression on the skyline of Eindhoven by designing another tower of 100 meters, on top of the former student association center, De Bunker. Finally, more projects of towers of

similar size are on their way as well, deeming it likely these will not be the last towers to be built in the city.

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Probably the most striking building among the list is the one topping it, the 158 meters tall District E, which will be built on the square southwest of the railway station. With this height, the first tower of District E will be the second tallest in the Netherlands, making quite a mark on not just the station area, but the entire city center. However, that is only because this project won the competition; OMA proposed a tower of over 200 meters tall. If that was not enough, the second tower of District E will reach 110 meters, placing it in a joint second place on Eindhoven’s list. The third one will be 75 meters. The three towers attempt to connect to the surroundings by dispersing as

they reach the ground, but will still define the skyline of Eindhoven.

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Have you ever had a look at the Wikipedia page Lijst van hoogste gebouwen in Eindhoven? You will notice the page has quite some work put into it. As a matter of fact, if you would research it among other Dutch cities, you will find only The Hague and Rotterdam’s pages will match Eindhoven’s. This should be no surprise, since these three cities are known for modern, high-rise architecture, contrary to cities such as Amsterdam and Utrecht. Now, if you scroll down the page, you will find the list of buildings to-be-built is longer than the list of the current situation. As a matter of fact, half of that original top 10 will be replaced by buildings within the coming few years. Go back 15 years, and more than half the list was not built yet. A conclusion can be drawn; Eindhoven is a city in transition. But what will this new high-rise bring, and what will this mean for the city of Eindhoven and its citizens?

Text: Jeroen Pospiech

large. Furthermore, for now at least, highrise appears to be divided evenly across the different sections of the center; the individual buildings stand apart from one another. The city noting the building height of 15 meters as the border of high-rise would come across as ridiculous if attempted in cities such as Rotterdam or The Hague, let alone modern American or Asian metropoles. Both the city centers of Eindhoven and San Gimignano form flat surfaces with towers perforating the surface, reaching out five, six, seven times the height of the surface itself.

area. Equally remarkable are those statements compared to the aforementioned list; some of the buildings do not apply to the rules set a decade ago.

The comparisons between the city of Eindhoven and the town of San Gimignano are striking. Of course there are many other skyscraper cities which would justify a comparison with the Italian town, however, few rose as quickly as Eindhoven, quite like San Gimignano itself. Since areas or even individual buildings are being constructed one at a time, the contrast within the city center between the high-rise and the surrounding buildings is very

Images: 1. Eindhoven (source: CBS.nl) 2.

San Gimignano (source: tourofsicily.com) Sources: 1. Lijst van hoogste gebouwen in Eindhoven. 2018. nl.wikipedia.org 2. Powerhouse en ZUS winnen stationsplein Eindhoven met District E. 2017. dearchitect.nl 3. Raadsvoorstel tot het vaststellen van het Hoogbouwbeleid. 2002.

Gemeente Eindhoven. 4. Historic Centre of San Gimignano. 2018. whc.unesco.org.

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If one would compile such a list for the small city of San Gimignano in Italy, they would find fourteen buildings, roughly 50 meters tall, rising above the average building height of three stories. This is remarkable, since no building significant in size has been built in the city for the past seven centuries. San Gimignano was an important trading post and stop for pilgrimages to Rome during the Middle Ages.

It flourished to such an extent that it remained independent from the nearby rival cities of Florence, Siena and Pisa. The merchants of the town, eager to show their wealth, started building towers on top of their Palazzo’s which

rivaled one another. At the height of the city’s power, this meant 72 towers reigned over the town. Bu then the Black Death struck, the town lost half its villagers, had to pledge allegiance to Florence, the towers went into disrepair and finally most were broken down for their stones. The town was reduced to a small village and would remain so.

Luckily, the odds of a pandemic hitting the city of Eindhoven are marginal. Nonetheless, crises will have their effect on the residential climate of the city center and Strijp-S areas, including the towers which are being erected right now. The gap in building years between the initial high-rise ending in 2006 and the recent projects starting in 2013 marks suchlike influences. If the city builds skyscrapers for the sake of building skyscrapers, they might not have a good influence on the city. Furthermore, the ups and downs in the skyline will literally cast their shadow over their surroundings. Will the city center itself remain a pleasant place to beif it is surrounded by tall buildings without the broad boulevards other cities use to accommodate the presence of such a building? Will the citizens lose familiarity with a city which holds many landmarks, but few monuments, or will this atmosphere of novelty, which it has perhaps always had, form a center for its citizens to familiarize with? Only the future will tell the answers to these questions, but until that day, the city’s plans remain open for debate.

NOW 11

Strijp For years, the terrain of the Philips Company in Eindhoven was only accessible to the employees of Philips. When Philips left Eindhoven at the end of the 90s, the factory buildings in ‘The forbidden city’ became vacant and the municipality of Eindhoven decided to turn the area into a modern city district focused on food, culture and design.

Text: Celine Böhmer When reading the newspapers, Strijp, together with the High Tech Campus, is considered to be the cradle of Eindhoven in the field of innovation and creativity and one of the most popular hotspots in the Netherlands. Only the newest concepts like Urban Shopping - a collective of small rentable units for small specialized stores in one large space - and collective spaces - space sharing in both working and living - can be found here. Even the New York Times noted Strijp as “the place to be”. Considering all the positive notions,

The closed character of the area has been opened by demolishing a lot of industrial buildings preserving only the iconic ones. According to Noorlander, the iconic buildings have become buried under the new high-rise buildings causing a decrease of the industrial character.

In my opinion, the industrial heritage has been preserved well. As you can see, both new and old stand side by side emphasizing not only the past but also the present. If only the industrial part would have been preserved, the contemporary function would have been overshadowed by this past. I think regarding both characters as equals is still the best solution they could have come to.

Strijp S 12 NOW

Hotspot or Downfall?

I started to wonder if this area is really as fantastic as they say it is.

A vibrant hub showcasing design shops, dining spots, a gallery of cuttingedge art and festive events My suspicions were confirmed when the critical statements started to pop up on my computer screen while looking beyond the fancy façade of positive critics. President Director Wisse Dekker of the Philips concern for example, already uttered a lot of critic on the new development plans of the municipality of Eindhoven at the start of the redevelopments

in 2002. The demolishment of a part of the former factories was called a mistake. The area symbolizes an important part of the history of Eindhoven and the historical characteristics will be lost if the area is not preserved in totality.

According to Rutger Noorlander, a freelance urban geographer, the fear of Dekker occurred. He calls the area ‘placeless’ and an ‘isle without a connection with the local identity’.

The area has turned into a collective of new icons, individually screaming for attention and towering over the original icons of the area.

Noorland labels the area as a failure and a large disastrous event.

Comparing the positive notions with this rather negative view on the area, they both did not seem eye to eye to my own experiences of the area. Could all these notions be considered as reliable critical statements? Or are they all just a bit colored by what people want to see? It was time to take a look for myself.

The atelier of Piet Hein Eek is the only preserved factory in the area and seems to function like an isolated isle. A large part has been demolished and redeveloped into a residential area containing large villas and eastern-looking almshouses with white terraced houses. In this case I have to agree with Noorlander. The atelier seems to detach itself from its surroundings and the original atmosphere of the area is not recognizable any more. If this is negative or not is person-dependent, however, I think it is a pity that nothing reminds me of the original industrial heritage when walking through the new area.

Strijp R

Strijp T Strijp T is the only part of Strijp in which the former factory buildings are still used for industry.

This area is the pinnacle of redeveloping former industrial areas when believing Noorlander.

However, when visiting the site, I did not feel very welcome and my expectations turned towards the negative side. As you can see, the whole area has been closed for outsiders and can only be viewed from a large distance behind steel fences and other barriers. The area functions like a self-contained unit having no relation with its surroundings.

An industrial area which is that closed is not a contemporary phenomenon and in my opinion this is the only area which is still in need of a lot of improvement.

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Images: 1. The new high-rise buildings 2. Old industrial buildings 3. Pipeline street 4. Piet Hein Eek 5. New residential part 6. Closed industrial area 7. Factory buildings behind steel barriers (images made by Celine Bรถhmer)

Sources: 1. Wal S. van der. Strijp-S: van industriegebied naar innovatief stadscentrum. 2016. spatonline.nl. 2. Daniel, Five Places to Go in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. 2017. nytimes.com. 3. Noorlander, R. Het karakter bij herontwikkeling Strijp-S. 2016. platformvoer.nl. 4.

Regtien, F. Kritiek Wisse Dekker op Strijp S. 2002. omroepbrabant.nl

NOW 13

VACANCY_NL

To Let. To Rent. These two statements we see often inscribed on buildings sometimes for short periods and possibly longer periods.

The latter becomes an issue when we then begin to speak of the lengths of the periods.

When this period reaches 3 years and beyond we begin talking about structural vacancy.

This is an issue that should not be taken lightly. It is so simple to walk past such a sign without really understanding the depth of the situation. The Netherlands is drowning in a sea of empty buildings. The main question to address is why this has become a problem we cannot ignore and how to tackle it.

Text: Tafara Simon Structural vacancy has many causal factors.

Firstly, it is important to understand how we got here. Going back in time to during the industrial revolution, the construction market excelled due to the economic boom. More people were working and more people were moving closer to the city center. Companies built so much as business expanded and even more people continued to crowd the cities.

Urban planning focused on monofunctional zoning leading to the high specialization of buildings. Thereafter, the internet bubble

14 NOW

formed, and a new generation of workers entered the market and more buildings were built as new work environments were required.

When the bubble popped we entered a recession. We have gotten out of this recession but now we find ourselves in a very uncertain space.

In 2012 it was reported that the Netherlands had the highest number of vacant offices in Europe. This was about 16% of the buildings all in all which equates to a rough figure of 7.5 million m2 of vacant space. This value has since decreased to an average of 12%. For housing vacancy of buildings sat at roughly 2.5% of the dwelling stock, which is around 190 000 buildings. These figures just offer a rough perspective on how the situation is.

Times have changed and will keep on changing. The question now is how do we keep up? A pattern can be seen here, whereby there is an explosion in the economical market which of course has a huge effect on the other space and asset markets and a recession in which there is a negative influence. This has large consequences within the built environment because buildings

cannot be toyed around by adapting to all kinds of market movements to suit the needs of that particular time. Well, this is what we thought. Structural vacancy is a problem tied to all stakeholders involved when looking at a building. An empty building has negative effects with regards to surrounding properties.

Here we talk about value and quality of the space. Once a building becomes structurally vacant it could become a downward spiral, in that related space and more buildings could potentially follow the same fate. If the quality decreases, companies could move locations as the space does not meet their image needs for instance. The building then stays on the market but due to the high specialization of the building, selling it off or renting it out becomes a problem as companies are different and moreover the location itself due to the monofunctional setting could be unsuitable.

This could lead to obsolescence of a building.

For a while The Netherlands got caught up in this. Of course, action has been and still is being taken to resolve the problem of empty buildings.

The discussion pertaining to empty buildings is an important one to expose as there are many

underlying issues involved. This means that there has to be a constant dialogue between the built environment specialists, government, municipalities and the public. Sustainability is very topical at the moment and the issue of structural vacancy falls within this realm.

Sustainable development can be defined as “developments that meet current standards without compromising future generations to meet their own needs�. This means that building has to be done in a mindful way with the thought of what the future could hold for this building. The fact that the structural lifespan of a building is much longer than the functional lifespan makes it a challenge to continuously predict the future.

Times have changed and will keep on changing the question now is how do we keep up?

Dealing with structural vacancy can be done in various ways. There are official and unofficial channels. For the unofficial channels, we talk about squatting. This is essentially the cognitive function of human nature kicking in.

There is a demand for something and there is an apparent supply, so intuitively the only logical thing is to act. The government actually decided against this and introduced a policy to ban squatting as it got out of hand. In 2010 this law was put into effect and one could face up to a year in jail for taking over an empty building. Going to jail for serving your needs.

Of course, a lot of decisions involve a lot of paper work and a lot of bureaucracy, so at times serving needs isn’t as simple as a snap of the fingers.

However, this rebellious act brings into light the dire need of dealing with such issues in a timely and effective manner. One of the ways of dealing with structural vacancy has been

transformation. This involves changing the function of these buildings usually from their former office function to a more residential function.

Creativity and art is about communicating with the people This is sometimes difficult as some of these buildings are built in a cockpit manner: being highly specialized depending on the time during which they were built. Among transformation there is consolidation, demolishing and renovating. The choices depend on various factors, but a lot of the time this involves money, as at the end of the day a profit or rather a gain has to be made.

Renovating, as mentioned before, is quite common as it is a lot more sustainable and has more advantages in the grand scheme of things.

Before transformation actually takes place, years could go by. So what other options are there than a more immediate reaction to structural vacancy? After all it is not a situation that could be left stale for years and then acted upon because deterioration of the building begins when the building is not in use. Moreover, after a while it has a negative impact on the surrounding areas.

In this solution search money cannot truly be a determining factor. When talking about valuation, it is just as important to look at intrinsic value regarding the community. Here we ask ourselves how could such a building benefit the community as a whole as well as individuals. This is where anti-squat agencies come into play. What is essentially done here is that a building is given to a company/ cooperation to use for whatever it wants to, for low rent, but they need to ensure that the building is well maintained. An interesting fact to keep in mind is that the creative

How could such a building benefit the community as a whole and individuals?

professionals are growing in numbers. This is looking at artists, architects and actors. With low rents being offered for such spaces these individuals could use these spaces for their creative works. This fuels the spirit of creative entrepreneurship and targets more young professionals.

In 2015 there was an exhibition known as Vacant NL curated by Rietveld architecture.

The goal was to highlight the immense sea of empty buildings that occupy space within the Netherlands and how these could be dealt with. During this exhibition the need to use these spaces for the creative and technological fields was highlighted as well. What is valuable about using such a strategy is that it reaches out to the people. Creativity and art is about communicating with the people and so in the end more value to the people is brought to the table. Neighborhoods could change, and the atmosphere could light up. Strijp-S in Eindhoven is a good example to illustrate this, as its image has changed over the years to being popular and being a creative hub for the young professionals.

So, who is responsible for the vacant buildings? Primarily it is the municipalities and government. They play a critical role and what happens with the buildings as they determine the laws and the regulations for the built environment. They do however need to work hand in hand with the investors and the people for a positive result. A perfect solution might not truly exist, and structurally vacant buildings will not be truly eradicated after all some buildings do need to be empty for the mere balance of the market. Solutions need to constantly be looked for and value should not only be in monetary terms. There has to be a level of sensitivity for the good and the needs of the people and the situation at hand.

The best solution for now is really to focus on the adaptability of buildings. All parties need to come together to a common solution. If people squat, then there is a need that needs to be addressed. If work is being brought more and more back home, then that needs to be addressed just as all other issues that are emanated in the different ages.

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Images: 1. Facade with overlays (source: www.tokkoro.com

Sources: 1. Hilde Remoy. Remoy out of office. Published by IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2010 2. L.Polyak, J. Oravecz, J.Schanz, E.Polyak. Vacant city, Published by KEK-Hungarian contemporary architecture center, Budapest, 2015 3. Stefano Saloriani. Spatial problems and Spatial Policies: The Dutch experience, Published by University of Groningen, Groningen, 2013

NOW 15

file:

Disaster Architecture

When the destructive force of nature is unleashed, mankind must suffer its wrath. 1953 saw one of the most disastrous tragedies in the Netherlands, sparking waves of resilience against the blunt forces of mother nature.

The resulting Delta Works are the pinnacle of disaster engineering in the Netherlands, but this fight against nature’s brutatility is a global phenomenon, recurring through history. In this edition’s file we will explore the architecture that protects us, not only from these natural threats but also from the disasters that were created by the hands of men. Text: Mats Rekswinkel

Know your apocalypse Preventing an apocalypse is, of course, more easily said than done. Let us, first of all, define an apocalypse. The Bible states that the apocalypse means the end of the world. In other, more recent, books it stands for a large scale destruction of the world, resulting in enormous changes. Let us focus on this last explanation. People from all over the world, from different social classes, different countries and different moral and emotional values might think differently about the apocalypse. A uniform apocalypse might actually not exist. Or we are actually referring to the end of the world, by for example the sun imploding, which might not happen for another five billion years. Before preventing, or coming up with for example engineering solutions, we first need to ask ourselves what an apocalypse actually means.

Text: Lars Hogenboom

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1) The left-wing politician Besides global climate change, the left winger’s doom scenario would be Trump. Trump is their personification of evil.

In their opinion a racist white man, who might only be interested in sleeping with as many women as possible and whose only concern is the prosperity of the economy. (It has nothing to do with engineering the apocalypse, but in our modern world, does an apocalypse always have to have an engineering solution?) Regarding the concerns of these groups, do we actually have to save a world from global harm, when our world is already destroyed from an ethical point of view? It goes without saying that with current ethnic differences and the #metoo discussion, our world appears to be more divided than it ever was.

An exact solution on these problems cannot be given. Emancipation takes time, as does acceptance of cultural differences between nations and religions .

2) The Dutchman Since most of us are born and raised in the Netherlands, it is likely that our apocalypse might actually have something to do with global warming. The news is dominated by Global Warming and its negative effects on the sea level. Since we already experienced the catastrophic and devastating power of the water in 1953, this could be our definition of an apocalypse. 55% of our country is vulnerable to flooding. Within this 55%, 26% is beneath sea level and 29% is endangered by rivers like the Meuse. Our extensive knowledge of water management, part of civil engineering , is a testament to our fear of the see.

We are currently making space for river bottlenecks, like the Waal, and are investing money and research time in for example the Delta Works. An example of one of the Delta Works that is under investigation is the storm surge barrier Hartelkering. This storm surge barrier is designed to close once in five to ten years and it actually closed a month ago during the storm.

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3) The right-wing politician The biggest doom scenario for right wing conservatives is called immigration. Parts of Africa have turned into flashpoints in the last few decades and many refugees are seeking asylum in countries like Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The cultural differences have led to numerous conflicts, from both sides, and a general solution to keep the peace might actually never become a reality. Political parties, like the PVV, AfD and Front National, are gaining votes with the so-called populistic approach of talking about these doom scenario’s.

For them, closing the borders is the solution on the stream of for example North-African men coming to our country. They do not particularly offer a solution for the unsafe conditions these people actually live in. A more interesting solution, offered by less populistic parties, is for example creating safe havens for the refugees in their own region. Turkey was already offered money to enlarge its capacity for refugees from the neighboring country of Syria and many other countries could do the same.

Disaster Architecture 6) The Biologist For biologists the apocalypse seems less “Hollywood-like”. It might be triggered by the extinction of bees or it might be triggered by climate change and its effect on the vegetation. While most people think of a rise of the sea level, biologists believe it will be mass extinction of various trees and plants, resulting in new deserts in Southern Europe .

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Since 1984, the Nordic Gene Bank collected over 10.000 seeds and stored them in an abandoned coal mine on Svalbard. The seed vault lies 120 meter deep in a mountain of sandstone. The scientific world agrees that this vault is one of the most important places regarding saving our planet.

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4) The South Korean citizen

5) The South-African citizen

With Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump performing the potentially most dangerous pissing contest in history, people from South Korea might actually think that their apocalypse is the launch of a nuclear warhead. The chance of a nuclear war breaking out has not been this big since the Cold War, so their fear is not unfounded.

The drought in South Africa is taking such extreme measures that the government is speaking of day 0: the first day without water coming out of the taps.

Go Wan Hyeok has created, in what he claims, the first fully-nuclear proof bunker in order to provide safety against Kim Jong Un’s lunatic behavior. They cost $20.000 and are made for four people. The bunkers provide electricity for a month, and it is questionable whether this actually is long enough. Because looking at a nuclear disaster in the order of magnitude of Hiroshima, a month seems rather short. It is however, a good way to start.

Citizens from Cape Town are restricted to halving their drinking water and to shower less than 90 seconds. Households that use more than 40 liters of water (in the Netherlands we use 120 liter per household) are fined. Unwashed hair is nowadays a sign of environmental awareness. The question rises whether this postponement policy really is future-proof.

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Images: 1. World map (www.desenio. com) 2. Vector pins created by Freepik Sources: 1. Donald Trump’s #meetoo moment is here (www.edition.cnn.com) 2. Cutting the flow of immigrants (www. washingtonpost.com) 3. Arctic city (www. architectmagazine.com) 4. South Korean bunkers for sale (www.dailymail.co.uk) 5.

Water scarcity Cape Town (www.edition. cnn.com) 6. Seedvault Svalbard (www. croptrust.org)

FILE 19

Campus survival guide The TU/e campus is a unique collection of buildings, but how would it fair in extreme disaster scenarios? And where is your safe space? This is undoubtedly the best survival guide around and you should definitely take all of this very, extremely, incredibly seriously. Keep it with you at all times. Text: Kim Sinnige

CATEGORY: Siege THREATS: Injury at the hand of enemy (weapons), starvation AVOID:

CATEGORY: Magnitude 7.2 earthquake

• •

THREATS: being crushed under collapsing buildings, suffocation

SCENARIO:

AVOID: •

windows and exterior walls

SCENARIO: In an unexpected turn of events western Europe is hit by violent earthquakes when tectonic plates shift dramatically. Most buildings - not constructed to withstand such forces - collapse. Roads rip apart and gaping holes appear. In just 20 seconds the campus is transformed into an apocalyptic disaster scene, similar to Stratumseind during carnaval.

COURSE OF ACTION: SHORT TERM: Because of the sudden and brief nature of the earthquake it is likely that you will not have time to take action. If possible, move outside towards an open space as quickly as possible. Otherwise take cover under tables. Cover your head. Move away from windows, which will likely shatter and shower you in glass. Hope for the best.

Aftershocks continue to pose a threat after the initial earthquake.

Remain cautious and move outside if possible. If trapped under rubble, try to get into a space with some form of oxygen supply. Fewer story buildings will be the safest, so if you are lucky (or unlucky) you will be in Paviljoen.

LONG TERM: In the event of an extended period of entrapment under rubble, call out for help as much as you can, this is the best way to alert others of your location. Singing is a good way of doing this while keeping your spirits up. Perhaps other trapped survivors will join in if you sing the Bouwkunde song.

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Being a hero Revealing your location

The Netherlands is at war in a time when knowledge is the most valuable currency. Engineers are targeted, taken, and forced to work as slaves in the rise of the new empire. This makes the TU/e vulnerable.

The campus has been surrounded by enemy forces and troops move inwards. Any bystanders are taken hostage.

COURSE OF ACTION: SHORT TERM: Aim to barricade yourself into as secure a place as possible, ideally with a secondary, hidden exit. Optimal buildings would be Metaforum, Auditorium or Zwarte doos, as they have a large number of rooms without windows which can be made more secure. Stay quiet, stay hidden. Because some types of engineers are more sought after during the war, mechanical, biomedical and electrical engineers are the most heavily pursued. If possible, mascaraed as another type of engineer, avoid these faculties, and try to look as unintelligent as possible, in the hope of convincing the enemy you are just visiting the campus and do not study here. Burn your student card. Leave the campus as quickly as possible if given the chance. The enemy will expect students to move in groups, so remain in small numbers or as an individual.

LONG TERM: With limited resources it is unlikely that you will be able to wait out the enemy from within a barricaded space. Attempt to establish communication with allies to coordinate an escape plan. If you find yourself in this situation, there is safety in numbers, as you are more likely to be able to overpower enemy troops in a worst case scenario. Try to maintain strong social dynamics despite the tense circumstances and limited social skills of many technical university students.

Establish a leader, those professional skills may finally come in handy.

Disaster Architecture CATEGORY: Flooding THREATS: drowning, electrocution, later water-borne diseases (thanks, nature)

AVOID: • •

going into the water bad swimmers who, like bad group members, will drag you down with them

SCENARIO: With climate change taking a firm hold, the Netherlands is hit with waves of unpredictable and extreme weather phenomenon. The banks of the Dommel suddenly burst with waters of a flash flood in severe storm conditions. Wind speeds are reaching 140km/h while hail and lightning batter the campus. The roofs of buildings begin to peel off, Flux’s being the first to go.

COURSE OF ACTION: SHORT TERM: Get to a high place as quickly as possible. On the

CATEGORY: Nuclear Attack

campus this means buildings such as Vertigo, Atlas, Luna or Aurora (not Flux). Choose one which is closest to you as time is critical. Do not use any elevators (especially in Vertigo). Note that Luna and Aurora have windows that can be opened across the entire height of the building, which could mean quick escape but also flooding risk. As residential buildings there may also be many locked doors, so beware.

THREATS: Radiation poisoning, blinding, assorted physical trauma from blast wave

AVOID: • •

Being outside Looking directly at the flash or fireball

SCENARIO: After the twitter battle between leaders from the USA and North Korea reaches a climax, the world is sent into nuclear disarray.

COURSE OF ACTION: SHORT TERM: In this scenario every effort should be made to get inside as quickly as possible. If you are outside during the initial blast with no hope of getting inside quickly, lie flat and cover your head, bracing for the blast wave. If you survive this (your odds are not great), move inside as quickly as possible and remove contaminated clothing immediately. It was not mentioned during IBPMS, but heavy concrete provides the best protection, as well as depth underground against nuclear fallout. On campus many buildings have basements, but the best buildings would be Auditorium, Luna and Vertigo with at least two floors below ground. As the deepest place on campus, the safest place will conveniently be the Skybar! Underground in Vertigo. Remain underground until told it is safe to do otherwise. This will typically mean a number of days to weeks. Ration supplies. Have a beer, this may be your last chance.

LONG TERM: The half-life of much radioactive material means that it decays quite rapidly, and after two weeks radioactive levels should be as low as 1% of initial values. The walkbridges across campus prove to be a real asset in this instance, and given the option, you should strive to take shelter in a building connected to this network. Survivors within this network may pool and ration supplies. Although not connected, DIFFER, housing nuclear fusion facilities, may hold useful resources. On the bright side, you finally have the time to finish that project work.

Avoid trying to move through the water at all costs. As little as 15 cm of strong flowing water can knock you off your feet. Electric cables may be cut and submerged, electrifying the water. Many objects and debris may be concealed under the murky water surface, and in the strong currents you may hit these at considerable speed, resulting in blunt force trauma. Could there be anything worse than being killed by an old project model or a Swapfiets?

LONG TERM: Emergency services will not be immediately available.

In an extended wait for rescue, consider moving to buildings more suitable for long time stay if water levels have lowered. Luna and Aurora, with sleeping supplies, will be most ideal. Do not drink the stagnant flood water, it will taste worse than warm Bavaria and carry disease.

Ration supplies. If the situation becomes dire, any surviving wildlife, such as the abundant rabbits on campus, may be hunted for food.

Most architecture students will carry a Stanley-knife. Befriend them.

Wait for rescue.

Although all of these scenarios are purely hypothetical, these types of disasters are by nature unpredictable, so it may be worthwhile to be prepared. Would you survive?

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Images: 1. Photoshopped panorama of TU/e campus. academicpositions.eu Sources: 1. Mat Stein.“Natural disaster suvival tips: be prepared for the unexpected”. 2017. peakprosperity.com 2. “Radioactive fallout: effects of nuclear weapons”.

2015. atomicarchive.com. 3. Michael Bond. “How to survive a disaster”. 2015. bbc. com. 4. Donald Hyndman, David Hyndman. “Earthquakes and their causes”. Natural Hazards and Disasters. Brooks/Cole: Cengage Learning. 2009.

FILE 21

Gridlocked Seeking refuge in a city of conflict The story of the refugee city is a complex one.

It is riddled with contradictions. The often used term refugee camp refers to the intended temporal nature of such a place. For many refugee camps, however, this term is no longer applicable since the average time refugees live there increases continuously and now exceeds 15 years. It might therefore be more appropriate to speak of and also analyze these settlements as cities.

Text: Bart van Santen

from other primary needs like water, food and healthcare, shelter is vital for the survival of the refugees. Even though building shelters is about fulfilling this primal need, it is also considered as development. Whereas the word shelter embodies the temporary intent of such buildings, the term development is irrevocably connected to long-term occupation of land.

Many attempts to resolve this issue mediate between temporary and long-term as well, focusing on the ease with which a building can be constructed and deconstructed. The designs

Temporary vs permanent According to the UN Refugee Agency, 65.6 million people around the world are forcibly displaced, many of whom end up in ‘temporary’ places. The intention is that once the situation that led them to flee is resolved, they return to where they came from. The host countries that build refugee settlements count on the resolve of the situation and therefore the impermanence of the camps. However, as conflicts grow more complex, refugees spend increasingly large parts of their lives in these temporary settlements. This contradiction between temporary and permanent is interwoven throughout the refugee city.

The modular city The building stones of the city, the ‘houses’, perhaps best illustrate this contradiction. Apart

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65,6 million people around the world are forcibly displaced are almost always based on a modular system of which tents are the most recognizable, most used and most fitting for the idea of a temporary settlement. However, in the long term the faults of these modules become apparent. The designs are based on an average refugee in an average refugee camp in average conditions, which often creates problems when applied to specific conditions. The modular systems often consist of one or more similar rooms. The modules themselves are all comparable as well,

based on constraints of (cheap) mass production. The result is a non-hierarchical organization within a building, which is continued on the larger scale of the settlement.

Planned refugee camps are based on the rational grid system, a prevalent system especially in the US. Therefore, it seems that these systems are highly influenced by western values.

Even though this type of organization has many benefits, most of which revolve around expediency, it does not reflect the identity of the people living in these places. The complex societal structures and compositions of refugee families are disrupted not only by having to seek refuge because of war, famine or other disasters, but also by the pragmatism of the ‘International style’ of the camps built today.

The identity of the person is in this way denied and at the same time the image of refugee is enforced. This image has numerous negative connotations. A refugee is someone who does not belong, who is in need of aid, who is not self-sufficient.

Among the countless problems a refugee faces, the - often understandable and unintentional - undermining of identity by the design of the houses and camps does not seem to be a priority to solve. However, the impact of this weakened identity should not be underestimat-

Disaster Architecture

ed. People are, both literally and figuratively, compartmentalized: locked in the grid. Together with the uncertainty of the impermanence of the place, people had to put their lives on hold.

The identity of the person is (...) denied and at the same time the image of refugee is enforced From camp to city One of the solutions seems to be to accept that the newly formed city will be permanent.

This takes away the uncertainty for residents on where to live and gives them the chance to build up a new existence. It also forces people to look at permanent solutions for the city itself. The existence of the refugee camps and their residents depends entirely on external supply. Once the camp is allowed to become a city, the transition to a more self-sufficient economy can be initiated. This in turn will lead to more opportunities for the inhabitants to find work, find a purpose, and develop

themselves. A certain degree of autonomy will enable the inhabitants to continue their culture and express their identity. It will allow the city to grow more organically and erase the grid and tents that continuously remind them that they are not welcome, that the city as well as their situation is static.

This solution might seem simple, after all, most cities started as a refuge. The implementation, however, is difficult. Most European cities originated in a time where cities were selfsufficient and had a high level of autonomy.

The autonomy of these countries was almost undeveloped, and countries were not as territorial as they are now. Hosting countries are afraid of the potential disruptive consequences of a large colony of foreigners. Situations as desperate as to cause the exile of so many, leave traces in the refugees themselves. In case of political turmoil, there is a real change the disputes might spread in the hosting country through the refugees.

Conclusion The refugee camp system prevalent nowadays is focused on the impermanence of the camp.

Most camps, however, have a much longer lifespan than expected. The design for impermanence is therefore no longer adequate. The tents, modular buildings and grid organization

of the camps create problems which make the situation of many refugees desperate. Denial of identity and lack of opportunities create a sense of despair among the inhabitants and therefore a sense of neediness rather than a sense of being needed.

Rather than camps, the refugee cities are increasingly reviewed and analyzed as cities.

The acceptance of the long-term implication of this transition enables the cities to grow organically and create a sense of place. Rather than needing a constant supply from the outside, the city can evolve to be - at least to some extend - self-sufficient, creating opportunities for its inhabitants and enabling them to use their hands to build rather than receive. Most importantly it enables them to express themselves through their buildings and in doing so, break the grid that captures them.

Images: 1. Container Camp (photo: Tobias Hutzler) 2. Al-Nimir Camp (source: japantimes) 3. Zaatari Refugee Camp (source: ea-hr) 1 2

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Sources: 1. J. Lewisjune. ‘‘The Exigent City’’. The New York Times Magazine, June 2008. 2. A.Brickman Raredon. ‘‘Instant City: Humanitarian Settlement as a New Urban Form’’. ETH Zürich, July 2016. 3. R.L. Brown. ‘‘Canvas Cities: Does the world need a new model for refugee camps?’’. The Christian Science Monitor, Octobre 2017. 4. B. Katz, J. Brandt. ‘‘The Refugee Crisis is a City Crisis’’. THe Brookings Institution, Octobre 2017. 5. E. Anzilotti. ‘‘Refugee Camps are turning Into Permanent Cities’’. Fast Companies, July 2017.

FILE 23

Guard amidst the waves

of the flood defense system lie two cities which depend heavily on the protection of the system. Rotterdam and Dordrecht and surrounding areas, accommodating about 1.5 million people, in this way are shielded from flooding during high tides. Water levels of 3 meters or 2.9 meters above Normal Amsterdams Peil in Rotterdam and Dordrecht respectively will cause the barrier to close. Under normal circumstances the system, consisting of two sliding gates, is open in order to allow shipping through the international trade route that it intersects.

This led to a spark of warning which saw a series of refurbishment work

A look at one of the most essential storm surge barriers the Netherlands houses 1953 saw one of the greatest disasters ever to be witnessed in the Netherlands. In Zeeland and parts of Zuid-Holland and Noord-Brabant dikes broke and huge floods took the lives of more than 1800 people. In the wake of this disaster a devastation was left almost too tremendous to bare. It resulted in a nationwide awareness of the omnipresent imminent danger of the sea, not only in Zeeland. For the rebuilding there was a general consensus that a disaster of such catastrophic proportions should never happen again. This eventually resulted in the Delta Works; a series of flood defense systems spread all over the province of Zeeland and the south of Zuid-Holland. One of these is the Maeslantkering, a flood defense system in the Nieuwe Waterweg which leads to the ports of Rotterdam. Having served us for 20 years as of 9 september 2017, it is now time to look back at how the system has protected us, but also, if it will continue to do so in the future. Text: Mats Rekswinkel

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As someone who has spent a vast majority of their life in the Netherlands I have heard the doomsday stories of the impeding water masses that surround the country on numerous occasions, but they have never really caused any alarm with me personally. The Delta Works have namely provided protection for over half a century and so far, in my lifetime, the system has never been breached. But what if they did?

What is it that these massive flood-protection systems guard? The Maeslantkering, in its part, takes on a large role in this scheme, because it crosses the vital trading route that leads to the international ports of Rotterdam. Nevertheless, it also has the function of, among others, protecting the province of Zuid-Holland against high tide.

The Maeslantkering can therefore be seen as an essential piece of the puzzle that is the Delta Works, and despite not being part of the original plan and having been built much later in time, it follows the same strategy as applied in other parts of the Delta Works. In the wake

However, voices of concern are never afar and, since it is of our immediate and upmost concern the system works properly, we must ask the question; does it (still) hold up? In fact, these worries cannot be eliminated, since initially already signs of wear were detected in 1999, only two years after putting it into service. This led to an entire revision of the mechanism. In order to decrease the damage, new high-strength polymer pads were implemented. As a result, the system required less maintenance and now has a lifespan of 100 years.

So it seems the flood barrier will last a while longer, keeping our feet dry for a couple more years. This should have us worry less right?

But there is another aspect of this complex system to consider, how reliable is the system controlling it all? The intricate system that is the Maeslantkering is completely automated and is triggered by tide levels in Rotterdam and Dordrecht. The reliability of the response of this system to such a trigger event however has remained a point of discussion. As of today, there is disagreement on the actual failure probability, ranging from one out of every ten times to one out of every 100 times.

In the midst of this commotion however, one certainty can be found: the software still contains errors, according to Jan Friso Grootte, professor Embedded Systems at the TU Eindhoven and Chris Verhoef, professor in IT systems at the VU in Amsterdam. Humanizing the entire system, on the other hand, is not an option due to the complexity of the system.

Grootte and Verhoef therefore suggest the first task at hand lies with the government clearing up the ambiguities surrounding the data from this issue.

As mentioned before, the Maeslantkering has often been part of public debate regarding safety. In 2006 a study regarding the effects

Disaster Architecture on the shoreline in case of a breach of the Maeslantkering pointed out some weaknesses in the dike line protecting the area around Rotterdam.

This led to a spark of warnings which saw a series of refurbishment work to these respective dike segments. This can be considered as a sign that any traces of weakness have thus far been treated with considerable attention, which should have us worry less.

To get back to the main point at stake, what would happen in case of a disastrous scenario?

The answer: apart from guess work we simply

cannot tell with certainty. Which seems to be just the thing when discussing this subject; risk factors and engineering for disasters are, in essence, intertwined. In the end, the discussion is about reducing the exposure to risk as much as possible, without it ever being able to drop to an absolute zero point. So with all efforts to reduce the risk in these past years, we can be very happy, certainly given the amount of innovation it introduced back then.

So, for now, there is no need to worry. The lifespan has been determined at another 100 years

and as we recently saw, on the third of January, the Maeslantkering closed its gates due to the high waves, functioning normally, guarding the low lands behind.

Images: 1. Maeslantkering lattice jib (photo: Adriaan van Oost) 2. Maeslantkering (source: nekst-it.com)

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Sources: 1. Maeslantkering. 2017. rijkswaterstaat.nl 2. Watersnoodramp (1953) – Een rampzalige stormvloed. 2018. historiek. net 3. Global analysis and constructional aspects in the redesign of bearing elements for a movable storm surge barrier. 2007.

Engineering Structures 4. Hoe betrouwbaar is de Maeslantkering?.

2006. Automatisering Gids 5. Achterlandstudie Maeslantkering.

2006. Rijkswaterstaat

The functioning of the Maeslantkering

Traction engine This moves the dam wall back in and out of the dock.

Foundation The foundation of the system takes up all the force exerted by the water. It is able to withstand one million kilonewtons of force, meaning that it is resilient to the heaviest possible ‘superstorm’

Dam wall By filling up with water these walls, twenty meters in height, can be sunk into the water.

Once having sunk, they attach to the bottom of the canal.

Lattic jib These structural arms transfer the load from the walls to the foundation and have a length of 237 meters.

Dock The dam walls are placed here when in open position.

FILE 25

RECOVERING GROUND Hiroshima, Japan

In this article, we will look into three cases of the rebuilding of a city: Christchurch (natural disaster), Hiroshima (manmade disaster) and Roombeek in Enschede (accidental manmade disaster). What strategy for rebuilding did they choose and why? When a disaster strikes a city, people lose not only their homes, but also places that stored most of their memories. This is one of the many things that makes rebuilding a city after a disaster so incredibly difficult. One could easily build new homes, new movie theaters, new shopping malls, but this home will never be the one where your kid took his first steps, the movie theater will never be the one where you had your first kiss with your loved one.

Text: Martha Boekestein and Bas Turk

Case 1: Hiroshima When Hiroshima got bombed in August 1945, it was the first time a nuclear missile had been used in the world. Unexperienced with these kinds of disasters, the first weeks of rebuilding were characterized by chaos, while the country was still in a state of war. After nine days however, Japan surrendered and had time to heal its wounds. Western countries, under the direction of the United States, started to determine the cash flow in the country. Due to the rising Cold War with the USSR, Japan was quickly seen by the US as an important ally in this new arms race. As a result, it highly subsidized the rebuilding of the former enemy’s cities, provided that they had a good plan of approach for rebuilding. Hiroshima needed a lot of goods and finances since about 90% of its buildings were partially or totally destroyed, and the city council realized that the only way to qualify for these funds was to come up with a plan that would please the American government.

Therefore, they chose to make Hiroshima the

26 FILE

city of peace, embodying the new path which the country should follow.

Soon, a discussion commenced about if the remaining ruins, particularly the A-bomb dome in the drawing, should be preserved or removed.

The dome was one of the only buildings in the city center that was able to withstand the explosion while the bomb exploded right above it, and it only had to resist vertical forces from the blast. The survivors of the disaster did not want to see reminders of what had happened, but the city council was driven towards preservation due to of the American subsidies, with a large peace boulevard that cut across the city center.

Your project could turn into a Tower of Babel in no time.

the plans for commercial office buildings.

They felt as if nobody had listened to them, and they were right. The places that needed a quick fix, places that make the city livable for residents, were neglected in the plans and the focus was all on making money. People were living in suburbs and the inner city was not a place to live, but only to work. All the things that were asked for were ignored and it was not until 2016 that a park was finally realized.

All plans for residential buildings and cultural buildings were postponed until 2020 and later.

Now, seven years later, the inner city still looks like a construction site. People have given up on this sad story.

The consequences of promising to listen to your inhabitants were seen gravely in the case of Christchurch. Apparently, the government did not have enough resources to keep its promises.

Case 3: Roombeek Case 2: Christchurch In Christchurch, New Zealand, the local government decided to have inhabitants come up with ideas for the new city center, after an earthquake hit the city in 2011. The architectural bureau of Jan Gehl was even asked to help come up with plans for the rebuilding.

At first, it all looked great for the inhabitants and they were eager to share their ideas. They asked for low rise buildings and no big shopping centers. They wanted the inner city to be like a market, where shops are all over the place. Things were looking great, and therefore the inhabitants of Christchurch were even more disappointed when there came plans for a big, new shopping mall in the city center.

In 2012, people started demonstrating against

In May 2000, a fireworks disaster destroyed a large part of the neighborhood Roombeek in Enschede. To see with our own eyes what has become of the rebuilding projects, we spoke with one of the current residents, Anneke Reuver, on the streets in Roombeek. At the moment of the disaster she lived about 2 kilometers from Roombeek, but even at her home the doors slammed together. She has been a volunteer in the Huis van Verhalen (House of Stories) since 2008, where they provide information and share memories of the disaster. “The beautiful thing about this neighborhood and this building I live in (red.), is the fact that all the layers of society are living together. There is a lot of social traffic, with private and social housing right next to each other. The neighborhood has been restored

Disaster Architecture

Christchurch, New Zealand

in a great way, with a lot of fine facilities and lovely cultural heritage.” says Anneke. The rebuilding of the neighborhood was special in the Netherlands, because there were all sorts of bottom up projects instead of one project by a real estate company. The social housing was managed by a housing association and the private housing by the owners themselves. This was perfectly fitting for the mentality of the city of Enschede. Pi de Bruijn was responsible for the quality of the whole project. Originating from Enschede, he was familiar with the mentality of the inhabitants of owning private pieces of land. Pi decided to incorporate a lot of symbols in the neighborhood related to the disaster, like pressure wave relief in the ground of the park. Due to the poor quality of the (partly) destroyed houses, it was chosen to build new houses instead of replicating the old structure. Because the rent stayed the same for the residents that would return, about 50 percent did. However, since there are more than twice as many houses as before, many of these original residents feel like they don’t belong in the new neighborhood. Nevertheless, like Anneke explains, “for new residents it is an honor to be allowed to live here.”

Guidelines to rebuild After a disaster, special attention should go to choosing the right moneylenders. Each financier can have different motives and therefore also different plans for rebuilding the city, and it is the task of the municipality to investigate if these motives are fair. Christchurch is a good example of this, where rebuilding the city center has been focused on financially attractive offices instead of an appealing center for residents to live in. For this reason, it is important to use local stakeholders, like architects, when making a master plan. Local stakeholders know the inhabitants and their needs best and know how to communicate with the other locals. Pi de Bruijn in Enschede did a much better job in making sure the plan worked out, than for instance Jan Gehl in Christchurch. These stakeholders speak the language of the residents and understand the local culture. Because if you do not understand each other, your project could turn into a Tower of Babel in no time.

However, it can be very difficult to make the right decisions for rebuilding a city, especially in the chaos of a national disaster. This can lead

to a mismatch with the needs of the residents, making them feel misplaced. For example in Hiroshima, the American way of rebuilding the city probably did not fit with the Japanese culture, even though now new generations can learn a lot from the city as important ruins got preserved. On the other hand, taking a lot of time to come up with a proper plan for rebuilding can result in long waiting times for residents to return to their home. In Enschede, residents could only return after 3 years.

Therefore, temporary shelter for those affected by the disaster should also be taken into account while designing. You do not want to end up with a permanent refugee city as described in the article on page 22.

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Images: 1. Cityscape of Hiroshima (drawing

by Bas Turk) 2. Cityscape of Christchurch (drawing by Martha Boekestein) 3. Row houses in Roombeek (drawing by Martha Boekestein)

Sources: 1. Hiroshima: Before and After the Atomic Bombing. 2016. theatlantic.com 2. After the A-bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki then and now – in pictures. 2015. theguardian. com 3. Story of cities #24: how Hiroshima rose from the ashes of nuclear destruction. 2016. theguardian.com 4. Conversation with Anneke Reuver 5. The human scale. 2016. vimeo.com

Roombeek, the Netherlands

FILE 27

Kees Doevendans

As urbanist, theorist and professor, Doevendans has made outstanding contributions to the world of urbanism. In this column he provides a critical statement about the apocalyptic situation of nowadays.

Science philosopher Bruno Latour is well known for his critique on modernity: a movement which unjustly assumed a distinction between consciousness and matter, nature and culture and mind and body. Latour developed his own actornetwork theory which argues that things like buildings, just as people, function as actors in a network of phenomena.

Recently, Latour published a book called ‘Oog in oog met Gaia’, or in English ‘Face to face with Gaia’ about the climate crisis.

This crisis is so serious that it can run on the apocalypse: the end of time. Will sustainability still be able to help? According to Latour, the situation is even worse than we think. He claims that the Apocalypse has already taken place: the climate is already in a catastrophic crisis.

Let us continue with sustainability. Three approaches can be distinguished: skepticism, gradualism and catastrophism. The skeptic entrenches himself in the White House and assumes that everything will be fine. The gradualist takes the crisis seriously but thinks it can be solved using transitional scenarios.

Looking through the eyes of Latour, only the last one can be a realistic scenario. Do not think in terms of crisis, transition and a dot on the horizon because that horizon is already gone. Only the catastrophe counts and we live in an apocalyptic time.

The apocalypse is a reference to the biblical book of Revelations describing the battle between the earthly city of Babylon and the heavenly Jerusalem. At the end of time, the latter will descend from heaven to replace the earthly city. But we already live in the end of time, thus are we already at this moment? Or do we still have an undone task in front of us in the form of sustainable architecture and urban planning? Following Latour, this task should be in the awareness of Gaia: the catastrophic complex network of phenomena that controls and threatens our world and in which these disciplines, their designers as well as their things, are actors.

According to Latour, we cannot speak about nature anymore in a way we modernists are used to; a vision that originated

28 FILE

Architecture, apocalypse and contingency during the Enlightment. A knowable and manageable nature arose in which the architect and urban planner were shaping things like gardeners. Also the city, the most complex architectural artefact we know, is no longer a form of human culture that we can easily maintain, improve and keep livable.

The city is under the spell of Gaia. The Romantics criticized Enlightenment thinking and projected their religious inclination in nature. They introduced the experience of the sublime: nature is beautiful, we belong in it but nature can also be frightening: thunderstorms, avalanches and earthquakes. This duplicity is gone now when believing Latour: there is only the frightening left, the apocalypse. Nature is now a completely different kind of actor than enlightenment and modernity expected. The same applies to the city. Michel Henaff expresses this rather nicely: ‘Nature has invaded world history, the city has become a planetary phenomenon, a world object, its population concentration is astronomical, a colossal pile of people, powerful as deserts, ice caps and oceans. The city is part of an impetuous, deceiving nature, an apocalyptic fact, a place where people are no longer at home.’

The double experience of the sublime was already encountered by psychologist Sigmund Freud, who arrived in the beginning of the 20th century with his notion of the ‘unheimische’, or in English ‘unhomely’. Man had lost his home through all the developments of modernity and industrialization, everything that was familiar had suddenly become strange to him. It was a general feeling. Georg Lukács spoke about the ‘transcendental homelessness’ of man and sociologist Georg Simmel made it clear that we lived in the city as strangers to each other. This was not a new fact which popped up suddenly; it only came to light in the upcoming metropolis in a poignant way. It was a feeling rooted in something like a mild form of Gaia. After all, the world was changing and everything became different.

People lived in great uncertainty, everything was possible and everything seemed coincidental and arbitrary. This all could end in a catastrophe. The experience of the First World War played an important role. A beautiful term was made up: reality had

Disaster Architecture

become ‘contingent’, the opposite of ‘deterministic’. The world was no longer a fixed and manageable happening.

Architecture will never bring people home and won’t be

able to offer security The modernists encountered the problem. Architecture and Urbanism recognized the contingent reality in which man was homeless. But, if everything would be possible, could this homelessness also not be overcome? People searched for a pragmatic answer and started working in a functional and rational manner. The modern city would become a bright city, a kind of heavenly Jerusalem. However, during construction new threats occurred. Suddenly, flying bombers popped up in the sky that could destroy the city easily. Consequently, the city was constructed as open as possible. In this way people could flee the city in an easy way. P. Wolf philosophized about a solution in ‘Städtebauliche Fragen der Luftschutz’ in 1926.

He denoted the bombers as actors, as co-designers of the city. Could this not be the sublime solution? The bombers contributed as predicted and realized destruction, an apocalypse. Not in the outlying suburbs, but in the historic inner cities. The renewal enabled large possibilities such as building a completely new city center. Coventry for example is a completely new modernist center that replaced the old one. The bombed cathedral is however still there. Old historical remains were combined with modern architecture. The memory was preserved and the remains were included in a new conception.

When the city of Sarajevo had been bombed and turned into a catastrophe, this approach was also practiced by Lebbeus Woods. The scars created by the war on the buildings offered the possibility for new architectural interpretations: answers to the Apocalypse. Woods proposed: Architecture = War and War = Architecture.

But perhaps we should not lapse into architectural romance and cherish ourselves too much in the experience of the sublime.

The modern city did not bring people home. Architectural theoretician Anthony Vidler made this clear in ‘The Architectural Uncanny, Essays in the Modern Unhomely’ making a new appeal to Freud, Lukács, Simmel and also Latour, making the problem even more serious with his ‘Gaia the contingency in extreme form’.

Are contingencies, catastrophes and the apocalypse perhaps constant factors of the reality in which we live, work, recreate, and love? And now considering very fierce: the network Gaia.

When looking at the gradual scenario, architecture and urban planning can function and become sustainable by pragmatically integrating solar panels in buildings and in the city. And when considering reuse, specific materials and circular thinking could be an option. In the skeptical scenario, let us assume that the White House, an example of dated neoclassicism, is the architectural style of the Enlightenment. Remaining now is the catastrophic scenario of the apocalypse. The answer is represented in autonomous architecture. This architecture seeks its possibilities in contingency, recognizing it as a permanent layer, the layer of sublime which is terrifying and fascinatingly beautiful. The modernists with their tabula rasa reduced the layer too easily into an ordinary construction site. Everything seemed possible, but people lost themselves in usefulness and standardization. The only positive thing is that they taught us that architecture will never bring people home and won’t be able to offer security. According to this apocalyptic layer, we will always be ‘foreigners and residents’. Architecture should never even care about that.

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Images: 1. Kees Doevendans (source: TU/e archive) 2. Computer rendering of the econstruction Design by Lebbeus Woods in 1994 (Rendering: Carlos Fueyo, 2004) 3. Lebbeus Woods, “Sarajevo,” from ‘War and Architecture’ (1993), a proposal for the reconstruction of the Electrical Management Building (Drawing: Lebbeus Woods, photo: issuu.com).

Sources: 1. Latour, B. (2015). Oog in oog met Gaia. 2. Wolf, P. (1926). Städtebauliche fragen der Luftschutz. 3. Ridler, A. (1992). The Architectural Uncanny, Essays in the Modern Unhomely.

FILE 29

THE MEN BEHIND THE DESK

Five days a week, they are ready to answer all your questions about model making, sawing and laser cutting. With all that comes into play, the work mostly consists of answering the students’ questions. Chepos investigated what it takes to work in the workshop. Text: Eva Pabon and Bas Turk

Frank, Patrick and Stefan have worked at the workshop as long as all (current) students can remember. They thoroughly enjoy their work, which is completely dedicated to helping students. “Each day is different,” says Patrick, who can celebrate his anniversary this January, as he has worked at the workshop for fifteen years. He is mostly responsible for the administrative part of the workshop and is an expert in woodworking. The part of his job he enjoys most is the interaction with the students. This is convenient, since most of his job consists of answering their questions. “There are no stupid questions,” he says, “it is just ignorance, if you do not know something, it is not stupid.”

However, he wishes he had kept a log with all the strange questions they have gotten over the years.

We have to be very black and white; students do not understand that.

“The whole day we work to help students,” Stefan continues. “The first hour we do sawing assignments and fill the store inventory. And when the students come here at nine, we are ready for them to answer questions, give out materials or tools and walk with students to help them out.” Before he got a job in the workshop, Stefan did maintenance at the University. “I came to get some screws here in 2006, when I noticed they were looking for new employees.” The reason he enjoys his

30 THAT’S WHY

job? “When you help someone, really help them move forward, the appreciation you get from those students gives satisfaction.” For Frank it is rather different: “For me personally, I would say it is the engineering part, the things we have to make here.” His expertise is metal working and laser cutting.

The men are strict in their time management and with the rules. “We have to be very black and white; students do not understand that,” says Stefan. “Although we are constantly in a grey area,” Patrick adds. One example is the laser cutter: “It is an agreement with the faculty: only built environment graduates can use the laser cutter. They do not want to kill the creativity obviously; otherwise we would have another five of these machines. We see very beautiful things being made here, but ever since we have a laser cutter all projects look alike. In the past everything was made by hand, which resulted in the use of different kinds of materials. I think this also has to do with time pressure. In the past, students took a whole year for their graduation project. Now, they only have about 3 weeks to finish their model after the design is approved.”

In general, the workshop is bound by many rules: their own, the university’s and even by law. “I think we are bound by the most rules of the whole university. Even the electrical outlets have to be cut off of power when we are away. We have so many machines here to make sure that everything is guaranteed to be inspected and safe. If a student brings their own drill, you are never sure about that, however: we are responsible in the end.”

Many of the rules of the workshop are there for a reason. “Obviously spraying paint is not allowed indoors. However, outside of the workshop this is not allowed either. Stefan explains: “The municipality has forbidden the use of spray paint outside. We have had very angry people come in here because there was paint on their cars. The students did not do that on purpose of course, but because of the wind it still ended up on the cars. We have had the fire alarm go off several times. It is a silent alarm and then we had to explain that it was a false alarm. This is all very inconvenient, so we are very clear on that these things are not allowed here.”

Besides the machinery, the men are also strict about time, and for good reason: “You can see it during the deadline weeks. Students will be here at eight in the morning and are still working at half past five. In any other business this is not even allowed! In Delft the whole workshop just closes for two hours in the afternoon, even the lights go out. That is why we have lunch in the workshop - even though this is not allowed - because if anything happens, we want to be nearby”. At half past one the shop closes and the men have a break.

Stefan explains why they are so strict about that: “We have to be away, if we have lunch in the shop we do not get left alone. We get so many questions the entire day, a good break is necessary to process everything.”

Because of their responsibility, the men are unable to leave the workshop unattended.

“When colleagues celebrate their birthday and we do not show up this is sometimes met with

incomprehension. The same applies to Industrial Design students, who often have fascinating ideas. They come here to make the individual parts, but they put those parts together at their own department and present it there. We get a lot of invites to visit these projects, but unfortunately we cannot leave the workshop all of a sudden. When recently there was a smell of burning, we found out that someone had left a hot soldering iron on the table. In those cases, it is good that we can react alertly.”

was absurd. Two people were just filling the inventory every day; the whole stockroom was filled with cardboard. Now students are much more aware of what they are using.” Besides the pricing of the materials, other things were changed as well. The desk was relocated to the other side of the workshop, so that it is closer to the machines. Over the course of the years the workshop has gone from eight to three employees, because “back then there were still 350 first year students every generation.”

Right now, student assistants help out during busy weeks. This is all to keep the workshop as cheap as possible for the students. “These assistants have the task to respond to the first questions. Even if it means that they just say “If one of the men has time, I will send him to you.” Then that person is already helped. That works great, because you can not have a line of six or seven students with no one behind the desk.’’

You are all responsible people, if you

do what we say, you should be allright.

The men are always improving the workshop in favor of the students, even if it does not seem like that at first hand. Over the years, they have implemented many changes. At the start of the workshop all materials were free, but now students pay a minor price for it. “If you could see how much material was thrown away… if somebody needed one stick they got a set of fifty sticks and threw the rest away. Now they just come to buy one stick.

If we empty the racks here, we have about twenty cubic meters of trash, a full container.

We used to have that every two weeks. It

Machinery A sewing machine, sandblaster to create matte vivak, metal cutter, 3D-printer, laser cutter, and much more.

Another improvement the men want to make concerns the communication with teachers.

“We never know what is going to happen.

Over the years we have learned when a peak in business can be expected: we have longer opening hours and more student assistants on stand-by. Luckily, there are a couple of teachers who come to us with information on which materials they need for a course, so we can order those in advance. But for the rest we have to guess what will be in demand.’’

The only change that the men are not happy about is the pass system. “It takes way to long before all the cards are authorized, which makes no sense whatsoever.” Patrick adds: “in addition, not everyone has a pass at the beginning of the academic year. That causes delay for many students.” They do understand the reason for the change. Stefan explains: “It was implemented to prevent that we become a workplace and shop for the whole university.

Around November, we have a good approximation of who the new first year students are.

Until then, we constantly have to guess: does he or she belong here? All first years of the faculty get a machine instruction at the start of their study. This is enough according to the men, to work safely in the workshop. “You are all responsible people, if you do what we say, you should be alright. But then comes the time pressure, and it really goes wrong. But even if you see how many actions are done here and how many accidents we have, it is not that bad luckily.”

The men hope to work at the workshop for another twenty years: “We will be 64 by then.’’ During these years, they are willing to answer all your questions: “If you are bothered with something, just ask.’’ Patrick concludes.

“We do not work against, but for the students.

Some feel uncomfortable to ask questions, but like I said before, there are no stupid questions.’’

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Images: 1. Frank, Patrick and Stefan. (photo: Eva Pabon, 2017) 2. Workshop floor plan. (Source: Facilities Vertigo) 3. Sand Blasting Machine (photo: Bas Turk) 4. Bags of Sawdust. (Photo: Eva Pabon) Sources: 1. Interview. December 19, 2017.

Inside information Besides the standard materials, the workshop also has various types of metal, miniature trees, paint, epoxy, screws, bolts, springs, clay, cotton, solder, wire, tape and more.

Glue room A special room for glue spraying poster boards.

Storage MDF is stored and cut in a multiple of 30 cm to prevent waste.

Saws One bag of sawdust is collected each week from the saw room by the air filtering system.

MDF of 2 mm is made especially for our workshop

THAT’S WHY 31

THE SPACE ARCHITECT A rise of a new generation of designers

Do you already know what you will be doing after your study? Are you creative and capable?

Do you embrace new challenges? Would you like to do what nobody has done before? Are you unafraid of the unknown? Then, have you ever considered pursuing space architecture?

Perhaps you will become a pioneer in multiplanetary life. Text: Kim Sinnige It is 2018 and we are witnessing the dawn of a new era: that of Space Architecture. Defined as the “theory and practice of designing and building inhabited environments in outer space”, this relatively young field was said to have been born in 1968. This came about when a team of architects and industrial designers insisted on the addition of an observation window to the Skylab orbital laboratory (the US space station which orbited the Earth from 1973 – 1979). Despite objections from engineers (as architects are all too familiar with), NASA added the window. It became a favorite feature with astronauts, who would

32 THAT’S WHY

otherwise have been floating around outer space in a large metal cylinder without any view to the outside for up to 84 days.

Conditions of space missions are often of this sort. The first ever manned space mission Vostok 1 in 1961 had astronaut Yuri Gagarin constrained to the space of just one chair, though this flight lasted only 108 minutes.

With increasing duration and quantity, manned trips to outer space are no longer just about surviving. Attention must be paid to the psychological wellbeing of astronauts, and that is exactly where engineering falters and architecture comes in. The physically and mentally demanding nature of space trips mean that even the slightest alterations can have large affects.

Coping with G-forces, claustrophobia, social isolation, and an endless list of physical health problems from life in zero-gravity, astronauts

are strained to their human limits.

This newfound necessity for attention to the human factor affirms the importance of architecture; functional capability is not all that matters. When NASA added that window to the Skylab, they were changing the future of the field of architecture.

After being popular in science fiction ever since as far back as 1865, ideas of human space flight and habitation have gone from fiction to reality. We have already been to the moon and in orbit, and with private companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and Mars One we are looking at the prospect of new planet colonization as soon as 2032. Fueling this progress is a worsening global climate and booming population. Suddenly the idea of a multiplanetary life is not so farfetched.

Illustrations and representations of orbital or planet-based designs are now being looked at more closely and some, such as Jules Verne’s 1865 From the Earth to the Moon, are surpris-

ingly accurate. There are many theories aboutwhich direction extraterrestrial architecture will really go, and these are guided by a number of critical factors.

The first, and probably most influential factor is that of gravity. Being a governing principle in all terrestrial architecture and life in general, one can hardly fathom a world without it. Perhaps we may opt for artificial gravity, but this means creating a spinning spacecraft, and will heavily influence design. Similarly, life without gravity may completely redefine how we use space, and be just as influential on design.

Environmental contrasts are numerous. Things like air composition, natural threats (from tsunamis and earthquakes to solar flares and meteor showers) and local materials will be varying and defining. All those things taken for granted when designing for a building on earth need to be re-evaluated and re-engineered.

On a more practical note, the financial costs and engineering capabilities are still a huge determinant in terms of design possibilities. As it is now, modular architecture has been the leading tactic, with physical size and shape of components being decided by the spacecraft carrying it. However, attention is now turning towards inflatable structures instead, which can advantageously be folded. Advances in material technology are still required here in order to create materials that are durable enough to withstand alien environments.

els of creativity and original thought. But how do you become a space architect?

You can actually already study to qualify in this specialization. The good news? All graduates from TU Eindhoven with a bachelor of science are eligible to apply. The master’s course, offered by the Sasakawa International Centre for Space Architecture (SICSA), is the only one of its kind in the entire world.

All graduates from TU Eindhoven with a bachelor of science are eligible to apply.

Based in Houston, Texas this course is in close proximity to NASA and a wide range of aerospace companies. Boasting a curriculum containing courses such as spacecraft and habitat design and former NASA astronauts as faculty, it is certainly a unique opportunity.

Whether or not you think a career in space architecture is for you, you can take something away from it. In its existence it represents the idea that the future of an industry is unpredictable. An established field can be revolutionized by a new technology or ideology which is just as dramatic as a brand new field coming into existence. So you can plan it all out, but it is very likely that your dream job actually doesn’t even exist yet. Your best skill may just be being open-minded and adaptable enough to cope with an ever-changing industry.

Images: 1. 1999 Solar Eclipse (photo: Luc Viatour) 2. Hand with card (source: NewPrepay, 2016) 1 Sources: 1. “Space Environments”. Living Aloft: Human requirements for extended spaceflight.1985. NASA. 2. “Sasawaka International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA)”. 2018. University of Houston. 3. Oliver Wainwright.“Let’s all move to Mars! The space architects shaping our future”. 2015. theguardian.com. 4.

Constance Adams. “(Aero)Space Architecture takes flight”. 2002.

Houston, TX: Spacearchitect.org. 5. “All the world’s space agencies” 2017. husonfla.com. 6. “Mission roadmap”. 2017. Mars One. 2

All of these factors combined may result in an unforgettable generation of architecture, and to design for such a revolutionary age of architecture would be remarkable. The challenges are endless, and the creative opportunities are infinite.

...we are looking at the prospect of new planet colonization as soon as 2032.

To gain a better understanding of these unknown worlds, extreme environments on earth are often taken as example. For example, how humans live in submarines, isolated research units in Antarctica and in underground bunkers tell us a lot about the social and physical environments we may be designing for.

Backed by national rivalries and a growing private sector, job prospects for space architects are looking promising. As of 2017 there were 71 countries with space programs, including the Netherlands, as well as over 50 private companies involved with space exploration.

The new field remains closely intertwined with aerospace engineering, but demands new lev-

THAT’S WHY 33

The Eco s stem of the City In western society today there is a tendency to romanticize natural elements in our surroundings. It resonates around us, greenery is trendy. Utrecht for example, succeeding Milaan, will have a vertical forest tower near the central station in about five years. Loosely translating Victor Everhardt, councillor of Utrecht’s central station area: “The plan Wonderwoods is an asset for the city. Two unique towers will arise, that will promote the green, healthy and sustainable urbanization that we like to see in Utrecht.” However, is greenery in cities a solution for human identity and climate change that is evidence-based? This article discusses the performance of greenery in cities. Text: Thimo Hillenius It may be strange to acknowledge for city dwellers, but life can continue without cities.

It has only been 6000 years since agriculture provided enough surpluses so that cities could grow. A long period followed in which most cities did not have a huge impact on its surroundings. Of course there have been exceptions. Ancient Rome brought widespread deforestation. However, people intuitively knew that they relied on the natural environment. Since there was plenty, there was nothing to worry about. Following the trail to the present, the industrial revolution initiated rapid urbanization. In the 20th century city dwellers became more and more disconnected from nature, and nowadays more and more people do not really acknowledge their dependence on the natural world for the goods and services they enjoy. It was only in 1972, when the Club of Rome published their book Limits to growth, that western society started to see boundaries to its development. Cities nowadays cover 2% of the worlds area, but host over 50% of the human population. Still, a large group of people is moving from rural areas to cities.

34 THAT’S WHY

Performance of urban vegetation In the concrete environment of a highly populated city, summer temperatures will be higher than in surrounding rural areas. This is called the Urban Heat Island effect, which, in Dutch cities, can be 5.3 °C on hot summer days. This is a lot, since if temperatures in cities rise above 27.7 °C this already has negative effects on health and productivity. All types of vegetation help to cool down the city. However greenery cannot completely reverse the Urban Heat Island effect. If city vegetation increases by 20%, the temperature lowers by 1°C. Greening the city has the possibility to cool the city from 2% to 4%.

tion can retain more water than lightweight, extensive green roofs. If a roof is still soaked from an earlier downpour, the water retention capacity will be low. On a city scale this means that although green roofs can help a lot, technological solutions like water basins are still needed.

Are health effects immeasurable?

Giving credits to the real effects of greenery is difficult because the they are not easy to measure. They occur on several scales and through different ways of using this greenery. Effects differ per location since they can consist of several side effects. Still, useful conclusions can be

Two unique towers willl arise, that will promote the green healthy and sustainable urbanization that we like to see in Utrecht.

It is interesting to note that in a report published by the RIVM published in 2011, it is stated that vegetation in cities cannot significantly improve the air quality by absorbance. It can even worsen air quality by decreasing the wind speed in streets, increasing the pollution by traffic. However, greenery offers other benefits than absorbance of pollution. Two healthy ash trees of about ten meters high provide enough oxygen for one person per year, and decide for yourself: Doesn’t a tree just smell good?

All vegetation in cities helps to provide a more even distribution of storm water, causing less floods. Green roofs are often advertised for their storm water retention. However, numbers vary enormously, depending on the scale of the building. Roofs with more soil and vegeta-

found. A study by Alterra (Wageningen) found that in neighbourhoods with greenery, there are 15% less children with overweight.

There are several tools on the market that calculate the benefits of greenery. The tool The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, TEEB, for example. With this tool a calculation can be made what economical benefits the adding of greenery to a physical plan leads to.

However, this tool still provides more of an indication than accurate numbers. It may not yet be possible to precisely measure the benefits of urban vegetation, however, the other way around conclusions can also be drawn. In 2013 an Urban Forester from the U.S. Forest Service did an interesting research. A disastrous tree disease had felled one hundred million ash trees throughout the Northwest and Northeast

of the US since 2002. He decided to compare these numbers with the data of a research on cardiovascular and lower respiratory disease in the US between 1990 and 2007. The counties that were hit by the tree disease showed a sizable 10% increase in mortality rates.

A healthy flourishing vegetation Healthy trees that are cared for do not easily fall down or breach. In an interview published in February of 2017, Stefano Boeri says about his vertical forest tower: “We’ve been surprised — we thought there would be plant mortality of around 10 percent, but as of now, the trees are living perfectly.” Trees in urban environments are often not provided with good conditions to grow, which is a problem. Piping limits the underground space of the tree and pavements suffocate its roots and compress the soil.

Often trees in urban environments are offered only half the underground space they need.

The soil ecosystem on which vegetation grows, although not visible, is of the same importance as the above soil ecosystem. Currently a lot of research is going on about underground biodiversity. Trees and plants even use the soil as a communication network by producing chemicals. The vertical forest tower of the future may have a continuous layer of substrate around the building.

The ideal vertical forest tower of the future may need a continuous layer of substrate around the building.

Plants grow only in environments they can adapt to, and that are suitable for their needs.

Animals in Zoos only behave in natural ways if provided with an environment that resembles their own habitat. It is only normal that we

have to create a natural human habitat for humans to thrive. However, we still have a long way to go. Although Il Bosco Verticale is of uttermost importance in showing the world that a vertical forest can be grown, it is doubtful that in terms of CO2-production the building is ever going to compensate for its concrete with the trees.

Top down or bottom up?

Often green urban elements provide economic return for their owners, but the upfront costs are high and the yield can be uncertain. Intensive green roofs for example prove to be only a profitable solution where there is no space for other sorts of greenery. On the scale of the neighbourhood and the city, urban greenery proves to have significant impact. Criminality and absence due to illness lowers, people take the bike to work more often and a park works great for social dynamics and health.

An edible city in the form of urban agriculture could provide a financial positive solution for urban greenery. In the sustainable neighbourhood Eva Lanxmeer in Culemborg, a neglected orchard has been adopted by the neighbourhood. Also in other Dutch cities there are several initiatives of communal gardens. This is a promising development. However, a top down approach does not work. Initiatives prove to be only successful if they are carried by an enthusiastic core of citizens and if organizations provide a stable matrix to let the initiative grow.

Housing companies and the government still need to play a significant role in promoting greenery. Singapore, probably the number one city in promoting urban greenery, has the ‘N parks program which subsidizes half of the costs for building green solutions. This has huge influences on the amount of greenery.

Singapore uses this as their trademark. Cities need ecological systems to be resilient to climate change. Talking about vertical forest towers, the housing company Trudo in Eindhoven announced in December that another ‘Il bosco Verticale’ will arise on Strijp S. Google it!

1

Images: 1. Render Wonderwoods (source: MVSA Architects, 2017

Sources: 1. Plan Wonderwoods gekozen om te ontwikkelen op groene toplocatie. 2017. cu2030 2. Gary Grant. Ecosystem Services come to town. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons. 2012. 3.

M. Hop, J.A. Hiemstra. Contribution of green roofs and walls on to ecosystem services of urban green. Wageningen UR. 2017. 4.

Het effect van vegetatie op de luchtkwaliteit. RIVM. 2011. 5. Tom Bade, Gerben Smid. Fred Tonneijck. Groen Loont. De Groene Stad.

2012. 6. Florence Williams. The nature fix. Oxford: W. W. Norton & Company. 2017 7. This architect wants to make entire ‘forest cities’ with skyscrapers covered in trees. Maria Galucci. 2017 8. Noël van Dooren, Rob le Rutte, Derk Jan Stobbelaar. Fruitbomen in de openbare ruimte: Uitdagingen voor duurzaam gebruik en beheer.

Vakblad groen. 2017

THAT’S WHY 35

Step up your BIM

Download for free kubusinfo.nl/student

38 THAT’S WHY

At the heart of Barcelona lingers a fantastical world encapsulated with works of the 19th-century architect, Antoni Gaudi. At first glance, the Sagrada Familia challenges modern construction methods, the Guell park is a prolific example of skilful mosaic artistry, and the Casa Calvet is a reminder of our imaginative boundaries. However, underneath these complex manmade structures and accomplishments lie simple ideas driven by nature.

The intricate design in the catenary arches, spiral stairways, conoid-shaped roofs, and hyperbolic paraboloid columns are reduced to their fundamental natural forms- spider webs, shells, and buttress trees. Julian Vincent would sum this up as Biomimicry, “the abstraction of good design from nature”.

Text: Ananda Jaganathan

traffic congestion? How can we better shape our buildings to suit our environment? And how can nature’s organisation skills be used during a time of disaster? Nature’s path guides us to these answers.

Architects have long taken inspiration from nature. Nature trails back to the organic forms of the Baroque building style, and further back to Corinthian columns of Ancient Rome and Mycenaean palaces imbued with lotus motifs.

Evidently, there has always been a strong relationship with the works of humans and nature itself. To begin with, the human body was used as a metaphor for architecture. It was considered a symbolic model and a copy of several architectural parts. For example, Vasiri describes the ideal palace as a facade with a face in which the central door is the mouth, the symmetrically placed windows are the eyes, and so on. Vasiri brings to life the dormant palace. Through this, we see the first way that nature manifests itself in architecture- the appearance and geometry of the human body. The second form of expression is through transcribing human proportions as measurements for different architectural parts.

These are the earlier stages in the development of man’s perception of nature and the architectural world through the eyes of Vitruvius.

On this long and exciting walk to understanding biomimetic architecture, we can in no way avoid Frei Otto’s structural trees and his bubble structures from the 1960s. Otto conducted series of soap bubble experiments, where he suspended a thin string into a soap bubble.

By gradually pulling the string to a minimal surface, he created elegant structures that can be seen in the Munich zoo and the Munich Olympic stadium. Traverse these experiments that every child might have played with, Otto built structures that were previously thought to be impossible. Moreover, his tree models showed how thin slabs supported at multiple points, through branches, increase the number of the compression members. This not only reduced the buckling lengths and bending moments but also provided the economic and sustainable advantage of reducing material in columns. His study is recreated in the Stuttgart Airport with the tree-like internal columns which support the building’s structure.

This idea of imitating nature presents a new direction in the realms of design, one that deviates from our ancestors. This is seen with the emergence of the term Biomimicry. The philosophy behind this school of thought is that, natural and biological systems solve complex problems in more efficient ways than any engineered systems. These man-made systems can be improved by incorporating natural designs that exist on the organismic, ecosystemic, or behavioural level. A final solution is achieved by making changes pertaining to the form, the construction, the process, or function of the building. This pool of ideas can provide us with answers to questions such as how can we reduce the cost and time of construction?

How can we design a better routing system to minimize

As we retrace the steps of nature in the architectural world we encounter the work of Nicholas Grimshaw, The Eden Project. In this 2001 project in Cornwall, England, Grimshaw creates a series of artificial biomes modelled after pollen grains, soap bubbles, and the unique characteristics of the dragonfly wings.

While the architects designed the form of the building around the pollen grain and soap bubble, they resolved the way the steel membranes connected at the junction by looking at dragonfly wings.

Another celebrated architect in the field of biomimicry is Buckminster Fuller. His development of the geodesic dome has helped blur the lines between architectural structures and molecular structures. Architectural works such as the Montreal biosphere and the Ohio biosphere have staggering similarities to the carbon nanoparticle, C-60. In fact, the nanoparticle, known as fullerene, was named after the architect himself.

As we delve deeper into molecular structures, an interesting question to ask is: is it possible to incorporate the properties of nanoparticles in our everyday architecture? The property of self-assembly possessed by nanoparticles enables disordered parts to build an ordered form through local interaction. This may prove vital as it reimages the modern construction,

manufacturing, and product assembly methods in architecture. Studies at the MIT Self Assembly Lab show that there are several ways to adapt these building paradigms into the built environment. Its uses a range from self-adapting water management systems to reconfigurable spaces based on our needs and from interactional commercial spaces to selfhealing buildings. This is rendered possible by taking advantage of a material’s geometry and properties. When this material is exposed to a certain type of energy such as heat, light, shaking, gravity, or electricity the material responds by shape transformation.

This idea of responsive material is reflected in the Doris Kim’s installation called Bloom. Doris Kim animates the installation by using thermal bimetal, which contains two alloys having different thermal coefficients. As a result, one material expands more than the other when exposed to heat. The material is employed as a sun shading and ventilation device in the complex. The architect draws inspiration from the self-operating and self-cooling and heating ability of the human skin. Not only is Doris Kim making architecture more passive, she is also making it more dynamic through the use of this new building component.

Though this trail of nature is rugged and bumpy, full of twists and turns and definitely confusing, we can understand that there are important lessons to learn from it. We can see how different architects have taken on the concept of biomimicry to come up with fascinating design solutions. The story of the early man best concludes this piece. Architecture began with fire around which civilisation thrived.

To protect the fire against the forces of nature man began to build. And by building, he grew resilient.

Images: 1. Biomimicry. (Made by: Ananda Jaganathan) Sources: 1. Ayat Abdul Rahim Al-Jawhary Ahmed Sheta.

BIOMIMICRY IN ENVIRONMENTAL ARCHITECTURE. the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University, GIZA, EGYPT: July 2010. 2. Fabio Colonnese. Man as Measure. Department of History, Drawing and Restoration of Architecture. Sapienza University of Rome Rome, Italy. 3. Michael J. Maglic. Biomimicry: Using Nature as a Model for Design. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, USA: 2012. 4. Ludwig Glaeser. The work of frei otto. New York, USA: The Museum of Modern Art, 1972. 5. ISSN 0719-8884. Andrew Galloway. “When Biology Inspires Architecture: An Interview with Doris Kim Sung “ 14 May 2014. ArchDaily.

THAT’S WHY 39

In every Chepos an article is published from the Pantheon// and vice versa.

Pantheon// is the magazine of Stylos, Study Association of the Built Environment, Delft.

This article ponders the question as was raised in Rudofsky’s Architecture without Architects; are architects necessary?

Architecture without Architects Are architects necessary? Rudofsky’s Architecture without Architects imposed this question onto my highly impressionable mind before I was corrupted by the world of architecture. Now, three years on and reading this book with wiser (but definitely more tired) eyes, I am even more perplexed by this question. Text: Sonya Falkovskaia Bernard Rudofsky wrote his book in 1964, mainly consisting of haunting black and white images of ‘architecture’ from around the world with explanations under each one. I use the word architecture here in quotations because these images all represent vernacular architecture in its purest sense. Architecture created by the people with an entirely form follows function approach even before Mies himself uttered the words thousands of years later. But this formal architecture that I describe, of course, is not the sleek steel and glass orthogonal masterpieces that we all know and love (or love to hate perhaps) today. Here, vernacular architecture is praised and, in its own right, it shows that even before architecture became a noun, architecture was created by everyone in creative and ingenious ways.

Take the amphitheatres of Muyu-uray. These stunning landscaped are situated in Peru, lying between the great Machu Picchu and Cuzco. These amphitheatres were built by the Incas over 5000 years ago, but still, these ariel masterpieces are still of upmost relevance from organic facades to common model making techniques. These amphitheatres accommo-

40 THAT’S WHY

dated over 60,000 people. For a people who lived before the first ‘building’ was created, its creators have done well. Even though these amphitheatres are perhaps basic in construction, there is no denying the stunning beauty they hold when viewed from above as a whole. The Incas would not have been able to see the construction in its totality, but the fact that they could still create something like this is miraculous.

Deep within the Chinese provinces of Honnan, Shansi, Shensi and Kansu, it is said that 10 million people lived in subterranean dwellings. They dug out caves below the field to create cooler, more habitable houses. Whilst doing so, purely driven by need for shade, they created a new typology - an inverted landscape. This example shows sophistication in form and composition when such things were never heard of.

During the Othmanli (Ottoman) period of reign in Turkey, a Turkish bathhouse demonstrates a design akin to today’s parametric solutions. The ceiling arrayed with light wells creates a beautiful piece of architecture, while an architect is nowhere to be found. Even 7000 years ago such designs were already being produced under the radar. Now I pose the question again - are architects necessary? Rudofsky’s book continues to provoke this consideration as it presents beautiful examples of anonymous architecture.

sticks are not seen as architecture by many, but in this case, we need to question ourselves: what really is architecture? Is architecture a reflection of the world around us in the form of space? Or has it become to be just supply and demand for the vast majority, with some added flare here and there?

If many find it difficult to place these early architectures, amongst the plethora of other examples in this book, then maybe architecture as it is today has become so incorporated with technology that they can no longer be separated.

Today, the public and its processes have become so diverse that there simply are too many ways to do the same thing. Before the dawn of technology and its immediate relationship with architecture, there were few, but nonetheless tried and tested methods to create aspects of the built environment. Perhaps this is why such inspired examples are shown, because there was more time and capability to design.

Now, however, there is so much choice when making architecture that examples like these do not happen anymore. Craftsmanship is a trade that is being lost. But perhaps with books like Rudofsky’s, we will see what can be achieved without including today’s understanding of architecture and design.

At the time of these examples, technology was not yet developed and perhaps this allowed for the uninhibited development of such dwellings morphed by society as a natural process. Perhaps these raw images of soil and

THAT’S WHY 41

A marble in a

Congratulations, from now on you are an entrepreneur, I heard a voice whispering in my head! Somewhat uncomfortable, I leave the Chamber of Commerce after registering my new company. The economic crisis has hit the construction sector hard, especially among architects. Many architects who got laid off or graduates who just left university were forced to work freelance or start their own business.

But as the number of architectural firms grew (from below 3000 before the crisis till almost 7000 at its peak), the amount of work dropped dramatically. It left me wondering who exactly was waiting for my architectural firm.

Text: Adriaan Jurriëns

42 TOOLS

jar

Entrepreneur and/or architect Just like many fellow architects I am not a born entrepreneur. The reason why I have become one is because of the autonomy you have, not to sell my services all the time. As architects we tend to believe that our work will sell itself. Which of course will never happen.

First of all, there are many great architects with even greater ideas – it is our job to come up with great ideas. And besides that, potential clients are not as occupied with the profession as we tend to believe. Also, it is not about convincing other architects of the integrity of your projects, but about convincing clients of your knowledge and experience. The book

Architect in de Praktijk covers this brilliantly: “A real entrepreneur takes initiative, an architect waits for assignments”. The fact that the same laws apply to architectural firms as to any other business is a good first lesson for those who have worked mostly with other architects.

1. Go out to find your clients Just like all other entrepreneurs, we must go out to see new clients and find new markets. You can do this through very special innovative projects, participating in tenders or competitions, or just through old-fashioned offering your services in some form. The essence of the matter is to somehow create

attention through which you will gain the interest of potential clients. Above all, this is a matter of action, which is of course, easier said than done.

2. Take the risk and keep taking it Psychological research has shown that people have a natural tendency to avoid risks. The emotion involved in loss is much stronger than the emotion involved in winning. This means, as an entrepreneur, you should work somehow counterintuitively. After all, the chances are much higher that your offer will be rejected than that it will be accepted. Coming to terms with this will be difficult in the beginning. When I was confronted with a rejection or failure I used to take this very personally, but the more you deal with it, the more you can accept it as part of the game. A second important lesson would be to move on from these rejections and failures and to not let them get in the way of taking another risk. Rumors among entrepreneurs are that the very successful ones spend half of their time on acquisition.

Undeniably they get a lot of rejections, but they take that into account and learn from it.

3. Separate sense and nonsense Another important topic involving doing business is separating sense and nonsense. This seems very obvious but its wisdom can easily get lost in daily practice. And in the world of constructional engineering you will hear a lot of hype and people who brag about certain topics.

One curious example is the glorification of BIM, which is heralded as some kind of wonder, fixing all sorts of everlasting problems within the field of construction and constructional engineering – mostly by people without any relevant experience. Try always to maintain an open mind towards these kinds of innovations, especially when certain problems are as old as building itself. I don’t want to cancel out the possibilities of BIM, but its relevance is greatly overestimated. Buying this very expensive software isn’t always necessary, especially not in the beginning. It is more important to keep the money you earn and control your expenses which is much harder than spending money - a third important lesson. Try to separate the marketing, hype and bragging from the facts.

Try to resist the temptation of following the crowd without good reason, especially when it costs you money.

4a. Set a goal for yourself Once you are working as an entrepreneur, it is important to stay focused on what you want to accomplish. Ask yourself the question, how do you see yourself working 10 years from now and write the answer down. It sometimes takes a while to set some clear goals, because

the reality of doing business can be different than expected. In the beginning I thought I had a very clear picture of how the reality of daily life as an architect looked, but it wasn’t until I had worked for a couple of years within the profession that I fully understood how business was done. Setting and sometimes resetting the goals can be very helpful, especially when your initial plans aren’t working out as you thought they would.

4b. Set a vision for your business On the other hand, let’s also not forget why you started your business in the first place. This might be an even more important question.

Very instrumental in formulating my reasons for why I did what I did was Simon Sinek’s book Start With Why. It helps to take the course of your business more into you own hands rather than it being directed by whatever assignments are out there in the market. It also helps to

as an entrepreneur, you should work somehow counterintuitively. say no sometimes. A fourth important lesson in taking control is to create a business profile in which you answer the important why- and how-questions. I found it very instrumental when I wanted to change my focus towards a more interesting portfolio with more focus on the artistic part of architecture rather than merely working on the technical aspect of it. It helped me to implement some subtle changes and to have a picture of my future ideal organization with a business partner and a new workspace, and to work towards that goal.

5. Be a serious business manager No story about entrepreneurship can be told without some notion of earning money. For some architects this is still a form of sacrilege.

My opinion is somewhat different. As an architect you are not only a designer in a physical sense, but different technical, legal and economic aspects need to fit into the design as well. Fitting those different aspects together takes time. That is why we, as architects, have to take business management more seriously, which will be my fifth lesson in this story. If you have continual worries about basic necessities, it is hard to gain the focus needed in making a good design. Part of this begins by telling potential clients what our work contains by writing out the work we do and, of course, by asking for normal wages.

Standing out from the crowd Strangely enough, far too little has been written about the relationship between architecture and entrepreneurship, although the last economic crisis has brought this important subject more to light. Undoubtedly, the economic aspect is quite dominant in architecture and a good architect is aware of this. Taking that into consideration means also the realization that starting a new firm in this business is almost madness. The market for architectural services is saturated, which in times of economic crisis, will easily change to an oversupply of these services. And to be honest I don’t think there is anything unique about most, if not all, architectural firms in an economic sense.

The cost of being autonomous A typical entrepreneur who wants to generate profits would probably not choose to start a business in architecture because it is high risk and the profits will generally be low.

Despite all that, many architects are like many entrepreneurs - overoptimistic in their chances of success when they start as an entrepreneur.

Almost three-quarters of all new companies will close within 5 years and we haven’t even discussed ghost companies which show almost no activity. Starting as an independent architect serves other personal goals like fame or, in my case, more autonomy.

In many cases, I think entrepreneurship and the inherent risks are perceived as far too romantic. If people talk about taking risks, it also means making sacrifices when it comes to a lot of things you cannot afford: not going out for dinner, no luxury holidays, no expensive clothes, no car, no house. Also you probably have no money for a pension or other social benefits when you are sick or injured. For many people (or their relatives) these disadvantages will make it hard to keep their initial optimism.

I have great gratitude for the willingness of my girlfriend who was willing to take the risk with me. Not everyone would have had the patience and trust to await a better future (especially not with my stubborn personality). Now the effects of the economic crisis are slowly disappearing, I am relieved to see clients finally know where to find me. In the end patience will increase your luck, but let’s not forget the cost of getting there.

Many thanks to Felicity Walker for the translations of this article.

1

Images: 1. Marble in a jar. (Made by: Mats Rekswinkel) Sources: 1. Simon Sinek. Start With Why. January 2011 2. Leon Teunissen, Alijd van Doorn. Architect in de Praktijk. October 2011.

3. Daniel Kahneman . Thinking Fast and Slow, October 2011

TOOLS 43

Mar 29

Jun 01 -02

Den Haag Real Estate 2018

Day of Architecture (Dag van de Architectuur)

The 24th edition of Den Haag Real Estate in the Zuiderstrandtheater will be under the supervision of Bart van Breukelen. During this day several aspects of the real estate market in Den Haag will be discussed.

The Day of Architecture is for everyone that is interested in architecture and city planning. This year the focus of the event will be on growing cities and how to deal with this ever continuing growth.

Apr 17 - 19

Jun 02

Building Holland

Building Day (Dag van de Bouw)

Building Holland is a three day event regarding all topics within the Built Environment. The venue will be the RAI in Amsterdam. With 15,000 annual visitors and 230 stands, you will get to share knowledge, expand your network and maybe even do business.

Walking around construction sites, looking at actual constructions, experiencing a birds-eye view from a crane, getting instructions from an actual contractor, glancing into the future with VR. It is all possible on Building Day (Dag van de Bouw).

May 10 - 13

Jun 04

Vienna Excursion

CHEOPSx

Are you ready for a trip? From the 10th untill the 13th of May CHEOPS will take you to an exciting location. During this Multiday excursion we will show you the ins and outs of Vienna! Will you join us?

Save the date! On the evening of June 4th CHEOPS will invite inspiring speakers to share their views on relevant topics within the Built Environment.

May 17

Jun 07

Circular Economy Festival

PLUGGED Festival

The subject of a circular economy is creating more of an impact every day in the Netherlands. Governments, organizations and entrepreneurs become more aware of climate problems and are forced to face the facts. The re-use of electricity, recycling, circular investments and sustainable building are all subjects that will be addressed during this festival at The Kube in Nijmegen

In the past few years Plugged Festival has evolved into the major music event of the TU/e. With four years of experience, the Plugged Festival crew will try their best to make Plugged 2018 again an absolute success! Keep an eye on the Cheops website and follow Plugged Festival on Facebook to stay updated about this years Plugged.

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