Atlantis #22.3 Urban Economy

ATLANTIS MAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR URBANISM

#22.3 December 2011 Ronald Wall 04 Mike Yin 07 Maurits Schaafsma 09 John Kasarda 12 Atelier Olschinsky 16

Urbanismweek 2011 Intro by Jorick Beijer 18 Henk Ovink 21 Alfredo Brillembourg 26 Jaap Modder 29 Markus Appenzeller 30 Tess Broekmans 33 Chris Zevenbergen 36 Hubert Habib 39 MSc Urbanism projects 40

VURB 45 Vincent Schipper 49 Osong Bio Valley 52 Geoffrey West 54 Alex Lehnerer 57 Tim Peeters 58 Eric Luiten 60

URBAN ECONOMY 1

Editorial In the previous Atlantis issue we discussed the tangible subject of urban form. In this issue of Atlantis, we will explore the seemingly invisible economic forces that shape our cities. The impact of these economic forces on cities is enormous which can clearly be seen by the effects of the financial crisis on cities all over the world. The rise and fall of Detroit and Dubai is an extreme example of this. Therefore, space and economy cannot be considered separate from one another and in this light, the position of the urbanist is questioned again: “What can urban designers and planners contribute to the urban environment, while this urban environment is increasingly subject to unpredictable and complex economic forces?” Issue #22.3 Urban Economy explores this question from various perspectives, by exchanging ideas with students, scholars, designers, politicians, developers and engineers.

Ronald Wall will open this issue, by revealing the complexity of investments and their effect on cities. Wall pleas for a new set of methods and techniques to incorporate the knowledge of economic logics into urban strategies and designs. According to Wall the power of world cities is essentially relational: cities form nodes of attraction within a global network of investments, and thus need to act accordingly. Not only the traditional cities will form these nodes, but also new urban typologies are attractive to invest in. Mike Yin will introduce the airport as a new urban centre while Maurits Schaafsma further elaborates on the specific case of Schiphol. John Kasarda, author of the best-seller Aerotropolis, proposes to bring together airport planning, urban planning, and business site planning to eventually form true airport cities. The Vienna-based Atelier Olschinsky provides a look into the fictional machine rooms of today’s cities, showing their beauty as well as their complexity. Their works provide a triggering starting point to further explore the specific role of the urbanist in these machine rooms.

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However, urbanism seems to constantly seek for a relevant position. The profession struggles with numerous aspects at once: its role in the process, its position towards involved parties, the status of its products, and perhaps also a societal recognition as a knowledge-intensive profession. To exchange ideas about this, the Urbanism Week brought together a number of very interesting speakers from all over the world to give their view. When the heat of the debates vanished, Atlantis spoke more in-depth with these speakers to elaborate on their propositions and personal motives. Henk Ovink starts with a plea for new alliances in a decentralized government when it comes to design content. Alfredo Brillembourg passionately speaks about engaging the public in developments, whereas Jaap Modder pleas for a different role of the government. Markus Appenzeller argues that there are similarities in approach despite working in different cultures, while Hubert Habib, Tess Broekmans and Chris Zevenbergen discuss the future challenges of sustainable living and development in cities. Along these lines, the work of TU Delft urbanism students will be exhibited and several visitors and professors will reflect on the Urbanism Week.

The outline for Atlantis volume 22. If you have ideas and would like to contribute, please do not hesitate to contact us at atlantis@polistudelft.nl.

ATLANTIS

#22.1 April 2011

MAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR UBANISM

URBAN SOCIETY 1

#22.1 Urban Society Keywords: society, regeneration, politics, housing, neighborhood.

ATLANTIS

#22.1 April 2011

MAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR UBANISM

URBAN SOCIETY 1

#22.2 Urban Form Keywords: form, density, typologies, design, public space, urban techniques.

ATLANTIS

#22.1 April 2011

MAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR UBANISM

After contemplating on the role of the urbanist, VURB discusses techno-social means on vacancy and Vincent Schipper continues the discussion by looking at the city through the metaphor of dance. Geoffrey West, one of the world’s leading physicists of the last decade, recently began studying the science of urban life and came up with some remarkable insights. West discovered that the reason we all live in cities all have to do with the number 1.15. Alex Lehnerer presents some provocative globes that deal with major themes of the contemporary city. To round it off, Eric Luiten, professor of Cultural Heritage will reflect on some of the themes apparent throughout this issue.

URBAN SOCIETY 1

#22.3 Urban Economy Keywords: globalization, urban economy, competitiveness, branding, market, role of urbanism, foreign direct investment.

ATLANTIS

#22.1 April 2011

MAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR UBANISM

URBAN SOCIETY 1

#22.4 Urban Landscape Keywords: landscape, metropolitan, urban-rural, bio-

Jasper Nijveldt

diversity, border conditions.

From the board Committees 2011 ‘So, you are an urbanist?!’ The Urbanism Week 2011 was an unforgettable event for everyone with a fascination for the (un)built environment. Polis Platform for Urbanism is proud to build the platform for knowledge exchange and offers you the chance to look back and ahead. Urbanism Week 2011 has made its statement in the faculty and outside. 'So, you are an urbanist?!' was the discussion that sounded in the corridors in the last months. During the last week of September Polis built the physical platform for international discussion about the (un)built environment. What does it mean to be an urbanist? The keynote speakers brought us a sharp and inspiring view of the world of urbanism.

What is your discipline? What does the ‘urban’ do for you? What is the profession really about? But what made the Urbanism Week really special were the audiences whom actively took part in the debate during the whole week. It resulted in a sharp and inspiring discussion about the essence of urbanism and the role of the urbanist. The critical discussion has reached not only the students and the academic field but also the professionals in practice. Urbanism Week has shown what Polis stands for as an active platform for urbanism: yes, i am an urbanist!!

For those who unfortunately missed the Urbanism Week 2011 or those who would like to re-experience the whole week again Polis has good news. The videos of all the lectures as well as photos of the whole week are available online at the Urbanism Week website. Visit the website to revisit the Urbanism Week 2011: www.urbanismweek.nl Polis is proud to present to you two special editions of Atlantis magazine this year. Both issues 22.3 and 22.4 will flashback on the Urbanism Week and will continue where Urbanism week left off. The Urbanism Week keynote speakers and debaters will look back and ahead in the interviews and essays you can find in this magazine. For us this is rather important, because Polis highly values its members and wants to keep in touch after the Urbanism Week. Polis aims to extend our platform online, so please visit us at the Polis website (www.polistudelft.nl) and connect to our Linkedin and Facebook group to keep updated and join the discussion! Let the debate continue!

We could not be as visible as we are without the great effort of a lot of active students. In the last 10 months Polis was able to organize a big trip to Vienna, excursions to Antwerp and Amsterdam North, a double lecture on digital urbanism, the Roadshow on sustainable planning, a case study on Spoorzone Delft and of course Urbanism Week 2011. The Polis board wants to thank all the people involved for their great efforts and positive input!

We are always looking for enthusiastic people to join. Interested in one of the Polis committees or becoming the new board of 2012? Don’t hesitate to contact us at our Polis office (01west350) or by mail: contact@ polistudelft.nl Urbanism Week. Arie Stobbe, Jorick Beijer, Karien Hofhuis, Vera Konings, Tim Ruijs & Noor Scheltema.

Lectures. This committee is looking for new enthusiasts! Let us know if you want to join them and organise more interesting lectures!

Excursions. After the great success of the big trip to Vienna this committee will organise two great events for the coming months. At the end of this year we will visit Maastricht & Luik and in the 2012 we will go to Berlin!

Hannah Cremers, Gijs Briet, Andre Kroese, Verena Roell & Wieke Villerius, Feddy Garofalo.

Borrel. Nazanin Hemmati, Ani Skachokova & Laurens de Lange. Are you a Msc1 student and interested in organizing borrels? Please contact us!

Urban greetings from the Polis board 2011, Jorick Beijer, Karien Hofhuis, Vera Konings, Tim Ruijs & Noor Scheltema

Atlantis. Jasper Nijveldt, Jan Breukelman, Edwin Hans, Jan Wilbers, Mike Yin, Sang Huyn Lee.

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Urban geopolitics

Dr. Ronald Wall Architect and Economic Geographer

Urban Competitiveness and the Global Economic Network

In this article I argue that cities are increasingly affected by external, seemingly invisible, political, economic, cultural, social, and environmental forces, and that policymakers, urban planners and architects may need to explore new methods and techniques to incorporate this type of knowledge into their urban strategies and designs. However, I will not elaborate on the theory behind this argument and instead will focus more on a practical example. For those interested in a theoretical explanation, this can be found in ‘We Need Archinomics’1.

In a world in which the mobility of capital steadily increases, cities compete more than ever in attracting capital flows, mostly in the form of investments2. In this sense, the power of world cities is essentially relational: cities do not have power in isolation, but have power to the extent that they form points of attraction and command within the global network of investments3. To improve their position within this network, cities need to improve their ability to successfully compete with each other, i.e. create competitive advantage over others. To do this today, policymakers use incentive based policies e.g. subsidies and taxes, but also capacity-building policies, such as physical infrastructure, public transportation, and human resource development to improve a city’s ability to attract investments. Furthermore, marketing and branding strategies have become a ‘booming business’, with the endeavor to boost a city’s attractiveness for business. However, a major problem of these policies and strategies, is that they are over-generalized, hereby not specifying a city’s true competitors, nor the type of investments that are being contested amongst cities. In other words, urban poli-

wall@ihs.nl

cymakers persistently assume that cities are in equal competition with each other and consequently apply generic approaches to the development of their cities e.g. ‘creative cities’, ‘green cities’ and ‘sustainable cities’. In this manner most cities increasingly imitate each other and become very similar, instead of identifying unique characteristics that would make them different and enable a competitive advantage.

Despite the increasing mobility of capital, only a few cities can satisfy the specific requirements of large firms to invest in particular projects abroad. Depending on a firm’s industrial sector, e.g. chemicals, semiconductors, oil-extraction or advanced business services, it will seek different urban qualities in a city. Indeed, various studies show that it is best for cities to attract investments that complement their existing or potential economic functions. In this way, cities with the same type of economic functions can to some degree be considered to be true competitors as they have similar endowments to attract the same kind of investors. Cities with dissimilar economic functions are not competitors and can therefore be considered complimentary to the extent that they exploit different sources of investment, and hereby fulfill different economic roles within the urban system. Furthermore, empirical research has indeed revealed that cities are not all in competition with each other, and instead each city has only a handful of true competitors4.

Hence, by using econometric techniques for example, the competitors of a city can be identified within the entire global network of investments. Based on this specific knowledge, detailed case studies can be carried out on its competitors to find out (i) exactly which

Figure 1. The geographic location of regional and global investments in Rotterdam, Hamburg and Frankfurt (Wall and Pajevic, 2011)

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IHS/Erasmus University

Stockholm Beverly Hills Austin Houston Amsterdam Vienna Vaduz Hamilton Fairfield Zurich Washington Brussels Den Haag Copenhagen Dublin Saint Petersburg Pittsburgh Sydney Osaka Minneapolis Chicago Indianapolis

New Delhi Marseille Purchase Redmond Voorburg Nova Prata Roskilde Schindellegi Seattle Westlake Village Nantes Vaasa Tallinn Rochester York Windsor Vevey Waltham San Diego Parsippany Cambridge Rotkreuz St Louis Riga Gouda Eindhoven Epsom

firms are investing in them, (ii) what type of economic, infrastructural, social and environmental functions in these cities are attracting the investments, and (iii) which functions need to be developed so as to attract new investments. Based on this knowledge, a city can develop targeted urban programs, policies, plans and marketing strategies that will give it a future competitive advantage over its competitors. Therefore, a good understanding of competition within the global investment network will clear the path to smarter, more goal-directed and effective urban planning, urban design and policy-making5. In this sense, ‘form follows function follows flows’.

New Orleans Regina

Wellington

Hull Leamington Spa

Itasca

Naperville

Taipei

Hwaseong Clichy Ipswich Hsinchu Johannesburg

Nishio

Sundsvall Athens

Hamburg

Moscow London Memphis Beijing Boston New York San Mateo Tokyo Paris

Aalborg

Cardiff Humlebaek Hilversum Addison Leuven Blagnac Cerritos Mountain View Bloomfield Hills Cape Town Chippenham Basel Oslo Hong Kong Aimargues Barcelona Dubai Decatur San Francisco Al-Kuwait Miami Malmo Philadelphia

Atlanta Tel Aviv Los Angeles Seoul Zug Shanghai

C

Newburyport

Raleigh Wilmington Turin

Ozorkow

Pune Massy Rockville Westborough Yokohama Piscataway Northbrook Utrecht Xiamen Toronto Scottsdale Milan Slough Muttenz White Plains Pino Torinese Valencia Shenzhen Malagna Montreal Hartford Sunnyvale Mumbai Niederwangen Amstelveen Springfield

Zeist

Kiryu Nieuwegein

Rome

A

Nijmegen Southfield Jersey Minato-ku City

Santa Clara

Frankfurt

Lawrenceville

Siena Bath

Madrid

Milwaukee Baden Southborough

Newark Cincinnati

Jakarta

Menlo Park Kinnarp Belgrade

Broomfield El Segundo Deerfield Cleveland Fukuoka

Baltimore Chiyoda-Ku

Rotterdam

Le Plessis-Robinson

Espoo

Minsk

Ichikawa

Luxembourg

Mansbach Lund Marlborough

Greenwood Village

Dallas

B Linz

Rockford

Bangalore

Foster City

Manama

Aberdeen Baku

Brighton Abingdon

Boca Raton

Auckland Gwacheon

Southampton Kolkata

Duisburg

Antwerp Seville

Dusseldorf Rio de Janeiro

Birmingham

Lysaker

Johor Bahru Gent

Salvador Irving

Combining insights from international economics, business management, urban development and urban network literature, an indicator has been developed to measure competition between cities for investments6. Unlike previous competitive advantage approaches that only compare cities by the strengths of their urban indicators, the new model measures a city’s competitive importance relative to other cities in the global network. This results in a network measure which in its simplest form is explained by the diagram below (figure 1). The seven cities (A-G) are hypothetically connected by investments made by firms in these cities. Cities A and G have different cities investing in them and therefore have a 0% market overlap. In other words, they are not competitors at all. Cities B and C have the same cities investing in them and hereby have a 100% market overlap. In this sense, they are perfect competitors. Cities A and D are partly linked to the same cities and therefore have a partial overlap which can range between 0 and 100%. In previous studies, it is shown that cities tend to only have a handful of true competitors. For instance, Figure 2. Diagram to explain network compe- Rotterdam’s competitors are not Dutch tition (Burger, Wall and cities, as is often assumed, but cities like Frankfurt, Hamburg and Prague. v.d. Knaap 2010 7)

Basking Ridge

D

Koln

Fischamend Arhus

Reykjavik

Bucharest

Figure 3. Investments from various cities to Rotterdam and its competitors Hamburg and Frankfurt (Wall and Pajevic, 2011) (Source: Wall and Pajevic, 2011)

Metals

Rotterdam

Coal, Oil and Natural Gas Financial Services

G Textiles

Software & IT services

Warehousing & Storage

Chemicals Non-Automotive Transport OEM Hotels & Tourism

E

Semiconductors

Alternative/Renewable energy

Industrial Machinery, Equipment & Tools Transportation

Wood Products

Plastics

Business Services Rubber

Automotive Components

Communications

Automotive OEM

Food & Tobacco Beverages

Hamburg

Real Estate Space & Defence

Frankfurt

Leisure & Entertainment

Paper, Printing & Packaging

Medical Devices Pharmaceuticals Electronic Components

Biotechnology

Aerospace

F

Consumer Electronics

Healthcare Engines & Turbines

Consumer Products

Business Machines & Equipment

Figure 4. Investments from various industrial sectors to Rotterdam and its competitors Hamburg and Frankfurt (Wall and Pajevic, 2011)

(figure 1). The darker the region and the higher its red node is positioned, the stronger it is in attracting investments. The linkages (in red) represent the total investments taking place between regions and it is clear from the map that Europe’s core investment axis runs between London and Milan, incorporating areas like the Randstad, Ruhr area, Flemish Diamond, and Paris. A video of this can be seen at http://www.tinyurl.com/3jggslo.

Nonetheless, the competition model is more complex than this, as it also requires other conditions to properly measure competition between cities i.e. (1) sectoral similarity of investments e.g. transport, manufacturing, legal services or trade, (2) functional similarity e.g. headquarters, branch plant, sales or logistics, and (3) geographical proximity e.g. Amsterdam, Cologne, Antwerp and Utrecht. In other words, the degree of network competition between cities A and D would be highest if both cities received equal sized investments, for the same industrial sectors and functions, and from the same cities. Applying the above methodology to the FDI Markets investment database, the true competitors of any city can be identified. The database represents roughly 30 000 investments (for the period 2000 – 2010) between European cities and cities in the rest of the world.

In the network diagram (figure 3), we see two of the important competitors of Rotterdam, namely Hamburg and Frankfurt. They are competitors because other cities like Moscow, London, Beijing, New York, Tokyo and Paris invest in all three of them (label A).

Cities like Atlanta, Tel Aviv, Seoul and Shanghai only invest in Rotterdam and Frankfurt (label B); while Philadelphia, Miami, Dubai and Hong Kong invest only in Rotterdam and Hamburg (label C). The fact that 22 cities invest in Hamburg and Frankfurt, but not in Rotterdam, shows that Rotterdam is the weaker of the competitors (label D). However, this cluster of investor cities serves as a potential market for Rotterdam’s future development. This can be done by developing marketing strategies and incentives to try to persuade these cities to also invest in Rotterdam. The starclouds indicate single investors of each of the three cities.

In this article, Rotterdam’s competitors will be discussed. Firstly a three dimensional GIS map has been made of the investments that have taken place between European regions during this period

The other condition which makes cities competitors is the similarity of the industrial sectors investing in them. In the network diagram (figure 4) it is clear that industries like coal, oil and natu5

Figure 5. The geographic location of regional and global investments in Rotterdam, Hamburg and Frankfurt (Source: Wall and Pajevic, 2011)

ral gas; financial services; software and IT services; and real estate, invest in Rotterdam, Hamburg and Frankfurt alike (label E). As can be seen, Rotterdam has very strong investments in the coal, oil and natural gas industry. It is evident that industries like pharmaceuticals, aerospace, health care, engines and turbines invest in Hamburg and Frankfurt, but not in Rotterdam (label F). These can in future serve as potential new industries for Rotterdam’s economic diversification. For instance, the fact that Rotterdam is already strong in the chemical industry should form a strong motivation for attracting the related pharmaceutical industry.

In the GIS maps (figure 5), the geographic location of the investments in Rotterdam, Hamburg and Frankfurt are seen. The color coding shows the type of industrial sectors of investments. For instance Rotterdam and Hamburg have strong investments in

more competitive. This can result in smart urban programs that will give Rotterdam a competitive edge and which can consequently be transformed into urban plans and urban designs.

In this article the complexity of the world of investment has been discussed, but also the powerful influence of this on the development of our cities. More importantly it has been argued that to develop cities we need to complement our understanding of what goes on within a city’s municipal boundaries with knowledge of its relative importance in regional and global arenas8. Methods and techniques have briefly been discussed that can gradually enable us to understand and manage this complexity. In this context, these methods and techniques allow us to once again address the issue of whether the city is makeable or not. Although I believe that the total control of a city’s operations and mechanisms is highly unlikely, the opportunity of exploring novel techniques from other disciplines and combining these with mainstream architectural and planning approaches, can contribute to an evolution of these disciplines. The combination of advanced scientific techniques, with creative vision, imaginative design, and visualization methods, should help to improve the probability of a city achieving successful development. In this way, understanding the causal relationships between local geographic space (social, economic, environmental and political dimensions) and the relative importance of this within global networks will also necessitate powerful collaborations between seemingly unlikely professions, and the foreseeable combination of unexpected technologies — the transition of contemporary urban development, into a more urban geopolitical approach.

“... most cities increasingly imitate each other and become very similar, instead of identifying unique characteristics ...” transportation (yellow) and in business services (green). This is also evident in the network diagram (figure 4). In the map, Frankfurt is weaker on transportation, but much stronger in business services. If we now look deeper into the database, we can see that for instance Rotterdam’s investors in business services are firms like BNP Paribas, Bank of China, and HLV Trading. This shows that the data can also be used to get highly specific.

So far only the investment side of the story has been discussed, and not the urban location factors that attract these investments. However, these are essential, for it is the similarity of urban location factors in cities, which creates investment attraction and encourages competition. Location factors can include e.g. market size, GDP per capita, wages, corporate taxes, accessibility by air road and rail, language similarity, patents, education levels, export, imports, housing quality, environmental indicators, cultural indicators, amenities and entertainment levels, quality of built environment, architectural highlights etc. Using econometric techniques, these factors can be tested to see how much each attracts investment. Once the essential factors have been derived, recommendations can be made to e.g. Rotterdam, as to which economic, social, infrastructural and environmental programs it should develop in future, so as to make it 6

1 Wall R. S. (2010), ‘We Need Archinomics’, special issue MVRDV Architects (ed), Journal l’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, Paris 2 Burger M.J., v.d. Knaap and Wall R.S (2011) Revealed Competition for Greenfield Investments between European Regions. Journal of Economic Geography (under review).

3 Wall. R.S. and. v.d. Knaap. G.A. (2011), Sectoral Differentiation and Network Structure Within Contemporary Worldwide Corporate Networks. Economic Geography 87-3, 266-308.

4 Wall. R.S. (2011), The Position of the Dutch North-wing in worldwide M&A networks. Report for the Ministry of Economic Affairs of The Netherlands.

5 Wall. R.S. Burger M.J. and v.d. Knaap. (2011), The Geography of Global Corporate Networks: The Poor, the Rich and the Happy Few Countries. Environment and Planning A, 43, 904-927.

6 Martijn J. Burger (2011) Structure and Cooptition in Urban Networks. Rotterdam: ERIM and Haveka Publishers 7 Wall. R.S. (2009), Netscape: cities and global corporate networks. ERIM and Haveka Publishers 8 Wall R. S. (2010, ‘Gulfworld: corporate profiles and networks of Gulf cities’, in Al Manakh 2, OMA, Archis/Volume and Pink Tank (Columbia University).

Airport as City Mike Yin Architecture student Explore Lab

Figure 1. Songdo City in South Korea under construction, an airport-centric city to be completed in 2015. (Gale international and tk/pr public relations)

The airport city is a two-fold phenomenon: the areas surrounding the airport develop due to their proximity and accessibility to the terminal complex, and the terminal complex itself develops in to a pseudourban centre. This situation is manifest to varying extents in all major airports of the world today. In many cases, the resultant agglomeration resembles a city in terms of scale, ‘population’ (staff and travellers), infrastructural connectivity and spatial quality. As the world becomes more globalised and the demand for air travel continues its upward trajectory it seems that we are witnessing only the beginning of a new urban typology with global implications that are not yet fully known.

Airport area as airport city The logical conclusion of a world connected by fibre-optic cables and aeroplanes is the development of cities around airports. The current thinking in this domain is businesscentric. Companies that locate near to airports can operate more efficiently: they are more connected to clients and staff from abroad, meetings can be conducted face-toface without the additional time and cost for

the taxi in to the city and participants can fly back home the same day.

A new business passenger profile has emerged, glamourised by the 2009 film Up in the Air, where George Clooney plays a nomadic businessman who flies 320 days a year across the US. Back in the real world, in Microsoft’s offices in Schiphol, meetings are held face-to-face with colleagues from Seattle and across Europe who then fly back the same day.

As airports are typically surrounded by hundreds, even thousands of hectares of undeveloped land there is enormous opportunity for real estate development. This development tends to take the form of office blocks, hotels, convention centres, free trade zones, logistics hubs, medical facilities, shopping malls, and golf courses; much like Joel Garreau’s concept of the ‘edge city’.

Schiphol is surrounded by business and logistics complexes, with outposts for transna-

tional corporations. The World Trade Center Schiphol bridges directly in to the terminal complex and is the most expensive office space in the Netherlands. Next door are Hilton and Sheraton hotels. Zuid-As is an eight-minute train ride away, base to companies such as ING, ABN-Amro and Akzo Nobel.

Adjacent to Frankfurt Airport is Gateway Gardens, a 35 hectare business district that includes The Squaire, a remarkable 660m long building that straddles the train station.

Marketed as ‘a complete city under one roof’ it accommodates 7,000 people both working and living in its offices and two Hilton hotels.

It is also comprised of retail and service areas, gyms, kindergartens and medical facilities.

The building is significant enough to warrant its own postcode.

In the Middle East and Asia this trend is also evident, only on a far larger scale. Greg Lindsay considers Dubai as “an airline and an airport with a city attached to it.” Emirates is the largest long-haul airline in the world and Dubai International Airport is the busiest airport in the Middle East. Capitalising on its location as the crucial trade link between East and West, it is a city of ‘free-zones’ - business districts filled with expatriates that impose no tariffs, corporate or personal income taxes, or censorship on its inhabitants. Rem Koolhaas observes: “Almost everybody who lives in Dubai also lives somewhere else...The actual inhabitation of the city is a fraction of its maximum capacity.” Dubai is an instant city in the middle of the desert.

Moving further East, Songdo in South Korea, next to Incheon International Airport is a 600 hectare city mushroomed from nothing in just over a decade, catering to the international business community. It includes luxury hotels, shopping malls, museums, international schools, a convention centre, and a golf club.

“In Microsoft’s offices in Schiphol, meetings are held faceto-face with colleagues from Seattle and across Europe who then fly back the same day.”

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Most recently, signs of construction are emerging towards the South of Beijing for what is anticipated to be the world’s largest aviation hub. An article in The Guardian from September 2011 reads: “On the roadside, labourers are building an elaborate 10m-high steel and concrete map of the world topped by giant red characters declaring: ‘Construction of a New Airport City for the Capital. ’” The airport city is not just a buzz-word. It is fast emerging as the only template for the future of the airport and can be seen as part of the next logical phase of globalisation.

Airport terminal as urban centre

Figure 2. Changi Airport's pool (Changi Airport Group Singapore)

Catching a flight at Schiphol first involves arriving by car, train, bus or even bike (there are cycling routes) and entering the terminal complex via Schiphol Plaza, a forty-unit shopping mall before check-in.

There is a branch of the bank ABN-Amro, a Panorama Terrace for plane spotting and art installations by contemporary artists such as Jenny Holzer. After check-in there is a library, casino, gallery space, meditation room, spa, showers, capsule hotel, conference centre, duty-free shops, various themed waiting lounges (including one modelled as a park), an oxygen bar, as well as several sponsored pop-up installations.

Behind the scenes there is an intake for the homeless and a mortuary with the capacity for forty bodies. Schiphol even has its own wedding service. It is clear that the contemporary airport is moving far beyond its traditional role as a pure transport hub.

In other major airports it is the same

story, of terminals absorbing unusual, citylike activities. Dubai International Airport contains a 350-unit, one kilometre-long duty-free shopping corridor comprised of a myriad of the world’s highest-end brands.

Hong Kong International Airport’s shopping arcade includes luxury clothiers such as Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton. Frankfurt Airport has the world’s largest airport clinic, treating over 36,000 patients annually. In Singapore Changi Airport there is, remarkably, a tropical butterfly garden, koi pond and numerous other themed gardens alongside cinemas, saunas and a rooftop swimming pool.

The airport city is a unique form of urbanism. It is a city with no residents. Its population is a transitory one of workers and passengers that pass through and leave every day.

Despite the urbanisation and place-making of airports that is happening globally, no airport has yet become a destination in and of itself -

Figure 3 Changi Airport's butterfly garden (Changi Airport Group Singapore)

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they are still only places of transit. It will be interesting to see if this situation will change in the coming decades.

The market has spoken The main reason for the broadening of the programmatic scope of airports is due to governmental deregulation and their subsequent privatisation. This began in 1978 in the U.S. when President Jimmy Carter deregulated domestic airlines. Intra-European market liberalisation followed, reaching its completion in 1997.

In order to remain competitive in the market, airports now need to look towards non-aviation sources of revenue to fuel further expansion and maintain their existing assets. Schiphol is very much at the forefront of this trend. It is a private company that happens to have the State of the Netherlands and the City of Amsterdam as its principal shareholders. Yet the state is not allowed to use its leverage as a stakeholder for political means, only to act in the interests of the company. Schiphol has its own real estate group that develops, manages, operates and invests in property at and around airports both in the Netherlands and abroad. Schiphol Area Development Company (SADC) is a collaboration with the City of Amsterdam, Municipality of Haarlemmermeer and the Province of Noord-Holland, blurring the distinction between public and private. Its portfolio consists of property in and around Schiphol and as far as Sweden, Hong Kong and Indonesia. The airport has now reached the scale and influence of a regional governmental body and it is not slowing down.

This is the future of the airport city.

Schiphol: Airport City, Airport Corridor

Interview with Maurits Schaafsma

For this issue of Urban Economy, Atlantis went to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to interview Maurits Schaafsma and discover the role of the airport in the globalised world. Maurits Schaafsma is an urbanist who works as Senior Advisor for Schiphol Group’s Corporate Development department.

He oversees the architecture, urban design and regional planning of Schiphol and coordinates Schiphol’s desired physical planning frame with the City of Amsterdam, the Municipality of Haarlemmermeer, national as well as other involved regional authorities of the Netherlands. He builds on the existing AirportCity concept with a focus on master planning on the land side. This is an area that is increasingly absorbing city-like, non-aviation activities to emerge as a new urban typology. Maurits Schaafsma aims to take the AirportCity a step further.

Does Schiphol have an in-house urbanism department?

“We, Schiphol Group, are responsible for the overall vision which is the basis for our master planning and urban design. We develop the programme, the location of functions, the concept and then work closely with professional urbanists and architects in order to realise our vision. So we have Kees Christiaanse from KCAP as our supervisor of architecture and urban design, Jan Benthem from Benthem Crouwel as our terminal architect and Adriaan Geuze from West 8 as our landscape architect. We meet with this team often; sometimes once or twice a week. It’s through this framework that we created our AirportCity.”

What is the Airport City concept?

“While the basic role of the airport is a gateway connecting the metropolitan region to the world, it developed in the eighties to become what we call a Mainport. Schiphol grew significantly in terms of economic importance during this time, mainly in connection with increasing activities in the area of logistics and transportation. The demand for air cargo was growing and Schiphol became home base for multinationals in the field of logistics and IT. By the nineties the AirportCity concept was fully developed. It was offering retail and commercial services to passengers while Schiphol was becoming a prime location for doing business. So the airport and its surroundings are becoming more and more an urban entity.”

Can you envisage Schiphol becoming more literally like a city — a destination in and of itself? Can you imagine people living here?

“Actually people do live here, but only for a short period of time in a hotel or hotel apartment. I think urbanism is more about interaction; between different people, different companies; and the contemporary airport has become a very important point of interaction. In that sense, it’s already urban. So although people don’t live here permanently, many companies are permanently located here. It’s now widely recognised within the field of urban development that the interaction, the urban life of many people is now more connected to their workplace than their home, and that’s the kind of urbanism we do have here; in our business parks, in our World Trade Center, in the whole AirportCity. I think the fringes of Schiphol are really not so different from any major town. Just look at where Schiphol already physically ‘touches’ the city of Hoofddorp, Zuid-As and the South of Amsterdam.”

I would argue that the business parks and city edges that you describe lack the functional diversity, the sheer vitality of cities to be considered truly urban. Is there any ambition to capture this kind of urbanity?

"Yes, and I think that it’s actually happening automatically. Before, in the Netherlands, there was a strong tendency to create mono-functional environments: mono-functional office parks, mono-functional housing areas - the separation of functions went very far in this country. Today, people are not attracted to these kinds of areas, whether to work or live.

To hire the best employees you need to have an attractive work environment. Coupled with the increasing need for companies to interact with each other, we witness the development of business clusters in which a diversity of activities is created and these previously mono-functional areas start to change in character. The Netherlands is now suffering from a crisis in the office market: there are too many offices. What we are trying to do together with the city of Haarlemmermeer, the city of

“...it’s an environment of interaction...

Maybe this is a new kind of urbanity.”

9

Figure 1. Amsterdam Schiphol Airport City (Schiphol Group)

Amsterdam and the Province of North Holland is to use this crisis to improve the quality of the typical office parks around the airport by developing more mixed programmes – for example by introducing hotels. So we are looking for, what you could call, a “backwards urbanisation” in these existing areas. I think it’s all about fostering interaction. You see these incredible knowledge clusters in German and Scandinavian cities where universities, government and corporations all work together: These truly are environments of interaction. I think we will see many more of these environments in the future.

This development could very well be a new kind of urbanity.”

To what scale does Schiphol intend to expand in the coming decades?

“Amsterdam Airport Schiphol will welcome 49 million passengers in 2011. We are allowed to grow further, and will be able to accommodate 580,000 air transport movements, of which 70,000 will take place at the regional airports of Lelystad and Eindhoven – also owned and operated by Schiphol Group.

We will be able to grow, though in a selective and sustainable way.”

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Is there a tension between development on the landside and expansion on the airside? What happens when you run out of space?

Schiphol in Numbers Revenue for 2010 1.2 biln euros Sources of Revenue

“There is sufficient availability of building land. On the landside you can always increase the density of development by putting parking facilities below ground and real estate on top. Development and expansion are also gradual processes: In her building priorities Schiphol focuses on quality and functionality.

In our master planning we always make sure to separate the commercial development from the operation of the airport by zoning. On the one hand you want to make mixed environments, but you also want to safeguard the space necessary for the airport operation; aprons and runways are prime functionalities of an airport.”

Aviation: 58% Consumers: 23% Real Estate: 12% Alliances and Participations: 7% Passenger capacity 2020 70m Number of Airport Staff 59,808 Size of Airport City 2,787 hectares Number of Companies in Airport City 514 Runways 6 Parking spaces 36,949 Flights in 2010 402,375 Destinations 301

Schiphol's Shareholders State of the Netherlands 70% Municipality of Amsterdam 20%

Is there an ambition to expand the non-aviation parts of the terminal, like Schiphol Plaza for example?

Aéroports de Paris 8% Municipality of Rotterdam 2%

Source: Schiphol Group Facts & Fig-

“There’s no ambition to make it twice as big or three times as big - it will follow the market.

ures 2010

“The urban life of many people is now more connected to their workplace than their home...”

Figure 2. Zuidas Amsterdam (Skyscrapercity Momo1435)

I think Schiphol Plaza will grow with the airport. That comes with the functionality of an airport: the focus on passengers, meters, greeters, businesses, employees. And that is our function, that is our focus: to be an airport. With the ambiance of a city, an AirportCity.”

What changes will be made to the terminal in the coming decades?

“We are preparing a plan now to redevelop the older parts of the terminal from the sixties and seventies, namely Departure Lounge 2.”

Do you think it’s acceptable that Schiphol continually consumes the Green Heart? Is there an alternative strategy?

“Actually we are not in the Green Heart. If you look at the exact border, we are outside. Our strategy is to intensify land use and grow towards Amsterdam, developing a compact metropolitan region. It’s an unavoidable fact that we are part of this metropolitan region and will continue to be.”

How far do you typically have to plan ahead for an airport?

“Very, very far ahead. You have to plan at least 20 years ahead for major developments. If you hold a reservation you want to hold on to it If you give it up you can never make it again so we keep reservations for really long periods of time.”

So is there a comprehensive masterplan for 2030, say?

“Not yet. We are working on that now. We are still using the master plan from the 1980s. The new Masterplan is to be presented early 2012. This new Masterplan will define our directions up to 2025.”

How would you say the passenger profile of Schiphol has changed over the years?

“60% of the passengers travel for reasons of leisure (holiday, visits of friends or family). Flying has become a commodity. I think the biggest change has been in the way we as passengers acquire information, which is through our mobile devices. This has huge implications for the whole operation of the airport. Maybe in the future there will be less check-in counters because you can do it anywhere - at home or on your handheld.

Things like this will completely change the character of the terminal.”

What about in business - are we starting to see an influx of globetrotting business men and women?

“Yes definitely, you see that happening in Schiphol a lot. Microsoft has offices here and they often hold meetings where somebody’s coming from Seattle, others are coming from across Europe, they have a meeting and they all fly home on the same day. Transnational corporations in Zuidas do it too. That’s what the AirportCity makes possible because it’s so efficient and of high quality. It’s a place of interaction. The most important is the first class network of destinations and frequencies that Schiphol has to offer. Schiphol connects the world to the Randstad and the Netherlands, and connects the Netherlands to all important economic centres abroad.” MIKE YIN

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Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next?

Interview with John D. Kasarda

John D. Kasarda is co-author of the new book Aerotropolis, an astonishing treatise on the metropolis of the future and the integral role of the airport. Kasarda argues “Look for yesterday's busiest train terminals and you will find today's great urban centers. Look for today's busiest airports and you will find the great urban centers of tomorrow.” In his career he has consulted with four White House administrations and advised companies such as Boeing, FedEx and Bank of America. He is a professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. For a rare moment when he is not in the air, Atlantis asks him about the future of the airport, the city and the implications for the Netherlands.

What is your definition of an aerotropolis?

“An aerotropolis is an urban complex whose layout, infrastructure and economy are centered on an airport. Analogous in shape to the traditional metropolis made up of a central city and its rings of commuter-heavy suburbs, the aerotropolis consists of an airport city core and outlying corridors and clusters of aviation-linked businesses and associated residential developments.”

The underlying statement of your book seems to be that the most successful cities have always been characterised and shaped by trade. After dock cities, railway cities, car cities and now airport cities, why do you anticipate the success of the globalised, networked city over the local, self-sustaining city? Is there room for both models to succeed?

“We live in an increasingly globalized world that impacts almost everyone’s daily lives in some manner: the products we purchase, the

12

food we eat, the medications we take, the entertainment we view, and the cultural diversity we absorb. The idea of a local, self-sustaining city (even if feasible much beyond a commune) would likely attract only a tiny fracture of people since most desire and seek the benefits globalization brings to them.

This is not to say that there are not costs to globalization or that moving toward a more sustainable urban environment is not a critically important goal. It is to say, though, that globalization and local well-being are not mutually exclusive and, for the most part, have progressed together over time.

The aerotropolis planning model seeks to reinforce the benefits of both global and local by bringing together airport planning, urban planning, and business site planning in a synergistic manner so that the airport region is more economically efficient, attractive, and sustainable. For example, a basic aerotropolis planning principle is that businesses should be steered to locate in proximity to the airport based on frequency of their use of the airport, reducing highway travel and congestion.

Another is that form-based codes should establish design standards for airport area structures, travel lanes, and public spaces. And a third is that mixed-use residential communities housing airport area workers should be located outside aircraft noise contours but offering short commutes and be designed to provide a sense of community along with basic institutional and consumer services.”

To what extent do you think that local forces and global forces characterize cities? Do they support each other?

“A city, first and foremost, is a confluence of enterprises without which the jobs, incomes, and tax resources which sustain it and its residents could not exist. These enterprises, in turn, are shaped by flows of people, goods, information and capital that are both local

and global in nature. Virtually all positive city attributes sought such as gainfully employed residents, quality public schools, modern infrastructure, fine restaurants, shopping, and artistic venues, and safe, clean streets rest ultimately on resources created by a city’s enterprises, large and small. These resources are not always distributed fairly in the eyes of many, but without them the city would collapse economically with severe social and environmental consequences.

Bringing local and global forces in reinforcing sync is the most effective path to city well-being. This involves acknowledging the irreversibility of globalization and leveraging it to the city’s advantage by facilitating the connectivity of its people, firms, and institutions to broader experiences and opportunities, preparing its young people for the global world they will inherit by enhancing their education, technical skills and cultural understanding often engendered through air travel, and by creating a local business climate that encourages innovation, private sector investment, and job creation.”

“Schiphol is an exemplary aerotropolis.”

You describe the aerotropolis as “the logic of globalization made concrete” — what will the aerotropolis look like?

Does it have a specific urban form?

Will it be a pleasant place to live and work? How will it differ from living in “traditional” cities?

“The aerotropolis has both spatial and functional forms. Its spatial form consists of aviation-oriented businesses and their associated residential developments which cluster around airports and outward along connecting transport corridors generating observable physical features. The functional form consists of a more diffuse airport-integrated economic region whose businesses are as closely linked to distant suppliers, custom-

ers, and enterprise partners as they are to those in their own region.

Like any economic region, whether or not the aerotropolis will be a pleasant place to live and work will depend on appropriate planning which guides development. To date, most aerotropolis development has been organic, often resulting in haphazard, unsightly, economically inefficient, and unsustainable growth. The aerotropolis planning model offers an antidote to spontaneous, haphazard airport area development and its negative consequences.”

Is the aerotropolis a blueprint that can be rolled out anywhere or do local factors play a significant role?

“Though its basic planning principles can be applied most places, the aerotropolis cannot be rolled out everywhere. In situations where numerous prior decades of development have surrounded the airport, implementation will be extremely difficult compared to what can be done at a new “greenfield” site which offers a blank canvas to plan and implement the model. In addition to available land, the opportunities or constraints to aerotropolis roll-out are determined by natural ecological factors, surface transportation infrastructure, ownership of land parcels, labor force characteristics, and local governance structures.”

You argue that the ambition of the aerotropolis is to create a “frictionless” business environment, maximizing the efficiency of flows of people, goods and communication. When this is coupled with the generic qualities associated with airports and their surrounding developments, won’t the aerotropolis model lead to soulless, inhospitable cities? Where does the public realm come into play?

Figure 1. New urban form placing airports in the center with cities growing around them (Kasarda)

“The aerotropolis does not have to be ‘soulless and inhospitable’. This is where urban

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“Bringing local and global forces in reinforcing sync is the most effective path to city well-being.”

Figure 2. Taoyuan Taiwan version of Airport City Schematic (Kasarda and Taotuan Aerotropolis)

planning and design come in. Since the aerotropolis can extend outward up to 25 kilometers from the airport, many vibrant, livable communities can be planned and built within it. Aerotropolis planning is urban planning, including the provision of appropriate public space that encourages social interaction. You do not want to locate new communities at the end of the airport runways or in dense areas of trucking, warehousing, and industry but they can be developed within relatively easy commuting times of the airport and the aerotropolis business clusters where many of their residents are employed.”

To what extent is Schiphol an aerotropolis? What would you change? How should it develop?

“Schiphol is an exemplary aerotropolis. It exhibits all aerotropolis characteristics from an observable multimodal airport city commercial core to the corridors and clusters of aviation-linked development that stretch outward from its boundaries.

The Schiphol Group and Dutch planners have been cognizant of changing local and global conditions and the need to adapt to those changes. Their plans have thus evolved from original ideas of Mainport to a more contemporary triple bottom line approach fostering mutually reinforcing airport, environmental, and community outcomes.

I worry, though, that pressures to focus on minimizing airline costs and short-term airport profits will distract the Schiphol Group from its highly successful airport city and aerotropolis development perspectives that have brought it its international distinction.”

In an age of airport cities, what is the relevance of Rotterdam, one of the biggest harbour cities in the world?

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“Rotterdam complements the Amsterdam Schiphol Aerotropolis by providing important global connectivity for Dutch products (and those of other nations) that are not appropriate to move (economically or otherwise) by air. The Netherlands is blessed to have the impressive dual trade infrastructure with Schiphol Airport and Rotterdam’s harbor that cornerstoned its original Mainport strategy.”

In Asia it seems possible to build an aerotropolis from scratch such as Songdo in South Korea. But how can an existing big airport in a small city grow out to become a real metropolis? Could it simply grow and be its own entity or should it merge with the existing city?

“The airport and the city it serves are in most cases complementary in scale. So it will be only under exceptional circumstances that a small city will have a big airport. Research at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan Institute shows that where cities exist of at least moderate size and their airports are growing, aerotropolis development occurs in three ways. First, as air traffic expands, the demand for commercial land spills over airport boundaries to adjoining open areas. Second, cities themselves typically spawn satellites. Improved highways developed to the airport area to facilitate passenger and cargo movements frequently become a magnet for these satellite cities by providing them with greater accessibility to regional markets.

Third, airport-linked business development (hotels, offices, trade and exhibition complexes) is often most pronounced along the main highway corridor connecting the airport to the city. Dual development from airport to city and from city to airport eventually fuses the city and the airport into a greater aerotropolis.” EDWIN HANS & MIKE YIN

Graduation list

Baltus, M.T.A.

Lam, H.M.

Selezneva, E.

Van Lievenoogen, M.J.

Catching People?: How to deal with

Transformation of the Nijmegen Railway

Urban Vitality: Exploring the centrality

Public space for livable neighbourhoods:

shrinkage at the Dutch countryside

Area: into a highly integrated domain

conditions

How generic spatial interventions can

Buinevicius, V.

Liang, X.

Sharma, A.C.

Exploring potentials of the socialist city:

Re-public City: A strategic planning of

ReCentering Mumbai: Appropriation of

In search for relevance of the socialist

public space for local people in the context

Thane Creek

urban structures in the future of sustain-

of globalization in Shanghai Lujiazui

able city. The case of Kaunas, Lithuania

Finance & Trade Zone

Fang, A.

Lopez, A.

From nowhere to now here: Walking

From threat to opportunity: Spatial strate-

towards a desired solution for social

gies integrating urban and water dynam-

spatial integration

ics towards a sustainable redevelopment

Glas, S.M. City extension used for urban regeneration

Smit, H.J. Dublin towards complementary advantage: Rowlagh for tomorrow!

Sprado, S. Kindvriendelijke looproutes

model for informal settlements in Mexico

Su, J.

City’s periphery

Low Income Graduates Friendly City:

Mu, Y.

Social and spatial integration for low income graduates in periphery area of Beijing

Hadi, H.

Cloud Wall: Interactive Street Design

The new life in old town Surabaya:

Strategy for the Reorganization of Urban

Sun, C.

Preserving the Urban Heritage through

Space in the context of Gated Communi-

Non-Splintered City

Space Revitalization

ties in Modern China

Hietbrink, L.

Oort, E.N.

Revitaliseren van de oude haven van

Urban Riverfront Zutphen: Link between

Making tracks for Tamale: Strategic

Antwerpen: De Schelde integreren en

the river and the urban public spaces

implementation of a railway system in the

verbinden met de binnenstad door gebruik

existing urban fabric of Ghanaian cities

van de oude havengebieden

Urban "Home" for the Great Urban

Pisabo, C.

Trentelman, S.K.

“Outcast”: Developing "Normalized

The Patchwork metropolis

Stedelijke transformatie van het

Hu, T.

Urban Residential System" in Secondtier City Changsha for the Low-income Migrant Workers

Qiu, Y. Temporary urbanism in contemporary Beijing

Huang, Y.

Timmerman, H.

gemeentelijk industrie terrein (GIT), te Den Haag Ulloa, C. Transit Oriented Regeneration: Steden-

"Eroding on the edges": Integration

Raymond, D.G.

baan stations as drivers of urban regenera-

Stategy for Western Fringe of Xi'An City

The Urban Bayou: Balancing Natural

tion in the south wing of the Randstad

as a supportive urban tissue in Mega City

Processes and Urban Development in

Plan 2020+

New Orleans

Keimanesh, T.

Rimmelzwaan, M.J.

integrative strategy for slum upgrading in

Pilgrimage, power and identity of the

Rural park Hof van Delfland: Redefining

Buenos Aires

place: Strategies for future development of

production and consumption patterns for a

Mashhad as a sustainable religious city

metropolitan landscape in a rural context

King, S.

Saddi, V.

ing socio-economic diversity and spatial

Turning rural: Enabling sustainability in

Intermediate Rotterdam: Urban regenera-

quality in problem areas dealing with

remote settlement patterns in Ireland

tion in time of crisis

selective migration

Van den Berg, H.J. Integrating the informal: Developing an

realize conditions for the development of public space to accomplish a durable living environment in specific urban living areas Van Mourik, M. Geef het terug aan de stad: Transformatie van de Kop van Isselt in Amersfoort Van Oosten, S. The land-in-between Wang , J. Renaissance of Cultural Identity-historic districts regeneration in Beijing inner city Wang, X. Facilitating social interaction: Neighborhood revitalization strategy of Shanghai Cannes Warmerdam, M.M. Return to the coast! Creating vital and attractive seaside towns Wu, P.Y. The new cultural city: The future of Tainan city in Taiwan’s metropolitan development process Zhang, Y. Freedom VIC for Urban VIC Team: Village in the City transformation in Shenzhen, China Zhou, Y. Developing beyond limitations: A flexible model of new urban structure responding to the future needs of the valley-city xining

Van der Veen, A. Regenerating Rotterdam South: Improv-

Urbanism Graduates June-July 2011

15

16

Machine Rooms of the City Atelier Olschinsky

Since 2005 Peter Olschinsky and Verena Weiss run a creative Viennabased studio. Combining their architectural and illustrator background, they create rich visualizations of the fictional machine rooms of today’s cities. Under the names “Cities” and “Plants” these visuals are meant to represent urban beauty, complexity and brutality at the same time. www.olschinsky.at

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Urbanismweek 2011 Urbanismweek The Urbanism Week 2011 brought together students, practitioners and academics to discuss and exchange ideas about the role of the Urbanist.

Atlantis continues where the Urbanism Week left off and talked more in-depth with some of the key figures to understand their propositions and personal motives. This section covers the first part of this whirlwind week.

So you are an Urbanist!?

Introduction by Jorick Beijer Chairman of the organizing committee

This Urbanism Week 2011 was one in a series of recurring annual events, organized

by Polis since 1992. Every single one of them in a different configuration, expressing the dynamics of time, students and the association. But this one was rather special, since it marked the final re-establishment of Polis as an active study association. Not only for Master students Urbanism and Landscape Architecture, but also for others interested in the urban environment. The Urbanism Week could only have been organized by students.

The past years have shown us that the established institutions almost never succeed in bringing up a substantial discussion on the meaning of the discipline. They enclose a too small, but even more a too restricted fragment of the professional world. Since the founding in 1989 Polis has been the platform for knowledge exchange between students, researchers and professionals and this Urbanism Week proved that it still is!

18

urbanism week

My contribution should set a small framework for this section of this Atlantis, regarding the strong link with the Urbanism Week Polis organized September 26th – 30th 2011. I will give a brief explanation of why we felt it was necessary to host such an event, and will set the stage for the further content of this section about the role of the urbanist within the theme: “crisis and beyond, the continuous state of change’’.

Our fascination started with linguistics: Urban – Urbanism – Urbanist. What does the suffix ‘ist’ in urbanist mean? Is the urbanist a specialist, like a dentist? Or is the urbanist more a novelist, a storyteller?

This is how the dentist works: analysis – a diagnosis – developing a strategy – and then an intervention. Every urbanist, at least when they visits the dentist, will recognize a part of this sequence. But when the urbanist doesn’t intervene, is he or she then just a

storyteller, only putting up utopian ideas?

The Urbanism Week arose as a result of a certain dissatisfaction with the degree of attention to critical thinking within the curriculum and with the decreasing significance of the public debate amongst students and staff in our faculty. The French philosopher Michel Foucault stated that: “We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them.” 1 The Urbanism Week definitely manifested the force of ideas, now this magazine brings the discussion to a next level.

1 Eribon, D. (1991) Michel Foucault, translated by Betsy Wing. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, p. 282 18

The continuous state of change The theme of Thursday September 29: “Crisis and beyond, the continuous state of change”, covered the current state of affairs in a global economical crisis and the impact of such on the profession of the urbanist. This review provides a short overview, dealing with crisis, urban design and education.

This crisis is definitely not the first one we have to deal with, argued economic geographer Ronald Wall. He stressed the importance of mapping in understanding the cyclic character of economical crisis and prosperity over time. Ronald Wall related the economic crises to visible tendencies of social awareness in the history of urban planning, for instance those of Ebenezer Howard and Christopher Alexander. “In the uncertainty you have to go back to your roots, back to the community and you have to self reflect and win trust in your community”. Professor Maurits de Hoog emphasized the necessity of change. “I think we should change radically. It’s no longer about housing and that’s the major change we have to take. It’s about schools, about health, about public space. And that’s a major shift”.

According to Professor Han Meyer, the market is not a leading criterium. “Urbanism is essential for society, including the market. That’s not something on its own”. Markus Appenzeller agreed on this perspective of the embedded market, but urged young professionals to interact and play the game. “You have to understand the logic of the market, then you can achieve almost everything you want”. Urbanists should constantly consider for whom they make cities profitable, and stay in the discussion. Something that Alfredo Brillembourg calls activist architecture. “I am in-between the arguments of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses, we have to negotiate the planning dilemma within each city where we work. That’s the activism”. The current state of globalization is herein key according to Alfredo Brillembourg, who argued that the availability of new resources will lead to empowerment and new connections.

The education of the new urbanists gained a substantial role in this debate. Professor Han Meyer argued that every understanding of the future starts with the understanding of history and theory, knowing your own body of knowledge. Collectively the debaters stressed the importance of travelling during studies. “Knowledge is one thing, the other thing is that there is something you can’t generate from what other people have done, and that is simply exposing yourself to condition”, Markus Appenzeller stated. Where Alfredo Brillembourg convincingly plead for students to discover the global south, Han Meyer pointed out the Dutch context and the important things that still have to be done here, both in practice as in academia.

With the statement that “the best urban designer is time” Hubert Habib took position in the awareness of society and societal processes: “Don’t underestimate the human intuition. It’s our duty to make it tangible and explain what they don’t understand”. A great conclusion of a discussion on crisis through all scales and the call for a new view towards society and the local space of everyday live. urbanism week

19

Reflections “It is clear that urbanism of major urban area development projects in the Netherlands is over. Many developers, investors and housing corporations recalibrate their activities. This inherently means less urbanists. This is not only something we see in the design firms who had been working on this kind of projects, but also in the planning departments of the large Dutch cities. Remarkable is the fact that employment in smaller municipalities and provinces seems to stabilize and even grow in some places. Do we see here more dedication to quality? Many design offices and engineering firms still have a good amount of work due to projects abroad.

The Dutch urban design seems to be a pretty good export product.

Looking to the new assignment of the transformation of existing buildings, ensembles and urban areas the question is which qualities and skills do new urbanists exactly need. Shouldn’t we anticipate to the further blurring of the boundaries of planning and landscape architecture; heading to the profession ‘environmental design’?”

Maurits de Hoog

“The thing we are learning from this crisis is that new information technology and media are enabling people in the smallest places and communities to actually form social groups and take on the formal systems. I think that’s a fascinating difference with previous recessions. What we saw in the work of Alfredo is that when you start to engage the masses the vast masses of the world - with a few good ideas and you mobilize it, then you don’t have to do very much else.

If you know where to intervene, at the strategic points in the city, and you inject it with good program you can actually mobilize the people and their skills. They will take care of the rest.”

Ronald Wall

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urbanism week

“To my opinion the Urbanismweek of Polis was a great success, and I hope the start of a tradition which will be continued next years. The professional and academic world of urbanism needs the active involvement of students. They will define the content and role of the discipline in the future, and should be critical to the past and present performance of the discipline.

The urbanism-week showed that the present-day generation IS involved and critical.

One of the statements of the panel-debates was ‘Urbanism only exists in Academia’. I think the Urbanism-week as a whole showed the contrary of this statement. The range of invited speakers, most of them from professional practice, showed that urbanism is fully alive in the world outside academia. The role of academia is to reflect on this practice and to stimulate innovations. The urbanism-week itself was a wonderful example of this role of academia.”

Han Meyer

You have to be an Urbanist!

Interview with Henk Ovink

Henk Ovink opened the Urbanism Week with a plea for new alliances in a decentralized

“I am committed to make a

government when it comes to design content. He said three things. 1. Our context is a complex one. 2. We need new alliances to

Henk Ovink, the son, grandson and greatgrandson of architects went through mathematics, art and architecture to

better government.”

become a civil servant in the spatial planning politics of The Netherlands. He is

confront the issues that are created by (and

the Director for National Spatial Planning

in) that complex context, especially when it comes to making city.

at the Ministry for Infrastructure and the

3. To welcome bottom up initiatives government will collaborate on

Environment, and initiated the Design and

content development for the design agenda in the Netherlands.

Politics chair at the TU Delft.

Ovink proposed to focus on three factors: good government, alliances and design.

Within the depressing context of an economic crisis Europe struggles with the severity of issues like the rise of the populist vote, the

Why do you wake up in the morning?

fact that we’re not innovative, that we’re aging and not growing, to

“I get up early. I open the door at this min-

name a few. This crisis tends to focus on the past but when the past

istry. In my job I have a responsibility, so

is your only guideline, you’re on the wrong track. Nostalgia traps,

to execute it well, or even better, takes

especially if it comes out of a future anxiety, out of uncertainty.

time. I like to organize my people, my staff,

“75% of the people will live in cities in 2060, earning 90% of the

make it effective. At the same time if you

world’s GDP on 3% of the world’s liveable surface. That’s efficient.

want to add value in content, you have

So you’re asking if you want to be an urbanist? You should be, if the

to organize some more. This third level,

cities are the future. It’s the only profession. It can’t be a question.”

adding value and really making it possi-

The three lines of development consist in a power up of collab-

ble to change this organization, that’s the

orations. Ovink’s concept of good government is to name a new

extra. Doing everything together is what

design agenda, the content of which has to be given by the collabo-

makes me get up early in the morning. It

ration with the design agents. He articulated the roles of advice,

drives my lack of sleep.”

research, education, testing in ateliers… in what seems to be the ultimate call for ideas.

The central government merged the existing funds into a creative

How do your friends characterize you?

economy fund, operative from the 1st of January 2013. It merged the

“Loyal, friendly and too hard working. So

institutes on architecture, design and media into one, to be devel-

practically un-reachable. But at the same

oped institute. How about the content, the agenda? This new design

time always there. And I can cook really

agenda NL is to be developed right now, in close collaboration with

well.”

the world of design – architects, urbanists and more.

Who’s your favourite urbanist?

How do you view your job and your responsibilities?

“Janette Sadik-Khan, she is the Commissioner of the New York City Department

“The reason why they brought me here is to work on this ‘better government’. I must say that I’m very committed to that, and at the same time it’s also difficult. In any big organization, things are tough

of Transportation. She is really making a difference.”

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“The only thing architectural institutions have to take care of is that they are excellent.”

to push through. You want their container ships to be revolutionary but the next day they’re moving in the same direction as the day before. It’s really hard to put real change in position. If you have to pick up one of my values, it would be change.

I very much appreciate the current cabinet when it calls for a trustworthy and qualitative government. This is not about anti-government, it’s about pro good government. But making government good is quite a job. It can only start from the content, from the issues at stake. It all comes down to the three positions of organization, politics and content, and on those three I have the responsibility to be an advisor and a developer. It is in this collaboration between politics and bureaucracy that the development of content, organization and politics is made. I’m responsible for the development of the policy, rules, regulations, geoinformation and design within spatial planning in the Netherlands.”

What do you think about the education of an urbanist today?

“I find it very hard to accept that the educational institutions have to say they can’t teach you to become an architect. That you have to do another two years of experience and then all of a sudden you cán call yourself an architect. Well, perhaps someone needs ten years instead, or half that. This saying it ‘takes you two years’ is such a generic answer to a very specific question. Make sure you get the best education and stop - don’t try to rule outside your territory. We should focus and invest in making our academic process better instead of postponing it.

The only thing architectural institutions have to take care of is that they are excellent. But that’s not what they’re focusing on. They are distracted by the processes outside, not by the issues of the world, not by the content but by the talks around politics. The way the content

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is stuck within this ‘talking around’ is a trap process, and the only change for the institutes has to come from within.”

What values do you transmit with your work?

“I am first and foremost a public serv-

How do you approach the assessment of quality in your design policies? What are the criteria by which you evaluate the comparative merits of planning proposals?

ant, so I am responsible for executing the cabinet’s policy and helping to develop it in such a sense that benefits society in a maximum way. In that sense, the values we transmit are trying to be innovative,

“Part of the agenda should be the development of these criteria. But it is not only the criteria. It is also the process in which design is positioned, or better, can position itself. Design is never only the result. In our planning process design makes the process, and it stipulates the crucial confrontations that are necessary to make next steps in planning. When it comes to the process of decision making in our planning projects we use a Societal Cost Benefit Analysis (SCBA). The societal stands for the added value and qualitative part.

In that analysis it is hard to quantify those qualitative aspects. Through this analysis we can address them, so they become accountable, they become part of the decision process.

Can we monetize quality and value? Not yet, not in the way we want to. We developed a research agenda for the next step in the SCBA, focusing on two things: on the ‘unknown parts’ and on the process. The real improvement will come with the connection of both process and content. Positioning this SCBA as an accepted tool can only be successful when the decision makers are there from the start.”

entrepreneurial and trustworthy. In my professional life politics is the commitment and we stand for a more liberal, more open, with less government, more responsible society; a better relationship with business and people, less rules, and so on. I represent a more effective, more efficient, more accountable government that gives more room for alliances and collaborations that reduces the necessities in rules and regulations. I am committed to make a better government.”

What is outdated in architectural education today?

“Dynamics is lacking in the way educational institutions are built up. You can see that in the organizational charts, the employment and enrolment of students and researchers and in how the curriculum is developed.”

What did you learn outside of education that proved useful today?

“To go off limits, make mistakes and learn some more and never be afraid. I studied mathematics, the most philo-

Who decides what values are going into the SCBA (societal cost benefit analysis)?

sophical of the beta studies there is. It makes you believe that anything is possible. In that sense mathematics is still my

“This is not my call, that’s the good thing. If it was my call it would be too political, so it’s not the call of the ministry. We have in the Netherlands assessment agencies, enforced by law to have an autonomous position. Two are of core value to spatial planning, the Financial and Economic Assessment Agency (CPB)

inspiration although it is sometimes far off my present track. After that, I studied art and architecture, which are more creative, but neither these were preparing me for a civil servant job or to become a spatial planner.”

and the Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). What comes out of their assessments is sometimes hard for politics, but it is autonomous. Right now we are collaborating with them to deliver an answer to the question: ‘How are we going to make a SCBA that can both define the process and the content and in this address the more soft values of our developments?’

addressed by the existing institutes, they make the agenda now. Can you tell us the impetus behind your new policy initiative, as debated in parliament on recently? You make it sound like a new idea. But there was always a four year budget period under every recent cabinet. The four year money program had a four year budget program attached.

This collaboration with them is very valuable, it makes the instrument and the analysis become better and at the same time it helps in the development of a better process. It is a real asset that we have these institutions. They assess our projects, our ideas and our policy perspectives. If we make the assessment it’s political. If they make it, it’s reflective.”

“This was policy. Out of this the Berlage Institute, the Stimuleringsfonds voor de Architectuur (SfA), and so on, got the money. There was no difference between policy money and programmatic involvement. As for the current initiative, politics don’t decide on the names, we try to decide on the functions, based upon a content agenda we call Design Agenda NL. So initiatives new and old and coalitions of both can enlist in this agenda, enrol and subscribe. This is not an empty political decision; it’s a content-driven one.

We want these aforementioned institutes; Berlage, SfA, and so on, to address

According to your opening lecture in the Urbanism Week, if the content doesn’t come top down, it has to come bottom up from the architectural institutions.

The design agenda NL at the moment is

the urgent, specific and underlying issues again. And in this urgency also look at the European context again. While the developing world is growing, the developed world is shrinking. I want them to also address ‘the Dutch question’ again.”

Well, in a sense what goes on in Asia and India impacts local Dutch questions. In that sense don’t you see that those institutions that are researching these topics already have a direct bearing on ‘the Dutch question’?

“We have to talk about the world to talk about Europe. Now we talk about the world to talk about the world. That’s stupid. We can’t exclude Europe anymore in our design research.

If we’re fascinated by megacities in Asia, fine, I’m fascinated too, but what can we learn from that? That’s what I want these institutes to help us answer. What’s the European perspective in itself and as a reflection of the world.” MARTA RELATS & STEFAN KOLLER

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Impressions photos by noor scheltema

“I think we should be radical optimists�

Alfredo Brillembourg

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“I am a regionalist first, and an urbanist second” Edward Soja

“Stations are the new churches in the city” Hubert Habib

“We have to think big”

Markus Appenzeller

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Engaging the Public Interview with Alfredo Brillembourg

One of the most passionate speakers during the urbanism week was Alfredo Brillembourg, Professor on architecture and urban design at the ETH Zurich and founder of Urban-Think Thank in Caracas, Venezuela. During his moving talk he took the audience on a journey to the harsh reality of the informal cities of Caracas (VZ), Haifa (Jordan) and Jaipur (India), revealing the vibrant environment and hidden opportunities of these places.

Lecture summary In the perspective of developments like globalization and the fact that more than 50% of the world population now lives in cities, he states that the flexibility and improvisation of the informal city is not an exception to he globalized economy but an integral part of it. Therefore slums should no longer be seen as a problem, but as the solution, the solution to the millions missing housing units all over the world.

His work thus mainly focuses on the retrofit of informal settlements and the engagement of the public. Aiming to make a change through locally driven, bottom-up interventions, developing concrete examples that focus on the people, not on beautiful architecture. Ideal situations do not concern him, since his work is about avoiding catastrophes, about saving lives.

Approach “The focus of our profession is too much directed on the production of symbolic or form driven architecture. The approach of the Urban-Think Tank however, is completely different. We focus on the people and users at the core of our designs and the dynamics of dense cities. In order to do so, we have to return to the fundaments of our profession, to a system that is focused on concrete strategies that address the urgent issues of the current state of the world. Therefore I believe we have to combine the skills of different professions like architects, environmental planners and engineers, to create an open source family of products that can be best practice examples. I can understand that people criticize this systemization of architecture, but I believe we have no other choice given the necessity and speed needed for change. Maybe in the future we can turn to a more sculptural form driven approach in architecture but right now, this is not our focus.”

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Implementation “In our work you see how this systematization of architecture is translated into concrete multipliable projects. The vertical gym that we constructed in Caracas is a good example. The site already had a soccer field but the people told us they would like to have a roof. Inspired by other dense cities like New York, we told them not to just build a roof but to construct a five-floor vertical gymnasium with multiple sporting fields. This resulted in a multifunctional sports center, which is now used by over 15,000 visitors a month. The dimensions of the gymnasium are 20x40 so it fits on every basketball court in the world and we have identified 100 sites in Caracas that could use one. It is a repeatable model, constructed of a bolted steel system that can be built in six months. I really don’t care if the building is transformed in each location yellow, orange or blue, what matters is that it is a proven system, that is what counts.”

Figure 1. Metro station in Caracas slum

“As designers we suffer a lot from the fashionable reputation that star architects have built around our Figure 2. Connecting the slum

profession in the last 10 to 20 years.”

Why do you get up and go to work every morning?

“To confront every day and to do some good, therefore I exist. I get up to see what I can do for other people.”

What did you learn outside education that has proofed to be valuable today?

“I learned to confront my fears by literally

Reactions “As designers we suffer a lot from the fashionable reputation that star architects have built around our profession in the last 10 to 20 years. Architects and urbanists have become too detached from the people and too much focused on beautiful object designs. The only way to regain trust from the majority of inhabitants in cities is by showing them that architects work to satisfy a common public good for society.

‘getting naked’ and being open to listening.”

If you had a chair on the TU Delft, what would it be?

“I would have a chair on the ‘sur global’, the global south.”

How do friends characterize you?

“I think they would say I am messy, inconsistent, contradictory but incredibly lovely.”

Who is your favorite urbanist?

“That would have to be Denise Scott Brown, Kevin Lynch and Alison Smithson. ”

What makes you happy?

“Traveling with friends, new projects and a great conversation.”

Another complicated issue is the fact that people don’t trust NGOs anymore. For example now, we are trying to work Garbage City in Cairo, and the local NGO told us it would be extremely hard to enter the area and created barriers for us instead of facilitating. But when we came there on our own, we noticed that by talking Spanish and showing our history of experience with informal communities, the locals appreciated us. The conclusion was that often NGOs have their own agendas, they are often barriers and we have also seen this with United Nations organizations in Jordan, so what we need is a change of mind set. The truth is that many issues around NGOs but also around our profession are very distorted.

I am fighting this all the time by proving that architects can do some good, so when we go

to the people we bring them our magazines, designs and ideas. We talk with them straight out of our experience and regain their trust.

The reactions we get to our designs are very positive, you can watch some films on our website at YouTube. Here we have a movie on the 2.1 km long cable car system that we designed for Caracas. It can transport 1,200 people per hour in both directions and has two stations in the valley that are directly connected to the public transport system of Caracas. The inhabitants will tell you that before, it took them one hour to go to the city, now it only takes 10 minutes. Pregnant woman can now go to the city to give birth and people can take their kids to school there every day.”

Awareness “One of the objectives of the Urban-Think Tank is to create awareness. This is not only achieved by building successful designs, but we publish a free magazine and make movies like ‘Caracas the informal city’. I know some people are weary of the publicity the favelas have gained, but I think it actually empowered slum dwellers and made them more visible.

Even movies like Cidade de Deus (City of God) or Tropa de Elite (elite troop) are in the end positive films, since they bring the slum issue

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“The focus of our profession is too

What personal values do you transmit trough your work?

much directed on the production of

“To me, commitment is the most important value. This is demonstrated in professionalism as commitment to the

symbolic or form driven architecture.”

profession, but overall the commitment of

out into the open. There are also lots of movies being shot in Caracas. There is a recent Venezuelan one based on Cyrano de Bergerac, which they transformed into a favela story, but the one I recommend to everybody is called ‘Macu, la mujer del policía’ (Macu, the Policeman's Woman). In this movie you see how the police exploits the people in the favelas. It is about the relationship between a policeman who beats a girl in the favelas, but also has her as his lover.

What are the future challenges for

my work regarding social issues.”

Caracas?

“Caracas needs everything so changes are necessary throughout all scales. This ranges from reliable political institutions to a visionary plan for the city or a new banking and financial system, but most of all a change of attitude.”

To conclude I want to announce a new movie that we are making. It is called Gran Horizonte (Grand Horizon) and it wants to give a broader vision on the urban world and touches upon all the topics that we just talked about. The movie is filmed in different cities in the global South, interviewing our network of friends on different issues, and filming different buildings in different places around the world. We want to see if we can raise consciousness on the topic of one urbanized planet sharing resources on different scales. Hopefully we can show it one day in Delft.” JAN BREUKELMAN & MIKE EMMERIK

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What is outdated in architectural education?

“I think we need a change in the teacher– student relationship. Pinning your work up on the wall and having a teacher telling you what you did right or wrong is an outdated way of education.”

About the need for a radical change in Dutch urbanization politics: Jaap Modder Chairman of the Board of the Arnhem Nijmegen City Region Chief editor of S+RO

What’s wrong with Dutch urbanization politics? This question (or is it an answer?) came upon my way when I recently was asked to comment on a study which was commissioned by the Dutch government. The London School of Economics and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency did a comparative study on urbanization and urbanization politics in South East England and the Randstad. I had some critical remarks on the methodology of the study but in this contribution I will focus on two topics that in my view are of crucial importance for global cities and regions in order to be successful on the global map. One is about the conditions for enhancing economic performance and competitiveness and the other is about the institutional arrangements that are necessary in order to play that role. I will project this focus on the prospects for the Amsterdam region to be a truly global metropolitan area. On both sides of the North Sea we recently saw sharp political changes. The new governments, in the UK and the Netherlands, do not have too much faith in spatial planning. The Netherlands are in low tide at the moment, having diminished institutional arrangements at the national level and in line with that left the idea of steering spatial development.

For a long time one of the Dutch icons in urban planning was the Randstad. But at this moment in time we better get rid of this idea of a Randstad. As is implicitly stated in the recent government white paper there are two separate regional

clusters, the Amsterdam metropolitan region and the South Wing (Rotterdam/ The Hague). Greater Amsterdam, from Haarlem to Almere, is the only global city region in the Netherlands and has to compete on the global scale. The main economic axis is the A2 motorway to Eindhoven, the most promising economic city-region in the Netherlands.

We may expect that axis to be the backbone of economic development in the next 50 years or so.

Other than London, Amsterdam is poorly prepared for the global dynamics of the next fifty years. The good news is that Greater Amsterdam as a very tiny metropolis, because of its inherent qualities, is to be found in a lot of indexes of global cities. Is that enough to keep a position as a good mid rank player? I doubt that, because size matters too. Greater Amsterdam is lacking critical mass in terms of knowledge capital but also in physical mass.

Look at London! London is capable of attracting lots of highly skilled labour.

Without that the city would perform economically much less than it does now. Moreover the workforce has a very high concentration which is needed to boost interaction, innovation and new start ups. Densities in both cities on average do not differ too much but the density of the workforce in Central London is 10 times higher than in Amsterdam (23,000 pp/km2 and 210.000 pp/km2)! In my view Amsterdam should open up actively towards the global economy and attract human capital. The city should develop a rather

offensive growth ambition. Moreover, to keep up with growing competition between global city regions, Greater Amsterdam should develop locations and urban zones with a huge concentration in the top of the labour market.

Schiphol could, as an Airport City, be such a place. The Zuidas (the central business district) which is now poorly performing should be much better integrated with the Airport City.

Speaking about Schiphol, connectivity is another condition sine qua non for a global city region. Connectivity through air in the Amsterdam region is fairly good but in order to reach new goals in economic performance a new step is necessary. Look at London with five airports in due time reaching their maximum capacity. The same counts for public transport. London is investing heavy in its infrastructure in order to maintain these hyper concentration in Central London. Greater Amsterdam should invest heavily in a better accessibility profile, externally through air and also on the regional scale. Connectivity in international rail connections is another weak point.

Boosting structural density at selective areas, attracting more human capital from all over the planet and improve connectivity through air and on rails, these are in my view decisive conditions to be met in order to survive as a global city region in a dynamic global system with major changes, over continents, in power and importance.

Amsterdam is sometimes branding itself as a free state. That is a good point. It should learn from its own history but also from city states in history and at the present moment (Venice, Hamburg, Singapore, Dubai) and seek for the necessary conditions to perform more autonomous on the global scale. We should realize ourselves that the future performance of Amsterdam is of cru-

“The new governments, in the UK and the Netherlands, do not have too much faith in spatial planning.”

cial importance for the whole nation.

Therefore new policies for the Greater Amsterdam region should be supported more than strongly by central government. Not in their present role as an inconvenient watcher but as partner in crime, as a participant in business.

My second focus is on the institutional arrangements that are needed to perform as an effective global city region.

I don’t think we can find a metropolis elsewhere in the world with fewer possibilities to act than Greater Amsterdam. On the Greater Amsterdam scale the governance consists of only a discussion table. Greater Amsterdam is not only too small a world town, its different governments are performing on too many small scales. Amsterdam should have a big scale government. If we look at our citizens, at the daily urban system they live and work in, than it’s a anachronism that local government still is organized along the lines of what we invented in het 19th century. For a global city region this is a devastating, risky situation and economically seen no less than stupid. Taxation (on the local/regional level) and representation are two other conditions which are necessary conditions in order to act as a global city region. A global city region of this kind is in the need of making their own public investment decisions, taking their own risks on the basis of their own resources. And it must be held accountable for those decisions in a democratic environment.

My central issue is that current spatial planning policy in the Netherlands is neglecting that urgent question. After the radical changes in the Dutch planning doctrine that our government put in recently there is some hope that a new planning doctrine replacing the old can be put in place with the same attitude to the radical changes that are needed in order to put at least our only global city region on the world map.

S+RO is the journal for Urbanism and Spatial Planning. Students can subscribe at a reduced price. More information on: www-s-ro.nl

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Ubiquitous strategies and stories Interview with Markus Appenzeller

Having many projects in countries all over the world with different cultures could result in working with different methods and strategies. However, Markus Appenzeller stresses that there are many approach simi-

two types within both worlds. Appenzeller underpins his statement and introduces the philosophy of KCAP by illustrating KCAP’s project in Shenzhen in China and the project in Duisburg in Germany.

larities when working on projects all over the world. This was his underlying statement at his lecture for the Urbanism Week 2011. This interview goes more in-depth regarding this statement and investigates the role of an urbanist and KCAP’s activities in China.

Lecture summary

As director of international projects at KCAP, Markus Appenzeller showed he deals with projects in the Western world, particularly Europe, as well as in the Eastern world, Asia. From an economical and political point of view the world is heading into two directions; the Western world is characterized as a world of stagnation with a high GDP level but stagnation in population growth. Yet the Eastern world and South America and Africa are still growing in both GDP level and population. Appenzeller states that Western designers are only able to reason within a prospect of growth and miss opportunities to react positively to stagnation, such as in the romantic period. This leads currently to the result that stagnation always has a negative connotation.

By introducing “exploding China, imploding Europe” in relation to growth and stagnation respectively, Appenzeller wondered if there are two types of urbanism. Quickly he answers his question by stating that there are 1,5 types of urbanism due to a lot of similarities in the

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Markus Appenzeller is director of international projects at KCAP Architects & Planners. His expertise is large-scale urban design and master planning in an international environment. Appenzeller was previ-

The underlying framework, which is similar, is what characterizes both projects. The underlying framework takes streets and the public spaces as the basis for the development of the area because these are a lasting foundation for years. By using the same tool, the framework that lasts in the long term, Appenzeller describes the similarities between urbanism in Europe and Asia.

This long-term strategy goes hand-in-hand with the urban infill of this long-term framework. This urban infill is the short-term implication that is based on keeping and introducing new aspects within an area, with respect to the local conditions. Despite the importance of localities and apt short-term strategies, Appenzeller advocated that as an urbanist one firstly ought to think big by establishing an important long-term framework.

ously employed as a senior architect at OMA in Rotterdam.

If you had a chair at TU Delft, how would you name it?

“Complex city. Since it is definable in many ways and not bound to one specific discourse.”

How do you remain motivated to go to work each morning?

“I do not consider my work as a job. My work is a mindset, applicable wherever I am.”

What is your favorite software?

“Word processer and illustrator.”

In your lecture you seemed to argue that long-term strategies always have a physical form. Why is this? Could these strategies be less tangible, for example, constituting only as policies and processes?

Who is your anti-hero?

“Anyone who is quoting a model of the past and renders it as the solution for today’s societal problems.”

Who is your biggest professional

“In my opinion long-term strategies constitute policy and process. However, you need to find some way of communicating the potential outcomes and this is where form comes into play.

hero?

“As my CV already slightly indicates: Rem Koolhaas.”

“... you need to find some way of communicating the potential outcomes and this is where form comes into play.”

Figure 1. World of stagnation and growth (Appenzeller)

The average person will not have the patience to read through a huge book of urban design guidelines, so I believe that a strategy should always incorporate a plan, a model for people to be able to visualize the outcome. That is not to say that the model is fixed in stone but it rather should convey an atmosphere. Urban grain, building density, use patterns and also economic models in the end contribute to this atmosphere. The domain of our profession is to understand space and how to structure it.”

What, according to you, is an urbanist? Where are they situated between designer and policy-maker?

What kind of personal values do you transmit through your work?

“Openness and curiosity for the unknown and fairness.”

What are the challenges for your city in the future (2020)?

“Rotterdam will face its decline in impor-

“I am involved in both architecture and urban design. Yet the mindset is different within each field. An urban designer works in a highly political environment within a multiplicity of groups. Someone who is not only dealing with a single plot but in fact the totality of a city or a region - spatially, economically, socially, culturally, basically whatever can be imagined within the city. It is very complex. An urbanist acts like a mediator rather than acting only like a designer. Space need to be found to steer one’s own agenda amidst a conflict of multiple interests.

An architect thinks much more about what is right for a place. There is less need to negotiate, to strike a compromise, which is actually the way an urban designer works, to mediate all these different interests and to find alliances where it is beneficial. It is also much more about ego with architects. During architectural education you are always told to explain in a lot of words why your proposal is the exact solution. But actually this is just a smokescreen for doing what you like. You are never allowed to just say, ‘I did it because I like it.’ ”

tance. Rotterdam used to have the biggest port in the world and certainly the biggest port in Europe. The economy is now shifting towards other places and I belief this will result in an identity crisis for the city. The port area is very monofunctional and has not developed other large-scale business activities that are visible elsewhere in the city.”

What is outdated in the education of urbanism and architecture?

“Students are too obsessed with creating shapes. Yet since I am trained as an architect I mainly focus on architectural education. Architecture is not a social or cultural discipline anymore and it is also

What is KCAP’s unique selling point that makes them win so many competitions?

not taught as such. This is the result of a market-oriented shift within the discipline.

Furthermore, many architects and urban-

“In my belief one of the reasons is that we always analyse the brief for any project very carefully. The other reason is that we are good at selling our ideas. We spend quite a lot of time on getting the story right because even the best plan is worth nothing if the story is not properly communicated. It is about looking at who you are dealing with and the

ists, both in education and practice, lack the skills to sell their ideas to clients. It is not only enough to produce good work.

You need to be able to sell your ideas.”

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“We spend quite a lot of time on getting the story right because even the best plan is worth nothing if the story is not properly communicated.” best way of communicating what we want to achieve. Talking to a project developer is different to talking to a regional government or an individual client – you need to find the right tone. Sometimes this also has quite an impact on the final plans. In any country we are working in we always tend to have people that come from there or at least speak the language and then do additional research to see what is really going on there on the ground. A certain amount of success is also due to the fact that once you have a name in the industry it is slightly easier to win than if you are completely unknown.”

tecture, involvement throughout the whole process is necessarily if a high standard is to be achieved. It does not mean you are doing all the work, rather, you maintain communication with the other participants throughout the whole process in any design. For urban design we are mostly interested in complex projects, so for example, I think the standard Greenfield development in Holland is not particularly interesting to us and we also think it is not necessary in Holland — anything that can be developed on a Greenfield site can also be developed on a Brownfield site. So it is also a question of responsibility for cities and urban development as a whole. Generally speaking, in China it is different — there are so many cities with no Brownfield. In find it interesting to look at how environments that often feel ‘instant’ can be shaped, environments that did not have the tie to become places, to grow in to places in the future.”

Have you received any criticism for your work in China?

“One of the most important criteria is whether we think we can deliver quality and this in part depends on the ambition of the client, the program and the economic environment. Another aspect is attainability — we like to be able to experience first-hand where we will design.

This is more important for architecture than urban design. For archi-

“For the moment there is no negative feedback. There are however, moments of surprise. For example, in our Shenzhen project we are making a strong case for the preservation of the city’s urban villages whereas the local residents actually do not think that they should be preserved. I also get the impression that the critical discussion in China for architecture and urbanism is quite muted. This seems to go handin-hand with economic success. The problem with any boom is that people become less critical. Another surprise is that in China, commercial space can be considered as (public) places, which may differ slightly from Western attitudes. The thing about working in China or any region outside of your own is that you cannot merely translate what you know one-to-one in to another culture. It is not about building Holland in China.” EDWIN HANS, BART VAN LAKWIJK & SANG HUYN LEE

Figure 2. Stadsindustrie Landschaftspark Duisburg. (Graduation project Appenzeller)

Figure 3. Shenzhen, China. (KCAP)

What are your criteria in selecting projects to undertake?

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Manifesto for the Spontaneous City Tess Broekmans

Urhahn Urban Design

Urban planning faces new challenges around the world. Cities continue to grow and struggle with the task of becoming more sustainable, absorbing (im)migration, offering space to engaged citizens and, with that, remaining attractive places to settle. The economic crisis points up the risks and deficiencies of the old system and functions, of necessity, as a catalyst for new forms of city development.

Urban planners must reinvent themselves and their vision of the city. It is in that framework that we present a manifesto for flexible urban planning, grafted onto the power of private initiatives.

We argue that the Spontaneous City should be used as a starting point for urban development in the 21st century. The Spontaneous City is a marketplace, where supply and demand sculpts urban form. The city develops at various paces, in all kinds of directions.

What’s more, the Spontaneous City is occupied by producers and limitless future projections. The producers work closely together with residents and businesses, operating in districts and quarters of the city. Users of the Spontaneous City are innovative and enterprising. They operate from within the ranks of social groups where community, custom and tradition are important values.

The Spontaneous City is shaped by its occupants, in a never-ending process of transformation, growth and adaptation. Urban planning professionals work in close collaboration with the project initiators. Government and market work closely together, but with a different focus: the initiatives, creative energy and investment capital of the end user. The new urban planner must break through an historical trend of design that is always increasing in scale, involving collaboration with only the bigger partners.

Figure 1. Model Photo, Amsterdam Oostenburg (© Urhahn Urban Design)

From Masterplan to coproduction As with so many ‘success stories’ of the 20th century, utopian post-war urban design has been largely sent back to the drawing board.

Nevertheless, urban planning in past decades has seen little change in terms of its ambition and scale. To the contrary, one ‘instant city’ after another was sprung into being. Readymade, ready-to-use spaces were developed, tailored to serve one specific, immutable purpose. As a result of this, the role of the urban user was singularly limited to a consumer of everyday products.

Co-design and coproduction are no longer just fashionable terms, but accepted design forms in terms of sustainable urban development. These design forms are prevalent in newly constructed areas where traditional investment logic is being heavily challenged, and in depressed areas where the endogenous pull of the city dweller has been ignored for

many years. In both cases, the time is right for planning processes that crystallise collective power into a tangible form –involving local residents and entrepreneurs, owners ’ associations and local institutions.

Our plea for the Spontaneous City might seem not Dutch. Our point of departure is incidentally a country with a long tradition of highly developed planning, something we are justifiably proud of. Since the start of the 20th century, almost all urban design in the Netherlands was rigidly developed with housing projects and structural plans, district improvement and zoning plans. Dutch practice is familiar with other traditions, however, such as the freedom of private property, which formed the central canal area in Amsterdam and the Statenkwartier in The Hague. Within a spatial framework of canals and streets, and a set of transparent rules, the user can act as the client. urbanism week

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Four principles Urban design will make the Spontaneous City a reality in the future, outlined by the following four principles:

Figure 2. Zoom in (© Urhahn Urban Design)

Figure 3. Create collective values (© Urhahn Urban Design)

Zoom in Zooming in, or alternately reducing scale, means embracing a development process simultaneously at the disposal of many initiators in various locations. It is essential to map out local needs, relevant players in renovation districts and the prospects –or rather obstructions– they face. A thorough examination of both social conditions and urban planning regulations is a necessary strategy for the urban planner and this demands a sharp eye for detail.

Create collective values Defining shared ambition is an integral part of the game. It is a political process that must be developed both publicly and expertly.

It involves collective investment, for example in innovative energy infrastructure or water quality, in order to conserve a city’s heritage and enhance its public spaces. Acknowledgement of separate entities and future values is a component of a producer’s anticipatory and imaginative power. Nature, water, landscape, accessibility, heritage and architecture combine to create collective values and inspire new forms of utilisation. These are strategically important elements for an urban planner of the 21st century: common values make it possible to dare dream about the environment of tomorrow. In anticipation of this future vision, the planner works on developing an area’s quality, unique character and coherence, confident of the city user’s resilience and conflict-resolving nature.

Supervise open developments Urban functions, architecture, density, and lifestyle are constantly changing factors. Sustained development means that a city district or quarter must be able to adapt according to these changes, in terms of housing and employment functionality. The non-linear design of a city ensures its vitality. Simultaneous supervision of project initiators, in varying frequencies and directions, is of paramount importance.

The blueprint must be absolutely in tune with the map indicating a wide range of possibilities and specific opportunities. An urban plan must inspire a broad range of participants and, at the same time, be able to adapt to the rules of the game as they are being played.

Figure 4. Supervise open developments (© Urhahn Urban Design)

Figure 5. Be user-oriented (© Urhahn Urban Design)

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Be user-oriented Participatory structures must surpass participation itself. The energy, creativity and investment capacity of all involved parties must be embraced in order to meet future challenges head on.

Fresh approaches and resources are needed, from micro-financing of local projects to digital visual platforms. Innovations can already be found in abundance, but must be intensified in order to reach as many potential project initiators possible, from top businesses through to deprived urban districts. Residents, associations, companies and co-operatives should be given an active role in urban renewal initiatives. Boosting of endogenous investment capacity plays a central role. In practice, this is already a broken tradition: urban development driven by economy instead of by public housing. The urban planner’s designs should be custom-made and tailored to the resources of the user.

What does this mean for the urban planner?

The greatest challenge for urban design in the 21st century is finding a balance between matters of common importance and creating freedom whenever possible. The urban planner’s role, however, goes beyond the game of building, renovating and transforming functions –something demanding expert guidance of building programmes using simple rules of play. The planner will have to assume various guises– as designer, enticer, mathematician and draughtsman. But the planner will also have to play the role of negotiator or even contractor, supervising active collaboration, whilst challenging and engaging various relevant parties.

The interventions of the urban planner are strongly related to time.

In constructing urban frameworks we are used to working on a midterm time scale of 10-20 years. At the same time we should provide a long term vision on what an area could become over time: not a fixed blue print, but an image, a dream, a wish which steers initiatives. And we can help mobilizing short term initiatives, creating dynamics and possibilities for use.

In reaction to the current economical crisis, we need to scrutinise our planning strategies. Instead of just making cut-backs or reducing costs, we should be focusing on weighing the value of the urban environment and on mobilising smaller budgets on a larger scale. The Spontaneous City is no longer just a means of opportunity, but has now become a necessary economic reality.

Oostenburg as an example of spontaneous city development Zoom in The island of Oostenburg at the east side of Amsterdam’s city centre is currently owned by housing corporation Stadgenoot.

They have decided the development of the island should be a project for all possible participants: from one owner to many owners, from a few users to many users.

Collective value A frame work of public realm creates a solid basis for plot by plot development. The VOC quay along the main waterway is a public quay combining historical buildings opening up towards the waterside, relicts from the industrial past and water transport. An urban beach is the catalyst for this area: people are attracted to an area they were not used to come.

Supervise open developments We only fix the essential structure. Dynamic regulation can respond to the needs of the users.

Rules for the plots will be made per phase: lessons learned in previous phases will influence the rules for future developments and can set higher or lower standards.

Be user-oriented The aim is a mixed use area, comparable to the inner city of Amsterdam. The whole area should be one function: mixed use for everything to allow for maximum diversity in use. Users can combine functions on a plot and create their own infill.

Figure 6. City Beach ‘Roest’, Amsterdam Oostenburg (© Urhahn Urban Design)

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Managing urban flooding in the face of continuous change Many cities around the world are facing the challenges of sustainable living and development and are exploring ways to enhance their ability to manage an uncertain future. Drivers and pressures include relative wealth; population growth; the provision of food; lifestyle expectations; energy and resource use and climate change. These pose new challenges for the way in which we manage urban floods. There is no clear cut, ‘best’ solution for the avoidance of catastrophic flood events or even how to ‘live with (all) floods’. The way forward is thus far from clear although what we can be sure about is that we are rapidly entering a phase of fundamental change and our willingness and ability to adapt to and mitigate the worst effects of this will be critical.

We live in ‘yesterday’s’ cities. Many of the urban patterns that we see today – such as city layouts, buildings, roads and land ownership – are legacies of up to a century and a half of urban policy and decisionmaking; even longer in some of our cities. Tomorrow’s cities will also be shaped by the decisions we make today. They must respond to more rapid changes in physical, social, economic and institutional conditions than recent generations have been used to.

In general, cities are becoming larger and denser. Urban expansion is an issue of serious concern and is often placed as a justification for densification. The fundamental question of whether urban expansion should be resisted, accepted or welcomed is still largely unresolved. From the perspective of flooding, concerns for indiscriminate urban expansion or ‘sprawl’ have captured the attention of both policymakers and academics during the last decade. This is because, alongside climate change, it is considered as the major driver for increased flood risk. Sprawl will occur where unplanned, decentralised development dominates, as is common in developing countries. Where growth around the periphery of the city is coordinated by a strong urban policy, more compact and less vulnerable forms of urban development can be secured. It is evident that these approaches to development have direct consequences for the way floods are managed both in terms of the vulnerability of the urban area and its inhabitants and also in terms of the often indiscriminate effect that urban growth has on the generation of floods in terms of runoff and flood probabilities. At first glance there seem to be conflicting interests between the flood-risk managers who advocate open, green spaces in their cities and those who adhere to the compact cities concept as the sustainable urban form for controlling transport-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Urbanisation, both as a social phenomenon and physical transformation, is driven by processes that take place at varying temporal scales from relatively slow (e.g. migration, rising water demand, sea level rise and changes in laws) to rapid (e.g. natural disasters, changes in regulations and economic systems). While there is much that is uncertain about the urban future, some recent experiences show that 36

urbanism week

some urbanisation pathways are more desirable than others because they will likely lead to more (flood) resilient cities. These experiences highlight the need to take a completely new and different perspective on urban design, planning, and building. Creative thinking and innovations in socio-economic and technological systems are essential to change existing management structures and regimes. There is a growing recognition that responses which enhance resilience can be implemented gradually in combination with autonomous retrofitting, and offer prospects for action in the short term in regional planning and development in cities. These interventions should operate in a mode of constant learning and experimentation. Those interventions do not only reduce flood impacts, but also create new opportunities and co-benefits.

The term ‘resilience’ is often used in discussions about sustainability. For some, resilience is a more useful concept than sustainability, for instance when it is used within the context of sustainable urbanisation. This is partly because resilience embraces explicitly the dynamic nature of (complex) systems such as cities, whereas sustainability is often conceived as a goal to which we should collectively aspire. For others, however, sustainability is an attribute

Chris Zevenbergen

Director Business Development at Dura Vermeer Professor of Flood Resilience of Urban Systems at UNESCO-IHE / TU Delft

“There is no single ‘magic’ recipe for successful planning of a city in response to the challenges of sustainability, climate change and flood risks.” of dynamic, adaptive systems that are able to flourish and grow in the face of change.

Resilience in cities depends both on its physical form and characteristics as well as on the people’s capacity, and social behaviour. Community resilience requires self-reliant, skilled and capable citizens who have ‘developed iterative learning with mature face-to-face social networks’. There is no blueprint for urban sustainability, but there is a growing recognition that innovative planning approaches and processes based on these resilience principles will guide citizens and other stakeholders the way to become co-producers of a sustainable community that can respond to change and disruption, and pro-actively reduce vulnerabilities. These approaches (and processes) should not be viewed as models that can be applied in all contexts since they are shaped by the social and cultural norms of particular places.

There is no single ‘magic’ recipe for successful planning of a city in response to the challenges of sustainability, climate change and flood risks. This is partly because every citty has a unique context.

What we have learned is that urban design, master planning and the management of buildings, infrastructure, public utilities and

green spaces must be included in any urban flood-risk management strategy. We also learned of the need for long-term planning. A long-term perspective allows us to identify opportunities for synergy and to overcome barriers for implementation, such as investments that both enhance resilience and provide short-term additional economic, social or environmental benefits. A longterm perspective is also fundamental for incorporating sustainability indicators, such as life cycle cost. Planning with a long-term perspective thus opens the way to develop strategies that are more resilient, adaptable and responsive. It also requires skilled and capable stakeholders who are knowledgeable about the systems they live in and are capable of mainstreaming flood-risk management in the process of (re)development.

In most industrialised countries, the building stock is mainly ageing and there is much heritage. In the coming decades, the redevelopment (c.f. renovation and modernisation) of the existing stock is a high priority and certainly of higher priority than the provision of new housing. European cities are composed of mixtures of buildings of different ages and life spans, but within 30 years, around onethird of its building stock will probably be renewed. The same holds true for many other cities of the Western world, where continuous restructuring will be common practice. Redevelopment projects may thus provide windows of opportunity to make adjustments in the process of urban renewal in order to restore old mistakes and to build in more resilience by adapting and restructuring the urban fabric to new conditions of increased flood risk. The developing world, however, is not constrained by past investments, and much of their ‘urbanisation’ is to come in the next few decades. There is a huge challenge to exploit this momentum. If we are able to seize these windows of opportunity and share good practices via city-tocity networks stretching across country boundaries and other social networks, than we can create the groundswell for real practical change towards flood-resilient cities on a more global scale. There are a growing number of emerging examples of innovatory initiatives changing the way in which these challenges are being addressed and of which we can learn! urbanism week

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In your opinion, What is the future direction of Urbanism?

KARIEN HOFHUIS

Romain Duroux

Ana Rousseaud

Tanja Grubic

Lene Bjørnø

Graduated Urbanist

Graduated Urbanist

Msc 3 Urbanism

Graduated Urbanist

Visiting from France

Visiting from France

TU Delft student

Visiting from Norway

Workshop:

Workshop:

Workshop:

Workshop:

“Branding for Development” by MAB

“Branding for development” by MAB

“Client of the Future” by Urban

“Client of the Future” by Urban

Development

Development

Synergy

Synergy

“We are here to find out what you,

“The municipality does not involve

“I tend not to think about the future

“I think that what I’ve learned is

The Dutch urbanists, think the

people in earlier phases, and there-

too much. I really want to enjoy my

that the situation in Norway is very

future of our profession is. We are

fore we want to start a type of non-

studies and be de-attached from my

different from Holland, also because

from France and spent last year

profit organization to do temporary

profession. I firmly believe educa-

we haven’t been hit by the credit

finishing our Masters in New York,

projects in the city. In New York we

tion is the developing process in

crunch in the same way. I think that

where we learned a lot about Jane

saw a lot of projects dealing with

which you discover for yourself your

our role as urbanists is getting very

Jacobs and the New York top-down

the vacant lots and the temporary

position as an urbanist. I tend not to

important, especially as the media-

planning process. We are primarily

use of these. Being in Delft, we are

believe impressions I receive from

tor between all the specialties and

interested in short-term projects

now looking for your point of view.

the practicing world because I want

skills. We become the mediator

to remain positive in my position

overseeing the whole picture.

and what tools there are for doing these.

‘We see Holland as avant-garde.’

at the current moment. How I see

I also agree with the lectur-

myself after this workshop is that I

ers that we have a responsibility

By short term projects we mean the

France takes a lot of examples

have to be somewhat of a visionary

to push for what we think and

empty deserted places in the city

from northern countries. We heard

and very innovative and into risks.

believe in ourselves. We need to

which need a temporary function

in the lecture that the urbanist has

such as a playground or an arts

to specialize, this is very true. The

‘In other words, leave the comfort

create our own importance within

function to keep them a lively part

Urbanist should be a facilitator. We

zone in order to test yourself and

society, the city and the urban

of the city. In France we have a lot

believe this part of the profession

explore your own limits.’

realm. You also have the respon-

of big projects with many parties

is growing, more than the design

involved and many management

aspect of the work. This is our

In any context I think my main view-

systems, but without attention to

strategy after graduating. We are

point is to focus on my self-devel-

the actual small scale needs of the

finding out what different parts

opment and remain optimistic about

You need to have the personal drive,

people and the neighborhood.

of the world are saying about the

what’s waiting for me. If you work

the courage, and the perseverance

People are complaining because the

function of the profession and

on things with a positive attitude, it

to establish yourself as an urbanist.

architectural objects do not meet

taking these inputs back to France

will all work out. Regardless of eve-

These are things that you can’t learn

their uses.”

to begin our own path in Urbanism.

rything else, is it not the final goal in

through your studies: you just have

Because we have graduated, we

life to enjoy, relax, and be happy?”

to have that passion.”

Tanja

Lene

be creative and innovative and

sibility to develop your great ideas and create your own work.

are free to go.”

Romain

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urbanism week

Ana

Urban Integration

Hubert Habib was born in 1962 in Paris. He obtained his degree Master in Civil Engineering at ENPC Paris. As said by himself he was first working in managing the risks in kilojoules as scientific researcher, than

Interview with Hubert Habib

he was managing the risks of the ‘kilo-euros’. After several functions within Grontmij he is managing the risks of ‘kilo-motivation’ as the Managing Director of Grontmij Nederland

The lecture you presented was interesting, it was a very technical story. Later you told that you think professionals should take a distance from functionality, and go for esthetic. Do you believe the starting point for planning should be taken from an esthetical point of view?

“Technology makes it possible to be esthetic.

We can create things that would not be possible without advanced techniques, and sophisticated technology. People like Gehry and Koolhaas have an engineering knowledge that makes it feasible to have an esthetic building.

Thanks to modern programs, we can keep esthetics. Doorzonwoningen are about functionality, not livability. Esthetics is what it is all about; do not be just a project developer, but think about esthetics.

I am a technical engineer, but I really believe in what Umberto Eco says, the power of esthetics.”

Do you value detailing much?

work together with urban designers?

“There are urban designers working at Grontmij. We learn them to always ask ‘why’. There is a value chain, which is actually an ongoing circle, consisting of conceptors, integrators and calculators. The urban designer is already involved in the first stage of the projects we do. Urban designers can be part of all the three roles. The best projects develop when you put people together. Urban planners work together with other specialists.

We are often talking about existing areas, which the urbanist at Grontmij needs to change, revitalize, and make sustainable. The urbanist integrates the requirements for water, the underground cables, the infrastructure.

The urbanist can be the integrator bringing everything together.”

Holding since 2010.

Why do you get up and go to work in the morning?

“Because I believe that our work is a way to express our involvement in society, step by step we can make the world a bit better.”

What did you learn outside of education that has proved valuable today?

“Try to see the things through the perspective of the other person. You should not only listen, you should also hear the other, which is crucial in communication.”

What would be the name of your chair at Delft University?

“Urban Integration’

In your work at Grontmij, you value sustainability very much. What does ‘sustainability’ mean for you?

How do friends characterize you?

“Dutch friends say I think too much, but I am just philosophizing.”

“I do not believe in details. I believe in craftsmanship. We need to ask ourselves ‘why’, not just ‘how’. That is what I ask of all of our employees.

In the lecture you spoke about the new role of the railway station, you even called it ‘the new churches of the city’. How do you mean that?

The multimodal terminals are the new centers of the city. They were planned at the edge of the city, but have now become the center, where everybody meets each other.

And please, make it esthetical! In the Netherlands we cannot make a decision, everything should be cheap. We want to keep the old building, and build the rest around it. Compare this for instance to Copenhagen or in the UK, where great new railway station developments are going on.”

We are very interested in the role that urbanists play nowadays. How do you at Grontmij

“The technical answer is that it is about zero carbon. However, this is not feasible. We cannot reach this, but we always try not to make the existing situation worse.

The philosophical answer, which I personally believe in, is that the habitat is a shared asset of the human flora and fauna. Everyone has a right to have a piece of land.

We as humans are higher in the scale of Darwin, so we are the ones that can manage the habitat. Therefore it is our duty to take all aspects of the flora and fauna into account when acting upon it.”

It is great to hear such a philosophical answer from someone who is the director of such a technical company.

Who is you favourite Urbanist?

“If I tell it you will think I am a chauvinist, but I think the way Busquets thinks about the world is very relevant.”

What are the challenges for your city in the future?

“I like to think that we move from functionality to a more esthetical approach, like in Barcelona, where they developed squares in cooperation with inhabitants. I believe in open communities, in sharing.”

What is out-dated in Building Science education?

“The vertical cities. Sorry, I don’t believe the story of Rem Koolhaas. I believe in

“I simply believe that without a social philosophy you cannot motivate people at a large company.”

high buildings, but I also believe that people have to feel the ground.”

ROBIN BOELSUMS & HANNAH CREMERS

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39

Urbanism Graduation projects From Markus Appenzeller we learned that there are many similarities in approach when working on projects all over the world. However, Appenzeller characterizes the Western world as a world of stagnation with a high GDP level but stagnation in population growth. Yet the Eastern world and South America and Africa are still growing in both GDP level and population. Therefore he states that designers should be aware of these processes and should design accordingly.

With this in mind Atlantis selected three recent graduation projects, that can be seen as typical of the recent production of the department of urbanism. These projects are situated in Poland, China and Iran and react differently to growth and stagnation. Finally, we will show all recent graduation projects and the subjects they are on.

Figure 1. Master plan

Figure 2-3. Before and after the intervention

Anna Gralka about her project: “The project ‘Silesia – Transformation of Post-Industrial Areas in Bytom, South Poland’ refers to the rapid social, economical, and environmental degradation of the post-industrial areas of Silesia. The Rozbark Coal Mine was closed in 2004 leaving a large abandoned area in the middle of the city. The design proposes a distribution of the functional requirements of the city over the total site in the form of thematic squares on the historical structure of the previous mine buildings. The development of the project is based on the question of how to generate a new, positive cultural landscape without denying the historical identity of its location.”

Figure 4. Impression

40

urbanism week

Figure 5. Redefinition of the wall

Figure 6. Axonometric drawing

public core commercial-living mixed area underground parking lot commercial cloud wall village cloud wall thin cloud wall green space privatized public space public corridor existing gateway added new gateway green corridor metro station bus stop public bicycle point

Yin Mu on her project: “In the cloud wall project, the alternative role of the boundary between public and private space in the realization of urban vitality is reexamined, especially the walls and gates which exist as the concrete representation of the conflict. This project tries to confront these issues in the context of China’s economic booming stage with people’s fast-changing demands.

It is all about questioning and learning from the making of ancient Chinese cities, while adjusting the solutions to the modern city. It is admitted that we may still need walls and gates in future Chinese cities, but what remains important to explore is how we manage to reverse the walls and gates from a negative element into a positive and flexible component for the development of the future city, eventually changing the experience of living.”

Figure 7. Strategic plan

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41

Figure 7. GIS map showing 500m radius (10 minutes walking)

Figure 8. Urban node

Keimanesh Tahereh on her project: “This project consists of a design research on polarization of Mashhad. The historical analysis shows how religious globalization has stratified the city, resulting in two cities; one for the inhabitants and the second for the pilgrims. The design strategy introduces a concept of depolarization, where segregated neighbourhoods benefit from the pilgrimage, responding to the following research questions: How can the dual nature of the city be reconciled in a way which is positive for the less powerful? How is it possible to improve synergy and connections between the old nucleus and the rest of the city?�

Figure 9. Master plan

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urbanism week

Figure 10. Upgrading the street

Figure 11. GIS map showing 500m radius (10 minutes walking)

Figure 12. Upgrading the street

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43

How did this workshop help you define your position as an Urbanist?

KARIEN HOFHUIS

Gijs Briet

Sladjana Mijatovic

Hanne van den Berg

Laetitia Martina

MSC 3 Urbanism

MSC 3 Urbanism

Graduated Urbanist

Graduated Urbanist

TU Delft student

TU Delft student

Former TU Delft student

Visiting TU Delft

Workshop:

Workshop:

Workshop:

Workshop:

“Urban Criminality” by SITE Urban

“Negotiate Design” by Province of

“Young Starters” by Plein06 and

“Young Starters” by Plein06 and

Development

South Holland

Young BNSP

Young BNSP

“This workshop helped me to get a

“I learned that my ideas as an

“I found it a nice workshop because

“I found the workshop very interest-

better perspective about the respon-

urbanist cannot be realized if I

you get to talk to people who were

ing because in order to become a

sibility that we as future Urbanists

don’t understand who is involved,

facing the same choices as I a

young professional urbanist you

have, as well as our opportunities.

who you have to convince and

couple of years ago. They told us

apparently need to be professional

The speaker developed a perspec-

negotiate with. The profession is

how they made that choice, and how

from the start, also with your finan-

tive of urbanism, which made us

much more political and economi-

they worked it out. The workshop

cial stuff.

realize how important it is to do this

cal than I anticipated, making good

‘Young Starters’ consisted out of

and to take this into account. Our

argumentation extremely important.

three groups led by professionals

I want to start my own business and

who each made a different choice in

it was good to hear from other young

profession is not only about creating beautiful designs, but also about

The workshop itself involved role

their career path. There were groups

professionals how they handle their

how to get there. The workshop did

play, where everyone was given

led by independent urbanists. One

financial administration, and how

not involve a lot of discussion, but

a paper with a role on it. Every-

group was led by a person from the

they create a network for future pro-

mostly showed what the speaker

one had to argue their position,

municipality and one group took an

jects. It is sometimes difficult to ask

perspective of the issue was.

which for me was the protection of

urban design point of view.

money for my assignments, because

nature. This turned out to be very

I enjoy the work that I do.

It was definitely good to hear from a

hard because I had no money and

Per group we discussed the argu-

The workshop was discussing

guy in social housing rather than just

had to convince other parties to

ments to choose for this path in

in groups the different fields of

a visionary Urbanist talking about his

help me.

your career. What do you actually

urbanism by bringing in different

awesome design.”

do when you work for instance as

young professionals who all work

I had to use strong arguments and

an independent urbanist? I think

in a different field of Urbanism, the

play with words.”

this is a relevant question for all

government, urban design practices

students. It is good to know what

and independent starters.

your options are.

The workshop confirmed that I am an urbanist, and I want to stay an

It might not have changed the way I

urbanist. In order to do so you have

see myself as an urbanist, but it was

to participate and be active. You

relevant to see, and hear, how the

have to think on a wider level.”

different fields of Urbanism are in practice.”

Gijs

44

Sladjana

urbanism week

Hanne

Laetitia

Having considered the position of the Urbanist within a continuous state of change, we end this section of Atlantis on the Urbanism Week 2011. Atlantis #22.4 Urban Landscape, to be published in January will continue with the socio-spatial contributions of the Urbanist to the city.

In the next section we will continue to explore the seemingly invisible economic forces that shape our cities.

The City is becoming

explorative urbanism series #3 Ben Cerveny, James Burke and Juha van ‘t Zelfde

vurb www.vurb.eu

The Medium is the Metropolis The age of ubiquitous computation is condensing around us even as you read this. The various systems throughout a modern city that you probably interact with everyday are beginning to maintain persistent memories of their own use, communicate with each other about their status, and even reconfigure themselves based on your dynamic needs.

information that are always growing and transforming. We are only now beginning to develop the tools that allow us to see these patterns of information over huge spans of time and space, or in any local context in realtime.

In the same way that social networks and digital representation have had profound consequences on the cultures of print, music, and video, so too will the urban fabric of the city itself be transformed into an information layered, collaboratively shapable medium.

Just as the industrial age transformed cities with the addition of towers to the skyline and far-reaching transit networks, the digital age will bring new urban-scale infrastructure into everyday experience. Where the products of industrial urban evolution were huge physical manifestations that celebrated the magnitude of urban culture, the digital era is instead producing equally impressive manifestations that live “in the cloud�.

Civic Information Systems

Collaborative redevelopment

The modern city is built not just upon physical infrastructure, but also patterns and flows of

The city is forever changing. While it is essential to preserve and nurture many

environments and characteristics that give a city its texture and unique life, the needs of citizens often evolve beyond the purposes or constraints upon which buildings or infrastructure were initially constructed.

The problem of designing urban redevelopment to meet new needs without disrupting the texture and life of the city has frustrated many a planning department.

Digital culture has been evolving strategies to approach its own development challenges. The production of complex programs like operating systems require the orchestration of countless intricate tasks across hundreds of participants, while the building of massive online references like Wikipedia combine the efforts of thousands. We can build tools that provide the same massively collaborative framework 45

around the transformation of the city itself.

Urban Systems Literacy As a culture, we are evolving more and more ways to perceive patterns in complexity.

Most of our scientific pursuits in the last half a century have been in mapping the behavior of complex systems. We have even developed an entire field of entertainment, game design, to tap the enjoyment we instinctively feel in understanding ‘rule spaces’. These new literacies can now be focused on the web of relationships that make up a city.

Modeling techniques popularized by science, and made both popular and culturally meaningful by game design, can now be used by people on the streets to get a better understanding of what is shaping the world right around them.

Responsive Environments Within a dynamic urban infrastructure, cityscale services like power, data, and transportation begin to adapt in realtime to the changing needs of the public. Potentially, other digital services like projection and audio systems, or even the transformation of physical space, could be layered into the public sphere.

What are the mechanisms by which these services are provisioned by the tasks that citizens utilize them for?

Urban Interface Policy As the city becomes the site of dynamic systems that can provide services and transform environments in public space, it is imperative that we consider carefully the ethics and politics of these infrastructures. In the smart city, what is written as programmatic software ‘code’ can easily become de facto ‘law’ as it imposes permissioning schemes and identity regimes on its participants. So far, the internet, and the open source software that powers much of it, has remained remarkably adaptable to the ideals of democratic and egalitarian societies. Every infrastructural advance, however, goes through a watershed moment where the governing design principles of the technology itself begin to influence the types of societal experiences they might produce.

We need to attempt to understand the cultural ramifications of such infrastructural design decisions in this context.

Figure 1. View over the city of Barcelona

and design research concerning urban computational systems. The VURB foundation, based in Amsterdam, provides direction and resources to a portfolio of projects investigating how our cultures might come to use networked digital resources to change the way we understand, build, and inhabit cities. Of these projects, two are highlighted here: Vacant Amsterdam, a study for exposing empty state-owned spaces via networking technologies to local communities; and Urbanode, a prototype for discoverable services in public space.

Vacant Amsterdam: Platform for cities VURB Foundation together with partners will explore the reuse potential of vacant urban space through tools like social networks. This scan of the near future will give urban planners and civil servants as well as state-owned property managers insight and the possibility to see real demand for space reuse and experiment with how resource allocation would change under the impact of networked technologies.

VURB

Space and the City

VURB is a European framework for policy

Surprisingly, two projects, in Spain and

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the Netherlands, highlight the frequency of empty office and state-owned property reminding us of the huge waste of space in our cities; dusty, static spaces hidden away behind thick doors under lock and key from city neighbors who would wish to reuse them.

At the same time there exists a rich tradition of hybrid spaces and within many cities a continual ebb and flow of old being appropriated for reuse. The arrival of networked technologies has resulted in new sites and services continuing these rich tradtions while updating how we go about reclaiming empty spaces, from the enervating rise of pop-ups to small communities and issue networks.

Exposing empty state-owned spaces via networking technologies to local communities VURB Foundation is investigating how networked technologies working as a civic service may gather and make visible unused buildings and their progeny, rooms and corridors, as a low level digital architecture which can be used by others to negotiate reuse and increase the “refresh rate” at which cities reallocate space. The project will aim to help

“Citizens will begin to gain the ability to affect their environment in new ways, using city services the way they would use a digital application in an online environment.”

Urbanode

identify citizens urban spatial hunger while working with partner organizations like local government and housing organizations to make the connection between law, space and its responsible management and availability.

This project is then meant to augment existing practises and communities, of which there are many, as an exploration into how these might co-exist. We ask whether the fallow ground of vacant city space can be repopulated and made to a far great extent accessible to citizens? Can we reappropriate more urban fallow space to its inhabitants at a reasonable price and even maintained by volunteers?

A network of vacant spaces VURB Foundation intends to build a social software platform prototype listing the empty buildings (or the parts of them that are) in the city. Citizens will then be able to join this network and express demand for reusing such spaces using voting, discussion and simple conversational and design tools. This will be developed in partnership with local government and organizations already running hybrid spaces.

Citizens will begin to gain the ability to affect their environment in new ways, using city services the way they would use a digital application in an online environment. Transportation systems, lighting systems, public media hardware like active signage and sound-systems will become objects available for activation, control, and coordination by tools and services that citizens use in their everyday lives.

Through collaborative interaction with such tools, users of public spaces can configure them for specific temporary functions and even begin to ‘perform’ space together.

Prototypes for discoverable services in public space One of our main research objectives at VURB is to explore the possible dynamics between a digitally empowered citizenry and their increasingly ‘smart’, reactive public environment. What types of network services in public space will become institutionalized public infrastructure, taken for granted like transit systems? How will public and private domains of network services interact? Who will be allowed to make changes to environmental systems in public contexts? And whose role is it to make any of these decisions?

In order to investigate these questions, VURB has embarked on a series of software development projects to enable real-

world prototyping of scriptable public space, where environmental controls like lighting, audio, and projection can be controlled via a local javascript server. This local server can then present scripted applications, built around specific tasks and user scenarios, as dynamically discoverable services to citizens in the space, whether via a mobile browser or through gesture and voice commands.

Ultimately, the aim of these projects is to understand the implications of ‘digital experience architecture’ as an aspect of urban design, where public space becomes dynamically adaptive to the needs of its occupants and the city weaves together a mesh of these dynamic locations into a platform for citizen-enabling network applications.

VURB has just completed an initial development effort toward enabling such programmable spaces. The Urbanode project, a research partnership with Digitale Pioniers, begins the process of creating public system software by wrapping the controls for lighting control systems, such as those found in theaters and nightclubs, in a javascript programming framework. Recently, a prototype of this system has successfully been deployed for testing and development in the Melkweg, one of the premiere venues for live music in Amsterdam.

Spatial Object Model Javascript is well on its way to being the 47

Figure 2. Control interface

default choice of lightweight scripting notations for all types of webservices. It has become common practice for any large-scale social networks, streaming media services, and informations systems to present a publicly accessible javascript application programming interface, or API, so that third party developers can call on their functions or read their data in any program. In HTML5, the latest specification for web browser functionality, javascript takes on animation capabilities with the concept of a canvas that the application can draw to, as well as the more traditional mechanisms for creating dynamic applications by manipulating the Document Object Model. In Urbanode, we start to apply these same document-related scripting paradigms to space itself. How do you write applications in javascript that treat space as a canvas? What does the Spatial Object Model, or SOM, look like?

User scenarios In thinking about designing for programmable spaces, it might be useful to consider a few user scenarios. In this first pass at understanding the design opportunities, lets look at use cases in 3 separate categories of interaction: 1) Direct Manipulation 2) Environmental Control 3) Ambient Information

Direct manipulation Direct manipulation is perhaps the most straightforward example. A user might come into a danceclub or other venue and open their Urbanode browser on their mobile device. The Urbanode browser would query the local server and return a list of applications available in the space.

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In this scenario, let’s suppose there is only one called “Light Commander”. The user selects this application and the browser retrieves the appropriate web interface, which initially presents a schematic view of the lighting in the space, with each light color-coded to indicate whether it is under the control of the venue operator, another user, or available to be controlled. The user taps on an ‘open’ spotlight and is presented with a control interface with a color wheel, directional controls, sliders for focus and brightness, and light pattern icons. There might also be a timer counting down a short interval until the light reverts to ‘open’ and must be re-acquired.

services data, mobile device polling, or sensor data] to attributes of environmental mediation like lighting or audio. Let’s suppose the spotlighting on an obelisk in a public square is programmable using Urbanode. A citizen with permission to control those lights could build an application that displayed realtime sporting information using abstract color patterns and sequences. As citizens entered the square, they could consult their mobile devices, open the Urbanode browser, choose the “SportsMonument” application, and learn what the color mappings represented (say a soccer match in which the team colors of the team in the lead would be displayed, brighter depending on how big the lead is).

Environmental control

“Welcome to the 20-teens, here at last.”

Environmental control is oriented around locations within the space, rather than specific pieces of controllable hardware. In the scenario we will consider here, let’s imagine a restaurant in which each table has networkaccessible properties like “mood” or “energy level”. When the diners first sit, they can open the Urbanode browser and scan a symbol on the table with their phone’s camera to log-in to that space. The application presented is a simple scrolling list of mood choices like “romantic”, “party”, and “family”. Each choice dynamically effects the table-specific lighting brightness, color, and variation over time. These mood choices might also reconfigure the music stream or other audio, and also be displayed to the staff on a separate monitor so they might choose to service tables differently depending on selected mood.

These examples are by no means an exhaustive catalogue of possible uses of the Urbanode infrastructure. On the contrary, we hope this initial framework inspires a whole range of uses, many surprising to us. We plan to continue adding to the catalog of environmental services Urbanode can control, starting a broader range of lighting equipment and eventually audio hardware and projectors. This kickoff phase in collaboration with Digitale Pioniers marks a strong start to an ongoing investigation of how we will build and live in the public spaces of the future. Or, as our dear friend and inspirator Bruce Sterling responded to the endless opportunites for Urbanode: “Man, that’s for sure. Welcome to the 20-teens, here at last.”

Ambient information Ambient information applications serve as ways to map data from network sources [web-

This article has previously been published in Volume #28: Internet of Things.

Crisis of the Dancing City Vincent Schipper Editor Archis

We have been told, the crisis has taken its toll and the wheels of development, progress, modernization and the hopes of urban scale betterment have come to a grinding halt. In tandem, the spectacle of numbers incites fear of a fully urbanized society. Presently, and globally, we occupy urban spaces with the hope to address the increasingly violent vortex represented by those numbers. When confronted at such a scale, we lose sight of some of the details.

We are often confronted with images of increasingly confined living spaces, degrees of squalor and bereavement (especially in a time of banal consumption, and consumption taken for granted) that we simply will not find acceptable. It is from this vantage point that we address urbanization. Our world is increasingly urbanized, humans continue to move in troves from rural or suburban to urban settings — or, cities expand to engulf other types of spaces. When considering the general trend of urbanization, this is the reality. We cannot escape the fact that our western world is further urbanized. However, things are complicated. Western Europe, though the ratio of urbanized versus non-urbanized populations is increasingly in favor of the urban, this does not necessitate that urban density qua human habitation becomes increasingly stifling. Considering that general population of urban settings in highly-developed nations is projected to see relative decline over the next few decades, namely those in China and India (the latter being better classified as sprouting satellite cities), while European and the 'developed' sector (the United States and Western Europe) remain for the most part stable qua growth.

Granted, but which crisis are we talking about? The sovereign debt crisis is raging, the crisis of architectural billing, we are all confronted by a plethora of variations on what could be going wrong or what will go wrong. However, the core of this exercise is that this condition has created (for an increasingly marginalized group, but with great repercussions) a tension in urban thought. Urbanists look at the city from a birds-eye view, looking to answer its riddles, and architects (with some exceptions) lose sight of the bigger picture when considering local solutions. Aren’t both professions collapsible?

We can extract the increasing importance of the cross section of architect and urbanist from the UNFPA’s mission statement (from their State of the World Population 1996 report) “Improving social and economic conditions for all people and promoting sustainable develop-

ment is increasingly an urban challenge. As cities grow, making these improvements becomes more complicated.”

This is our context.

Movement for a city is as blood flows through us. However, unlike the human body there is no centralized heart from which to pump life. Central government structures, major regional bank headquarters and the like cannot be considered the heart of cities. What pushes movement is in fact inherent in every subject and object populating the urban environment; the devil is in the details. Here it is also important to point out that we should not only refer to physical arteries –such as roads, tram lines, or subterranean passages – there is clearly far more conceivable. Rather the frames of social move49

"What pushes movement is in fact inherent in every subject and object ment must also be considered in this way; take parkour for example. One could even go so far as to say that social flows are thoroughly more encompassing than their physical counterparts.

This is in no way a unique thought, but it must be reiterated. Today, perhaps more so than ever before, due to the banalization of techno-utopic views of the future city, the intricacies of movement underlined by the idea that people move as much as building move is being further lost. At the coattails of the increased interest in techno-dystopists such as Fuller, the modern project seems to be rearing its head. Rather than follow the lines set by past critiques, narratives that neither punctuated fully enough the necessary opposition against master plan urbanism nor provided a lasting critique of the modernist project, we must make a quick foray into an altogether different metaphor: Dance. In the current context, no one is dancing anymore — no people, nor buildings. All things considered, the following comment seems apt: 50

‘Modernism’ in the American dance means unswerving and unsentimental directness of idea presented in a style wholly dictated by that idea, with everything ruthlessly whittled away that is non-essential to the main structural lines. …

Be the idea great or small, beautiful or ugly, it stands forth naked and unashamed. In other words its style of presentation is absorbed by the idea and becomes transparent. (Margaret Gage, “A Study in American Modernism”, p. 230) The modernist project from the viewpoint of universalism and design to total completion, embodied in itself a condition of stagnation. Framed within the image of utopia, an end of history, or loss of flux, ruin was undoubtedly never the imagined consequence. However, here we must be careful, not to conflate the stillness of dance with the general understanding of stagnation.

We commonly understand stagnation as it is inherent to capital decline; a condition that we can argue had caught the social and urban setting of modern nations following industrialization. Whereas movement was

observable in economic terms, social stagnation prevailed. The stagnation of the modernist project was not only the immobility of the structures themselves, but the movement that these structures evoked had been reduced to a mechanical movement; having lost most social dimensions.

Though it is easy to level criticism as such, one must concede that it is difficult to imagine a city in movement when one cannot immediately see the expected changes.

However the stagnation presented above is reiterated today, ironically enough, through hyper-urban development as we can see in China (but also in Berlin). To stimulate movement in a city, things must then be built, and built quickly. This must then be understood for the most part to be due (for many cases) to a belief in that stagnation of a city is the stagnation in architectural or urban development projects. Why would it then be ironic? Simply put, the hyper-development of a city is based in the belief in the stagnation of an urban setting, which then

populating the urban environment; the devil is in the details." fills the urban setting with increasingly stagnant builds, creating a stagnant environment. To break from this circular spell, it would seem that we must return to the intricacies of movement.

Perhaps the best metaphor to use, in this context, is that of Noh Theater.

Before diving into the performance of the body, we should take note then also of the accessories. Apart from the theatrical clothing often associated with Noh Theater, the mask is perhaps the epitome of nuance.

The Noh mask is legendary for its power of mystery and exquisite beauty.

Its expression is always “on the verge” of crying, surprise secret emotion.

Viewing the masks was a powerful experience—hundreds of faces gazing into the ceiling. (Jadwiga Rodowicz, “Rethinking Zeami: Talking to Kanze Tetsunojo”, TDR Summer 1992, p. 98) Could we not say that as an accessory of the urban environment, the surfaces of objects and subjects that surround each other, ought to be thought of as not static or defined, but rather performing a series of changes through a simple change of angle. Returning to Edward Soja, is not the relation of such a performance then the epitome of the sociospatial dialectic? This performance is of course acted out; one could even say uttered, through a gradual process, one that is perhaps the

very best metaphor for the urban performance.

As the city moves centimeter by centimeter, and sometimes erupting in violent waves of change, the dancer too moves in almost unnoticeable increments; as described by Donald Ritchie.

A long, drawn-out, hour-long accelerando, ending in the incandescence of dance; a gradual, almost imperceptible movement from molto largo to prestissimo: this is the tempo of the Noh. To try and watch the tempo grow is like trying to watch the hour hand of the clock move, ike trying to watch flowers open. (Donald Ritchie on Noh Tempo, “Notes on the Noh”, The Hudson Review. p. 72) To consider a city as stagnant because there is no visible change in its facades ignores one of the most important elements of an urban environment, for whom and by whom the city is built. The social movement through a space plays an important role in the physical make up, but also in the movement/change of social relations inherent with the urban structures. Through the increased focus on the self-reference of a building or of the physical urban environment is a return to modernist convictions, though through a focus on the technicalities of technological developments; whether they pertain to sensor technology or new materials. We don’t dance because we try to make building dance for us. Shouldn’t we not dance ourselves, and accept that the time and scale of the city or of architecture is not human.

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Osong Bio Valley Sensitive Relationship with Nature, Functionality and Authenticity

TU Delft students won third prize in a competition among professional groups in the ‘Osong Biovalley International Competition’, a large open professional competition. It called for a new bio research city next to the new governing city of Sejong in South Korea.

Generally speaking in Korea, ‘Bio Valley’ refers to an area which consists of concentrated research, education and industry. But this is too narrow a view only focusing on functional aspects and thereby neglecting city, nature, environment and human living.

Our proposal starts from redefining the concept of ‘Bio Valley’, stating that any proposal for a Bio Valley should consider the factors of urban context, nature and human living before any planning takes place.

We proposed designing the new ‘Bio Valley’ with the primary natural elements (mountain, field and water) of the area. The four areas divided by railways were redesigned, introducing a multi-functional linear spine, which links to the existing area as well. The main design ideas (Figure 1) are made up of a landscape oriented approach, a compact spine across the railroad, a compact city around the KTX (highspeed train) station, flexibility of extension and mixed use along the main axis (Figure 2).

Both the city structure and building typologies are planned flexible to accommodate the needs of the future. The phasing plan is organised for two scenarios, depending on the future economic situation of the region.

Figure 2. Main axis in the station area

Figure 1. Design concept

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Sanghyun Lee (tudelft urbanism MSc 3) Yongki Kim (tudelft urbanism MSc 1) Hanyeol Baek (univ. stuttgart)

Figure 3. Design

Figure 4. Living in the valley

Figure 5. Master plan

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Physicist cracks city’s formula Interview with Geoffrey West

According to Professor West, there is an urgent need for a science of

Professor Geoffrey West is a theoretical physicist,

cities to complement the traditional social sciences and economics

former president and distinguished professor of

of cities. In an interview with The New York Times in December 2010,

the Santa Fe Institute. He also taught at Stanford

Professor West claimed that urban theory is a pseudo-science with-

University and worked at Los Alamos National

out real scientific principles. He embarked on the topic of cities with

Laboratory and is a member of the World Knowl-

disregard for any existing city theory. After two years of research-

edge Dialogue Scientific Board. In 2006 he was

ing data from cities in the USA, Europe and China with regard to

listed in the top 100 of the world’s most influen-

the number of gasoline stations, flu outbreaks, restaurants, crimes,

tial people in Time magazine’s Time 100. After his

roads, cables and the walking speed of pedestrians, he arrived at

retirement he decided to focus on cities.

a straightforward formula to explain the systematic logic of cities, known as the Economy of Scale.

How, as a physicist, did you develop a particular interest in cities?

Economy of scale in a nutshell

“Before working on cities, I became interested in the rather extraordinary scaling laws that had been discovered in biology by Max Kleiber in the 1930s. These scaling laws proved that there is systematic behaviour to biological phenomena. An example is the strong relationship between the size of an organism and its metabolic rate. The continuous feedback implicit in natural selection optimises the system so that less energy per cell is needed if the organism’s size doubles, this is called sub-linear scaling. These scaling laws can be applied to subsequent problems in biology from natural growth to cancer, ageing and sleep. And complimentary to that is the underlying network theory, which dictates that the pace of life decreases with size in a systematic way. This means that as you get bigger, things systematically take longer. The speed and rates of processes slow down in a systematic way and so on. This is all due to the dynamics of networks.

The metabolic rate of a creature is equal to its mass. If

“When a city doubles in size it gains a degree of 115 percent of socio-economic quantities.”

the mass doubles, the metabolic rate increases only by 75 percent.

When a city doubles in size, it requires an increase of resources of only 85 percent. This means that big cities save on roads, cable networks, gasoline stations etc.

When a city doubles in size it gains a degree of 115 percent of socio-economic quantities. Examples are an increase in innovation, walking speed and savings, yet also crime, traffic, disease and waste. All increases by 115 percent.

It does not matter how big a city is, the scaling law remains the same. A new citizen suddenly has a 15% increase in productivity. This is why people move to bigger cities. The more people move to big cities the more it encourages other people to come into the city.

The city is a catalyst of economical prosperity and inno-

For about ten years we developed a mathematical underlying theory for these scaling laws. Then we started wondering whether these scaling laws can also be extended to socio-economic organisations, like

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vation. If cities get bigger, everything speeds up. There is no analogy in biology on this aspect.

for example in cities. Cities include network systems, just like in biology, such as infrastructure, buildings and electrical lines. However, the social interaction between people is an even more important network. The question was whether city network systems also manifest scaling phenomena just as in biology. We wondered whether there are some universal laws that transcend the obvious differences between individual cities. What was quickly made apparent is that cities do indeed have scaling laws!”

“When we look at cities, the infrastructural part, the gas stations, the length of roads and the length of electricity lines all have clear analogies in biology. They all behave in a sublinear fashion. Which means that the bigger a city is, the fewer the gas stations and roads need to be. The scale remains the same. In some sense, like in biology, there is some optimisation going on in the city. The scaling law for biology indicates that as size doubles, only 75 percent more energy is needed.

Less energy per cell, per capita is needed as the size of the organism increases. The scaling law for cities implies that if you double in size, all infrastructural works for example will only grow by 85 percent. Thus you save about 15 percent. It even becomes predictive to the extent that you can tell me the size of a city in France, for example, and I can tell you approximately how many gas stations that city will have. So in an extended way, in terms of urbanism, it is good to have many big cities because you are saving on all resources and infrastructure. And incidentally a city produces less carbon dioxide per capita if it is bigger.

This is what economy of scale is all about.

Nevertheless, when we looked at socioeconomic quantities like wages, the number of aids cases and the number op patents produced then these had no simple parallels in biology. Yet we found that there was strong evidence of scaling again, of systematic behaviour. Wages, numbers of patents regarding innovation, aids cases, disease and

crime were systematically higher per capita when city size doubled. This is termed super linear scaling. The bigger you are as a city, the more you have per capita. The super linear scaling law implies that if city size doubles then on the average you will have a 115 percent increase in these socio-economic quantities. You gain an extra 15 percent.

We believe that this magic number of 15, approximately, is also derived from the social networks that underlie cities, but we have not yet been able to prove this. The work on cities in general is still very much work in progress; much work still needs to be done. One of the things we are doing is constructing and developing the complete theoretical framework, incorporating a derivation of this 15 percent rule. Knowing where it comes from, what determines it and why it is not 35 percent for example is important.”

Does the economy of scale also account for neighbourhoods?

“What is remarkable about the economy of scale is that its scaling laws are independent of a country’s history, geography and culture. Although cultures are different, there is universality in social interaction and in how human beings group together.

However, despite geography and history, the scaling law presents an idealised average view on how a city should be performing. Yet some cities are not living up to expectations. We looked at how the top 360 USA cities were performing relative to their size, from New York down to cities with only 40,000 inhabitants. We analysed and ranked them according to the scale laws according to several variables such as wages, patents and GDP. Some cities were over-performing while others were under-performing in certain respects in relation to their size. Yet it is misleading and even dangerous to think of these various phenomena as being totally independent. They are all interrelated, they are what we call highly interacting complex

R dN(t) Y0 = N (t) N (t).

E E dt Figure 1. the Urban Growth Equation

adaptive systems. They are all manifestations of social networks of various kinds.

However, the data we use for research is from metropolitan areas. This has a very averaging effect on any city. We see the city as a unit and yet of course there are different urban typologies such as the core, the rings and the suburbs. We would need more specific data in order to deconstruct some of a city’s general data if we are to get to the finer grain of a city and do the same analyses for individual neighbourhoods of a city.”

Would you therefore encourage more available open-source data?

“Open-source data is crucial. It is currently difficult to find and sort out the data relevant to our analyses. In general, data is everywhere, yet people do not produce geographically systemised data that is easy to comprehend. To some extent you have to harvest the information. One of the reasons why we made a comparison between 360 cities in the USA is because they all possess good data sources. However, opensource information has many non-trivial aspects such as privacy issues and data abusers.

Nevertheless I can assure you that we desperately need a serious science of cities to complement the traditional social sciences and economical sciences of cities. In my opinion a science of cities is a somewhat mathematical predictive quantitative framework. This relies very heavily on data not only to motivate it and reveal underlying regular behaviour, but also to test the theoretical development and the theoretical structures that we invent. It is thereby important that we start to think carefully about what data we need, how we acquire it and how various governments at all levels can help in that area.”

“It even becomes predictive to the extent that you can tell me the size of a city in France, for example, and I can tell you approximately how many gas stations that city will have.”

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“... we desperately need a serious science of cities to complement the traditional social sciences and economical sciences of cities.”

What makes a city performing well?

“A major factor of good performing cities is that they create a kind of facilitative role by encouraging innovation and risk, which is very hard to do. If you can encourage innovative ideas then people are more willing to take some risk, which in the end really stimulates cities. A crucial aspect of cities is being able to look ahead and open up to diversity. One of the great characteristics of cities that make them different from companies is that as they grow they tend to open up space for opportunity. The amount of diversity increases and the buzz increases. The more you stimulate openness, the greater the response usually is in terms of the socio-economic life of a city. If cities do not allow for greater diversity and opportunity as they grow then this will have a negative effect on the city.”

Professors West’s recipe for a successful city:

1. Understand where your city is situated within the economy of scale and why it is under-performing or overperforming on certain aspects (e.g. how wages ought to be according to the city size).

What makes a city under-performing?

2. Understand that the reasons

“What we have learned is that cities have a long persistence time, which means that it is very difficult to change them. We discovered, to our astonishment, that under-performing cities have been under-performing to approximately the same degree for decades and over-performing cities visa versa. That is why successful cities are typically multi-dimensional. There is a spectrum of industries and activities that continuously change and evolve. That does not mean that cities cannot find something very successful. Some cities are very much like companies. They stick with something successful instead of constantly opening up and rather than becoming more multi-dimensional they become more one-dimensional. That is the companies’ problem.

For a company it is very difficult to move out of that one-dimensionality. One-dimensionality is somehow the fate of companies. So if the external environment changes they are unable to adapt because typical administration and bureaucracies dominate. Companies are mostly dominated by the culture of economies of scale, the efficiency of sub-linear scaling, like in biology. Cities have super-linear scaling, a culture of wealth creation and innovation, which leads to opening up, growth and prosperity.”

underlying these city aspects are

Professor West has legitimatised big cities on the basis of economies of scale in terms of sublinear and super-linear scaling phenomena. With the expansion in today’s data-cloud it becomes increasingly interesting to extend the knowledge of sub-linear and super-linear scaling behaviour to include the finer grain of cities. Thanks to the research being done into economies of scale we are one step closer to understanding what cities are really about. EDWIN HANS

5. Attract and keep innovative and

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people. Cities are the physical manifestation of the interaction amongst people.

3. Invest in welfare and exploit innovative ideas. Risk and speculation of innovative ideas between people increases the health of a city.

4. Culture is a small part of the economy in a city, yet culture plays a critical role in feeding the industrial network. One stimulates the other.

creative people. If the city starts to loose these people it is a warning for an uncertain city prospective.

Another Six Endlessly Open Cities Alex Lehnerer

These cities are dedicated to those of you who obsess certain, very specific tropes and topics within the discourse on the contemporary city. They are about excessively open metropolitan aggregations within which the limit is never an issue. However, given the huge amount of current investigations and interpretation on the topic of the city, not a single city nor world would satisfy such demand for excitement – so, if one is not enough, how about six of them? And yes, we believe that almost any seemingly relevant urban topic can be detected on one of these six themed city globes.

The globe depicted here are, from left to right: the City of the Continuous Roof, the City of the Continuous Band, the City of the Invasive Flora, the City of the Golden Globe, the City of the Eternal Commute, and The City of the Cul-de-sac.

The globes are a collaborative effort by Liliana Aguirre, Andrew Brosseit, Renee Ciolino, Alex Lehnerer, Ryan Hollon, Janis Rucins, Matt Vander Ploeg, Lluis Victori, produced at the University of Illinois at Chicago, 2009.

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MarketSpaces

How does one protect something against its own success? Alaba Market, one square kilometre of vibrant and completely unregulated economic activity close to Lagos, Nigeria, is in danger of collapsing: open space within the area is rapidly disappearing because of aggressive private entrepreneurship, eroding the public domain which is vital for the existence of the market. Something must be done to protect the market against itself - and the bad news is that traditional planning just won’t work in environments like these.

Being completely undesigned and unregulated, urban space within Alaba Market is constantly being changed by the activities of the individual user, who operates more or less autonomous within the larger system of the market. Economic activity goes hand in hand with entrepreneurial opportunism and perpetually unstable urban conditions: vendors are constantly building, expanding and adapting their stores.

Architectural space within the market can thus be seen as the cumulative residue of an infinite number of decisions made by autonomous agents on a very local level, influencing the global scale of the market as a whole only very indirectly. Although this in itself is not a bad thing, it does put “ownerless” – public – space within the market under permanent threat of annexation by private initiatives.

Since nobody directly benefits from public space, nobody defends it - but when too much public space disappears the functioning of the market as a whole becomes a problem. In effect, the market might eventually suffocate itself.

This project tries to do two things: firstly, to acknowledge the value of inherent flexibility and the ability of people to solve physical problems themselves, and secondly to canalize all too aggressive private expansion. It aids individual initiatives both structurally 58

Tim Peeters Graduation project Explore Lab 10

and organizationally, while also protecting open spaces in the market fabric. It attempts to empower the individual, while operating preventively on a larger scale.

Within the market, a series of spaces become designated marketplaces: safe havens for the public and those vendors that depend on public space for their activities - those who sell telephone cards on street corners and can afford nothing but simple chair-andumbrella makeshift shops. While around these plazas spacemaking business will go on as usual - dynamism, clogging and all - the squares themselves become vibrant trading grounds. By becoming centres of bustling market activity, these plazas will serve as starting points for the development of a new, pedestrian-based circulation system in the market: it will generate an infrastructural system connecting the plazas.

The plazas are defined using concrete elements: columns, slabs and beams that are shoved against existing buildings to form borders between marketspace and plazaspace.

These elements act as armatures: vendors can use them to attach self built roofs, structures and small stalls. An extremely flexible, ever changing market place emerges: the armatures empower lower level salesmen (who by definition do not endanger open space because of a lack of means to erect large permanent buildings), whose activity will keep the plazas busy and open. On and around the armatures, a whole new landscape of economic activity emerges, blurring boundaries between what has been ‘designed’ and what has been appropriated, improved, changed, and adapted over and over again.

MarketSpaces proposes an unpredictable and in many ways unimaginable future: one in which everybody can fully manifest his or her spatial potential.

Figure 1: Marketspace. Like anemones and barnacles on a shipwreck, structures attached to the armatures will quickly dissolve the boundary between the introduced and the indigenous.

Figure 2: Analysis of different vendor types within Alaba Market. Going up means slowing down: as financial means increase from left to right, so does the amount of claimed private space. The more successful the market, the less public space remains – destroying opportunities for the lower ranks of vendors.

Means Mobility

Private Space

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Epilogue: Taking Position Interview with Eric Luiten

In this section at the end of each Atlantis we look back at the contents of the issue to sum-

Eric Luiten is a landscape architect

marize, reinterpret and add some final insights to the discussion. In an interview with Eric

and professor of Heritage & Spatial

Luiten, professor of Heritage and Spatial Design at Delft University of Technology we dis-

Design at the TU Delft since 2005, a

cussed some of the themes present throughout this issue and in the Urbanism Week, from

chair initiated through the Belvedere

the perspective of the landscape architect with a focus on heritage. He explains the need

program. He is also advisor on spa-

for a distinction between the discipline and the professional field, our paradoxical nature,

tial quality for the province of South

and the traveller and gardener within every one of us. We hope this epilogue will form a

Holland, married, and a father of

solid backdrop to reinterpret some of the key aspects laid out in this issue, and to continue

three. After graduating from Wage-

the discussion until the next Atlantis on the Urban Landscape.

ningen University he worked for Staatsbosbeheer and later H+N+S

What has become apparent throughout this issue is that there are uncertain times ahead for the urbanist. We should relearn our profession, but for that we must first understand what our discipline entails. The forces that shape our cities and society seem to be similar to those that shape ourselves.

“I have the feeling that we are leaving decennia, if not a century, behind us in which a culture and a society of new housing, of new developments and of new things set the stage. This is perfectly illustrated by the period during which I was educated at Wageningen University for instance. We didn’t visit historical estates in the Netherlands, go out and look at old polders, or visit 17th century windmills. No, we went to the Flevopolders, because those were the real public works, our only frame of reference. That and the modern city extension: Pendrecht, Ommoord, the Bijlmer. That’s where we went to on our excursions. Because that was what the contemporary landscape architect was expected to know, and to what he or she would later contribute. So when you graduated that was your work field.

Landscape Consultants.

He spent four years in Barcelona, working and positioning himself within the discipline of landscape architecture, after which he returned to the Netherlands and worked on two major projects: the New Dutch Defense Line and the Roman Limes, through which he ‘was immersed in the Dutch heritage industry.’

He is currently preparing two publications that deal with heritage;

Now we are entering a century that will be about the opposite. We already have so much, how can we make better use of that? How can we increase the durability, and find multiple uses for what we have? What does this suppose for design? How can we develop this, how can we balance between demolition and newly built? In part this has to do with the current economic crisis, but I have come to the conclusion that even if we walk away from this crisis without a scratch, this assignment will still be valid.

Although we are demographically still growing in population figures there is a form of stabilization occurring. Within our country there will still be major shifts but ultimately the asymptotic increase of population is largely behind us. That combined with a more balanced approach to spending and investing I believe will play a much more important role in spatial design. What’s the impact of this investment, not only for the building, or for the location, but for all the surroundings?

That will all add up to the fact that we will get used to the idea that 80 per cent of the housing assignment will be realized within the urbanized area. This leaves maybe only 10 to 20 per cent outside of it, which can be recognized as a form of city expansion. The Hague already has this policy for instance, and the province of South Holland will not even start negotiations with municipalities if a minimum of 70 per cent of the building task is not resolved within the city.

60

the first provides an overview and careful analysis of a wide range of recent heritage projects, the second focuses on the cultivated landscapes throughout Europe, balancing between past, present and future.

Luiten is involved in education through the BSc program Architecture and the MSc program Landscape Architecture and is promotor for five PhD candidates.

What this means is that we have all instantaneously arrived in a heritage issue, whereby our existing stock becomes the focus of development. But changes in our surrounding make us restless, that’s something in our nature.

People are by definition restless towards change, and that will become the precondition of what we’ll have to deal with in the coming decades. That's the message I give to students: ‘Prepare yourself; by all means prepare yourself for the big issue called redesign, because that is what will influence the practice in the coming years.’ ”

The diagnosis should be more broad. “How come I can shower with warm water in the morning, that I can wear clean clothes every day, that I have a car, that works, that I can bring my children to school? These are all achievements of the last one hundred years, including the spatial, technical and constructive aspects. These are all things we want to have and which we cherish. And at the same time we just cannot seem to tolerate the visual effects of that, because that’s what you see when you look outside the window. My proposition is that we are, as a whole, incredibly confused. Fundamentally, existentially confused.

We are no longer able to visually accept our actions and our achievements. That’s the problem. So we use a much more traditional panorama as a reference, whereas the factual developments are in the direction of this cluttering of the landscape, with raised power lines everywhere.

“We are no longer able to visually

accept our actions and our achievements. That’s the problem.”

Education “My contribution to education is that I make students aware of that fact that there are at least two ways in which they have to deal with history. What does history mean for their location and for their design? Which historic lines are visible in this area, building or ensemble? Which are crucial or essential, and how can those help to build a plan? That is the first position.

The other is that within the discipline itself there is also a tradition and a history. There is repertoire, and when you design, whether you like it or not, you’re always re-using your disciplinary antecedents.

Material that is already there, plans you already know, or ones you came across unknowingly but that seem to apply in your design. What I think we should convey to young designer is that they should make clear to themselves how they position themselves towards history.

Whether it interests them at all, and what inspiration they derive from it. And I do’nt mean this pedantic: ‘You shall take history into account.’

No, the advice is to contemplate and to try and position yourself, which is a difficult thing to do. History is a complex system; it’s an endless supply of things that have happened.”

Our paradoxical nature The Urbanism Week focused on the role of the urban designer in a time of change. Professionals and academics gave their views on the profession, on the role of the urbanist and on the position towards the city, the landscape, and the discipline. One of them, Adriaan Geuze, has repeatedly expressed his concerns on how we are ruining our man-made landscape, despite all our good intentions. The ferocity with which he presents his arguments is a good example of a more general trend throughout the profession.

“Geuze seems to be in a permanent state of panic. That’s not where I stand, although I understand what he is worried about. What I find disappointing is that as an imported professional he doesn't get any further than the notion of: it’s going to ruins. As a response he believes there should be an authority that takes full responsibility for the quality of the Dutch cultivated landscape. That’s of course a very suspicious desire. That for sure is not the way it will go. The Dutch will not just give up their democratic achievements, that’s no longer possible nor desirable. We will not all support the spatial visionary who draws it all out for us and shows us the right way. So it’s not enough, his diagnosis is on the wrong scale and with the wrong sense – the eye. Instead of panicking about what we see we should reflect on why it disturbs us.”

I would like to connect that to an appeal: Let’s first determine for ourselves that we are exceptionally paradoxical in nature, and that we make contradicting observations. The culture that we’re now all part of produces all sorts of things. Why are we so reluctant about this, and so critical towards? Maybe just asking that question is already enough. To make people think: ‘How does that relate to me?’

That in part perhaps is why we find that heritage is so important.

We derive confidence from things that we know and that are from the past, and less from things to come. In itself that is not so troubling, as long as it doesn't lead to this great confusion as the one we are all in now. So it’s a nuanced, subtle kind of movement that we're all going through. It’s very interesting from the perspective of the designer. Whereas the heritage conservationist is interested in the value assessment; what’s it worth, the designer is only driven by one thing; increase in value. What’s the potential? How beautiful, valuable and productive can it be? That’s a very interesting clash. To be confronted with people who trust in description and assessment, as opposed to the search for even better, or even nicer.”

Making clear distinctions “The reality is dominated for a large part by what I call the professional field; by commissions, by projects and their limitations, whether it’s financial or legal. Well, that’s a dog eat dog world; that’s just one big struggle. No matter if you’re a landscape architect, an urban designer, an artist or even a clown, you need to drag something out of that which is worth the effort. There are definitely no recipes for that, despite the efforts of Real Estate and Housing to make something out of it. My experience is that it’s incredibly personal; with the right mix of people you can work miracles, but without that spark it won’t amount to anything, despite all the models and calculation strategies.”

The reality is very different from what is educated or researched, but what is unclear is where one ends, and the other begins.

“Part of it has to do with the distinction between the discipline and the professional field. I recently attended the doctoral defence ceremony of Fransje Hooijmejer, who did her PhD on the development

61

of the Dutch city in relation to the manipulation of the subsoil. She extrapolates her findings into the future, and makes the appeal that we should go back to the Fine Dutch Tradition, and we should especially bring together Urbanism and Civil Engineering. I understand it as a landscape architectonic correction to the urban design of the last fifty years, which is that we should consciously reason from the subsoil when dealing with the Dutch city. We should not just make disciplinary but also material corrections. Things we closed off in the last fifty years should be dug up again. The city needs to redefine its relation to its surroundings and its subsoil, and there are plenty of ways to do so.

That evokes a nice discussion which Han Meyer touched on during the public defence when he asked whether it was strange that we have now conceived a master track Landscape Architecture when in fact we should go back to this big integration. In my view he makes a false notion which is that the discipline of urban design is the same as the professional field that occurs outside. I believe you need to keep those clearly separated.

“What this means is that we have all instantane-

On one hand there is something called a discipline; a trade, with people that represent this trade and draw their inspiration from the same sources and traditions. On the other there is a professional field with all sorts of spatial problems, in which each discipline tries to take hold of the others, struggles, and plays a game to walk away with the best possible result. If you continuously focus your eyes on the ball that represents the professional field, then you forget that there’s such a thing as disciplinary responsibility, which either has an urban design, architecture or landscape architecture background. And what we do here at the university is to convey that message, so when you graduate here as an urban designer, you know what that discipline entails. You know what you stand for, and you know what you can rely on. And with that you are capable of using this urban design luggage in almost all fields, tasks, assignments or development projects that you come across. With it you can stand your ground and get the best possible result, related to what in your opinion are the essentials.”

ously arrived in a heritage issue, whereby our existing stock becomes the focus of development”

Dual personalities This issue focuses on the economy behind our built environment, in relation to the urbanist and his position within the whole. Different aspects have come to light, from the importance of a distinction between field and discipline to the influence of the current economic crisis. But there are other ways to look at the current developments.

“In my oration I gave a sort of amateur indication of where I think our recent interest in history comes from. I said that in each person there are two persons hidden inside. One is the traveller, someone who is searching for the horizon, and the other is the gardener, someone who wants to know what comes out of the ground, and if he can eat it, so to speak. In the previous decades we have all started travelling; to Europe, to the world, to the universe, and I think that we are now pulling back on this gardening leg. Understanding where are we actually from, who lived in our house before us; very basic search for roots, origin, sources.

Both of these persons have symbols. Schiphol stands for the traveller, literally, and figuratively. The World Wide Web is another literal and figurative example of the traveller, with it the endless exploration of the universe. Our concerns about the quality of the landscape represent our gardener feeling. ‘I’m on my way to New York, but in the meantime I renew my membership of the association for the preservation of natural monuments, because I find it important that the Green Heart stays open and green.’

It’s just ingrained that we want to be both at once, both the traveling and the gardening, and this has to be satisfied through material and symbolic signals. I think this extends nicely into the fact that landscape architecture currently has the wind at its back, because it’s a profession that claims to reconcile the programmatic aspects, those things that we have to do as a society, with those qualities that we already have.” JAN BREUKELMAN & JAN WILBERS

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Colofon Polis Partners ATLANTIS Magazine by Polis | Platform for Urbanism Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft Volume 22, Number 3, November 2011 Editor in Chief Jasper Nijveldt Editorial team

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Announcements

Calendar

Calling all motivated Urbanists !!

Lecture Philippe Rahm

Get involved as a POLIS board member for the 2012 season.

We are starting to keep a lookout for our replacements coming this December. We have had an extremely successful year and are hoping to pass on our basis of hard work to some more hard working individuals. If you think you are interested in being a part of the Polis board, or the various commissions for the next year, please send us an e-mail or drop by the office located at BG West 350 .

20 December 2011, 19:00 Berlage Insitute, Rotterdam

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Future History: Amelia Jones&David Summers Urbanism week 2011 Photos of Urbanism Week 2011 online!! Check the Urbanism Week website to re-visit Urbanism Week 2011. www.urbanismweek.nl

13 January, 2012. 8–10.30 p.m.

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Lecture Umberto Napolitano 24 January 2012, 19:00 Berlage Insitute, Rotterdam

Join us We find it important to work on the continuity of Polis’ existence, regardless the fact that board and committee members come and go. Although normally January is the time for a new board we are already looking for our successors. Are you interested in becoming active for Polis and develop your professional skills and enlarge your network? Please visit us in our new office or contact us by mail!

IFoU Barcelona 2012: TOURbanISM-toURBANISM 25-27 January 2012 TOURbanISM-toURBANISM is the title of the 6th Conference of the International Forum on Urbanism that will take place from January 25th to 27th, 2012, at the Catalonian Politechnic University (UPC) in Barcelona.

Atlantis Archive

Future Freedom: Paul Chan & Hito Steyerl

The Polis magazine Atlantis has a great history of already more than twenty years. Unfortunately, due to the Faculty fire, we don’t have a full archive. After a request on the Polis LinkedIn group a lot of former (board)members supplied us with their personal archive, that now gives us the possibility to create a digital archive on the new website. Atlantis issue 22.1 and 22.2 are already there, and more will follow soon!

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Future City: Rem Koolhaas (among others) Atlantis magazine editors The Atlantis aims to be a magazine linking the student world and the urbanism profession through interesting topics and contributions and is distributed to all Polis members. Do you enjoy writing or interviewing? Do you have lay-out skills? Becoming an editor for Atlantis volume 23 would be a great opportunity! Contact Polis for more information.

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