3rd4all - How to create a relevant public space

HOW TO CREATE A RELEVANTT PUBLIC SPACE AAT VOS

NAI010 PUBLISHERS

6 People 6

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Foreword, Eppo van Nispen tot Sevenaer, Collective Promotion for the Dutch Book Introduction, Aat vos

City Tour 72 Oslo 126 Amsterdam 180 Parcs 228 Toronto 270 Tokyo

CONTENTS

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276 Special Thanks 279 Colophon

‘ T hird places are our social cement. We cannot do without.’

Aat Vos - page 16

14 People

74 Place

Interview 18 Diane Ghirardo, University

of Southern California 30 Matthias Hollwich, Hollwich Kushner 50 Kristin Danielsen, Arts

Council Norway 60 Aga Skorupka, Norwegian

Environmental Psychology Network Visual Report 24 Tøyen Library, Oslo 36 House of Culture, Stockholm 42 Station Living Rooms, Rotterdam 56 Chocolate Factory, Gouda 66 Herning Library, Herning

‘You can not force a community.’

Diane Ghirardo - page 20

Interview 78 Winy Maas, MVRDV 84 Eric van der Kooij, City of Amsterdam 96 Evelien van Veen, Van Veen Architects 106 Julia Bergmann, Julia Bergmann

Training & Consulting Visual Report 90 High Line, New York 100 School 7, Den Helder 110 Luchtsingel, Rotterdam 116 Korenbeurs Library, Schiedam 120 Westergasfabriek Terrain, Amsterdam

‘A part of all of us wants to escape mediocrity.’

Winy Maas - page 80

CON

128 182 230 Experience

Product

Interview 132 Joseph Pine, Strategic

Horizons LLP 148 Karim Rashid, Karim

Rashid Inc 160 Jan David Hanrath & Rob

Bruijnzeels, Ministerie van Verbeelding Visual Report 138 Market Hall, Rotterdam 144 The Shoe Factory, Groningen 154 Naples Università Metro

Station, Napels 166 Theek 5, Oosterhout 172 Ruhrgebiet Duisburg & Essen

‘Customers want to have memorable experiences.’

Joseph Pine - page 134

Interview 186 Sergio Dogliani, Idea Stores London 192 Erik Boekesteijn & Reinert

Mithassel, Doklab, Delft and

Tøyen Libraries, Oslo 210 Marleen Stikker, Waag Society Amsterdam 222 Ronald van den Hoff, Seats2Meet Visual Report 198 Biblo Tøyen, Oslo 204 Dokk1, Aarhus 216 De Ceuvel, Amsterdam

‘We need a place where we can go, learn something and better ourselves.’

Sergio Dogliani - page 188

Future Interiew 234 Saskia Sassen, Colombia

University, New York 240 Maarten Crump & Bas

Pietersen, Alignment House 244 Marcela Sabino, Museum of

Tomorrow, Rio de Janeiro 262 Eli Neiburger, Ann Arbor

District Library, Michigan 266 Remco de Rooij, Triangle Studios Visual Report 250 Museum of Tomorrow,

Rio de Janeiro 256 Urbanscreens, Worldwide

‘To avoid alienation we need indeterminate spaces like the street and the bus stop.’

Saskia Sassen - page 235

NTENTS

H O W T O C R E AT E A R E L E VA N T P U B L I C S PA C E

6 FOREWORD - EPPO VAN NISPEN TOT SEVENAER

It has to be Somewhere.

By Eppo van Nispen tot Sevenaer Managing Director Collective Promotion for the Dutch Book January 2017

Foreword ‘Ergens moet het zijn...’; ‘It has to be somewhere...’.

The first words of a famous Dutch poem. Four words as the beginning of a quest for an ideal place, a place where all the good things in life come together, where there’s always something going on, where you will be lifted to great heights and where you will be inspired and challenged to enhance your life and that of others. To then have that warm feeling that you really want to give that place something in return. And I do not mean everyone’s home sweet home or your workplace that is becoming more like a home every day, but a place where everyone is welcome. That is what this marvellous book is about.

About how to deal with the most extraordinary space, the space that belongs to all of us: public space. And how to do so in an appealing way. These are the oases of the city, the breeding grounds for creativity, the sources of inspiration. In today’s digital age, that public space seems much larger than the real one. You don’t have to go out to meet people or to find new ideas. But precisely because of that growing digitalization, real public spaces

have to connect and surprise us, for those of us who do go out will want something in return. A public space should invite you in, embrace you and give you a rousing send-off when you leave, so you will long to come back to it soon. This book shows that this can be done. That a public space can be anything but boring. That in fact it is very worthwhile to invest in these places, since those investments will pay off very handsomely through the use that people will make of them. 3RD4ALL, How to Create a Relevant Public Space is like a wonderful book of fairy tales, in which the most inspiring people, views, buildings, and spaces in the public domain really stir up your imagination. From the magnificent metro station in Naples by Karim Rashid to the Luchtsingel Rotterdam

by ZUS; from interviews with architectural masters such as Winy Maas and Matthias Hollwich to consumer gurus like Joseph Pine. As I see it, 3RD4ALL is not a reference book, but an ‘impact’ book. That is because of the author, Aat Vos. He is a creative for whom impact is paramount.

In a humane and unifying way. I have had the pleasure of

working with him. And successfully so. With Aat as the designer, we started building the most modern library in the world, the DOK Library Concept Centre in Delft (the Netherlands), for which Aat effectively transformed the space into a jewel of the city. From scratch, it became an international hotspot, winning many awards as a result. Aat’s insight, creativity and outstanding sense of public space were leading in this process. Through the use of five catchy main themes, namely People, Place, Experience, Product and Future, as steppingstones in the interviews and reports, we as readers are lifted, amazed and set on a new course. After reading this book, public spaces will never look the same again. You will learn that a public space only matters if you really make something of it. A must-read for anyone who loves public spaces. If it has to be somewhere, then it can be found here, in this book.

Photo by Gerrit Serné

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INTRODUCTION - AAT VOS

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AA VO

How to Create a Relevant Public Space.

Aat Vos

Welcome to the Age of Experience. We have moved on to a time where we crave something beyond purchase; we all want to enjoy, to experience things. At home, at work and in the public space. The public space – also known as the third place – is where we are spending more and more of our time. But how do you keep the public domain interesting and accessible to all? The world is changing. The public domain is becoming increasingly less public as it falls victim to the whims of commercial parties, and as a result, people who can’t afford to pay are at risk of being excluded.

All communities, large or small, have to deal with this. This development worries me and I think we should turn the tide. We can do so by creating third places for all.

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PEOPLE

TØYE LIBRAR OSL

VISUAL REPORT - TØYEN LIBRARY, OSLO

A Place to Keep Yourself Awake The libary at Tøyen Square in Oslo was given a radical makeover.

Its new informal interior attracts both the young and the old. It’s a second home ‘to keep yourself awake’, the motto of the mother library Oslo Public Library (Deichmanske Bibliotek).

The library has implemented ‘Meråpent’, allowing visitors to use the library throughout the day even without staff present. The Tøyen square and the building have also been upgraded, while the basement of the library was enlarged to add more space. Architect Aat Vos: ‘This great project was all about working together in a team of like-minded, visionary people. Together with Reinert Mithassel of Oslo Public Library and the production team of Gjenbruket, we created a ‘want to visit’ destination.

It competes successfully with the many cool spots that are popping up all around this neighbourhood. Since the reopening, the number of visitors has doubled.’

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VISUAL REPORT - TØYEN LIBRARY, OSLO

26 PEOPLE

For this project, the team came up with a new way for the library to store and display its books. In the design, the first priority was to create room for people, so the library has spaces for people to gather, game and have meetings.

‘Warm colours and interesting props create a homely environment, and the use of reclaimed materials shows that you don’t need to buy new things to create something new.’

A third place for all that makes you want to stay just a bit longer, to meet people and to enjoy small plays, concerts and performances.

distinguished architect Santiago Calatrava, the avant-garde structure attracts visitors not only to the museum, but also to the nearby square, public park and surrounding areas. This has led to an increase in visitor numbers to another nearby museum, Museu de Arte do Rio, and to local restaurants opening on weekends. The museum has been one of the key drivers in the redevelopment of a previously neglected neighbourhood.

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For Everyone The downside of housing a museum in a somewhat imposing structure, as the team’s own research efforts revealed before the opening, is that it can make some people feel like they do not belong there. ‘When we talked to people before the opening, people called it a white ship, a dinosaur, or even a dish rack’, Sabino says, referring to the museum’s avant-garde exterior.

‘ The museum has been one of the key drivers in the redevelopment of a previously neglected neighbourhood.’

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Photo by Humberto Teski

Photos by Byron Prujansky

Photo by Cesar Barreto

‘So some people, especially the underprivileged, were worried this might not be a place for them.’ The museum countered this perception with a robust outreach effort that was spearheaded by the ‘Neighbours’ programme, as well as public hard-hat tours of the site in the months prior to the official opening.

‘ Neighbours have a special museum card and can participate in various educational programmes. ’

INTERVIEW - MARCELA SABINO

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FUTURE

Reaching out to Underprivileged Areas The purpose of these outreach activities goes beyond merely attracting visitors to the museum, however. The bigger goal is to create a more sustainable connection with local residents and make a positive impact on the future of the community. Sabino clarifies, ‘People from the area are given a special museum card and are invited to participate in various programmes. One is the Mauá 360 Programme that invites young people from the area to learn about its history and think about its future. The community relations’ team is also working with disadvantaged communities and favelas in the area, and hopes to reach out to other communities in the city in the future as well.

Learning Mindset From the perspective of the Lab, being a ‘place of action’ means empowering the public to create and affect change. According to Sabino, the Lab is a space for experimentation, innovation, and trial and error. Part of what she wants to accomplish is to stop the ‘cult of the expert’ and cultivate a lifelong learning mindset. ‘We want to show people that they can become creators, and not just consumers of the real and digital worlds’, she says. ‘This idea that people have, that they don’t know anything about electronics or biology or art, so they won’t even try, is a mindset we want to break down.

Sometimes, the science is so new that even the person teaching it doesn’t know everything about the subject.

So we have been experimenting with a working-group philosophy here.’

Future Production Methods The museum expresses this working-group philosophy by, on the one hand, facilitating projects that focus on

specific issues, and, on the other hand, using a mix of high- and low-tech tools to develop experiments and complete projects. Recent problem-driven projects include a ‘bio-hacker’ programme that taught Lab participants how to build a battery from vegetables, how to make cheap, DIY microscopes, or how to grow living, biological fabric. Another example is a molecular gastronomy programme that showed participants how to make microspheres from a derivative of algae, which is similar to a process that could potentially be used for food or drug delivery. One of the Lab´s official working groups is growing a type of cellulose with the texture of leather that could someday be used to make clothing, while another is developing a food computer for decentralised methods of food production.

Affect Change in Local Areas But as Sabino points out; sometimes the issues are closer to home. The current Lab exhibition called ‘Strolling through a Hacked Rio’ aims to show people from Rio de Janeiro that they can affect change in their own local area. (Hacking, after all, is defined as ‘altering a system so that it works better’.) Examples of this type of change are those of residents grafting orchids onto trees in one area of the city, or the dance events under the Madureira overpass, which changed it from a simple passageway into an area known for its culture and commerce. Besides classes, workshops and working groups, the Lab also has a fellowship programme, focused on helping artists produce interactive art works that respond to viewers in real time. ‘We taught the artists basic electronics and basic programming so that sensors activate different parts of the work depending on the individual in front of it’, Sabino explains.

Author: Aat Vos Art Director & Content Curator: Marco de Boer (Bohemia Amsterdam) Design: Maria Bos (Bij Buro Bos) Lead Editor: Linda Peeters (Citiwriters) Project Coordinator & Editor: Kirstin Hanssen Head of Photography: Marco Heyda Translation Dutch-English: Jean Tee (JT Redactie) Copy editing: Jean Tee and Leo Reijnen Editorial contributors: Helle Benedicte Berg, Senay Boztas, Nathalie Jager, Agnes Zenta, Eppo van Nispen tot Sevenaer Lithography and Printing: Epos Press Publisher: Marcel Witvoet, nai010 publishers Š 2017 Aat Vos, nai010 publishers, Rotterdam All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Although every effort was made to find the copyright holders for the illustrations used, it has not been possible to trace them all. Interested parties are requested to contact nai010 publishers, Mauritsweg 23, 3012 JR Rotterdam, the Netherlands. nai010 publishers is an internationally orientated publisher specialized in developing, producing and distributing books in the fields of architecture, urbanism, art and design. www.nai010.com nai010 books are available internationally at selected bookstores and from the following distribution partners: North, Central and South America - Artbook | D.A.P., New York, USA, dap@dapinc.com Rest of the world - Idea Books, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, idea@ideabooks.nl For general questions, please contact nai010 publishers directly at sales@nai010.com or visit our website www.nai010.com for further information.

Printed and bound in the Netherlands ISBN 978-94-6208-351-6 Also available as also available as e-book How to Create a Relevant Public Space (pdf) ISBN 978-94-6208-367-7 aatvos.com

COLOPHON

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How to Create a Relevant Public Space was made possible by the support of:

KopGroep Bibliotheken