POR TFO LIO robin de louw
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Forum Romanum
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Polderduct
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Green up
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My street
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Co-create Khayelitsha
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Prachtig Pocket Park
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Institute of time-taking
Urban development strategy to integrate informal settlements A recreational rural landscape in a metropolitan area A temporary green facade as public art manifesto Design catalogue for large-scale urban renovation program Pilot development plan to upgrade a low-income settlement A bottom-up initiative for urban regeneration Art as a layer of imagination over the landscape
Forum Romanum Location
Varna, Bulgaria
Period
2015 - 5th year, thesis project
Degree
MSc Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences
Institute
Technical University of Delft
Recognition
Honourable mention by Faculty of Architecture TUDelft Nominee for ArchiPrix NL 2015 Publication in Blauwe Kamer magazine Publication by LAP Publishing
Fragmentation seems to be an inevitable element of the contemporary urban landscape, but is not generally objectionable. In the post-communist city of Varna monotonous neighbourhoods with canalised streams are alternated by informal settlements sprawling in hazardous valleys. This project connects national policies and local actors to employ the landscape as a development framework. A revision of the current municipal strategy is proposed by the design of a smart green-blue and transport network that integrates the specific needs of both native-Bulgarian and Roma community. The architectural elaboration of the landscape in the Roma community consists of a multi-purpose square, multi-functional stair-constructions and agricultural terraces that prevent erosion and regulate surface water runoff. The project shows an example where ethnic enclaves are valued, by integrating defining cultural aspects such as household farming, for their diversity, redefining rights and obligations.
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marginalized community
relocation
redevelopment
conventional in-situ upgrading
landscape-based in-situ upgrading
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Productive urban landscape in the cultural enclave
Continuous inter-neighbourhood landscape
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Community-led farming fields
Stairs to stabilize the landscape and provide community services
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agricultural products waste exchange center social coupons
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Augmented reality installation
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Polderduct Location
Bleiswijk, The Netherlands
Period
2014 - 4th year, design project
Degree
MSc Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences
Institute
Technical University of Delft
The Green Heart is a relatively thinly populated area in the Randstad with a strong rural character, which strongly contrasts the surrounding urbanized areas, and is widely appreciated for its tranquility, openness and rich nature. The Rotte is a peat river that sprouts in Bleiswijk and drains all polders that it crosses on its route to the Port of Rotterdam. The Dutch polder system has lost its poetic charm as ‘landscape machine’ with windmills being replaced by electric pumping stations. This design focuses on the re-activation of urban-rural recreation by grasping the historical sensuousness of the polder system. The Polderduct is a new landmark for the Rotte that consists of a pumping station and a purification aqueduct. The pumping station is positioned in an open water body, whose configuration is based on geomorphological characteristics, that incorporates fluctuation zones for temporarily water storage. Agricultural and ecological values are protected as the path structure that connects the different programs, such as the islands with allotment gardens, is laid out above the water body.
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A risen river meandering across low lands, skilled in binding words into flowing thoughts of diverse forms. Searching for words that can settle the thirsty souls along her shores, listen! For songs with poetic charms, and for verses of a writers tongue. Recall! The sound that water performs. The sound of water singing, flowing, over the cobbles, through the reeds. The multiform of sounds that come with soaking rains, the dark splatters on a sidewalk, roaring swirls, along roadsides brown with mud. The slow whisper and sputter of water moving up a level, long forgotten, and another level, the cohesion inherent in each drip.
panoramic
semi-open zone
enclosed inner-city
water (existing)
water
program
ecology
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The Polderduct and floating pathway in relation to the dike and old pumpingstation
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Green up Location
Porto, Portugal
Period
2017
Office
Still Urban Design
Team
Robin de Louw, Sofia Pera
In 1996 the ViaCatarina Shopping Mall was inaugurated as a strategy to stimulate regeneration of the impoverished city centre. The redevelopment of the building kept the original facade while creating a completely new building inside the block. Rua Santa Catarina has developed towards today’s main commercial street of downtown Porto. Since 2014 there is a yearly competition that advocates the use of public art to further integrate the mall into its urban context through a temporary installation. Green Up interacts with the public through a vivid, three-dimensional and self-supporting intervention on street level. The objective is to not only ‘animate’ the facade of the building, but to create a second skin of the facade as an experiential ‘in between’ space where visitors can enjoy a vertical garden. The structure climbs its way up as homage to the classic architecture of the building, while the plants climb their way up the structure as provocation to contrast with the dense shopping street that lacks vegetation and natural shading. The intervention is build with modular materials used to construct event venues and native drought-resistant plant species that will be planted in the neighbourhood’s park afterwards.
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the installation as mirror of the building’s classic architecture
The facade as extension of public space
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My street Location
Moscow, Russia
Period
2015
Office
Okra Landscape Architects
Team
Mar Añó, Boudewijn Almekinders (CEO Okra), Fiona Kydd, Robin de Louw, Maarten van Mosel, Laura Nielen, Eva Radionova, Marion Vollmann
Collaboration
KB Strelka, Government of Moscow
Many cities across the globe have developed their own manuals for street design. KB Strelka is a urban consulting practice and the main consultant of the Moscow Government on its major large-scale urban renovation program, “My Street”. The Moscow Street Design Standard is the city’s first document featuring an integrative approach to ecology, retail, greening, transportation and general urban planning. The Standard is a manual divided into four books, each one of them covering particular aspects of street design. Okra Landscape Architects revised ten of the most common street types and developed a catalogue with eleven thematic groups of design solutions with potential for combining various elements. It does not promote any manufacturers, instead it describes the attributes which define a quality product prioritising the needs of Muscovites while understanding each street as both a public and a transport space in the context of the city’s territorial development. Rather than a ready-made solution, the Standard offers a database for designers to approach individual streets that share common features yet retain unique attributes at the same time.
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spatial code
approach
model catalogue
planning manual
pedestrian infrastracture bicycle infrastructure public transport infrastructure car infrastructure crossings intersections greenery lighting climate comfort stormwater management signage
residential streets mixed use streets
narrow streets, discontinuous front narrow streets, continuous front pedestrian street radial street
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center
highways boulevards wide residential streets narrow residential streets
middle
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periphery
a b c d e f g h i j h Hierarchical structure of the model catalogue
231 streets 432 km
Type 3, wide residential street: revised and existing
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489 streets 274 km
Type 7, narrow street with discontinuous front: revision
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Selection of principle solutions
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Combination of principle solutions and details
Type 9 , pedestrian street (render by KB Strelka)
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Co-create Khayelitsha Location
Cape Town, South Africa
Period
2015
Office
Okra Landscape Architects
Team
Martin Knuijt (CEO Okra), Robin de Louw
Collaboration
Urban Think Thank, ETH Zürich
Recognition
National Business Success Award 2016 (NL)
Khayelitsha, or ‘new home’, is the second largest township in South Africa with an estimated 600,000 inhabitants. The township consists of 22 separate settlements, ranging from old formal areas originally built by the Apartheid government, and new mixed formal/informal areas such as ‘Site C’. This pilot project, directed by the Urban Think Tank, aims to develop a participatory upgrading strategy based on a two-story housing prototype and integrative landscape management. Okra Landscape Architects developed a low-tech modular system which best enables the integration of urban agriculture, a locally proven tool to guarantee a stable income and food security, into the inhabitants lives. Each household will be provided with an upgradable two-story farming kit and choose a planting palette that best reflects their requirements. The project treats stormwater on-site, adjacent to the housing units, through biofiltration and so makes use of excess water for the maintenance of the green courtyards planted with native fruit trees.
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Site C: south (pilot) and north section
South section, phase I
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II III South section, phased development plan
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Upgradable private farming kit
Hybrid communal wash station and landscape installation
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wetland unit
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sink unit
bench unit
S M L private communal collective
interventions farming
Preliminary development plan north section
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Prachtig Pocket Park Location
Utrecht, the Netherlands
Period
2013
Organisation
Staatslieden Art Community
Coordinator
Paul Balk
Collaboration
Utrecht Municipality
The Staatslieden-neighborhood is a post-war neighborhood facing socio-spatial challenges due to a changing population. It was developed as a middle-class neighborhood in the 1950s, but gradually changed to a vivid mix of young multi-cultural families, students and artists. “Staatslieden Art Community“ is a collective of artists and designers in Utrecht that actively works together with the local community to create social capital and spatial transformation. As a young urban designer living in the same city, I joined the collective to redevelop a parking plot into a Pocket Park. The design was developed in close contact with local residents and Utrecht Municipality. Participatory workshops with residents make active use of coloured textures to ‘design’ with available plant species, and have put forward an organic path structure, a small forest, the arrangement of perennials, a human-scale ‘four-in-a-line’-game and the necessity to have underground containers.
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Impressions of the park generated during the participatory design process
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Development from parking plot to pocket park (2014, 2015)
The park as canvas for community expressions (2016)
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Institute of time-taking Location
Terschelling, the Netherlands
Period
2014
Organisation
Oerol Festival
Team
Antje Adriaens, Maria Alexandrescu, Lila Athanasiadou, Berta Gruodytė, Jafeth Hagoort, Ruben Hoek, Rosa Hurkmans, Jingni Li, Robin de Louw, Pierre Oskam, Eva van Rijen, Koen Steegers, Mike Tomassen, Gabriela Villas Bôas, Veerle de Vries
Coordinators
Denise Piccinini, Frits van Loon
Sponsors
NHBos foundation, Delft Infrastructure and Mobility Initiatives
The “Institute of Time Taking” is a land art installation collaboratively developed for the annual 10-day Oerol Festival held at the island of Terschelling in the Wadden sea. IOTT attempts to unveil the sensorial characteristics, knowledge and discussions involved in the dune landscape of Terschelling. Although the project provides information and prescribes a sequence of events, it seeks to be less didactic and more enabling, leaving the visitor to interpret and construct their own stories. This allows a previously unknown and anonymous landscape to become part of the visitor’s memory and knowledge. The project, which attracted a total of about 6000 visitors during the festival, aims to establish a lasting impact on the awareness of the visitors interaction with its surroundings. While the project acts superficially on the site, sitting in a blue chair, alone, it has brought strong emotions to the visitors. Two joined approaches unveil the characteristics of the dune landscape which are already present, triggering the visitor to look closer and perceive the aesthetic character of its surroundings. A ‘scientific path’ and ‘sensorial toolkit’ act as tools to discover the dune landscape, which together they create a narrative. The scientific approach of the project is embedded in the predetermined routing and guided by six speakers broadcasting information on themes as flora, fauna and sedimentation. The sensorial approach explores the textures, colours, temperature and sounds of the landscape. The toolkit contained, aside from a pamphlet with maps and cross-sections, several instruments to playfully measure some conditions of the site. The ultimate experience lies in personal immersion into the landscape. Along the route, each visitor is led to one of five private sensorial spots by a team member and left alone for some minutes. The enclosure of the body with the landscape, strengthened by the absence of both time and group pressure, intends to have an intimate and solitary experience of the place they are in. Here, the landscape itself is the plot. 25
Repositioning land art and it’s connection to human scale
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Approaches in coastal management of the Dutch government
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The toolkit with maps, cross-sections, drawings and instruments
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Rhamno-Crataegetuma
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Empetro-Ericetum
Calluna vulgaris
Betula pendula
Populus trumula
Cladina rangiferina
Festuca glaucas
Calama grostis epigejos
Alix rebens
Salicion albae Corynephorion canaescentis
Eryngium maritimum
Bolboschoenus maritimus
Ranunculus baudoti
Calama grostis epigejos
Corynephorus canescens
Hippophao-Ligustretum
Hippophae rhamnoides
Astero-scirpetum
Ruppia maritima
Viola tricolor curtisii
Agropyro-Honckenyion peploidis Association
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Typha latifolia
Salsola kalivar tenuifolia
Elymus farctus
Ammophilia arenaria
Agropyron pubiflorum
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The scientific path with five sensorial spots
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Sublime is the overwhelming experience of being alone in nature
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THA NK YOU rmjgdelouw@gmail.com