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ATLANTISMAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR URBANISM

Ronald Wall 04

Mike Yin 07

Maurits Schaafsma 09

John Kasarda 12

Atelier Olschinsky 16

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

#22.3 December 2011

URBAN ECONOMY

Urbanismweek 2011

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In the previous Atlantis issue we discussed the tangible subject of urban form. In this issue of Atlantis, we will explore the seem-ingly 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 finan-cial 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 sepa-rate 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 eco-nomic forces?” Issue #22.3 Urban Economy explores this question from various perspec-tives, by exchanging ideas with students, scholars, designers, politicians, developers and engineers.

Ronald Wall will open this issue, by reveal-ing 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 rela-tional: cities form nodes of attraction within a global network of investments, and thus need to act accordingly. Not only the tradi-tional 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 Schaaf-sma 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 com-plexity. Their works provide a triggering starting point to further explore the specific role of the urbanist in these machine rooms.

However, urbanism seems to constantly seek for a relevant position. The profession strug-gles with numerous aspects at once: its role in the process, its position towards involved parties, the status of its products, and per-haps also a societal recognition as a knowl-edge-intensive profession. To exchange ideas about this, the Urbanism Week brought together a number of very interesting speak-ers 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 decentral-ized government when it comes to design content. Alfredo Brillembourg passionately speaks about engaging the public in devel-opments, whereas Jaap Modder pleas for a different role of the government. Markus Appenzeller argues that there are similari-ties in approach despite working in different cultures, while Hubert Habib, Tess Broek-mans 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.

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. Geof-frey West, one of the world’s leading physi-cists of the last decade, recently began study-ing the science of urban life and came up with some remarkable insights. West dis-covered 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 contem-porary city. To round it off, Eric Luiten, professor of Cultural Heritage will reflect on some of the themes apparent throughout this issue.

Jasper Nijveldt

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.

#22.1 Urban Society

Keywords: society, regeneration, politics, housing,

neighborhood.

#22.2 Urban Form

Keywords: form, density, typologies,

design, public space, urban techniques.

#22.3 Urban Economy

Keywords: globalization, urban economy, competi-

tiveness, branding, market, role of urbanism, foreign

direct investment.

#22.4 Urban Landscape

Keywords: landscape, metropolitan, urban-rural, bio-

diversity, border conditions.

Editorial

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URBAN SOCIETY

ATLANTISMAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR UBANISM

#22.1 April 2011

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URBAN SOCIETY

ATLANTISMAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR UBANISM

#22.1 April 2011

1

URBAN SOCIETY

ATLANTISMAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR UBANISM

#22.1 April 2011

1

URBAN SOCIETY

ATLANTISMAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR UBANISM

#22.1 April 2011

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From the board

‘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!

Urban greetings from the Polis board 2011,

Jorick Beijer, Karien Hofhuis, Vera Konings, Tim Ruijs & Noor Scheltema

Committees 2011

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!

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

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In this article I argue that cities are increasingly affected by exter-nal, 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 com-mand 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 advan-tage 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 invest-ments. 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-

Urban Competitiveness and the Global Economic Network

Dr. Ronald Wall

Architect and Economic Geographer

IHS/Erasmus University

wall@ihs.nl

Urban geopolitics

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 com-petitive advantage.

Despite the increasing mobility of capital, only a few cities can sat-isfy the specific requirements of large firms to invest in particu-lar 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, vari-ous 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 dis-similar economic functions are not competitors and can therefore be considered complimentary to the extent that they exploit dif-ferent 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 competi-tors of a city can be identified within the entire global network of investments. Based on this specific knowledge, detailed case stud-ies 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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(figure 1). The darker the region and the higher its red node is positioned, the stronger it is in attracting investments. The link-ages (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.

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 star-clouds indicate single investors of each of the three cities.

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

Aalborg

AberdeenAbingdon

Addison

AimarguesAl-Kuwait

Amstelveen

Amsterdam

Antwerp

Arhus

Athens

Atlanta

Auckland

Austin

Baden

Baku

Baltimore

Bangalore

BarcelonaBasel

Basking Ridge

Bath

Beijing

Belgrade

Beverly Hills

Birmingham

Blagnac

Bloomfield Hills

Boca Raton

Boston

Brighton

Broomfield

Brussels

Bucharest

Cambridge

Cape Town

Cardiff

Cerritos

Chicago

Chippenham

Chiyoda-Ku

Cincinnati

Cleveland

Clichy

Copenhagen

DallasDecatur

Deerfield

Den Haag

Dubai

Dublin

Duisburg

Dusseldorf

Eindhoven

El Segundo

Epsom

Espoo

Fairfield

Fischamend

Foster City

Frankfurt

Fukuoka

Gent

Gouda

Greenwood Village

Gwacheon

Hamburg

Hamilton

Hartford

Hilversum

Hong Kong

Houston

Hsinchu

Hull

Humlebaek

Hwaseong

Ichikawa

IndianapolisIpswich

Irving

Itasca

Jakarta

Jersey City

Johannesburg

Johor Bahru

Kinnarp

Kiryu

Kolkata

Koln

Lawrenceville

Le Plessis-Robinson

Leamington Spa

Leuven

Linz

London

Los Angeles

Lund

Luxembourg

Lysaker

Madrid

Malagna

Malmo

Manama

Mansbach

Marlborough

Marseille

Massy

Memphis

Menlo Park

Miami

Milan

Milwaukee

Minato-ku

Minneapolis

Minsk

Montreal

Moscow

Mountain View

Mumbai

Muttenz

Nantes

Naperville

New Delhi

New Orleans

New York

Newark

Newburyport

Niederwangen

Nieuwegein

Nijmegen

Nishio

Northbrook

Nova Prata

Osaka

Oslo

Ozorkow

Paris

Parsippany

Philadelphia

Pino Torinese

Piscataway

Pittsburgh

Pune

Purchase

Raleigh

RedmondRegina

Reykjavik

Riga

Rio de Janeiro

Rochester

Rockford

Rockville

Rome

Roskilde

Rotkreuz

Rotterdam

Saint Petersburg

Salvador

San Diego

San Francisco

San Mateo

Santa Clara

Schindellegi

Scottsdale

Seattle

Seoul

Seville

Shanghai

Shenzhen

Siena

Slough

Southampton

Southborough

Southfield

Springfield

St Louis

Stockholm

Sundsvall

SunnyvaleSydney

Taipei

Tallinn

Tel Aviv

Tokyo

Toronto

Turin

Utrecht

Vaasa

Vaduz

Valencia

Vevey

Vienna

Voorburg

WalthamWashington

Wellington

Westborough

Westlake Village

White Plains

Wilmington

WindsorXiamen

YokohamaYork

Zeist

Zug

Zurich

A

B

D

C

Aerospace

Alternative/Renewable energy

Automotive Components

Automotive OEM

Beverages

Biotechnology

Business Machines & Equipment

Business Services

Chemicals

Coal, Oil and Natural Gas

Communications

Consumer Electronics

Consumer Products

Electronic Components

Engines & Turbines

Financial Services

Food & Tobacco

Frankfurt

Hamburg

Healthcare

Hotels & Tourism

Industrial Machinery, Equipment & Tools

Leisure & Entertainment

Medical Devices

Metals

Non-Automotive Transport OEM

Paper, Printing & Packaging

Pharmaceuticals

Plastics

Real Estate

Rotterdam

Rubber

Semiconductors

Software & IT services

Space & Defence

Textiles

Transportation

Warehousing & Storage

Wood Products

E

F

G

(Source: Wall and Pajevic, 2011)

firms are investing in them, (ii) what type of economic, infrastruc-tural, social and environmental functions in these cities are attract-ing 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 mar-keting strategies that will give it a future competitive advantage over its competitors. Therefore, a good understanding of competi-tion 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’.

Combining insights from international economics, business man-agement, 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 impor-tance 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 hypotheti-cally 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 com-petitors 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 there-fore 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, Rotterdam’s competitors are not Dutch cities, as is often assumed, but cities like Frankfurt, Hamburg and Prague.

Nonetheless, the competition model is more complex than this, as it also requires other conditions to properly measure competi-tion 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 func-tions, 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 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

Figure 2. Diagram to

explain network compe-

tition (Burger, Wall and

v.d. Knaap 2010 7)

Figure 3. Investments from various cities to Rotterdam and its competitors Ham-

burg and Frankfurt (Wall and Pajevic, 2011)

Figure 4. Investments from various industrial sectors to Rotterdam and its competi-

tors Hamburg and Frankfurt (Wall and Pajevic, 2011)

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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 develop-ment 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 plan-ning approaches, can contribute to an evolu-tion of these disciplines. The combination of advanced scientific techniques, with creative vision, imaginative design, and visualization methods, should help to improve the prob-ability of a city achieving successful develop-

ment. In this way, understanding the causal relationships between local geographic space (social, economic, environmental and politi-cal 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.

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 phar-maceuticals, 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 moti-vation for attracting the related pharmaceutical industry.

In the GIS maps (figure 5), the geographic location of the invest-ments 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

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 ser-vices. 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. How-ever, these are essential, for it is the similarity of urban location fac-tors 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, hous-ing quality, environmental indicators, cultural indicators, ameni-ties and entertainment levels, quality of built environment, archi-tectural 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

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 Invest-

ments 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. Re-

port 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).

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

“... most cities increasingly imitate each other and become very similar, instead of identifying unique characteristics ...”

7

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 termi-

nal complex itself develops in to a pseudo-

urban 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 qual-

ity. As the world becomes more globalised

and the demand for air travel continues its

upward trajectory it seems that we are wit-

nessing 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 business-centric. Companies that locate near to air-ports can operate more efficiently: they are more connected to clients and staff from abroad, meetings can be conducted face-to-face without the additional time and cost for

Mike Yin

Architecture student Explore Lab

Airport as City

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 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 oppor-tunity for real estate development. This development tends to take the form of office blocks, hotels, convention centres, free trade zones, logistics hubs, medical facilities, shop-ping 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 air-port 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 max-imum capacity.” Dubai is an instant city in the middle of the desert.

Moving further East, Songdo in South Korea, next to Incheon International Air-port 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 conven-tion centre, and a golf club.

“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.”

8

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

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, medita-tion room, spa, showers, capsule hotel, conference centre, duty-free shops, vari-ous 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 contem-porary airport is moving far beyond its tra-ditional role as a pure transport hub.

In other major airports it is the same

story, of terminals absorbing unusual, city-like 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 shop-ping arcade includes luxury clothiers such as Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton. Frank-furt Airport has the world’s largest airport clinic, treating over 36,000 patients annu-ally. 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 urban-ism. It is a city with no residents. Its popula-tion is a transitory one of workers and pas-sengers 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 -

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 sub-sequent privatisation. This began in 1978 in the U.S. when President Jimmy Carter deregulated domestic airlines. Intra-Euro-pean market liberalisation followed, reach-ing 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 fur-ther 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 com-pany. 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 col-laboration 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 gov-ernmental body and it is not slowing down. This is the future of the airport city. Figure 3 Changi Airport's butterfly garden (Changi Airport Group Singapore)

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

9

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 Hoofd-

dorp, 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 environ-

ment. 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

Interview with Maurits Schaafsma

For this issue of Urban Economy, Atlantis went to Amster-

dam Airport Schiphol to interview Maurits Schaafsma and

discover the role of the airport in the globalised world. Mau-

rits 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 increas-

ingly 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 super-

visor 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 met-

ropolitan region to the world, it developed in the eighties to become

what we call a Mainport. Schiphol grew significantly in terms of eco-

nomic importance during this time, mainly in connection with increas-

ing 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 Air-

portCity concept was fully developed. It was offering retail and com-

mercial 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.”

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

Maybe this is a new kind of urbanity.”

Schiphol: Airport City, Airport Corridor

10

Schiphol in Numbers

Revenue for 2010 1.2 biln euros

Sources of Revenue

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%

Aéroports de Paris 8%

Municipality of Rotterdam 2%

Source: Schiphol Group Facts & Fig-

ures 2010

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 devel-

oping more mixed programmes – for example

by introducing hotels. So we are looking for,

what you could call, a “backwards urbanisa-

tion” in these existing areas. I think it’s all about

fostering interaction. You see these incredible

knowledge clusters in German and Scandina-

vian 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 move-

ments, 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.”

Is there a tension between develop-

ment on the landside and expansion on

the airside? What happens when you

run out of space?

“There is sufficient availability of build-

ing land. On the landside you can always

increase the density of development by put-

ting 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 develop-

ment 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 air-

port operation; aprons and runways are

prime functionalities of an airport.”

Is there an ambition to expand the

non-aviation parts of the terminal, like

Schiphol Plaza for example?

“There’s no ambition to make it twice as big

or three times as big - it will follow the market.

Figure 1. Amsterdam Schiphol Airport City (Schiphol Group)

11

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 termi-

nal from the sixties and seventies, namely Departure Lounge 2.”

Do you think it’s acceptable that Schiphol continually con-

sumes 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 meet-

ing 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 eco-

nomic centres abroad.” MIKE YIN

Figure 2. Zuidas Amsterdam (Skyscrapercity Momo1435)

“The urban life of many people is now

more connected to their workplace

than their home...”

12

John D. Kasarda is co-author of the new

book Aerotropolis, an astonishing trea-

tise 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 tra-

ditional metropolis made up of a central city and its rings of com-

muter-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 eve-

ryone’s daily lives in some manner: the products we purchase, the

food we eat, the medications we take, the

entertainment we view, and the cultural diver-

sity we absorb. The idea of a local, self-sus-

taining city (even if feasible much beyond a

commune) would likely attract only a tiny frac-

ture 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 criti-

cally 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 exam-

ple, 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 work-

ers 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

Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next? Interview with John D. Kasarda

13

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 col-

lapse economically with severe social and

environmental consequences.

Bringing local and global forces in reinforc-

ing 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 institu-

tions to broader experiences and opportuni-

ties, preparing its young people for the global

world they will inherit by enhancing their

education, technical skills and cultural under-

standing often engendered through air travel,

and by creating a local business climate that

encourages innovation, private sector invest-

ment, and job creation.”

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 appropri-

ate planning which guides development. To

date, most aerotropolis development has

been organic, often resulting in haphaz-

ard, unsightly, economically inefficient, and

unsustainable growth. The aerotropolis plan-

ning model offers an antidote to spontane-

ous, haphazard airport area development

and its negative consequences.”

Is the aerotropolis a blueprint that can

be rolled out anywhere or do local fac-

tors play a significant role?

“Though its basic planning principles can

be applied most places, the aerotropolis

cannot be rolled out everywhere. In situ-

ations 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 con-

straints to aerotropolis roll-out are deter-

mined 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 “friction-

less” business environment, maximiz-

ing the efficiency of flows of people,

goods and communication. When this

is coupled with the generic qualities

associated with airports and their sur-

rounding developments, won’t the aer-

otropolis model lead to soulless, inhos-

pitable cities? Where does the public

realm come into play?

“The aerotropolis does not have to be ‘soul-

less and inhospitable’. This is where urban

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 func-

tional forms. Its spatial form consists of avi-

ation-oriented businesses and their associ-

ated residential developments which cluster

around airports and outward along connect-

ing transport corridors generating observ-

able physical features. The functional form

consists of a more diffuse airport-integrated

economic region whose businesses are as

closely linked to distant suppliers, custom-

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

“Schiphol is an exemplary aerotropolis.”

14

“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 develop-

ment 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 high-

way 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

planning and design come in. Since the aerotropolis can extend out-

ward up to 25 kilometers from the airport, many vibrant, livable com-

munities 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 Main-

port 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 perspec-

tives that have brought it its international distinction.”

In an age of airport cities, what is the relevance of Rotter-

dam, one of the biggest harbour cities in the world?

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

“Bringing local and

global forces in rein-

forcing sync is the most

effective path to city

well-being.”

15

Baltus, M.T.A.

Catching People?: How to deal with

shrinkage at the Dutch countryside

Buinevicius, V.

Exploring potentials of the socialist city:

In search for relevance of the socialist

urban structures in the future of sustain-

able city. The case of Kaunas, Lithuania

Fang, A.

From nowhere to now here: Walking

towards a desired solution for social

spatial integration

Glas, S.M.

City extension used for urban regeneration

Hadi, H.

The new life in old town Surabaya:

Preserving the Urban Heritage through

Space Revitalization

Hietbrink, L.

Urban Riverfront Zutphen: Link between

the river and the urban public spaces

Hu, T.

Urban "Home" for the Great Urban

“Outcast”: Developing "Normalized

Urban Residential System" in Second-

tier City Changsha for the Low-income

Migrant Workers

Huang, Y.

"Eroding on the edges": Integration

Stategy for Western Fringe of Xi'An City

as a supportive urban tissue in Mega City

Plan 2020+

Keimanesh, T.

Pilgrimage, power and identity of the

place: Strategies for future development of

Mashhad as a sustainable religious city

King, S.

Turning rural: Enabling sustainability in

remote settlement patterns in Ireland

Lam, H.M.

Transformation of the Nijmegen Railway

Area: into a highly integrated domain

Liang, X.

Re-public City: A strategic planning of

public space for local people in the context

of globalization in Shanghai Lujiazui

Finance & Trade Zone

Lopez, A.

From threat to opportunity: Spatial strate-

gies integrating urban and water dynam-

ics towards a sustainable redevelopment

model for informal settlements in Mexico

City’s periphery

Mu, Y.

Cloud Wall: Interactive Street Design

Strategy for the Reorganization of Urban

Space in the context of Gated Communi-

ties in Modern China

Oort, E.N.

Making tracks for Tamale: Strategic

implementation of a railway system in the

existing urban fabric of Ghanaian cities

Pisabo, C.

The Patchwork metropolis

Qiu, Y.

Temporary urbanism in contemporary

Beijing

Raymond, D.G.

The Urban Bayou: Balancing Natural

Processes and Urban Development in

New Orleans

Rimmelzwaan, M.J.

Rural park Hof van Delfland: Redefining

production and consumption patterns for a

metropolitan landscape in a rural context

Saddi, V.

Intermediate Rotterdam: Urban regenera-

tion in time of crisis

Selezneva, E.

Urban Vitality: Exploring the centrality

conditions

Sharma, A.C.

ReCentering Mumbai: Appropriation of

Thane Creek

Smit, H.J.

Dublin towards complementary advan-

tage: Rowlagh for tomorrow!

Sprado, S.

Kindvriendelijke looproutes

Su, J.

Low Income Graduates Friendly City:

Social and spatial integration for low income

graduates in periphery area of Beijing

Sun, C.

Non-Splintered City

Timmerman, H.

Revitaliseren van de oude haven van

Antwerpen: De Schelde integreren en

verbinden met de binnenstad door gebruik

van de oude havengebieden

Trentelman, S.K.

Stedelijke transformatie van het

gemeentelijk industrie terrein (GIT), te

Den Haag

Ulloa, C.

Transit Oriented Regeneration: Steden-

baan stations as drivers of urban regenera-

tion in the south wing of the Randstad

Van den Berg, H.J.

Integrating the informal: Developing an

integrative strategy for slum upgrading in

Buenos Aires

Van der Veen, A.

Regenerating Rotterdam South: Improv-

ing socio-economic diversity and spatial

quality in problem areas dealing with

selective migration

Van Lievenoogen, M.J.

Public space for livable neighbourhoods:

How generic spatial interventions can

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: Neighbor-

hood 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 respond-

ing to the future needs of the valley-city

xining

Urbanism Graduates June-July 2011

Graduation list

16

17

Since 2005 Peter Olschinsky and Verena Weiss run a creative Vienna-based studio. Combining their architectural and illustrator back-ground, 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

Machine Rooms of the CityAtelier Olschinsky

18

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.

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!

Introduction by Jorick Beijer

Chairman of the organizing committee

Urbanismweek 2011

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

urbanism week

So you are an Urbanist!?

Urbanismweek

19

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”. Pro-fessor Maurits de Hoog emphasized the necessity of change. “I think we should change radi-cally. 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 essen-tial 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 inter-act 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 activ-ist 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 accord-ing 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.

The continuous state of change

urbanism week

20

“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’?”

“To my opinion the Urbanism-week 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.”

“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 reces-sions. 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 mobi-lize the people and their skills. They will take care of the rest.”

urbanism week

Reflections

Maurits de Hoog Han Meyer

Ronald Wall

21urbanism week

You have to be an Urbanist!

Henk Ovink opened the Urbanism Week with

a plea for new alliances in a decentralized

government when it comes to design con-

tent. He said three things. 1. Our context is

a complex one. 2. We need new alliances to

confront the issues that are created by (and

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

3. To welcome bottom up initiatives government will collaborate on

content development for the design agenda in the Netherlands.

Ovink proposed to focus on three factors: good government, alli-

ances and design.

Within the depressing context of an economic crisis Europe strug-

gles with the severity of issues like the rise of the populist vote, the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the world of design – architects, urbanists and more.

How do you view your job and your responsibilities?

“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

Why do you wake up in the morning?

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

istry. In my job I have a responsibility, so

to execute it well, or even better, takes

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

make it effective. At the same time if you

want to add value in content, you have

to organize some more. This third level,

adding value and really making it possi-

ble to change this organization, that’s the

extra. Doing everything together is what

makes me get up early in the morning. It

drives my lack of sleep.”

How do your friends characterize

you?

“Loyal, friendly and too hard working. So

practically un-reachable. But at the same

time always there. And I can cook really

well.”

Who’s your favourite urbanist?

“Janette Sadik-Khan, she is the Commis-

sioner of the New York City Department

of Transportation. She is really making a

difference.”

Henk Ovink, the son, grandson and great-

grandson of architects went through

mathematics, art and architecture to

become a civil servant in the spatial plan-

ning politics of The Netherlands. He is

the Director for National Spatial Planning

at the Ministry for Infrastructure and the

Environment, and initiated the Design and

Politics chair at the TU Delft.

Interview with Henk Ovink

“I am committed to make a

better government.”

22

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-govern-

ment, 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 collabo-

ration between politics and bureaucracy that

the development of content, organization and

politics is made. I’m responsible for the devel-

opment of the policy, rules, regulations, geo-

information 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 educa-

tional 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 archi-

tect. 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

is stuck within this ‘talking around’ is a trap

process, and the only change for the institutes

has to come from within.”

How do you approach the assessment of

quality in your design policies? What are

the criteria by which you evaluate the com-

parative merits of planning proposals?

“Part of the agenda should be the develop-

ment of these criteria. But it is not only the cri-

teria. It is also the process in which design is

positioned, or better, can position itself. Design

is never only the result. In our planning pro-

cess design makes the process, and it stipu-

lates the crucial confrontations that are nec-

essary 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 accounta-

ble, they become part of the decision process.

Can we monetize quality and value? Not

yet, not in the way we want to. We devel-

oped 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 suc-

cessful when the decision makers are there

from the start.”

Who decides what values are going into the

SCBA (societal cost benefit analysis)?

“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 Neth-

erlands 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)

urbanism week

What values do you transmit with

your work?

“I am first and foremost a public serv-

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,

entrepreneurial and trustworthy. In my

professional life politics is the commit-

ment 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 necessi-

ties in rules and regulations. I am commit-

ted to make a better government.”

What is outdated in architectural

education today?

“Dynamics is lacking in the way educa-

tional institutions are built up. You can

see that in the organizational charts, the

employment and enrolment of students

and researchers and in how the curricu-

lum is developed.”

What did you learn outside of educa-

tion that proved useful today?

“To go off limits, make mistakes and

learn some more and never be afraid. I

studied mathematics, the most philo-

sophical of the beta studies there is. It

makes you believe that anything is possi-

ble. In that sense mathematics is still my

inspiration although it is sometimes far

off my present track. After that, I studied

art and architecture, which are more cre-

ative, but neither these were preparing

me for a civil servant job or to become a

spatial planner.”

“The only thing architectural institutions have to take care of is

that they are excellent.”

23

the urgent, specific and underlying issues

again. And in this urgency also look at the

European context again. While the develop-

ing 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 insti-

tutions 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 per-

spective in itself and as a reflection of the

world.” MARTA RELATS & STEFAN KOLLER

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 was policy. Out of this the Berlage Insti-

tute, the Stimuleringsfonds voor de Architec-

tuur (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 sub-

scribe. This is not an empty political decision;

it’s a content-driven one.

We want these aforementioned insti-

tutes; Berlage, SfA, and so on, to address

and the Environmental Assessment Agency

(PBL). What comes out of their assessments

is sometimes hard for politics, but it is auton-

omous. 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?’

This collaboration with them is very valu-

able, 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.”

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

urbanism week

24

“I think we should be radical optimists”

Alfredo Brillembourg

urbanism week24

Impressionsphotos by noor scheltema

25urbanism week

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

“Stations are the new churches in the city”

“We have to think big”

25

Markus Appenzeller

Edward Soja

Hubert Habib

26

Engaging the Public

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, Ven-

ezuela. 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 summaryIn 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. There-

fore 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, environmen-

tal planners and engineers, to create an open source family of products

that can be best practice examples. I can understand that people criti-

cize 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 archi-

tecture but right now, this is not our focus.”

Implementation“In our work you see how this systematization of architecture is trans-

lated into concrete multipliable projects. The vertical gym that we con-

structed 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

Interview with Alfredo Brillembourg

urbanism week

27

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 educa-

tion that has proofed to be valuable

today?

“I learned to confront my fears by literally

‘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, incon-

sistent, 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.”

Reactions“As designers we suffer a lot from the fash-

ionable 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.

Another complicated issue is the fact that

people don’t trust NGOs anymore. For exam-

ple 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 cre-

ated barriers for us instead of facilitating. But

when we came there on our own, we noticed

that by talking Spanish and showing our his-

tory 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

“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.”

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 con-

nected to the public transport system of Cara-

cas. 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

Figure 2. Connecting the slum

urbanism week

28

What personal values do you transmit

trough your work?

“To me, commitment is the most

important value. This is demonstrated in

professionalism as commitment to the

profession, but overall the commitment of

my work regarding social issues.”

What are the future challenges for

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.”

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.”

out into the open. There are also lots of movies being shot in Cara-

cas. 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.

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 urban-

ized planet sharing resources on different scales. Hopefully we can

show it one day in Delft.” JAN BREUKELMAN & MIKE EMMERIK

“The focus of our profession is too

much directed on the production of

symbolic or form driven architecture.”

urbanism week

29

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 eco-nomic city-region in the Netherlands. We may expect that axis to be the back-bone of economic development in the next 50 years or so.

Other than London, Amsterdam is poorly prepared for the global dynam-ics 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 knowl-edge 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 Cen-tral London is 10 times higher than in Amsterdam (23,000 pp/km2 and 210.000 pp/km2)! In my view Amster-dam should open up actively towards the global economy and attract human capital. The city should develop a rather

urbanism week

cial importance for the whole nation. Therefore new policies for the Greater Amsterdam region should be supported more than strongly by central govern-ment. 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 per-form as an effective global city region. I don’t think we can find a metropolis elsewhere in the world with fewer pos-sibilities to act than Greater Amster-dam. On the Greater Amsterdam scale the governance consists of only a dis-cussion table. Greater Amsterdam is not only too small a world town, its differ-ent 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 nec-essary 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 plan-ning 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

What’s wrong with Dutch urbaniza-tion 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 politi-cal changes. The new governments, in the UK and the Netherlands, do not have too much faith in spatial plan-ning. The Netherlands are in low tide at the moment, having diminished insti-tutional 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

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 concen-tration 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 inte-grated with the Airport City.

Speaking about Schiphol, connectiv-ity 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 invest-ing heavy in its infrastructure in order to maintain these hyper concentration in Central London. Greater Amsterdam should invest heavily in a better acces-sibility profile, externally through air and also on the regional scale. Connectiv-ity 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-

About the need for a radical changein Dutch urbanization politics: Jaap Modder

Chairman of the Board of the Arnhem Nijmegen City Region

Chief editor of S+RO

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

30

Ubiquitous strategies and storiesInterview with Markus Appenzeller

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-

ously employed as a senior architect

at OMA in Rotterdam.

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-

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 pro-

jects 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 West-

ern world is characterized as a world of stag-

nation 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 cur-

rently 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

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.

The underlying framework, which is similar, is

what characterizes both projects. The under-

lying 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 frame-

work 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 frame-

work. This urban infill is the short-term implica-

tion 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.

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?

“In my opinion long-term strategies constitute

policy and process. However, you need to find

some way of communicating the potential out-

comes and this is where form comes into play.

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.”

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

hero?

“As my CV already slightly indicates: Rem

Koolhaas.”

urbanism week

31

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 atmos-

phere. The domain of our profession is to understand space and how

to structure it.”

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

“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 medi-

ator 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.’ ”

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

“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 sell-

ing 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

Figure 1. World of stagnation and growth (Appenzeller)

urbanism week

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-

tance. Rotterdam used to have the big-

gest 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 mono-

functional 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 creat-

ing 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

not taught as such. This is the result of a

market-oriented shift within the discipline.

Furthermore, many architects and urban-

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.”

“... you need to find some way of communicating the potential outcomes and

this is where form comes into play.”

32 urbanism week

Figure 2. Stadsindustrie Landschaftspark Duisburg. (Graduation project Appenzeller) Figure 3. Shenzhen, China. (KCAP)

best way of communicating what we want to achieve. Talking to a pro-

ject developer is different to talking to a regional government or an indi-

vidual 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.”

What are your criteria in selecting projects to undertake?

“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 pro-

gram 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-

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 inter-

esting to us and we also think it is not necessary in Holland — any-

thing that can be developed on a Greenfield site can also be devel-

oped 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?

“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 hand-

in-hand with economic success. The problem with any boom is that

people become less critical. Another surprise is that in China, com-

mercial 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

“We spend quite a lot of time on get-

ting the story right because even the

best plan is worth nothing if the story

is not properly communicated.”

33urbanism week

Manifesto for the Spontaneous CityTess Broekmans

Urhahn Urban Design

Urban planning faces new challenges around

the world. Cities continue to grow and strug-

gle with the task of becoming more sustaina-

ble, absorbing (im)migration, offering space

to engaged citizens and, with that, remain-

ing 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 frame-

work 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 devel-opment in the 21st century. The Spontane-ous City is a marketplace, where supply and demand sculpts urban form. The city devel-ops at various paces, in all kinds of directions. What’s more, the Spontaneous City is occu-pied by producers and limitless future projec-tions. 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 enter-prising. They operate from within the ranks of social groups where community, custom and tradition are important values.

The Spontaneous City is shaped by its occu-pants, in a never-ending process of transfor-mation, growth and adaptation. Urban plan-ning professionals work in close collaboration with the project initiators. Government and market work closely together, but with a dif-ferent 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.

From Masterplan to coproductionAs 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. Ready-made, ready-to-use spaces were developed, tailored to serve one specific, immutable pur-pose. 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 devel-opment. 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 ’ associa-tions 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, dis-trict improvement and zoning plans. Dutch practice is familiar with other traditions, however, such as the freedom of private prop-erty, 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.

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

34 urbanism week

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

Zoom in

Zooming in, or alternately reducing scale, means embracing a devel-opment process simultaneously at the disposal of many initiators in various locations. It is essential to map out local needs, relevant play-ers 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 plan-ner 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 enti-ties 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.

Be user-oriented

Participatory structures must surpass participation itself. The energy, creativity and investment capacity of all involved par-ties 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, com-panies 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 hous-ing. The urban planner’s designs should be custom-made and tai-lored to the resources of the user.Figure 5. Be user-oriented (© Urhahn Urban Design)

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

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

Figure 2. Zoom in (© Urhahn Urban Design)

35urbanism week

What does this mean for the urban planner?The greatest challenge for urban design in the 21st century is find-ing 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 contrac-tor, 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 mid-term 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 reduc-ing 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.

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 develop-ment of the island should be a project for all possible partici-pants: 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 his-torical buildings opening up to-wards 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 struc-ture. Dynamic regulation can respond to the needs of the users. Rules for the plots will be made per phase: lessons learned in pre-vious 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, com-parable to the inner city of Am-sterdam. The whole area should be one function: mixed use for everything to allow for maxi-mum 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)

Oostenburg as an example of spontaneous city development

36 urbanism week

Managing urban flooding in the face of continuous change

Many cities around the world are facing the challenges of sustainable living and develop-

ment and are exploring ways to enhance their ability to manage an uncertain future. Driv-

ers 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 avoid-

ance 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 decision-making; 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 expan-sion is an issue of serious concern and is often placed as a justifica-tion 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 indis-criminate 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 coor-dinated 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 advo-cate 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 transforma-tion, 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

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 perspec-tive on urban design, planning, and building. Creative thinking and innovations in socio-economic and technological systems are essen-tial 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 retro-fitting, 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 sustainabil-ity. For some, resilience is a more useful concept than sustainabil-ity, 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 col-lectively aspire. For others, however, sustainability is an attribute

37

“There is no single ‘magic’ recipe for successful planning

of a city in response to the challenges of sustainability,

climate change and flood risks.”

urbanism week

green spaces must be included in any urban flood-risk manage-ment strategy. We also learned of the need for long-term plan-ning. 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 long-term perspective is also fundamental for incorporating sustain-ability 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 manage-ment 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 redevelop-ment (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 one-third 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-to-city 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 initia-tives changing the way in which these challenges are being addressed and of which we can learn!

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 character-istics as well as on the people’s capacity, and social behaviour. Com-munity 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 pro-cesses based on these resilience principles will guide citizens and other stakeholders the way to become co-producers of a sustainable com-munity 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

Chris Zevenbergen

Director Business Development at Dura Vermeer

Professor of Flood Resilience of Urban Systems at UNESCO-IHE / TU Delft

38 urbanism week

“I tend not to think about the future

too much. I really want to enjoy my

studies and be de-attached from my

profession. I firmly believe educa-

tion is the developing process in

which you discover for yourself your

position as an urbanist. I tend not to

believe impressions I receive from

the practicing world because I want

to remain positive in my position

at the current moment. How I see

myself after this workshop is that I

have to be somewhat of a visionary

and very innovative and into risks.

‘In other words, leave the comfort

zone in order to test yourself and

explore your own limits.’

In any context I think my main view-

point is to focus on my self-devel-

opment and remain optimistic about

what’s waiting for me. If you work

on things with a positive attitude, it

will all work out. Regardless of eve-

rything else, is it not the final goal in

life to enjoy, relax, and be happy?”

Tanja

“The municipality does not involve

people in earlier phases, and there-

fore we want to start a type of non-

profit organization to do temporary

projects in the city. In New York we

saw a lot of projects dealing with

the vacant lots and the temporary

use of these. Being in Delft, we are

now looking for your point of view.

‘We see Holland as avant-garde.’

France takes a lot of examples

from northern countries. We heard

in the lecture that the urbanist has

to specialize, this is very true. The

Urbanist should be a facilitator. We

believe this part of the profession

is growing, more than the design

aspect of the work. This is our

strategy after graduating. We are

finding out what different parts

of the world are saying about the

function of the profession and

taking these inputs back to France

to begin our own path in Urbanism.

Because we have graduated, we

are free to go.”

Ana

“I think that what I’ve learned is

that the situation in Norway is very

different from Holland, also because

we haven’t been hit by the credit

crunch in the same way. I think that

our role as urbanists is getting very

important, especially as the media-

tor between all the specialties and

skills. We become the mediator

overseeing the whole picture.

I also agree with the lectur-

ers that we have a responsibility

to push for what we think and

believe in ourselves. We need to

be creative and innovative and

create our own importance within

society, the city and the urban

realm. You also have the respon-

sibility to develop your great ideas

and create your own work.

You need to have the personal drive,

the courage, and the perseverance

to establish yourself as an urbanist.

These are things that you can’t learn

through your studies: you just have

to have that passion.”

Lene

“We are here to find out what you,

The Dutch urbanists, think the

future of our profession is. We are

from France and spent last year

finishing our Masters in New York,

where we learned a lot about Jane

Jacobs and the New York top-down

planning process. We are primarily

interested in short-term projects

and what tools there are for doing

these.

By short term projects we mean the

empty deserted places in the city

which need a temporary function

such as a playground or an arts

function to keep them a lively part

of the city. In France we have a lot

of big projects with many parties

involved and many management

systems, but without attention to

the actual small scale needs of the

people and the neighborhood.

People are complaining because the

architectural objects do not meet

their uses.”

Romain

Romain Duroux

Graduated Urbanist

Visiting from France

Workshop:

“Branding for Development” by MAB

Development

KARIEN HOFHUIS

Ana Rousseaud

Graduated Urbanist

Visiting from France

Workshop:

“Branding for development” by MAB

Development

Tanja Grubic

Msc 3 Urbanism

TU Delft student

Workshop:

“Client of the Future” by Urban

Synergy

Lene Bjørnø

Graduated Urbanist

Visiting from Norway

Workshop:

“Client of the Future” by Urban

Synergy

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

39

The lecture you presented was interest-

ing, 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 pos-

sible without advanced techniques, and sophis-

ticated 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 func-

tionality, 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?

“I do not believe in details. I believe in crafts-

manship. 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 cent-

ers 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 Neth-

erlands 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 urban-

ists play nowadays. How do you at Grontmij

work together with urban designers?

“There are urban designers working at Gront-

mij. 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.”

In your work at Grontmij, you value sustain-

ability very much. What does ‘sustainability’

mean for you?

“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.

“I simply believe that without a social philosophy

you cannot motivate people at a large company.”

ROBIN BOELSUMS & HANNAH CREMERS

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 educa-

tion that has proved valuable today?

“Try to see the things through the per-

spective 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’

How do friends characterize you?

“Dutch friends say I think too much, but I

am just philosophizing.”

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 func-

tionality 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 Sci-

ence education?

“The vertical cities. Sorry, I don’t believe

the story of Rem Koolhaas. I believe in

high buildings, but I also believe that

people have to feel the ground.”

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 kilo-

joules as scientific researcher, than

he was managing the risks of the

‘kilo-euros’. After several functions

within Grontmij he is managing the

risks of ‘kilo-motivation’ as the Man-

aging Director of Grontmij Nederland

Holding since 2010.

Urban IntegrationInterview with Hubert Habib

urbanism week

40

Anna Gralka about her project:

“The project ‘Silesia – Transformation of Post-Industrial Areas in Bytom, South Poland’ refers to the rapid social, economi-cal, and environmental degradation of the post-industrial areas of Silesia. The Roz-bark 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.”

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

Figure 4. Impression

urbanism week

41

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 re-examined, especially the walls and gates which exist as the concrete representation of the con-flict. 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 ele-ment into a positive and flexible component for the development of the future city, eventu-ally changing the experience of living.”

Figure 7. Strategic plan

Figure 6. Axonometric drawing

Figure 5. Redefinition of the wall

urbanism week

42

Figure 10. Upgrading the street

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 ques-tions: 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

Figure 8. Urban node

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

urbanism week

43

Figure 12. Upgrading the street

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

urbanism week

44 urbanism week

“I found it a nice workshop because

you get to talk to people who were

facing the same choices as I a

couple of years ago. They told us

how they made that choice, and how

they worked it out. The workshop

‘Young Starters’ consisted out of

three groups led by professionals

who each made a different choice in

their career path. There were groups

led by independent urbanists. One

group was led by a person from the

municipality and one group took an

urban design point of view.

Per group we discussed the argu-

ments to choose for this path in

your career. What do you actually

do when you work for instance as

an independent urbanist? I think

this is a relevant question for all

students. It is good to know what

your options are.

It might not have changed the way I

see myself as an urbanist, but it was

relevant to see, and hear, how the

different fields of Urbanism are in

practice.”

Hanne

“I learned that my ideas as an

urbanist cannot be realized if I

don’t understand who is involved,

who you have to convince and

negotiate with. The profession is

much more political and economi-

cal than I anticipated, making good

argumentation extremely important.

The workshop itself involved role

play, where everyone was given

a paper with a role on it. Every-

one had to argue their position,

which for me was the protection of

nature. This turned out to be very

hard because I had no money and

had to convince other parties to

help me.

I had to use strong arguments and

play with words.”

Sladjana

“I found the workshop very interest-

ing because in order to become a

young professional urbanist you

apparently need to be professional

from the start, also with your finan-

cial stuff.

I want to start my own business and

it was good to hear from other young

professionals how they handle their

financial administration, and how

they create a network for future pro-

jects. It is sometimes difficult to ask

money for my assignments, because

I enjoy the work that I do.

The workshop was discussing

in groups the different fields of

urbanism by bringing in different

young professionals who all work

in a different field of Urbanism, the

government, urban design practices

and independent starters.

The workshop confirmed that I am

an urbanist, and I want to stay an

urbanist. In order to do so you have

to participate and be active. You

have to think on a wider level.”

Laetitia

“This workshop helped me to get a

better perspective about the respon-

sibility that we as future Urbanists

have, as well as our opportunities.

The speaker developed a perspec-

tive of urbanism, which made us

realize how important it is to do this

and to take this into account. Our

profession is not only about creating

beautiful designs, but also about

how to get there. The workshop did

not involve a lot of discussion, but

mostly showed what the speaker

perspective of the issue was.

It was definitely good to hear from a

guy in social housing rather than just

a visionary Urbanist talking about his

awesome design.”

Gijs

Gijs Briet

MSC 3 Urbanism

TU Delft student

Workshop:

“Urban Criminality” by SITE Urban

Development

Sladjana Mijatovic

MSC 3 Urbanism

TU Delft student

Workshop:

“Negotiate Design” by Province of

South Holland

Hanne van den Berg

Graduated Urbanist

Former TU Delft student

Workshop:

“Young Starters” by Plein06 and

Young BNSP

Laetitia Martina

Graduated Urbanist

Visiting TU Delft

Workshop:

“Young Starters” by Plein06 and

Young BNSP

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

KARIEN HOFHUIS

45

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 Medium is the Metropolis The age of ubiquitous computation is con-densing 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.

In the same way that social networks and dig-ital representation have had profound conse-quences on the cultures of print, music, and video, so too will the urban fabric of the city itself be transformed into an information lay-ered, collaboratively shapable medium.

Civic Information SystemsThe modern city is built not just upon physi-cal infrastructure, but also patterns and flows of

The City is becoming

information that are always growing and trans-forming. 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.

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 pro-ducing equally impressive manifestations that live “in the cloud”.

Collaborative redevelopmentThe 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 pur-poses or constraints upon which buildings or infrastructure were initially constructed. The problem of designing urban redevelop-ment to meet new needs without disrupting the texture and life of the city has frustrated many a planning department.

Digital culture has been evolving strate-gies to approach its own development chal-lenges. The production of complex pro-grams 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 thou-sands. We can build tools that provide the same massively collaborative framework

explorative urbanism series #3

Ben Cerveny, James Burke and Juha van ‘t Zelfde

vurb www.vurb.eu

46

Figure 1. View over the city of Barcelona

around the transformation of the city itself.

Urban Systems LiteracyAs 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 behav-ior of complex systems. We have even devel-oped 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 sci-ence, and made both popular and cultur-ally 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 EnvironmentsWithin a dynamic urban infrastructure, city-scale services like power, data, and transpor-tation begin to adapt in realtime to the chang-ing needs of the public. Potentially, other digital services like projection and audio sys-tems, or even the transformation of physical space, could be layered into the public sphere. What are the mechanisms by which these ser-vices are provisioned by the tasks that citizens utilize them for?

Urban Interface PolicyAs the city becomes the site of dynamic sys-tems that can provide services and transform environments in public space, it is imperative that we consider carefully the ethics and poli-tics 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 inter-net, and the open source software that powers much of it, has remained remarkably adapt-able to the ideals of democratic and egalitar-ian 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 cul-tural ramifications of such infrastructural design decisions in this context.

VURBVURB is a European framework for policy

and design research concerning urban com-putational systems. The VURB founda-tion, based in Amsterdam, provides direc-tion 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 expos-ing empty state-owned spaces via network-ing technologies to local communities; and Urbanode, a prototype for discoverable ser-vices in public space.

Vacant Amsterdam: Platform for citiesVURB Foundation together with partners will explore the reuse potential of vacant urban space through tools like social net-works. 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 allo-cation would change under the impact of net-worked technologies.

Space and the CitySurprisingly, two projects, in Spain and

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 con-tinual ebb and flow of old being appropriated for reuse. The arrival of networked technolo-gies has resulted in new sites and services con-tinuing 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 net-working technologies to local communitiesVURB Foundation is investigating how net-worked technologies working as a civic ser-vice may gather and make visible unused buildings and their progeny, rooms and corri-dors, 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

47

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 spacesVURB 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 net-work and express demand for reusing such spaces using voting, discussion and simple conversational and design tools. This will be developed in partnership with local gov-ernment and organizations already running hybrid spaces.

UrbanodeCitizens will begin to gain the ability to affect their environment in new ways, using city ser-vices the way they would use a digital applica-tion in an online environment. Transportation systems, lighting systems, public media hard-ware like active signage and sound-systems will become objects available for activation, control, and coordination by tools and ser-vices 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 spaceOne 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 insti-tutionalized public infrastructure, taken for granted like transit systems? How will public and private domains of network ser-vices 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 soft-ware 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 expe-rience architecture’ as an aspect of urban design, where public space becomes dynami-cally adaptive to the needs of its occupants and the city weaves together a mesh of these dynamic locations into a platform for citi-zen-enabling network applications.

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

Spatial Object ModelJavascript is well on its way to being the

“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.”

48

Figure 2. Control interface

services data, mobile device polling, or sensor data] to attributes of environmental media-tion 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).

“Welcome to the 20-teens, here at last.”These examples are by no means an exhaus-tive catalogue of possible uses of the Urban-ode 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 environ-mental services Urbanode can control, start-ing a broader range of lighting equipment and eventually audio hardware and projec-tors. 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 inspira-tor Bruce Sterling responded to the endless opportunites for Urbanode:

“Man, that’s for sure. Welcome to the 20-teens, here at last.”

This article has previously been published in Volume #28:

Internet of Things.

default choice of lightweight scripting nota-tions 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 pub-licly accessible javascript application pro-gramming 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 func-tionality, javascript takes on animation capa-bilities 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 scenariosIn thinking about designing for programma-ble spaces, it might be useful to consider a few user scenarios. In this first pass at understand-ing the design opportunities, lets look at use cases in 3 separate categories of interaction:

1) Direct Manipulation2) Environmental Control3) 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.

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.

Environmental control Environmental control is oriented around locations within the space, rather than spe-cific pieces of controllable hardware. In the scenario we will consider here, let’s imagine a restaurant in which each table has network-accessible 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 recon-figure 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.

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

49

We have been told, the crisis has taken its toll and the wheels of devel-

opment, progress, modernization and the hopes of urban scale better-

ment have come to a grinding halt. In tandem, the spectacle of num-

bers incites fear of a fully urbanized society. Presently, and globally,

we occupy urban spaces with the hope to address the increasingly vio-

lent 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 set-tings 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 reper-cussions) 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 archi-tect and urbanist from the UNFPA’s mission statement (from their State of the World Population 1996 report) “Improving social and eco-nomic 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 head-quarters and the like cannot be considered the heart of cities. What pushes movement is in fact inherent in every subject and object pop-ulating 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 move-

Crisis of the Dancing City Vincent Schipper

Editor Archis

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 comple-tion, embodied in itself a condition of stag-nation. Framed within the image of utopia, an end of history, or loss of flux, ruin was undoubtedly never the imagined conse-quence. 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

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 thor-oughly more encompassing than their physi-cal 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 nei-ther 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 con-sidered, the following comment seems apt:

observable in economic terms, social stagna-tion prevailed. The stagnation of the mod-ernist project was not only the immobility of the structures themselves, but the move-ment 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 imag-ine 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-devel-opment of a city is based in the belief in the stagnation of an urban setting, which then

"What pushes movement is in fact inherent in every subject and object

51

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 cloth-ing 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 socio-spatial 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 unnotice-able 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 envi-ronment, for whom and by whom the city is built. The social move-ment 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 modern-ist convictions, though through a focus on the technicalities of tech-nological 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.

populating the urban environment; the devil is in the details."

52

Osong Bio Valley

TU Delft students won third prize in a com-

petition 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 gov-

erning city of Sejong in South Korea.

Generally speaking in Korea, ‘Bio Valley’ refers to an area which consists of concen-trated 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 con-cept 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, introduc-ing 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 ori-ented approach, a compact spine across the rail-road, a compact city around the KTX (high-speed 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 eco-nomic situation of the region.

Sensitive Relationship with Nature, Functionality and Authenticity

Figure 2. Main axis in the station area

Figure 1. Design concept

53

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

54

Economy of scale in a nutshell

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

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-

vation. If cities get bigger, everything speeds up. There is

no analogy in biology on this aspect.

Professor Geoffrey West is a theoretical physicist,

former president and distinguished professor of

the Santa Fe Institute. He also taught at Stanford

University and worked at Los Alamos National

Laboratory and is a member of the World Knowl-

edge Dialogue Scientific Board. In 2006 he was

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

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

retirement he decided to focus on cities.

Physicist cracks city’s formulaInterview with Geoffrey West

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

“Before working on cities, I became interested in the rather extraordi-

nary scaling laws that had been discovered in biology by Max Kleiber in

the 1930s. These scaling laws proved that there is systematic behav-

iour to biological phenomena. An

example is the strong relationship

between the size of an organism

and its metabolic rate. The contin-

uous 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 system-

atic 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.

For about ten years we developed a mathematical underlying theory

for these scaling laws. Then we started wondering whether these scal-

ing laws can also be extended to socio-economic organisations, like

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

cities to complement the traditional social sciences and economics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a straightforward formula to explain the systematic logic of cities,

known as the Economy of Scale.

“When a city doubles in size it

gains a degree of 115 percent

of socio-economic quantities.”

55

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 dou-

bles 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 frame-

work, incorporating a derivation of this 15

percent rule. Knowing where it comes from,

what determines it and why it is not 35 per-

cent 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 inde-

pendent of a country’s history, geography

and culture. Although cultures are differ-

ent, there is universality in social interaction

and in how human beings group together.

However, despite geography and history,

the scaling law presents an idealised aver-

age view on how a city should be perform-

ing. 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 cer-

tain 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

for example in cities. Cities include network

systems, just like in biology, such as infrastruc-

ture, buildings and electrical lines. However,

the social interaction between people is an

even more important network. The question

was whether city network systems also mani-

fest 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 sub-

linear 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 dou-

bles, only 75 percent more energy is needed.

Less energy per cell, per capita is needed as

the size of the organism increases. The scal-

ing 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 socio-

economic quantities like wages, the number

of aids cases and the number op patents

produced then these had no simple paral-

lels in biology. Yet we found that there was

strong evidence of scaling again, of system-

atic behaviour. Wages, numbers of patents

regarding innovation, aids cases, disease and

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 neigh-

bourhoods of a city.”

Would you therefore encourage more avail-

able open-source data?

“Open-source data is crucial. It is currently dif-

ficult to find and sort out the data relevant to

our analyses. In general, data is everywhere, yet

people do not produce geographically system-

ised 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, open-

source information has many non-trivial aspects

such as privacy issues and data abusers.

Nevertheless I can assure you that we des-

perately need a serious science of cities to

complement the traditional social sciences

and economical sciences of cities. In my opin-

ion a science of cities is a somewhat mathe-

matical 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 care-

fully about what data we need, how we acquire

it and how various governments at all levels

can help in that area.”

Figure 1. the Urban Growth Equation

“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.”

dN(t)

dt=Y0E

N(t)R

EN(t).

56

What makes a city performing well?

“A major factor of good performing cities is that they create a kind of facilitative role by encour-

aging 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 character-

istics 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.”

What makes a city under-performing?

“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 spec-

trum 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 biol-

ogy. Cities have super-linear scaling, a culture of wealth creation and innovation, which leads to

opening up, growth and prosperity.”

Professor West has legitimatised big cities on the basis of economies of scale in terms of sub-

linear 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

“... we desperately need a serious science of cities

to complement the traditional social sciences and

economical sciences of cities.”

Professors West’s recipe for a suc-

cessful city:

1. Understand where your city is situ-

ated within the economy of scale and

why it is under-performing or over-

performing on certain aspects (e.g.

how wages ought to be according to

the city size).

2. Understand that the reasons

underlying these city aspects are

people. Cities are the physical mani-

festation of the interaction amongst

people.

3. Invest in welfare and exploit inno-

vative 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.

5. Attract and keep innovative and

creative people. If the city starts to

loose these people it is a warning for

an uncertain city prospective.

57

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 dis-

course on the contemporary city. They are about exces-

sively 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.

58

How does one protect something against its own success? Alaba Market, one square kilo-metre 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, erod-ing 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 unregu-lated, 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: ven-dors 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 autono-mous 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 flexibil-ity and the ability of people to solve physical problems themselves, and secondly to cana-lize all too aggressive private expansion. It aids individual initiatives both structurally

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-and-umbrella 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 ele-ments: columns, slabs and beams that are shoved against existing buildings to form bor-ders 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 arma-tures empower lower level salesmen (who by definition do not endanger open space because of a lack of means to erect large per-manent buildings), whose activity will keep the plazas busy and open. On and around the armatures, a whole new landscape of eco-nomic 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.

MarketSpaces Tim Peeters

Graduation project Explore Lab 10

Figure 1: Marketspace. Like anemones and barnacles

on a shipwreck, structures attached to the armatures

will quickly dissolve the boundary between the intro-

duced and the indigenous.

59

Mobility

Private Space

Means

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 – destroy-

ing opportunities for the lower ranks

of vendors.

60

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the discussion until the next Atlantis on the Urban Landscape.

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 cul-

ture 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.

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 hous-

ing 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.

Eric Luiten is a landscape architect

and professor of Heritage & Spatial

Design at the TU Delft since 2005, a

chair initiated through the Belvedere

program. He is also advisor on spa-

tial quality for the province of South

Holland, married, and a father of

three. After graduating from Wage-

ningen University he worked for

Staatsbosbeheer and later H+N+S

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;

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 Architec-

ture and the MSc program Land-

scape Architecture and is promotor

for five PhD candidates.

Epilogue: Taking PositionInterview with Eric Luiten

61

What this means is that we have

all instantaneously arrived in a

heritage issue, whereby our exist-

ing 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.’ ”

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 ensem-

ble? 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 tradi-

tion 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 natureThe 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.”

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 chil-

dren to school? These are all

achievements of the last one

hundred years, including the spa-

tial, 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 tradi-

tional panorama as a reference, whereas the factual developments

are in the direction of this cluttering of the landscape, with raised

power lines everywhere.

I would like to connect that to an appeal: Let’s first determine for our-

selves 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 trou-

bling, 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, valu-

able 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 profes-

sional 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 cer-

emony of Fransje Hooijmejer, who did her PhD on the development

“We are no longer able to visually

accept our actions and our achieve-

ments. That’s the problem.”

62

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 sub-

soil, 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.

On one hand there is something called a dis-

cipline; 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 archi-

tecture 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 pro-

jects 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.”

Dual personalitiesThis issue focuses on the economy behind our built environment, in relation to the urban-

ist 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 cur-

rent 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 his-

tory 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 figu-

ratively. 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

“What this means is that we have all instantane-

ously arrived in a heritage issue, whereby our

existing stock becomes the focus of development”

63

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

Jan Breukelman Jan Wilbers

Edwin Hans Mike Yin

Sang Huyn Lee

Guest editors

Robin Boelsums Stefan Koller

Jorick Beijer Bart van Lakwijk

Hannah Cremers Marta Relats

Mike Emmerik Esther Verhoek

Karien Hofhuis

Editorial Address

Polis, Platform for Urbanism

Julianalaan 134, 2628 BL Delft

office: 01 West 350 +31 (0)15-2784093

www.polistudelft.nl atlantis@polistudelft.nl

Magazine design

Rik Speel (www.rikspeel.nl)

Printer

Drukkerij Teeuwen

Atlantis appears 4 times a year

Number of copies: 750

Become a member of Polis Platform for Urbanism and

join our network! There are three types of member-

ships, we distinct: Polis Students, Polis Friends and

Polis Professionals. As member you will receive our

Atlantis Magazine four times a year, a monthly news-

letter and access to all events organized by Polis. See

www.polistudelft.nl for more information!

Interested in sponsoring Polis Platform for Urban-

ism? Please do not hesitate to contact Jorick Beijer,

boardmember and responsible for Company Relations

at: jorick@polistudelft.nl

Disclaimer

This issue has been made with great care; authors and

redaction hold no liablity for incorrect/ incomplete

information. All images are the property of their

respective owners. We have tried as hard as we can to

honour their copyrights.

ISSN 1387-3679

Polis Professionals

12N Stedenbouw

Academie van Bouwkunst Amsterdam

Atelier Dutch

Atelier Quadrat

BugelHajema

Bureau B+B

Buro 5

Buro Maan

Croonen Adviseurs West

Cusveller Stedebouwkundige B.V.

Dienst ROB Almelo

Dienst Stedebouw en verkeer Almere

DN Urbland

dRO Amsterdam

Ds+V Rotterdam

DSO Den Haag

Enno Zuidema Stedebouw

Grontmij vestiging Gelderland

HKB

Hulshof Architecten

HzA

International New Town Institute

Islant

Kraayvanger-Urbis

MAXWAN Architects + Urbanists

Metropolis

Movares NL afdeling stedebouw

NAI bibliotheek

NHTV Hogeschool

OD-205

Oostzee

Palmbout

Plein06

Posad

Rein Geurtsen & Partners

Reitsma stedebouw

Rijnboutt

SAB

SVP

Polis Partners

landscape architecture and urban design

Colofon

Polis Co-sponsor

Polis Sponsors

Polis Supporters

CalendarAnnouncements

Calling all motivated Urbanists !! 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 work-

ing 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 .

Urbanism week 2011Photos of Urbanism Week 2011 online!! Check the Urbanism

Week website to re-visit Urbanism Week 2011.

www.urbanismweek.nl

Join usWe find it important to work on the continuity of Polis’ exist-

ence, 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!

Atlantis ArchiveThe 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!

Atlantis magazine editorsThe Atlantis aims to be a magazine linking the student world and

the urbanism profession through interesting topics and contribu-

tions 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.

Please visit: http://polistudelft.nl/atlantis/

Lecture Philippe Rahm20 December 2011, 19:00

Berlage Insitute, Rotterdam

Lecture Renny Ramakers10 January 2012, 19:00

Berlage Insitute, Rotterdam

Future History: Amelia Jones&David Summers13 January, 2012. 8–10.30 p.m.

Oude Lutherse Kerk, Singel 411, Amsterdam

Lecture Umberto Napolitano24 January 2012, 19:00

Berlage Insitute, Rotterdam

IFoU Barcelona 2012: TOURbanISM-toURBANISM25-27 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.

Future Freedom: Paul Chan & Hito Steyerl9 February, 201. 8–10.30 p.m.

Oude Lutherse Kerk, Singel 411, Amsterdam

Future Museum: Hans Belting & Iwona Blazwick8 March, 2012. 8–10.30 p.m.

Oude Lutherse Kerk, Singel 411, Amsterdam

Future City: Rem Koolhaas (among others)March 2012. 8–10.30 p.m.

Oude Lutherse Kerk, Singel 411, Amsterdam

Opening 5th IABR: Making City19 April 2012

Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam

P O L I S