Architectural and Urban Design for Values

In a Dies Satellite Event celebrating the 178th anniversary of the TU Delft, the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment introduces their collaborative research on values to a wider audience, as it is present and emerging within its rich set of disciplines, including architectural and urban design, building technology, process management, and geo-information science. The faculty answers on the questions: How to deal with value dynamics when designing for values? How can we successfully operationalise values to inform design decisions, whilst anticipating possible value changes? How does the theory apply to specific application areas, such as architecture and urban design?
Continue reading

Public Space for all Nations

Good public spaces enhance community cohesion and promote health, happiness, and wellbeing for all citizens.

It has been with this quote that UN Habitat launched the Global Public Space Programme in an aim to improve the quality of public spaces worldwide. Of course, without doubt, the programme stands for a crucial challenge to make our urbanised world better, but what to do? The ideas on this have been matured and agreements seem to saturate the scope at the recent Habitat III conference held last week in Quito. A list of final set criteria is emerging, but this cannot mean that we’re done… By no means this listing will work if stakeholders do not accept that people gather on a variety of places around the globe, in a variety of cultures, hence not just in those urban spaces which are created by Western idealists’ minds: publicly-owned outdoor space.
Continue reading