The Dutch ambassador, Mr. Aart Jacobi, expressed:
“I have seen that much can be gained from matching Chinese and Dutch expertise in collaborative creative partnerships jointly working to-wards improving the quality of life in our cities for the long-term. It’s wonderful to see so many of our country’s key innovators taking part in the Next City Living Lab. This shows that China is an important partner for the Netherlands, also in the creative industries.”
Beijing Design Week 2015 北京国际设计周
Liveability and Public Space in the Happy City
9th September 2015, 8:45-10:30h
Lecture
Delft University of Technology
Room: IO-Bernd Schierbeek
Landbergstraat 15
Delft
My faculty in Delft is one of the world’s largest in the field of architecture and urban design. “It is a place that is buzzing with life from early in the morning until late at night, with four thousand people studying, working, designing, conducting research and acquiring and disseminating knowledge*.” In this environment, I have supervised quite some graduates in their final master thesis, all focussed on liveability and public space. What can we learn from them and how to proceed?
Liveability and Public Space in the Happy City [download pdf]
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Beijing University of Technology Humanities Building College of Architecture and Urban Planning Auditorium Lecture Rediscovering the Human Street |
北京工业大学在 人文楼 学院建筑与城市规划 礼堂 讲座 再现人性街道 |
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Socio-Spatial Processes in Rotterdam
Challenging the City by means of Urban Design
Each year, collaboratively a mix of about 100 students have been challenged to improve the environment of people by strategically intervening in the urban fabric. They have been asked to do so in a sustainable and feasible way, and on a small scale. Next to a majority of urban designers and landscape architects, we’ve seen architects and planners joining the design teams too, and incidentally a social-geographer and a civil engineer. The multidisciplinary approach has added not only to the richness of the scope of solutions, but also and foremost to new understanding of the complex problems the city is facing.
| Delft University of Technology Oxford Brookes University University of Zagreb and University of Rijeka Exhibition Hartera/Školjic/Rijeka 17-27 October 2014 Association of Architects of Rijeka Four European universities explored the revitalisation of the former paper factory in Rijeka within the entire zone Školjić. For a large number of people from Rijeka, this former industrial zones, including zone Školjić does not exist in their mental image of the city or they are perceived as areas without access. The purpose of this exhibition could be seen at least a three-fold: to introduce the younger generation of citizens of Rijeka with its own city throughout its coverage; show them a way of growth and development of the city; affect the development of sensitivity to the construction heritage not only the representational type but that is often considered to be the not worth watching. |
Technische Universiteit Delft Oxford Brookes University Sveučilište u Zagrebu i Sveučilište u Rijeci Izložba Hartera/Školjic/Rijeka 17- 27 Listopada 2014 Društvo Arhitekata Rijeka Četiriju europskih sveučilišta istražili revitalizacije bivše Tvornice papira Rijeka i cijele zone Školjić. U mentalnoj slici vlastitoga grada većeg broja Riječana bivše industrijske zone, uključujući i zonu Školjić, ne postoje ili ako postoje, percipiraju se kao zone bez pristupa. Svrha posjeta ovoj izložbi mogla bi se vidjeti u najmanju ruku kao troslojna: upoznati mlađe generacije Riječana s vlastitim gradom u cijelom njegovom obuhvatu; pokazati im jedan od načina rasta i razvoja grada; utjecati na razvoj senzibiliteta prema građevinskom nasljeđu ne samo onog reprezentativnog tipa nego i onog često smatranog ne vrijednim gledanja. |
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Tom Avermaete and Maurice Harteveld both encourage the architect to take on a socially relevant and culturally related position as safe guarders of the public domain. But what exactly can be the role of the architect in today’s society? Is there an alternative to the modernist position of relative autonomy? Both researchers will give their advice to the architectural profession.
Maurice Harteveld: ‘Design and People, Designers as People’
versus
Tom Avermaete: ‘Public Spaces, Then and Now’
These lectures will take place, on 18 September from 8:45 to 10:30h
at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Room A
Delft
Moderator: Hans Teerds
Rehabilitation of Hartera
Only a few people live and work in Hartera. It used to be a vibrant part of the city of Rijeka where hundreds of people were flocking in and out every day. Today, this area largely abandoned. Its famous paper factory closed its doors about a decade ago and since then the area fell into decay. Nevertheless, despite its decline, Hartera is all but forgotten! On the contrary; Hartera is in the minds of many people. Locals will relate the area to its rich industrial heritage, unique buildings and great views to the hills. Some people refer to its annual music festival, current grassroots events, and emerging cultural scene. Although Hartera is known by most people, seldom it is used by many. The challenge for the public government of Rijeka and many other actors is to make this area public with respect to the multiple images people have of the site. This area can become publicly-used, not just publicly-known. A spa facility or entertainment park will not be answers for this particular side, nor will it be for example a shopping mall. Those kinds of development stimulate appropriation of the space by special target groups, blocking the way for others, and/or they change the identity of the area so drastically that people will change their perception of the area and neglect the newly developed as soon as it will becomes out of date again.
On-Site Expo
Hofbogen Project
Exhibition of Design Ideas for the Urban Area around an Abandoned Railway Line at
10th-12th April 2013
`t Lispunt
Nootdorpstraat 6
Rotterdam
This expo exhibits a project focused especially on socio-spatial transformation of the city, as a base for the urban design profession. Nearly two hundred participants illuminate the particular level of scale of the urban project, the scale where urban design meets the human scale. As such, urban design is closely related to (landscape) architecture. By strategically intervening in the urban fabric urban design improves the environment of people in a sustainable and feasible way. These designers understand the design and use of public space in its conjunction to the built programmes, because in the end people make the city.
Interior Public Space
On the Mazes in the Network of an Urbanist
For centuries – and increasingly often today – the term ‘public space’ has been a synonym for government-owned spaces, open for all, and known by everyone. According to me, this is a complete misnomer. The spaces that people actually use are forgotten. Subordinated and neglected, considered unimportant by many urban theorists; the thinking on public interiors as day-to-day public space is in a poor way. The theorists who do pay attention to public spaces almost always accord them a separate status, and describe them as ‘semi-public’ or ‘collective’ spaces, neither public nor private. I base my views on the influence that people themselves have on the public character of a space.
Interior public spaces are exemplary. They are certainly not have become a new phenomenon, as some contemporary researchers suppose. They have always played an important part in various social-spatial changes and have been crucial to cities and their culture. I have studied the development of Graeco-Roman thinking on public space up to present day, and measured it against architectural and urban design practice. My research is based not just on theoretical premises or on political aims. It is based on the many designs in practice, which have been realised in various Indo-European cities, in the Turkish and Arabian countries in their periphery and in the Japanese capital, during and after the period of ‘westernisation’. My thesis can therefore also be seen as the scientific journey of a designer, close to day-to-day practice.
I believe that everyone makes a space, not just a designer. This involves a redirection of our thinking: Until theorists come to respect all public spaces and understand the complex network of people, they will lose their way in their self-made mazes.
see:
Harteveld, Maurice (2014) Interior Public Space, On the Mazes in the Network of an Urbanist, A Scientific Journey of a Designer, Following the Evolution of Greco-Roman Thoughts, Through Some Remarkable Indo-European Cities, Including those in The Americas, Crossing the Turkic and Arabic Spheres in their Proximity, and Abridging to the Japanese Capital as Introductory Exemplar, to Reconstruct Today’s Reasoning on Public Interiors by Means of Defining Types, Interrelating People and Actions, Describing Socio-Spatial Transformations, and Comprehending Cultural Meaning, In Nine Books; Delft: Delft University of Technology, Faculty Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences
