Tag Archives: housing

Chinese Notions of Public Space

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When you cannot find the book you need to understand public space in China, it’s wonderful to see that it is finally written! Wenwen Sun delineates how public space as a Greco-Roman originated concept traversed the urban and architectural cultures of post-reform China, merging and negotiating with the local conditions, and evolved into a new phenomenon in Chinese urban design and architecture. It is hugely rewarding to promote her work!

This research first critically reviews contemporary narratives from Chinese philosophy and sociology, then materials written in post-reform China on the topic of public space. It then analyses various cases in their design and spatial conditions, ranging from ‘shared spaces’ in the areas characterised by urban dwelling and communities to ‘open spaces’ in the central city where strangers mingle and globalisation manifests. By analysing public space as a cultural phenomenon, carrying specific meaning, through specific concepts and designs, this research develops an interpretative framework within which the meanings and transculturation of public space in Chinese urban design and architecture can be understood and elucidates potential for future urban design and architectural practices. Theoretically, it moves beyond the conventional research on public space that is primarily based on Western thoughts, an Indo-European notion, and a Greco-Roman tradition. Practically, it paves the way for future development of the design of public space, highlighting the cultural, social, and spatial dynamics in Chinese cities vis-à-vis the related political, economic, and governmental conditions within the context of ongoing globalisation.

Chinese Notions of Public Space: Transculturation in Urban Design and Architecture after the ‘Reform and Opening-up’ in 1978 Read for free, and order a hard copy here

Solving the Dutch Housing Crises

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The Port of Rotterdam as Solution
The Dutch housing shortage is manifesting itself on all fronts. There are too few rental properties, but also too few homes for starters, large families, and retirees. Mortgage rates are low, but house prices are skyrocketing. And those who do not qualify for social housing will pay themselves blue. How do we ensure that everyone has the right to a suitable home?
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“Anchorman Klaas van Kruistum, Michiel Hulshof of Tertium and Claire van der Meer of the Universiteit van Nederland believe that every complex problem has a solution. And together we use the best of Dutch science to find it!”
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In episode 2 of ‘De Oplossers’ of KRO-NCRV, Maurice Harteveld explains how the current harbour areas of Rotterdam could be the game changers in the housing crisis. Do we want to sacrifice the green pastures around the city or the harbour areas with large-scale polluting industries?		 De Rotterdamse Haven als Oplossing
De Nederlandse woningschaarste manifesteert zich op alle fronten. Er zijn te weinig huurwoningen maar ook te weinig woningen voor starters, grote gezinnen en gepensioneerden. De hypotheekrente is laag, maar de woningprijzen rijzen de pan uit. En wie niet in aanmerking komt voor een sociale huurwoning betaalt zich blauw. Hoe zorgen we ervoor dat iedereen recht heeft op een geschikte woning?
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“Presentator Klaas van Kruistum, Michiel Hulshof van Tertium en Claire van der Meer van de Universiteit van Nederland, denken dat elk complex probleem een oplossing kent. En gebruiken samen het beste van de Nederlandse wetenschap om die te vinden!”
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In aflevering 2 van ‘DeOplossers’ van KRO-NCRV legt Maurice Harteveld uit hoe de huidige havengebieden van Rotterdam weleens de gamechangers in de Wooncrisis kunnen zijn.
Willen we het groene weiland om de stad opofferen of de havengebieden met de grootschalige vervuilende industrie?

where:
Episode #2 – Woningtekort
KRO-NCRV, NPO Radio 1
Friday 17 December 2021
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Listen as podcast: NPO Radio 1 – De Oplossers, or via Spotify, Apple Podcast, Podtail, and Google Podcast.

Cross-Media Website: De Oplossers
More: KRO-NCRV Press Release

Port-City Perspectives

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Infographic of the Comparative Analyses on the two Sets of Mental Maps

In the Minds of People: The Case of Rotterdam

Following the geographical ‘Any-Port Model’, urban design has stipulated and enforced the disunion of port and city over the recent decades. In conjunction with other disciplines, the emphasis has been laid at the dislocation of production activities in favour of logistic-productive dynamics. At the same time, the professional focus was on the urban areas where most citizens are. While this practice has led to the redevelopment of abandoned harbour areas too, foremost the approach stimulated stronger physical boundaries between lived city and the remaining and new harbour areas. This article describes the application of the dominant model in Rotterdam over the recent decades, on the basis of literature review, and, it confronts this with the concepts of Rotterdam which are in the minds of professionals-in-training, through the method of ‘mental mapping’. On the one hand, mainly harbour areas are memorised when respondents are asked to draw the port-city of Rotterdam, even though its efficient port infrastructure makes public space in these areas rare, and most harbours are located behind inaccessible borders. On the other hand, civic areas, which have a refined network of public spaces and are places for daily life, reveal also all kinds of tangible and intangible signs and symbols related to characteristics of the port-city when memorised; even more. Various elements, linked to water-land or the flows of goods, people, and ideas, dominate the minds of the people when they think of Rotterdam in general. These outcomes reconfirm the unique unity of port and city and provide a way to find an alternative or supplementary model accepting the complex nature of port-cities.

Read:
Harteveld, Maurice (2021) In the Minds of People: Port-City Perspectives, The Case of Rotterdam, In: European Journal of Creative Practices in Cities and Landscapes (CPCL), Vol. 4, No. 2.

See also:
Maritime Mindsets
Biographies of Places

City x Space

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In the spring of 2021, the Delft University of Technology, COB Platform of Subsurface Construction, the Environmental Department of the Flemish Government, and the Deltametropolis Association have started a design study exploring the possibilities of integral and multifunctional use of space within highly densified cities. Design consortia from practice have been invited to choose from a number of cases in The Netherlands and Flanders involving spatial bottlenecks in ​​public space, subsurface, and buildings. Seven teams have already started.

Underground Use of Space as a Game-Changer
Due to the convergence of a multitude of tasks and transitions (energy, climate, circularity, mobility) in ever densifying cities, the pressure on public space is increasing. It is especially today because these cities also have to absorb a large share of the housing assignment, following the aims to preserve the rural landscape as well as to reduce the pressure on the current mobility system. However, how much densification is (still) possible for locations that are already overloaded with functions and programs and where the public space – both above ground and below ground level – threatens to silt up and get stuck?

Current and future space claims require careful consideration of the options for using space more effectively and efficiently, with the aim of increasing the ‘spatial efficiency’ of the city in an innovative way.

In the design study, partners focus on a different view of the organisation of urban programmes and transition tasks while they search for new ways of thinking, patterns, and solutions for integral and multifunctional use of space from the cross-section.

The central question:

How can integral and multifunctional use of public space, subsoil, and buildings within a densified urban environment create space and value that contribute to an attractive and future-proof living environment?

The design study has resulted in various spatial designs with visions of the future and implementation strategies. A number of urban locations as case studies are being worked on, namely Ostend, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Mechelen, Leuven, and Maastricht. For each case study, a multidisciplinary team was selected (in Rotterdam 2) of spatial designers (architects, urban planners, landscape architects), engineers, and the experts required for underground developments such as geo-technicians.

Stad x Ruimte / City x Space

Partners:
Centrum voor Ondergronds Bouwen / COB Platform of Subsurface Construction
Departement Omgeving Vlaanderen / Environmental Department of the Flemish Government
Deltametropolis Association / Vereniging Deltametropool

Mapping Maritime Mindsets: Mental Maps

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Imagine: You are asked to draw a port city from memory. What would you put on paper? Do you think of harbours? Water, docks, cargo, moving loads, and ships? If your drawing shows these elements, don’t be surprised. Sixty-five graduate students also took on the challenge. In answering: “draw the port city of Rotterdam by mind”, the drawings of the participants (fig.1) displayed exactly the above features. Of course, this makes sense. A port just happens to be a place on the water in which ships shelter and dock to (un)load cargo and/or passengers. A harbour is a sheltered place too, and in its nautical meaning, it is a near-synonym for sheltered water, in which ships may dock, especially again for (un)loading. So, all the above linguistic lemmas are there and all these are connected to imaginable objects.

Keep reading on Port City Futures | Leiden•Delft•Erasmus

Architectural and Urban Design for Values

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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?
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Fluid Urbanism

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Should dwelling options be re-conceived in the city of the future? Are the urban fabric and its public spaces more fluid in the future thanks to the advantages of emerging and new techologies?

Sharon Wohl, assistant professor in Architecture and Urban Design at Iowa State University, examines the creation of housing as a more nimble, flexible component: one capable of deploying to different sites and atmospheres, while simultaneously providing more broadly distributed access to amenities that otherwise remain limited to the privileged few. These ideas are operationalised through a speculative case study: a mobile dwelling architecture that can be deployed to various sites across the city – each being characterized by particular ‘niche’ offerings. Here, rather than dwelling units being considered as static entities within the urban fabric, they are re-considered as nimble, deployable agents – able to relocate to different sites and settings in accordance with different parameters that are customized through individual cost-benefit analyses and feedback dynamics. Accordingly, over time, bottom-up, self-organizing ‘niches’ of fit inhabitation emerge. The talk associates this kind of designed urban environment with the dynamics of complex adaptive systems – where emergent global features arise from the bottom-up. Here, a new kind of ‘swarm’ urbanism is deployed: one adjusting over time in response to atmospheric variables.

(closed discussion in The City of the Future Lab, TU Delft)

Imminent Commons

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Delft University of Technology at
Seoul City Architecture Biennale

City as Architecture – Architecture as City
Exhibition

2nd September — 5th November 2017

Seoul Biennale of
Architecture and Urbanism
Donuimun Museum Village
Active Archive
7-24, Sinmunno 2(i)-ga, Jongno-gu, Seoul

The International Studio, a program of the Seoul City Architecture Biennale, serves as a bridge of dynamic knowledge linking academics, experts and government officials involved in the Biennale. International studios collaborate on the main themes of the Seoul Biennale through cooperation between 27 universities in Korea and abroad. Participants conduct in-depth research on the field from Changsin-dong in northeastern Seoul to Euljiro in downtown Seoul and Seoul Station in the southwest.

 델프트 공과대학교
서울시건축비엔날레

건축으로서의 도시 – 도시로서의 건축
박람회

2017.9.2.—11.5.

서울도시
건축비엔날레
돈의문 박물관마을
능동적아카이브
서울특별시 종로구 신문로2가 7-24

서울도시건축비엔날레의 프로그램인 국제스튜디오는 비엔날레에 참여하는 학계, 전문가, 정부 관계자들을 연결하는 역동적인 지식의 가교 역할을 한다. 국제스튜디오는 국내외 27개 대학교의 협력을 통해 서울비엔날레의 주요 주제에 대한 공동 연구를 진행하며, 참여자들은 서울 북동부의 창신동에서부터 서울 도심인 을지로 지역, 그리고 남서부의 서울역 지역에 이르는 현장에 대해 깊이 있는 연구를 시도한다.

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Everyone Contributes

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Singapore has been undergoing a fast growth scheme in a short time frame. No single person, no single firm or institution, not even a single government can solve all themselves. So, within the international Vertical Cities Asia competition, exactly this is challenged in the Paya Lebar area. How to house hundred-thousand people per square kilometre in the future?

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