Tag Archives: quality of life

Making the Metropolis

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The Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS), Delft Deltas, Infrastructures & Mobility Initiative (DIMI), the International Forum on Urbanism (IFoU) and Delft University of Technology join together in the organisation of the interdisciplinary 2017 Summer School: Making the Metropolis, Exploring Interdisciplinary Approaches in Design Engineering. (22 to 30 August 2017, in Delft and Amsterdam)

This summer school starts from the observation that today’s revolution of new technologies, theories and methods are making advanced metropolitan solutions possible, but acknowledges that no single actor or stakeholder can make metropoles move in a specific direction. Metropolitan solutions require cooperation between knowledge institutes, companies and governments, as well as between cities, citizens and civil society.
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Mastering the Metropolis

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As the majority of the world population is living in cities today, urban environments have become a place for many people. We are obliged to aim at sustainability and safeguard people’s quality of life, and human wellbeing. These challenges are motivating science and society to approach metropolises differently. Advanced metropolitan solutions to overcome problems are being made possible by today’s revolution of new technologies, theories and methods. But no actor or stakeholder can make metropoles move in one certain direction. Metropolitan solutions require cooperation between knowledge institutes, companies, governments, between cities, citizens and civil society.

The new MSc programme Metropolitan Analysis, Design and Engineering (MADE) integrates analysis, design and engineering in the sphere of the flows in the city; the physical, digital and social environments; and the city and its citizens. As full master programme, the MSc MADE prepares students to be specialised on one hand and an integrator on the other. A MADE graduate will be able to create synergy between specialists from other disciplinary backgrounds. You can make a cross-over too!

MSc MADE

The new trans- and interdisciplinary programme will be offered as a joint degree programme by Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University. It is built on their joint research activities, and consolidated in their participation together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS).
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Public Space for all Nations

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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.
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Entering a Living Lab

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In a fast urbanising world, cities and metropolitan regions increasingly face challenges of sustainability and quality of life challenges that put at risk issues of mobility and logistics, water and waste management, energy and food security, health and wellbeing. A new two-year master programme Metropolitan Analysis, Design and Engineering (MSc MADE) integrates analysis, design and engineering; the physical, digital and social environments; and the city and its citizens. These challenges are motivating science and society to approach metropoles differently. Advanced metropolitan solutions are being made possible by today’s revolution of new technologies, theories and methods. But no actor or stakeholder can make metropoles move in one certain direction. Metropolitan solutions require cooperation between knowledge institutes, companies, governments, between cities, citizens and civil society.

2016 0414 AMS Institute LivingLab Amsterdam
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Constructing the Commons

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Conference
Constructing the Commons at
Delft University of Technology

3rd – 4th March 2016

Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment
Julianalaan 134
2628 BL Delft

Investigating ‘the commons’ at the intersection of philosophy, sociology and architecture, keynote speakers Atelier Bow-Wow, Richard Sennett, Margaret Crawford, Paola Viganò and George Baird, discuss the city, public space and social practices during this conference.
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Pritzker Prize

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Alejandro Aravena of Chile has been selected as the 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate. It is promising to see how Pritzker is opening-up to a next generation, by emphasising again social responsibility of designers and the design of human habitat and the city. Mr. Pritzker said today, “Innovative and inspiring, he shows how architecture at its best can improve people’s lives.” With this, the current jury re-acknowledged the importance of “human behavior” in design (as stated before in the jury citation of 1990, with Aldo Rossi as laureate) and “significant contributions to humanity through the art of architecture” (cited in 1991, with Robert Venturi as laureate, while jury forgot to award Denise Scott Brown too). …In response to being named the laureate, Mr. Aravena emailed: “No achievement is individual. Architecture is a collective discipline. So we think, with gratitude, of all the people who contributed to give form to a huge diversity of forces at play.” Happy to hear! More to come, for sure…

Chinese will Humanise Cities

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December 20 to 21, after a lapse of 37 years, the Central Urban Work Conference was held in Beijing. President Xi Jinping delivered an important speech.

Embracing a new round of top-level design, the meeting reflects the Chinese central government attention to work in the cities. It is a more humane attitude. Everyone has its own ideal city in mind. For the country, the ideal city lies in what kind of philosophical concept is dealt with. Although, as the meeting stressed, cities should work as one engineered system, they should “adhere to people-centred development, adhere to human cities for the people. This is what we should do in the urban Works departments from start to end point”. “The city of the future lies in our own hands”, as depicted in the meeting, “so that the people live in the city more convenient, more comfortable, more beautiful.”

12月20日至21日，时隔37年后，中央城市工作会议在北京举行。国家主席习近平发表重要讲话。

体现了中央政府高度重视城市工作，迎来了新一轮的顶层设计。是一种更加人性化的态度。每个人心中都有自己的理想之城。对一个国家而言，理想的城市，在于用什么样的理念去经营。正如会议强调，城市工作是一个系统工程。城市工作要“坚持以人民为中心的发展思想，坚持人民城市为人民。这是我们做好城市工作的出发点和落脚点。”城市的未来掌握在我们自己手中”，正如会议所描绘，“让人民群众在城市生活得更方便、更舒心、更美好”。

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Expo goes Guangzhou

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Design Exhibition
Reclaiming the Human Space at
South China University of Technology

on invitation of
SCUT-TU Delft Joint Research Center on
Urban Systems & Environment

8th – 15th November 2015

School of Architecture
381 Wushan Road
Tianhe, Guangzhou

 设计展区
重塑人性空间
华南理工大学

邀请方
中荷城市系统与环境
联合研究中心

2015年11月8日至11月15日

建筑学院
五山路381号
天河区, 广州市

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Royal Visit to Expo

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Besides meetings with the authorities and the official events of the state visit, King Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands visits the ‘Next City Living Lab’, the Dutch pavilion at Beijing Design Week. The expo embodies innovation and creativity for a better urban future, it also aims to demonstrate the spirit and strengths of Dutch design: Delft University of Technology presents Reclaiming the Human Space to promote social sustainability and better standards of life. In this expo, the king is being informed on the future urban challenges in the People’s Republic, including humanisation of planning, integration of social groups, recreation of community places, and rehabilitation of daily-life environments. This agenda is exposed in the midst of other exhibitions from leading Dutch design firms including West8, OMA, MVRDV, NL Architects and UN Studio.

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Reclaiming the Human Space

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Delft University of Technology and
Beijing University of Technology at
Beijing Design Week

Exhibition 1

Reclaiming the Human Space
on invitation of
Netherlands Embassy in Beijing
Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs

23rd September – 30th October 2015

The Nurturing House, Dashilar
21 Sanjing Hutong (near Meishi Street)
Xicheng District, Beijing

In the past decade, Beijing has focused on overall strategies for its rapid urban development. New functional zones, land-use layout, and a comprehensive traffic system, laid the basis for a booming urban economy, and widespread social wealth. Iconic buildings by global starchitects, including works by the ‘Big Dutch’, are evidence of this development. The city has been reshaped. Yet, along its motorways, and in its streets and alleys, we see other images of the city. People feel lost, houses are dilapidated, and the quality of urban spaces is relatively low. The current generation of international design students is taking on these big small-scale issues. Their designs show a more human-centred approach. Therefore, they take the culture of the city as their starting point and work across disciplines in search of answers. A clear paradigm shift. The collaborating universities of technology in Delft and Beijing strongly support this people-oriented approach by means of research. Here they present the outcome of recent studio work as a visual manifesto, forecasting four major challenges in the long-term development trend of the city: Humanisation of Infrastructural Wastelands; Integration of Modernist Fragments; Recreation of Community Places; Rehabilitation of Daily-Life Environments.

 代尔夫特理工大学与
北京工业大学在
北京国际设计周

第一展区

重塑人性空间
邀请方
荷兰驻华大使馆
荷蘭外交部

2015年9月23日至10月30日

保苖民居,大栅栏
三井胡同21号（近煤市街）
西城区, 北京

过去几十年间，高速发展是北京城市建设的主旋律。新的功能组团、土地使用区划和综合性的交通系统构成了城市经济发展和社会财富积累的基础。包括荷兰建筑师在内的明星建筑师们所设计的标志性建筑物，就是这一时期的产物。城市在被重新塑造着。但是，在城市快速路的两侧，在街道边，在小巷里，我们看到的是不同的城市景象。人们失去了他们曾经拥有的，房屋在逐渐老化而城市空间的质量在相对下降。这里所呈现的学生联合设计作品面对的正是这一重要却又往往被忽视的议题。他们的设计所秉承的是一种更加人性化的态度，然而却从城市的文化角度出发，通过跨学科的合作寻求答案。这无疑是种范式的转变。代尔夫特理工大学与北京工业大学的合作从研究的意义上为这种以人为本的设计方向提供了强有力的支持。本次展览所展现的学生作品可视为一次视觉上的宣言，预告了城市长期发展趋势中面临的四项主要挑战：基础设施建设的人性化、现代主义城市空间的整合、社区场所的再造、以及日常生活环境的复兴。
 
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