The Architecture and the City: Public Realm/Public Building research group of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology focuses on questions regarding the mutual relationship between the city and its public realm. This is a relationship that can only be considered in socio-cultural and economic context. The idea of the public realm here refers to an intermediate ‘space’, which facilitates and mediates between different groups of inhabitants and individuals; the idea of the public realm as the space of (ex)change of ideas, opinions and beliefs of the different groups of users. Therefore, the architecture of the city and its actual qualities form the main framework of this research. Within this context urban blocks, as interface between architecture and urban design, and public buildings are seen as crucial architectural elements. Their functioning and organisation are physically, symbolically, socially and economically fundamental to the city. As such they form a domain both of architectural convention and experimentation. In terms of research and design methods architectural typology, typo-morphology and research-by-design hold a central position in our group’s approach.
Tag Archives: socio-spatial transformation
The Entrepreneurial City
‘The Entrepreneurial City’ is the theme for the 10th conference of the International Forum on Urbanism (IFoU). Nine conferences have been held in various countries across the world. In face of global and local environmental, social and economic challenges, the conference brings together international planners and designers to deliberate on theories, design and practices related to the entrepreneurial city. The conference will be hosted by the School of Architecture of the Chinese University of Hong Kong on December 14-16, 2017.
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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 8th – 15th November 2015 School of Architecture |
设计展区 重塑人性空间 华南理工大学 邀请方 2015年11月8日至11月15日 建筑学院 |
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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 23rd September – 30th October 2015 The Nurturing House, Dashilar 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 2015年9月23日至10月30日 保苖民居,大栅栏 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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Design for the People
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Delft University of Technology and Beijing University of Technology at Beijing Design Week Exhibition 2 Design for the People 23rd September – 7th October 2015 The Shijia Hutong Museum Annex Within boosting big-scale Beijing, community-based spatial action gain exposure. Top-down development and market oriented real-estate is supplemented by communal initiatives. Participatory design is emerging. People ask themselves: How can we make our common courtyards and alleyways more attractive places to linger? Members of the Shijia Hutong Area are pioneering in initiatives inquired by design. Their recently opened museum is one of the many projects. At this place and together with their local partners, the universities of technology of Beijing and Delft present the exhibition ‘Design for the People’ to the public. It showcases a wide set of interrelated design issues inspired and supported by locals: Social investigation and among others the recording of hutong oral history show that improvements on their own living environment are free from any theoretical disciplinary restraint. Their suggestions to strengthen micro-economy derive from local entrepreneurship. Their appreciation for historic streets come from their own memory. Likewise, one will discover that the combat with the increase transport and tourism is foremost their own struggle. In this expo daily issues matter. These have inspired collaborating young designers to rethink issues on a local level. By visualising physical improvements and emphasising the added value for the people, now these designers aim to inspire locals vice versa. Therefore, local residents and visitors are invited to vote for their favoured future. |
代尔夫特理工大学与 北京工业大学在 北京国际设计周 第二展区 为人民设计 2015年9月23日至10月7日 史家胡同博物馆 在北京的大规模城市建设中，以社区为基础的空间规划行为逐渐显现出其重要性。社区层面的主动性成为了自上而下的规划建设与市场导向的房地产开发的补充。参与式设计越来越普遍。人们不禁会自问：如何将我们共用的院落或胡同变成更加宜人的场所？史家胡同所在的社区就是实践这一理念的先行者，而新近建成开放的史家胡同博物馆则是其中的一个典型案例。与当地的合作伙伴一道，北京工业大学和代尔夫特理工大学以“为人民设计”为题在这里向公众展示我们的工作成果，内容包括一系列与社区合作进行的、相互关联的设计项目。社会调查与胡同口述史的纪录展现了人们对于改善他们自身生活环境的需求和为之进行的努力，而这些并未为我们理论上所谓的学科差异所限。他们认同当地小商业对于微观经济的贡献；他们怀念记忆中的历史街巷；同样地，他们发觉不断增大的车流和过度的旅游开发是首要面对的挑战。日常生活是这次展览的重点，并将促使合作参与的年轻设计师们重新思考社区层面的议题。通过体现物质空间质量的改善及强调其对于社区居民的意义，设计师们也向居民们提供了新的思路。同时，社区居民和参观者也有机会投票选择他们中意的设计。 |
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10yrs of Graduation Projects
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]
Everyone Contributes
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?
Without People, No City!
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.
Design of Public Space
The design of the public space is one of the fundamental assignments for professionals involved in urban design and planning. Constructing and (re)forming the network of public space is even conditional for any kind of urbanity. It includes more than just the lay-out and beauty of spaces, as the design of public space has to be able to facilitate new kinds of usage, preconditioning any plausible development of multiple and complex use, and in general housing the dynamics for social change and exchange.
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European Publicity
In October 2004, the cities of Delft and Antwerp were the scenes of the EAAE conference and the ‘European City’. This conference, organised by the Delft University of Technology and the Antwerp Higher Institute of Architectural Sciences Henry van de Velde, focused on the interaction between ‘architectural interventions’ and ‘urban transformations’, both now and in the past. The typological evolutions of the arcade and the mall exemplify this interaction and as such are put forward in the paper European Publicity, Learning From the Evolution of the Interior Public Space. They both illustrate how interior public spaces came to acquire their dualistic nature: both city and building, both urban and architectural design. By learning from their history, the contemporary design tasks of public interiors can be understood and (re)defined.
At a certain point in the evolution of public interiors, buildings can become part of the city or else parts of the city can become buildings. The result is confusion. Disciplinary borders do change, but the key force behind the current confusion is twofold: urbanism defines new types of public space while architecture defines them as new building types. It is both.
From the perspective of interior public space, the European city need not be content with enclosed autonomous projects, hence an independent architectural approach with its focus on the interior programme, climate and experience only, like in the case of some malls. This forecasts ’empty boxes’, abandoned objects, such as emerging in North America. The position in the city and the urban context are highly relevant, and thus is the urban design task just as crucial. Although designing interiors is traditionally the task of architects, in the case of interior public space it is therefore high time to share that task with urbanists. This is what we can see in the other case of arcades too.
See:
Harteveld, Maurice (2005) European Publicity, Learning from the Evolution of the Interior Public Space. In: Claessen, Francois en Leen van Duin (eds.), The European City. Architectural Interventions and Urban Transformations. EAAE Transactions on Architectural Education No. 25. Delft: DUP, pp. 223-231
About the European Association for Architectural Education
The European Association for Architectural Education (EAAE) is an international non-profit association committed to the exchange of ideas and people within the field of architectural education and research. The EAAE aims at improving the knowledge base and the quality of architectural and urban design education. It is a bi-lingual English/French association.
Founded in 1975, the EAAE has grown in stature to become an institution fulfilling an increasingly essential role in providing a European perspective for the work of architectural educationalists as well as concerned governmental agencies.
The EAAE counts more than 100 Active Member Schools in Europe from the Canary Islands to the Urals, representing almost 5000 tenured faculty members and more than 100000 students of architecture from the undergraduate to the doctoral level. The association is building up associate membership worldwide.