452 research outputs found
Sort by
DASH 01 - New Open Space in Housing Ensembles
No full textDASH (Delft Architectural Studies on Housing) is a new journal that is wholly devoted to residential design. The point of departure is the Dutch tradition and contemporary practice, but the journal also addresses international developments. DASH will be published twice a year in a bilingual English/ Dutch edition.
This first issue of DASH is about semi-public space around residential buildings, which is publicly accessible in principle, while at the same time it has a more private character because of its situation, design and articulation. Five essays place this theme in a historical context and analyse the characteristics of the new open space in relation to the public, collective and private domains. The modern-day function of such space and where its roots actually lie are investigated in interviews with Sjoerd Soeters and Ton Schaap. The projects discussed, along with several noteworthy examples from the past, are documented extensively in the form of photographic reportages and renderings of the plans and sectional views
Klantgestuurd voorraadbeleid en empowerment: Over Te Woon en andere initiatieven van woningcorporaties
Get PDFCentral to this dissertation are client driven housing management from housing associations in The Netherlands and the empowerment effects this management has on its tenants. The central issue includes what client driven housing management is (definition), in which ways this can be devised, what the envisioned effects are and which effects this management successfully accomplishes. These are answered by means of seven sub questions. The focal point of this research shifts from an exploration of all the initiatives that can be found in client driven housing management, to the empowerment effect for its tenants of ‘Te Woon’ as one of these initiatives. In this summary the answers to the seven sub questions are briefly given.
What is client driven housing management (1) is answered by means of a literature study. In this dissertation client driven housing management is defined as “the management which actively involves the tenants in policy formulation and policy implementation concerning the housing quality, price and/or property rights of dwellings”. This definition includes initiatives ranging from kitchen improvement programmes offering a choice of designs, to programme formulation to improve neighbourhood quality. ‘Te Woon’ (also known as ‘the clients’ choice programme’) is included in this definition since it gives the tenants the opportunity to own a home and have control over the home. This has effect on the composition and quality of the (social) housing stock.
Contrary to normal sales programmes, Te Woon offers the tenants to purchase a dwelling with a discount and offers them a shared risk (by splitting profit or loss at the moment of re-sale between housing association and owner).
Moreover, the housing association is obliged to re-buy the home at the moment the tenant offers it. In this way the dwelling always re-enters the housing associations’ portfolio and doesn’t get lost from the social housing stock.
How can client driven housing management initiatives be ordered and valuated (2) is answered by using different approaches to management and tenant influence devised from literature. Housing associations in the Netherlands are limited in their actions and operations by law (amongst others the BBSH). The law prescribes certain main tasks to housing associations and several policy domains have been used to determine the policy subjects that can be addressed.
The influence the tenants can have on these subjects can be valuated by using the ladder of citizen participation. The ladder illustrates the grade to which the tenant has actually a say in matters and thus shares control with the housing association. In the most extreme case the tenant gets the full control over the dwelling by obtaining the property rights. Limitations are to be found in the legal system which prescribes the basic division of property rights between owners and users and in the laws concerning the rental housing market.
Based on a theoretical exploration of the opportunities for the transfer of control from the housing association to the tenants by comparing the grades of citizen control with the policy domains, one domain proves to be promising. The policy domain of ‘dwelling purchase and sale’ offers the most opportunities to transfer control since in the extreme case the tenant could own its own dwelling, the tenant gets full property rights and thus transcends the ladder of citizen participation. The policy domain purchase and sale of dwellings thus offers the most opportunities to provide tenants with freedom, autonomy and personal development (empowerment).
Which initiatives in client driven housing management can be found in the Dutch housing associations’ practice (3) is answered based on a survey amongst associations. The housing associations that participated reckoned every initiative that gave the tenant more than a single option to client driven housing management. The analysis of the initiatives mentioned by the housing associations showed that a few types of client driven housing management were numerous. Moreover, the analysis showed that the initiatives are rather limited to the housing policy domains concerning housing maintenance and improvement and purchase and sale of dwellings.
The opportunities offered to the tenants have been analysed using participation grades. The initiatives aim to offer tenants individual choice, focused on the interior of the dwelling (kitchens etc.) and offer mostly a choice between options: delegated (and limited) choices. Within the domain of purchase and sale of dwellings (including especially Te Woon) individual choice to own is stimulated and provides with different initiatives sharing risk and offering reductions on sales prices. The initiatives aiming on the option to buy offer the best perspective on personal development by offering the opportunity of transferring full control to the tenant. All the other initiatives that were found transfer less control and offer a limited choice and limited control to the tenants.
Which effects are envisioned as a result of client driven housing management (4) is answered through a literature review. The literature revealed a broad spectrum of effects ranging from housing quality and market effects to tenant empowerment and cultivating citizenship. Tenant empowerment in all her different forms is the core of this dissertation.
Empowerment can be interpreted in notions of power. Power can point at authority, energy and capacity. Authority empowerment describes the rights and duties and lines up with the property rights. It describes what you are allowed to do with a dwelling. Energy empowerment describes the motivation to act, the willingness. Energy empowerment can be devised in meaningfulness (caring), choice (freedom of choice and availability of choice options), impact (the expected cause-effect relation, knowledge of results) and competence (feeling and being capable to act). Capacity empowerment describes the ability to act and can be measured in scales for control (influence on own life and circumstances), self image (self esteem) and security (feeling safe at home). Economical empowerment can be mentioned as a fourth form of empowerment. It is defined as the opportunity to profit. For example this can be by offering a reduction on the price thereby making the home affordable and providing the opportunity to save by means of the mortgage and to profit by means of selling at a higher price.
The different forms of empowerment are interrelated. Within energy empowerment, capacity empowerment aspects are enclosed. Without the authority or the right to act, the opportunity to profit can be denied. But willing and feeling able to act and having the right to do so, are related as well: when someone thinks (s)he isn’t able to do something, this (negatively) influences the will to act.
The choice option to own a dwelling is, theoretically speaking, again the most promising initiative within client driven housing management since it possibly touches upon the willingness, the abilities, the rights (to be allowed) and the possibility of profiting.
What are the effects that housing associations aim for with Te Woon (5) is answered by means of interviewing housing associations’ staff. The motivation for the Te Woon initiative can be traced back to the ideals of the paternalistic housing associations: to educate people in housing. Nowadays this paternalistic view on housing of the housing associations shares importance with a (internal) financial motive. Housing associations (since they have been privatised) are in need of cash flow to keep their maintenance and redevelopment tasks going. The housing associations expect as an effect of Te Woon both financial revenues and tenant empowerment at the same time.
The option to buy gives tenants the opportunity to control their dwelling and gain (some) control over their living environment. It should thereby lead to an improvement in the living quality in the neighbourhood and improve the independence of the tenants. However, the need to sell dwellings to generate cash flow for reinvestment, conflicts with the freedom of choice of the tenants. Housing associations are tempted to improve the amount of sold homes by putting pressure upon tenants to buy.
Besides, the housing associations’ staff expects different short and long term effects from Te Woon. Tenant empowerment can be found in different forms as an envisioned effect (ranging from improving independence to improving participation and engagement and from personal development to improving their financial position). Other envisioned effects include a positive effect on the living quality in the neighbourhood, alongside with housing quality differentiation (both in homes as in tenants). Long term effects that are mentioned include an improvement in the general functioning of the housing market.
What are the empowerment effects that tenants expect from Te Woon (6) is answered by means of explorative in depth interviews with tenants. Although tenants do expect effects of Te Woon, they do express hesitations and reservations in their expectations.
Tenants do believe that owner occupiers take better care of their home and that sales will improve the living quality in the neighbourhood. However, they do not expect a swift change. In addition, they ask for a more active attitude from the housing association in the approach of problems in the living and neighbourhood quality and ask the association to speak up (in their name) towards the municipality.
From the interviews it becomes clear that the tenants experience only little effect on energy empowerment aspects. The experiences of impact and choice are limited by the experience of competence and lack of meaningfulness of the option to buy. As the tenants state “this (rental) house is my own home allready” and thus buying the property doesn’t add that much. Unless there can be a financial benefit from owning by reducing the regular (monthly) costs. Only the tenants who actually became homeowners and the tenants who are considering the option to buy in the future, possibly experienced energy empowerment. The owner occupiers indeed experienced both authority and economical empowerment.
What are the actual experienced empowerment effects of Te Woon (7) is evaluated based on a telephone survey among tenants. The effects of sale and the influence of the choice option within Te Woon are approached by means of energy and capacity empowerment.
Making use of the capacity empowerment scales for control, self image and security, the experiences of tenants have been evaluated. The results illustrate that owner occupiers already experienced more capacity empowerment than the rental tenants. Owner occupiers experience higher levels of control and this is related to the higher education and incomes they already had. The rental tenants derive more security from the home and even more when they experience less control. The actual tenancy (owner occupied or rental) and the authority empowerment (property rights position) seem to be inversely related to capacity empowerment. The rental home is a safe haven for the tenants while owner occupiers the experience more freedom to act with their home (as a result of the property rights they have gained). The owner occupiers who decided to buy for the reduced price seem to have experienced empowerment in all the forms. This groups’ characteristics are similar to the rental tenants when it comes to income, education and general trust. The fact that they decided to buy (with a reduction) and feel like normal home owners, points at an empowerment effect in all four forms.
All the home owners experience authority empowerment and all owner occupiers are likely to benefit financially (economical empowerment). The empowerment effect among rental tenants, however limited, could be present. Small indicators point at an empowerment effect through competence (energy empowerment) by means of improving their knowledge about tenancies and the financial schemes involved in owning a home. This indication is mostly found among tenants who consider buying in the future.
Among the owner occupiers indicators for a disempowerment effect have been discovered as well. Their self image is relatively less positive compared to the rental tenants. This might be explained by a shift of reference group: from rental tenants to owner occupiers.
It can be concluded that Te Woon enables the empowered to buy their rental dwelling rather than that Te Woon empowers its tenants. Income and experience of control along with meaningfulness and the expected impact, seem to be predictors for the choice to buy. Rather than that these are influenced by Te Woon.
Considering client driven housing management it can be concluded that the most promising initiative, Te Woon, offers the tenants the option to actively be a part of housing policy. The transfer of (property) rights and duties from the housing association to the tenant offers the opportunity to be in control over the dwelling. The provisions in the contracts, such as reduced price and shared risks, cater for more differentiated homes in the housing stock. The owner occupiers profit both directly considering authority and economical empowerment. However, the contribution of Te Woon to energy and capacity empowerment remains diffuse. As a result, it is safe to conclude that the expectations are overexaggerated. The effects of Te Woon on, for example, the living quality in neighbourhoods are not tangible yet. Moreover, the tenants themselves have less high expectations.
In relation to other initiatives in client driven housing management, some tentative conclusions can be drawn. Offering individual choices have proven to be limited to choices from a limited set of options. As a result and within the boundaries of regulations, there is no transfer of rights and duties and thus cannot be spoken of authority empowerment. At most there is a delegated (limited) choice that can be made by the tenants. The development of initiatives delegating control could be further explored. Just as experiments with collective control. The question remains what the goals of initiatives like these should be and whether these are realistic expectations of the initiatives
OverHolland 6: Architectural studies for the Dutch city
Get PDFIn OverHolland 6, much attention is paid to 17th-century Dutch architecture. Although this is a historical subject, the period remains crucial in order to gain a good understanding of the development of the Dutch city and its architectural structure. It is not so much the historical respect of the cultural inheritance of the Golden Age that plays a role here, but more the inevitable physical presence of the design and building production from this phase of development in the modern city.
Esther Gramsbergen researches the transformation of the Binnengasthuis area and monastery area in Amsterdam after the Alteratie. Using typo-morphological research, she points out the interaction between the development of urban institutions and the typology of buildings and developments of areas, during which the ever so characteristic building form of the ‘court’ became prominent.
Everhard Korthals Altes too focuses on 17th-century Dutch architecture in his article. This art historical investigation focuses on the physical presence of buildings of the past in paintings and drawings, with many urban scenes, images of church interiors and important public buildings in Dutch cities. The core question is the reason behind the theme of these paintings or drawings and whether the architectural style played an active part in this choice.
In addition, naturally the 20th and 21st century are also addressed in this issue of OverHolland. Lara Schrijver focuses on the problematic relationship between Rem Koolhaas and Dutch architecture. She defends the theory that contrary to the general idea, architectonic form and composition most definitely play a main role in Koolhaas’ work. To this end, his work is interpreted through the texts and work of O.M. Ungers with whom Koolhaas collaborated in the period 1968-1978. This cooperation profoundly influenced Koolhaas during the years that he established himself as an architect.
Furthermore in this issue, architecture projects are presented for the Delft rail zone, which were nominated for the Zuid-Hollandse Vormgevingsprijs (South Holland Design Award) 2007. Willemijn Wilms Floet examines their designs, which were all created in the Hybrid Buildings Master’s studios of the Delft University of Technology, including the award winning design by Luuk Stoltenberg and that of Carien Akkermans, which won the public award.
Finally, two books on 17th-century Dutch architecture are discussed in the Polemen section. Herman van Bergeijk reviews the book by De Jonge and Ottenheym about the difficult relations in architecture between the Northern and Southern Low Countries in the 16th and 17th centuries. Merlijn Hurx discusses the publication of Gerritsen about the role of architectural drawing in the design and building practices in the Dutch Republic
OverHolland 9: Architectural studies for the Dutch city
Get PDFOverHolland 9 opens with a promising graduation project by Ilmar Hurkxkens, entitled ‘Paradise Regained. The watchman, the sleeper, the dreamer and the city’. Hurkxkens presents his project as ‘a narrative inquiry into the history and future of the dyke as architecture’. As Dutch as you can get — and yet his approach is unusual by Dutch standards. The project took shape at the graduation workshop Territory in Transit, run by two postgraduate students, Filip Geerts and Stefano Milani, who have previously contributed to OverHolland. The theme of the workshop was taken from their research into ‘city and territory’ and ‘representation in architectural design’. Hurkxkens has used these themes to bring about a direct exchange between the analysis of territory and design, via representation in words and pictures. Language and drawings, narrative and image are interwoven. The location is the Hondsbossche Zeewering, a seawall near Petten in the province of North Holland. Filip Geerts provides commentary in the captions.
The second article is a follow-up to the first part of the study ‘Design and construction in the cities of Holland’, published in OverHolland 8. In the second and final part of this study, the authors, Gea Essen, Merlijn Hurx and Geert Medema, discuss the professionalisation of the Department of Public Works in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The study is partly based on the results of various studies by postgraduate students on specific aspects of the development of those departments in the Northern Netherlands.
One important result of this joint effort to review the development of the architectural profession and urban public works is that it raises questions on the correlation with other lines of development, including that of urbanisation in the Netherlands. This study makes clear that the process has had its ups and downs. However, a clearer understanding of the asynchronous development of the various cities could also be of value for the study of the departments of Public Works and the architectural profession.
The first step in this direction is the contribution by Nikki Brand, ‘The rise of the Randstad. An investigation using the rank size rule (11th21st centuries)’, based on the demographic data of the nine leading historical cities in the Randstad area (published in OverHolland 2). This clearly showed that the pace of urbanisation in these cities was extremely varied and that there were a number of shifts in the ranking of the cities. As the first step in her postgraduate research, Nikki Brand has applied the rank size rule to these data. She uses this theoretical model not so much to provide a conclusive explanation for the asynchronous development of these cities but to formulate questions for her further research. A number of factors that influence urbanisation processes are identified, including geography, demography, technology, the economy and administrative organisation. Another key factor is the nature of the links between the cities — the main factor underlying the present-day concept of the Randstad. Nikki Brand’s study focuses on the historical development of the links between Holland’s cities, with specific reference to the part played by what has come to be termed ‘administrative organisation of the spatial economy’.
The fourth article, ‘Dutch architecture in China’, is published to mark the publication of the Chinese edition of A hundred years of Dutch architecture, edited by Umberto Barbieri and Leen van Duin. The two professors also helped launch OverHolland. Their trip to China to attend the presentation was a worthy and enviable conclusion to their academic careers.
The first Dutch edition of the book was published by SUN in 1999. There is now an English edition and a third impression. The editors of A hundred years of Dutch architecture review various currents in twentieth-century Dutch architecture, and twenty highlighted buildings are thoroughly documented by a team led by Willemijn Wilms Floet. The approach is deliberately sober and academic. The twenty buildings are all redrawn in a standard manner, each with a written introduction. The edition includes a pullout folded calendar compiled by Pieter van Wesemael.
The initiative for the Chinese edition was taken by Professor Lu Pinjing of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing. For the presentation of the book at the CAFA Art Museum in Beijing on 15 May 2009, Leen van Duin and Willemijn Wilms Floet created an exhibition with the snappy title Hundred Years of Dutch Architecture. From Berlage to Koolhaas. They took the opportunity to present not only a selection of the highlighted buildings but also some more recent works by teachers of architecture at Delft University of Technology’s Faculty of Architecture. Brief documentation on these works, with an introduction by Leen van Duin, is published in this issue.
The Polemen section covers two topics. Roberto Cavallo and Henk Engel review architect Hans van der Heijden’s book Architectuur in de kapotte stad (‘Architecture in the fractured city’). This is a book that deserves to be followed up. The reviewers describe it as ‘a brave attempt to find a way of presenting an architectural firm’s research and design work not as an advertising brochure in disguise, but as a serious contribution to the profession’.
Finally, architecture historian Herman van Bergeijk looks at an old document: a lecture, in poor English, by the Italian architect and urban planner Ludovico Quaroni, from the latter days of CIAM. Quaroni gave his lecture in 1956 at one of the CIAM Summer Schools in Venice. In his introduction, Van Bergeijk emphasises how important these meetings on the fringes of CIAM were for international exchange between budding architects. Denise Scott Brown suddenly turned up there from South Africa. How did she end up in the arms of the American Robert Venturi? A topic worth pursuing, particularly for those fascinated by recent family ties within the architectural profession. However, Van Bergeijk suggests other reasons for this, such as the fact that the Italians were trying to give CIAM a new lease of life by getting students involved in its work
Built Environment and Car Travel: Analyses of Interdependencies
Get PDFAn academic and policy debate has been running in recent decades on whetherand to what extent travel behaviour is influenced by the built environment.This dissertation addresses the influence on daily travel distance, chainingbehaviour, car ownership, and car commuting. As cars are the dominant modeof transport, car travel received most attention. The analyses were based ona comprehensive dataset collected in the North Wing of the Randstad in theNetherlands. The study findings indicate that a more compact urban structurereduces car use. However, the effects are small. One important lesson is thatbehavioural mechanisms are never simple but invariably elicit compensation.The challenge facing planners is to design cities and neighbourhoods that makeit easier to drive less and that are attractive to live in
Economic Analysis of Neighbourhood Quality, Neighbourhood Reputation and the Housing Market
Get PDFResidents know exactly what their neighbourhood is like. House-seekers, on the other hand, must find out for themselves about the intangible social quality of neighbourhoods. As a simple rule of thumb, neighbourhood reputation can offer them a assessment of neighbourhood quality. In this research, regression analyses are applied to test whether neighbourhood reputations are being used as a proxy measure for neighbourhood quality in residential mobility choices and establishing the price of homes.
The empirical results go beyond answering this research question. What price, for instance, do residents place on liveability? Why does urban restructuring so often fail to change the social make-up of an area, despite a marked increase in owner-occupation? Why does gentrification appear to emerge spontaneously, while deliberate attempts to gentrify an area often fail? How does a neighbourhood acquire that ‘golden edge’? This book also provides the answers to the above policy-oriented questions.
 
DASH 02 - The Luxury City Apartment
No full textThe second issue of DASH focuses on the emergence of the luxury city apartment. The articles range from historical explorations of luxurious apartments built in Paris and London in the late 19th century and the full-service apartments realized in The Hague in the early 20th century to the emergence of enclaves for the wealthy in Brazil. There is also an article comparing the Dutch market with the market in Berlin and an account of the turbulent history of a luxury apartment complex in the Netherlands.
The power of the market and the role of developers is investigated in a discussion with Huub Smeets, CEO of Vesteda residential property developers, while the architect Winka Dubbeldam sheds light on the situation in New York. The projects discussed, including several recent examples in the Netherlands, are documented in detail.
Development in housing design seems to have stagnated around a number of broadly approved standard floor plans used in the greater part of recent residential construction, but there is evidence of innovation in the design of more expensive city apartments. This has in one regard been stimulated by the rise of an internationally oriented metropolitan lifestyle (driven in part by an increase in the number of expats), which was until recently extremely rare in the Netherlands, but was also made possible by private developers assuming the leading role in the new-build market. The luxury city apartment provides an answer to the demand for high-quality living in combination with the densification of city centres.
The residential layouts, the collective spaces (entrance foyers) and the services and amenities in this luxury sector are subject to different requirements. What does this imply for the building and for the relationship between the building and the surrounding city?
 
Urban Vitality in Dutch and Chinese New Towns: A comparative study between Almere and Tongzhou
Get PDFBuilding new towns seems to be a rational regionalization approach that releases pressure from overly burdened large cities. This strategy was developed in Western Europe in the middle of twentieth century. Since the 1990s, the European new town model has been widely implemented in China. However, the author questions the feasibility of the large-scale, hasty new town developments. The study of worldwide new town experiences, especially European and Chinese cases, demonstrates that many new towns in fact have difficulty in achieving a real sense of urban quality and vitality. So far, few research projects have been conducted to evaluate and develop solutions for this problem.
The purpose of this research project is therefore to identify the spatial and non-spatial factors and conditions that facilitate the development of urban vitality in new towns. It is aimed to reveal the impacts of spatial design, urban planning and governance approaches on the degree and patterns of local urban life of new towns in China and in the Netherlands. The generated knowledge of this research project helps develop not only a better understanding of the main problems of new towns, but also spatial strategies with the aim to enliven new towns and other types of (sub)urban areas as well. The central research question is approached through literature review and case studies.
The literature review provides a critical re-evaluation of the scientific validation of the new town model, especially the notion of town self-containment in economic terms. The relevant theories under study mainly include regional science and economic geography. The literature review also clarifies the general definition of urban vitality and its distinct meanings in different socio-economic and political backgrounds of the two societies, sets up the quantitative measurements methodology, and identifies a preliminary framework of spatial factors and conditions. As it turns out, the key indicators of urban vitality are the co-presence of people as well as the social, cultural and economic activities in public spaces. The primary conditions are categorized as attractor-determinism, space-determinism and people-determinism. In regard to the spatial factors, the focus is on the spatial configuration of street networks, the composition of urban blocks and neighborhoods, as well as the value of details on small scales. The non-spatial factors primarily include the changing urban planning and governance approaches. The systems approach of planning and control, and the decentralization of decision-making powers are of particular importance to the topic. Various urban vitality evaluation criteria are derived, and then applied and tested in the comparative case studies.
The Dutch new town Almere and the Chinese new town Tongzhou are both important new towns in their regions. They are selected based on their contrasting features as planned and market-driven, self-organized new towns, and the resultant differences in the level and character of their urban vitality. It is believed that their governments could gain inspiration from each other’s experiences for the future development of the towns. The key analytical approach of the case studies is to overlap multiple layers of top-down socio-spatial analyses with the actual space use from the bottom-up field investigations. The spatial analysis focuses on finding relations between the distribution of the planned and unplanned socioeconomic activities and the spatial configuration of different elements on different scales. Space syntax is adopted as one of the key analytical tools. The field study tasks include registering people’s movement of flows through static snapshots method, the mapping of self-organized small-businesses, activities and space appropriations, and conducting interviews and surveys of city officials, local people and shop owners.
The results of the comparative case studies show that there is a strong correlation between space and the socio-economic life in new towns. As a market-driven, spontaneous new town, streets are the key places for socio-economic activities in Tongzhou. An essential spatial condition stimulating dynamic street life is found to be the open grid network structure with the mixture of diverse commercial, cultural and public programs widely dispersed on street frontages. The proliferation of groundfloor small businesses at the perimeters of neighborhoods in Tongzhou constitutes a big part of the street life, especially for the areas near public transport stations. As a top-down planned town, Almere excels at effective planning control and responsible social considerations, which benefits the long-term well-being of the city. Good urban governance is reflected not only in the public provisions and city marketing, but more importantly, in the quality of the public services and the available opportunities of citizen participation. For example, adaptable architectural design and bottom-up community planning implemented in Almere has positive impacts on animating local and perspective inhabitants, hence increasing urban vitality in another dimension. Interestingly, many of the home-based small businesses in Almere thrive by virtue of internet platform, despite that the effect is subtle in terms of bringing street activities. Both new towns need to further develop and experiment with new approaches of urban planning. Such new approaches are intended to be capable of creating a framework for a dynamic system to grow, balancing the planned and unplanned elements, involving a diversity of interested parties in the development process, being adaptive to changes over time, and emphasizing the quality of life for their citizens.
Finally, the empirical and theoretical study findings are compared to each other. It results in a refined definition of urban vitality, which is synthesized into the placepeople-program triangle diagram, an enriched list of the favorable spatial conditions that are required to generate a sense of urban vitality, as well as a clear proposal for an upgraded urban planning and governance approach that is open to the complexity and uncertainty of contemporary societies
The Sigiriya Royal Gardens: Analysis of the Landscape Architectonic Composition
Get PDFBesides the efforts that are of descriptive and celebrative nature, studies related to Sri Lanka’s historical built heritage are largely to view material remains in historical, sociological, socio-historical and semiological perspectives. But there is hardly any serious attempt to view such material remains from a technical-analytical approach to understand the compositional aspects of their designs. The 5th century AC royal complex at Sigiriya is no exception in this regard.
The enormous wealth of information and the unearthed material remains during more than hundred years of field-based research by several generations of archaeologists at Sigiriya provide ideal opportunity for such an analysis. The present study is, therefore, to fill the gap in research related to Sri Lanka’s historical built heritage in general and to Sigiriya in particular. Therefore the present research attempts to read Sigiriya as a landscape architectonic design to expose its architectonic composition and design instruments.
The study which is approached from a technical-analytical point of view follows a methodological framework that is developed at the Landscape Design Department of the Faculty of Architecture at Delft University of Technology. The study reveals that the architectonic design of Sigiriya constitutes multiple design layers and multiple layers of significance with material-spatial-metaphorical-functional coherence, and that it has both general and unique landscape architectonic elements, aspects, characteristics and qualities.
The richness of its composition also enables to identify the landscape architectural value of the Sigiriya, which will help re-shape the policies related to conservation and presentation of Sigiriya as a heritage site as well as the protection and management as a green monument. The positive results of the study also underline that the methodology adapted in this research has devised a framework for the study of other examples of historical gardens and landscapes of Sri Lanka, which will eventually provide insight into the typological aspects of the possible Sri Lankan tradition of landscape design
Housing, Urban Renewal and Socio-Spatial Integration: A Study on Rehabilitating the Former Socialistic Public Housing Areas in Beijing
Get PDFThe initiative of this study derived from my concern of two critical urban issues in China today: housing and urban renewal. In the recent two decades, the Chinese urban housing stock underwent a significant, if not extreme, transformation. From 1949 to 1998, the urban housing stock in China largely depended on the public sector, and a large amount of public housing areas were developed under the socialistic public housing system in Beijing and other Chinese cities. Yet in 1998, a radical housing reform stopped this housing system. Thus, most of the public housing stock was privatized and the urban housing provision was conferred to the market. The radical housing privatization and marketization did not really resolve but intensified the housing problem. Along with the high-speed urbanization, the alienated, capitalized and speculative housing stock caused a series of social and spatial problems. The Chinese government therefore attempted to reestablish the social housing system in 2007. However, the unbalanced structure of the Chinese urban housing stock has not been considerably optimized and the housing problem is still one of the most critical challenges in China.
Based on the background of privatization, the former socialistic public housing areas in Beijing confront the ambiguity of their housing stock and the confusion of housing management. While they still accommodate the majority of urban residents and are identified by their good places, (social and programmatic) mixed communities, vibrant local life, and diversified housing types, they are facing the serious challenges of physical deterioration and social decline. Therefore, urban renewal was thought as an effective solution seeking to improve the living conditions in those neighborhoods. Nevertheless, urban renewal in itself is also a controversial issue. In order to solve the housing problem, the large-scale urban renewal in Beijing started at the beginning of the 1990s. The radical housing reform further boosted urban renewal, often in the form of wholesale reconstruction and linked to real estate development. The market-driven urban reconstruction resulted in the resident displacement, community destruction, disappearance of historical images and, more threatening, socio-spatial segregation. It encountered the rising criticism from scholars and activists and resistance from the residents. As a result, many housing renewal projects, including the reconstruction projects of former public housing areas, had to be stopped or suspended in Beijing after 2004. Nowadays there is a dilemma for the urban renewal of Beijing’s former public housing areas. On the one hand, its conventional approach became inadaptable in the existing transitional context of China, and thus led to the increasing conflict of interests between different actors (or groups) and the tension between individuality and collectivity; but on the other hand, if there will be social-oriented, adapted strategies, urban renewal would still be an effective means to improve the quality of living and to solve the housing problem of the city. Therefore, my study addressed the general research question, “What will be the adapted strategies used for the urban renewal of former socialistic public housing areas in Beijing to improve the local living conditions and to deal with the existing urban housing problem?”
As a social-oriented, step-by-step approach to avoid wholesale reconstruction, urban rehabilitation might be an alternative approach for Beijing’s urban renewal. It is the hypothesis of my study. However, here comes the question if this approach, originally developed in the West, can adapt to the Chinese situation. In a transitional society undergoing continuous social diversification and differentiation as well as ethical collision, contemporary Chineseness could refer to the hybridity of ethoses. Facing this super hybrid situation, the adaptability of the Western approach, which was developed in the context of the hybrid ethos (an ethos based on the common belief of individualism and consumerism), is questionable. Therefore, we need a pragmatic and inclusive theoretical thinking, as ontology and methodology, to guide and to frame the research. In my study, that is what I called the thinking of spatial phenomenon.
Thinking of spatial phenomenon starts with an idea of pragmatization and phenomenalization of spatiality, which stems from both the Chinese tradition and the Western modernity. As an analytic tool, it includes different ethical viewpoints and is hence composed of three dimensions: the socio-economic dimension (a structuralistic point of view for the modern society), the community-placial dimension (a humanistic point of view for everyday life) and the aesthetic-technical dimension (a positivistic point of view for physical environments). As a philosophy of practice, it emphasizes the historicality and practicality of thinking and the unity of theory and practice. Moreover, considering the current Chinese situation in general, thinking of spatial phenomenon has its primary thesis of socio-spatial integration, which recalls the Chinese tradition of approaching-to-the-good society and is the ethical task of contemporary Chinese urban rehabilitation.
My research study is thus enframed by the methodology of thinking of spatial phenomenon. It is both problem-driven (the problems on housing and urban renewal for the former socialistic public housing areas in Beijing) and purpose-driven (the purpose of socio-spatial integration in the context of the hybridity of ethoses in a transitional society). And the research followed a matrix composed of its historical and dimensional axes. The former axis represents the consideration from a historical review and the analysis of the status quo to the referable case studies and the development of new strategies, while the latter is demonstrated by the analyses in the socio-economic, community-placial and aesthetic-technical dimensions in each section.
This research framework is presented in my writing. In this book, Part II, following the introductive Part I, reviewed the historical evolution of Beijing’s socialistic public housing in the socio-economic, community-placial and aesthetic-technical dimensions, respectively. Part III subsequently analyzed the current urban housing problem, the existing conditions of Beijing’s former socialistic public housing areas and the dilemma of urban renewal. It concluded by raising the concrete challenges of an alternative approach for renewing those housing areas. These challenges comprise the balance of housing affordability and economic sustainability, the stabilization of mixed community and the alternative physical initiatives instead of the wholesale reconstruction.
In order to answer to these challenges, the study in Part IV focused on several successful and referable experiences of urban renewal in cities with a comparable context, i.e. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin, Vienna and Hong Kong. And Part V, based on two “pilot design research projects” on Sanlihe Neighborhood 1 in Beijing, developed a proposal for rehabilitating the former socialistic public housing areas in Beijing. This proposal is called an integrated plural approach. This approach is made up of six recommended strategies that are also sorted by three dimensions. There are housing re-socialization and economic sustainability in the socio-economic dimension, housing differentiation and community participation in the community-placial, as well as a combination of housing renovation and reconstruction and an integral physical planning/design in the aesthetic-technical dimensions. In conclusion, while those strategies gave answers to the existing practical challenges, the integrated plural approach in all proposed a new establishment of urban rehabilitation to adapt to the hybrid, diverse and plural Chinese situation and to fulfill the ethical task of sociospatial integration.
However, in comparison with drawing concrete conclusions, this research study has more to do with inspiring reflection. On the one hand, my study on rehabilitating the former socialistic public housing areas in Beijing can only be concluded as a proposal, same as many other urban studies. The applicability of an integrated plural approach must be proved in practice. A proposal of urbanistic research has to be tested and modified within urban practice. On the other hand, this book cannot be seen as an end but as a beginning of new explorations in urban study, theoretically. The openness, inclusion and integration of thinking of spatial phenomenon might contribute to the establishment of new ontology and methodology for the study of not just Chinese but also universal urban issues in an era of globalization