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OverHolland 4: Architectural studies for the Dutch city
Get PDFIn the fourth edition of OverHolland, the research into the architectonic makeup of the capital is extended to infrastructural projects. Just like other buildings, infrastructural works also manifest themselves expressly in the city as artefacts with an unmistakable physical and material presence. Bridges, dikes, overpasses and tunnels for cars, trains or subways contribute to the built-up identity of the city just as much as public buildings and residential areas. The projects analysed in this edition of OverHolland illustrate this view. The main role of the design in similar urban artefacts is discussed by François Claessens and Endry van Velzen under the denominator ‘the urban project’. Instead of a design and urban planning approach, which often remains abstract and vague due to its large scale, the authors make a case for an approach to urban transformation on the medium scale that works with concrete proposals open to discussion. Next, three articles hold the concrete architectonic form of a few large infrastructural projects in Amsterdam up to the light. Ed Taverne discusses the early 20th century breakthrough of the Raadhuisstraat against the background of the attention for the city’s image in the painting as well as the architecture of that era. Then, the attention is focussed on two current projects, which, given their size and signiï¬ cance, exceed the scale of the city by far. Roberto Cavallo analyses the current transformation of Amsterdam Central Station, which he places in a series of interventions since its original construction at the end of the 19th century. Filip Geerts lines up the developments of the everexpanding structure of Schiphol. This book also features architectonic interventions in obsolete industrial buildings. By analysing a few design proposals for the Tate Modern in London, Tamara Rogic´ attempts to formulate various architectonic approaches for dealing with existing artefacts. Finally, under the heading Polemen, Henk Engel gives his critical view of the recent Team X research at the Delft University of Technology, with an adaptation of the lecture delivered at the Keeping the language of modern architecture alive congress, held in Delft in January 2006
OverHolland 8: Architectural studies for the Dutch city
Get PDFVolume 8 opens with the first section of a study of the organization of design and building practice in the cities of Holland. In this article, the second section of which will appear in the next volume of OverHolland, Gea van Essen and Merlijn Hurx identify a few basic tendencies in the development of design and building practice in the cities of Holland from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Their work fills a gap in contemporary architectural and building history; the inquiries thus far in this field have mainly focused on specialized topics, and until now no general survey has been published. In the first section, the emphasis is on church building in the fifteenth century and the municipal Public Works in the centuries that followed.
The next three articles focus on more recent practices of architecture. As a sequel to the design studies for Dutch cities published in OverÂHolland 7, these contributions highlight the critical potential of architectural design. In ‘Empty Whole: The design of the warehouse district of the city’, the architects Stefano Milani, Filip Geerts, Arek Seredyn, and Radek Brunecky present their design contribution to the newly planned northern Italian city of VeMa. They take the theme of the ideal city and scrutinize it polemically, in the light of the traditions of rationalism and realism in architecture. The architects’ design shows that these currents of thought are still influential among the young generation.
Another sign that rationalism coupled with realism is still alive and kicking among the current generation of architects, and may even be entering a new phase, is the contribution by the architect and theoretician Pier Vittorio Aureli. We publish a chapter from his book The Project of AutonÂomy. Politics and Architecture within and against Capitalism (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008). Aureli dares to exhume the work of Aldo Rossi, which many have pronounced dead. He grapples with Rossi’s concept of the political, a previously underexamined and often poorly understood aspect of the Italian architect’s thinking. Aureli arrives at a plausible understanding of this concept by linking it to Italian political and philosophical debates from the 1960s, particularly the work of Mario Tronti.
Emre Altí¼rk’s inquiry also focuses on the 1960s period in Italian architecture. He describes the transformation that then took place in the role of representation in the profession. In some schools of architecture of the period, architectural drawing acquired a nontraditional role and purpose. Altí¼rk concentrates on attempts by architects to use drawing as a means of social criticism.
The last two articles investigate the current state of research on Dutch heritage in the domain of spatial planning and architecture. Point of departure for the article by Jaap Evert Abrahamse, Henk Baas and Reinout Rutte is the recent report entitled Erfgoedbalans, which provides a national overview of three areas: built heritage, the manmade landscape, and archaeological heritage. The authors take a highly critical stance, especially with regard to the lack of synthesis, the theoretical framework, and the limited pool of research relevant to the report.
The closing book review by Reinout Rutte sounds a similar note. In the section Polemen, he evaluates the flood of historical city atlases and city monographs published in the Netherlands in recent years. As in the case of the Erfgoedbalans, Rutte notes a preponderance of specialized descriptive studies and a deplorable lack of synthesizing and comparative surveys
The 1996 Zambia National Housing Policy
Get PDFDevising a workable housing policy in a country with apparently insurmountable housing problems, presents a great challenge. With the help of an award from UN-HABITAT, Zambian authorities attempted to do just this, in a process which is an ideal candidate for scrutiny. This study analyzes the goals, means and instruments that were used to formulate the policy, as well as its planned implementation. It examines whether the policy could have achieved its goals had it been implemented, and represents a valuable addition to the body of knowledge which can help to evaluate the potential for success of future housing policies. With its innovative work and the insights it offers into achieving policy implementation in the developing nations of sub-Saharan Africa, this book will be of value to students, academics and practitioners in policy formulation analysis and implementation.
 
From city’s station to station city: An integrative spatial approach to the (re)development of station areas
Get PDFSince its origin, the railway station has had a complicated relationship with the city, demanding periodical updates, particularly regarding spatial issues. With the aim of improving the liveability of station areas, current redevelopment projects are reconceptualising them as balanced transport ‘nodes’ and ‘places’ in the city. However, the proposed spatial solutions do not fully support the sought after economic, social and environmental performances. These intentions continue to be predominantly bounded with the (abstract) planological level, not finding appropriate translation at the (concrete) spatial design level. Further, the interdisciplinary nature of the highly complex planning and design processes of station areas, which should contribute to enhance the performance of their spaces, reinforces constraints and relegates architecture to a marginal role in this quest. It is thus necessary to understand how architecture can contribute to the improvement of the spatial performance of contemporary stations areas, supporting their current reconceptualization.
To gain this understanding, the research explored the factors which influence the spatial definition and performance of European High Speed Train station areas, using “design research” and “research by design”. Via a theoretical integrative framework, synthesized from knowledge developed by architecture and other sciences, case studies of ‘through’ stations were analysed and compared. Six cases, encapsulating the most recurrent relative positions of the railway (infrastructure and the station building) towards the(ir) direct built environment, were chosen out of a large sample. For each category (cases with railway tracks at (a) ground level, (b) elevated level and (c) underground level), two cases, featuring an adapted station building and a newly built one, were studied. Their physical and functional characteristics were mapped at several scales and moments (in history), as well as redesigned. A variety of positive and negative approaches and solutions to the problem were identified.
The research is rounded up with a set of ‘design recommendations’ meant to improve the performance of station area spaces, based on the results of the (graphical) analyses and the redesign exercises. In general, to attain such performance the (physical and functional) integration of the public spaces of the station and of its surroundings, along with the specific (spatial) characteristics of the city they are located in, are crucial. The desirable concentration of transport and non-transport functions must be clearly organized in space, dismantling barriers to their accessibility. To operationalize such integration in all categories of cases, architecture must go beyond its traditional scope regarding intervention scale and methodology. This requires a structural change to the station area’s design task, which should be organized around spatial goals commonly subscribed by all stakeholders, and in which architecture should have a central role. Such renovated awareness on the approach to the redevelopment of station areas is necessary for the improvement of their spatial performance. In this way the ‘city’s station’ can become a ‘station city’ which enhances the city’s liveability, instead of draining it out
Designing the Urban Microclimate: A framework for a design-decision support tool for the dissemination of knowledge on the urban microclimate to the urban design process
Get PDFThis doctoral thesis presents research on the integration and transfer of knowledge from the specialized field of urban microclimatology into the generic field of urban design. Both fields are studied in order to identify crosslinks and reveal gaps. The main research question of the research is: How can the design of urban neighbourhoods contribute to microclimates that support physical well-being and what kind of information and form of presentation does the urban designer need in order to make design decisions regarding such urban microclimates? This question consists of two parts, which are addressed separately in the first two parts of the dissertation.
Part 1 concerns an assessment of relevant knowledge on urban design by literature review, followed by a field study into the use of expert information in the urban design process. Part 2 discusses the influence of the urban environment on its microclimate and, consequently, the living quality of its inhabitants — both by means of literature review.
Combined, Parts 1 and 2 serve as a basis for a framework for a design-decision support tool, which is discussed in Part 3. This tool is proposed as a means to integrate knowledge of the urban microclimate into the urban design process, bridging an observed gap.
Urban design is concerned with shaping the physical environment to facilitate urban life in all its aspects. This is a complex task, which requires the integration and translation of different stakeholder interests into a proposition for the realization of physical-spatial constructs in the urban environment. Such a proposition comprises different planning elements in the following categories: spatial-functional organization, city plan, public space design and rules for architecture. During the design process, the urban designer has to deal with incomplete, often contradictory and/or changing constraints and quality demands as well as other uncertainties. He/ she handles this complexity by starting with a small selection of constraints, iteratively working to a design solution by incorporating an increasing number of constraints. The selection of constraints is subjective, depending on the design frame of the individual designer.
In order to make design decisions, the urban designer requires diverse information. To establish how urban designers collect information and which formats and information levels they prefer, field research among Dutch urban designers was carried out. This consisted of a series of exploratory interviews and an online questionnaire. The results indicate that dissemination of expert knowledge to urban design should be focused on the orientation and sketch phases of the design process and should provide different layers of detail, using mainly visual information accompanied by explanatory text. The results furthermore show a remarkable discrepancy between the assigned significance of the urban microclimate for urban design and the frequency of inquiry on this topic; almost all interviewees and respondents consider the subject to be important, but a majority of them seldom collect information on it. This signifies a gap in the knowledge transfer process.
It is important to bridge this gap, because the urban microclimate has a significant impact on the physical well-being of people. All components of the urban microclimate — solar radiation, daylight, wind, air quality and sound — affect the physical well-being of people, whether separately or in conjunction. Some of these effects are immediate, such as heat stress and noise annoyance; others develop over a longer period of overexposure or underexposure, such as pulmonary and respiratory diseases. Some cause discomfort, for example sleep disturbance; others can be life- threatening, such as heat stroke or skin and lung cancer. It is therefore vital that the urban microclimate is given considerable attention in the urban design process.
The urban microclimate is to a large extent influenced by the city’s morphology, materialization and landscaping. This influence is exerted through different physical principles, such as reflection, absorption and evapotranspiration. Basic knowledge on how and to what extent the urban environment affects the urban microclimate and of the underlying physical principles, supported by design guidelines and examples/ reference projects, will enable urban designers to estimate the effects of their design choices on the microclimate themselves better, and help them create conditions for urban microclimates that favour physical well-being.
In order to make this information available to the urban designer in a way that corresponds to his/her working process, a framework for a design-decision support tool was set up. Requirements regarding form and function were derived from the field of urban design, while requirements regarding content were derived from the field of urban microclimatology. The tool is proposed to be a web-based knowledge base, consisting of five main menu categories: “climate elements”, “plan elements”, “principles”, “guidelines” and “example projects”. Each category provides access to separate pages for underlying items, containing different layers of information, from general to detailed, that can be accessed through collapse menus or click-through functions. Hyperlinks between related items are provided to support different ways to access information. The main menu further gives access to background information on physical well-being and regulations and standards. Separate item pages can be added to a ‘shopping cart’, enabling customised information selection for a specific design at hand.
Providing the necessary content for the tool requires further translation of expert knowledge into design information as well as additional research regarding: the plain and simple formulation of physical phenomena related to the urban environment; the integration of expert knowledge of separate microclimatological elements; the incongruity of parameters in microclimatological studies and urban design plan elements; and the presentation of information consistent with design and (design) communication purposes as opposed to evaluation purposes.
To illustrate how expert studies can be rendered into design information, the impact of three selected plan elements - Floor Space Index (FSI), Ground Space Index (GSI) and orientation - on solar irradiation and wind was examined with the aid of numerical simulation tools. The results of the calculations for both climate elements were integrated in order to identify conflicts and matches. The emphasis of the study lay on showing trends and generating generic knowledge. Such knowledge is required to fill the proposed design-decision support tool with content.
Answering the main research question, it can be concluded that various aspects relating to the morphology, materialization and landscaping of urban neighbourhoods can be employed to create conditions for a distinctive microclimate; urban microclimates often deviate substantially from the regional climate, and even vary within a few meters. Designing urban microclimates needs to be done with care as they affect the physical well-being of people significantly. In order to be able to do this, the urban designer needs information that ties in with his/her way of working and cognitive process. However, expert knowledge from the field of urban microclimatology does not fulfil this requirement and needs to be translated to information for urban design purposes. Aiming to give direction to this translation and facilitate the dissemination of expert urban microclimate knowledge to the urban design process, this research proposes a framework for a design-decision support tool. Requirements for the framework were derived from both the field of urban design and the field of urban microclimatology. A tool created according to the proposed framework will enable urban designers to practice climate-sensitive urban design, and, thus contribute to the physical well-being of people
Strategic investment of embodied energy during the architectural planning process
Get PDFBuilding industry impacts natural cycles and has potential for optimization. While impairment on nature reached a new dimension already some three centuries ago the building industry started to realize the dependency in the second half of the 20th century. With LCA method all life cycle phases can be monitored and the environmental impact of each can be quantified. The energy consuming and emission generating components in the building context can be distinguished in the groups transport, operation and material. An architect deals with the operational energy and the building substance. With nearly zero (not renewable) energy for operation an ecological building is defined by the building substance.
Evaluation of the building substance
While the building structure accounts for the highest share of embodied energy and GWP, the facade offers high potential for optimisation. This potential is even higher when considering a long (50-100 years) usage life span; the building structure remains while the (non load-bearing) facade is object to exchange cycles.
Findings and their integration into the architectural planning process
The city is a depot for resources and we (it involves a variety of professions) need to learn how to organize it. Modularity, light construction, the use of renewable materials and mono materials are also interesting fields which are looked at from a different point of view. They are relevant for all building elements. Although they are not initially invented to reduce the ecological impact of the built environment, they show potential to do so. The facade is the essential parameter for the resource-efficiency of a building as it is exchanged and binds relevant amounts of material. Impact can be made within this element due to its high variation in construction and materialization. The material cycles need to become smaller and the gaps — landfill or downcycling need to be closed. The use of resources will increasingly develop impact on architecture and by that resource efficiency is a successor of energy efficiency
HISTORY URBANISM RESILIENCE VOLUME 03: Change and Responsive Planning
Get PDFThe 17th conference (2016, Delft) of the International Planning History Society (IPHS) and its proceedings place presentations from different continents and on varied topics side by side, providing insight into state-of-the art research in the field of planning history and offering a glimpse of new approaches, themes, papers and books to come.
VOLUME 03: Change and Responsive Plannin
HISTORY URBANISM RESILIENCE VOLUME 06: Scales and Systems
Get PDFThe 17th conference (2016, Delft) of the International Planning History Society (IPHS) and its proceedings place presentations from different continents and on varied topics side by side, providing insight into state-of-the art research in the field of planning history and offering a glimpse of new approaches, themes, papers and books to come.
VOLUME 06: Scales and System
OverHolland 2: Architectural studies for the Dutch city
Get PDFOverHolland presents a wealth of architectonic research regarding the typo-morphological study of the city as well as the issue of architectonic interventions in Randstad cities. The first part of this series published in October 2004 explored this issue. The second part, which lies before you, begins with ‘Mapping Randstad Holland’, a study that has literally ‘mapped’ the urbanisation of the Randstad area since 1850. It is the first step in a study that provides insight into the urbanisation of the Randstad area as a morphological phenomenon not only by looking at the big scale of the whole but also at the smaller scale of the combined parts
OverHolland 16/17: Architectural studies for the Dutch city
Get PDFThis edition of OverHolland pays detailed attention to the province of Noord-Holland to the north of the River IJ and to railways. The focus is on the relationship between spatial arrangements, research and design. Reinout Rutte analyses the development of the Zaanstreek region from the fifteenth to the twenty-first centuries. He reveals the unique morphological features of the first industrial town in the Netherlands. The lack of planning and regulations led to a ‘town of strips’, unlike the conventional pattern of urbanisation that typifies cities such as Amsterdam, Haarlem and Alkmaar. The text by Reinout Rutte was previously published in Geschiedenis van de ZaanÂstreek [History of the Zaanstreek region]. Here we have placed the article, accompanied by new visual material, in the context of the research that has been carried out over recent years with the Province of Noord-Holland at the Faculty of Architecture at Delft Technical University. Part of this was previously published in OverHolland 12/13, when Henk Engel mapped out the distribution pattern of the towns and infrastructure in the Noorderkwartier region of Holland up to 1700. In this issue of OverHolland, he focuses attention on the spatial policy that the Province of Noord-Holland intends to implement over the coming decades. Encouraging public transport by train is the main aim; transitoriented development (TOD) the main theme.
In preparing its intended policy, the Province of Noord-Holland has commissioned a great deal of research. The province and Vereniging DeltaÂmetropool (an association for metropolitan develop ment) presented the results in October 2013 under the title Maak Plaats! Werken aan knooppuntontwikkeling in NoordÂHolland [Make Room: working on hub development in Noord-Holland]. One of the studies included in Maak plaats! was carried out by the research group Mapping the territory and the cities of the Randstad at the Faculty of Architecture of Delft Technical University. Drawing on the methodology used in the Groeikaart van de Randstad (1850Â-2000)
[Growth map of the Randstad conurbation, 1850-2000], 22 station locations in the Noord-Holland area to the north of the Noordzeekanaal — the canal to the North Sea — were studied and analysed. In Drawings and calculations for the Zaan Corridor Henk Engel explains the general setup and the methodology for this study. He shows that the Groeikaart van de Randstad (1850Â-2000) not only provides insights into the morphological composition of the various towns, but also that the cartographical records of the town expansions since 1850 yield new facts that can be used for calculation.
In the crossÂsection, Michiel Riedijk and Filip Geerts report on the contributions that the Faculty of Architecture made to the follow-up to Maak plaats! On the initiative of the research section of the BNA (Federation of Dutch Architects), Deltas, Infrastructures & Mobility Initiative (TU Delft) and the Province of Noord-Holland, an investigative design project was set up for the railway line from Amsterdam to Heer hugowaard. The results have been published under the title Onderweg! Vijftien ontwerpen voor Transit Oriented Development aan de Zaancorridor [Under way! Fifteen designs for transit-oriented development in the Zaan Corridor]. This shows clearly that investigative design in this context serves primarily to create a platform for the parties that will be playing a role in the implementation of the Province’s spatial policy. Investigative design sets a group process in motion. As one of the participants put it, ‘It’s all about the energy and the people who meet up to tackle this theme.’ The design acts as a conversation piece during workshops — the picture that is worth a thousand words — and thus far the key weapon in obtaining commitment has been ‘temptation’. This shows how lightweight architecture is in the current system — intolerably lightweight, even. Michiel Riedijk and Filip Geerts refuse to simply accept that. They took a strictly architectural, technical point of view for their work with the students.
In Euralille twenty years on, we seem to have left Noord-Holland behind... or have we? Euralille can be seen as the shining example for the type of planning processes that have now become standard practice. Manuela Triggianese describes the sequence of events when Euralille was created and wonders what degree of importance should be ascribed to the architectural planning in this kind of process. The role of Rem Koolhaas is often dismissed as that of a great tempter. In particular, the dream of Delirious New York in some provincial town or other and the suggestive images that leave all kinds of directions open were criticised, but also gained a following. In both cases, a key aspect of the work of Rem Koolhaas and OMA is missed. In the smoke spread by the magician, the surgeon’s knife does its work, following a strict methodology.
In Towns and ports on Walcheren and ZuidÂBeveland between 1500 and 2000, Leo van den Burg zooms in on the fate of the towns in the southwestern delta. Continuing on from Reinout Rutte’s Four hundred years of urban development in the Scheldt Estuary in OverHolland 12/13, he shows that the towns and businesses were in the past continually making efforts to retain or strengthen their own positions in the network of relationships. The possibility of planning railways opened up a new horizon in the nineteenth century for strategic spatial thinking on a previously unheard-of scale. The plan for a railway line from Middelburg to Germany by the Zeelander Dirk Dronkers is evidence of this. The opening of the railway line from Vlissingen to Bergen op Zoom in 1872 did not work out as he had anticipated, as is often the case with large-scale visions. For Leo van den Burg, Dronkers’ plan however also demonstrates that the vast scale that spatial strategies are implemented on means that they only have a chance of succeeding if the appeals by local actors are looked upon favourably by a national authority. This raises the question for a port and its town of whether the common destiny that they have always shared in the past has been essentially changed by the primacy of the nation state in terms of spatial planning.
In the Polemen section, Jaap Evert Abrahamse reviews the wonderful study by Clí© Lesger, Het winkellandschap van Amsterdam. Stedelijke structuur en winkelbedrijf in de vroegmoderne en moderne tijd, 1550-Â2000 [Amsterdam’s retail landscape: Urban structure and shops in the early modern and modern periods, 1550-2000]. Iskandar Paní© adds another review taking a critical look at the publication Dutch Dikes, written and illustrated by LOLA Landscape Architects