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Polycentricity, Performance and Planning: Concepts, Evidence and Policy in Barcelona, Catalonia
Get PDFMore than half of the world’s population currently lives in urban settlements, a proportion that is expected to increase to more than 65 percent by 2050 (UN, 2014). The larger agglomerations are a complex spatial configuration of places and flows that are polycentric by nature, or at least they demonstrate a certain development of a multi-center structure. Recently, the focus on agglomerations’ polycentric structure has attracted a great deal of attention from both researchers and policymakers, who must manage the economic, social, and environmental challenges that the population of these metropolitan agglomerations will experience in the coming decades.
In research, a considerable portion of the study of polycentric agglomerations has focused on the conceptualization of polycentricity and the empirical analysis of its economic, social, and environmental dis(advantages). Although academics have made a strong effort both to clarify the concept of polycentricity and to empirically explore its dis(advantages)–see, e.g., the special issues of journals such as European Planning Studies (1998; 2015), Urban Studies (2001) and Regional Studies (2014)–two major issues remain in the literature.
First, various approaches to polycentricity co-exist without a high level of integration. One approach refers to polycentricity on the intra-urban (Davoudi, 2003) or intra-metropolitan scale (Brezzi and Veneri, 2015; Limtanakool, 2006), whereas another refers to polycentricity on the inter-urban (Davoudi, 2003) or regional scale (Brezzi and Veneri, 2015; Veneri and Burgalassi, 2012). Moreover, when these approaches are integrated, they are often conflated, at least to an extent (Van Meeteren et al., 2015). Second, empirical examinations of the economic, social and environmental advantages of polycentricity have not yet led to conclusive findings (see, e.g., Burger, 2011; Lee, 2006a; Meijers, 2007a).
In the policy realm, polycentric development appears to be the main hallmark of spatial plans for metropolitan areas worldwide. Indeed, more than 75 percent of recent spatial plans developed for large metropolitan areas in OECD countries consider polycentric development as the best strategy for managing urban development. Some of the key policy objectives that polycentric development is expected to fulfill include offering an economical, efficient transportation system and a sustainable environment, along with extending access to education, jobs, amenities, and decent housing to a large number of people. Policy experts’ current interest in polycentricity is rooted in the early 1990s, when after two decades of focusing on local urban development projects and land-use regulations, planning practice refocused its attention on producing strategic frameworks and visions for territorial development in cities and metropolitan regions, strongly emphasizing their relationship with sustainable development (Albrechts et al., 2003). Polycentric development therefore re-entered planning practice as a bridging concept between sustainable development (broadly interpreted as fulfilling economic, social, and environmental objectives) and territorial development. However, the understanding of polycentric development in current planning policies appears largely disconnected from the ongoing polycentricity debate in research.
This lack of connection between the understanding of polycentricity in research (evidence) and in policy (spatial plans) becomes apparent when considering the issue of how polycentric development can be conceptualized in spatial plans and how the assumed benefits of polycentricity can be realized in planning practice. This issue is of great importance to facilitating a more evidence-informed planning in which polycentricity appears as a bridge-building tool between research (evidence) and policy (spatial plans) with the aim of improving the feasibility and effectiveness of spatial plans’ economic, social, and environmental objectives.
It is necessary to conduct a further exploration of the three aforementioned major issues related to (1) the conceptualization of polycentricity, (2) the empirical analysis of the dis(advantages) of polycentricity, and (3) how to interpret the relationship between polycentricity in research and polycentricity in policy. That is the key motivation for this thesis: to link the knowledge of polycentric constellations and their economic, social, and environmental effects to planning practice and policy in metropolitan areas.
General aims and questions
The overarching research goal of this dissertation is to contribute to the debate on polycentricity in the three interrelated issues mentioned above. First, it aims to renew the conceptualization of polycentricity by bringing together two distinct literatures, namely, the literature on intra-urban polycentricity and the literature on inter-urban polycentricity. Second, it aims to empirically substantiate the relationship between polycentricity and performance in metropolitan areas. Third, it aims to understand how the makers of spatial plans have addressed polycentric development and how the assumed benefits of polycentricity can be realized in planning practice. To accomplish these goals, this thesis addresses three general research questions:
How has the conceptualization of polycentric development in spatial plans evolved over time, and what can be learned from this evolution?
How has polycentricity been conceptualized in research, and how can it inform planning practice?
To what extent does polycentricity foster better performance in a metropolitan area, and how can its effects be realized in planning practice?
Single case study: the Barcelona metropolitan region
The case study of this thesis is the Barcelona metropolitan region. With approximately 5 million people, the Barcelona metropolitan region is the primary urban agglomeration of Catalonia, an autonomous region of 7.5 million inhabitants that is located in Spain. The study on the multiple links among polycentricity, performance, and planning within the Barcelona metropolitan region yields learning potential for other metropolitan regions because there exists, for example, a strong historical planning tradition in Catalonia and ideas on polycentric development have been around for many decades. This enables the study of transition patterns in the conceptualization of polycentric development in planning over time. Even the most recent plan for the Barcelona metropolitan region, the 2010 Barcelona Metropolitan Territorial Plan, is influenced by a planning vision of polycentricity that was coined by the 1966 Director Scheme of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. The latter plan was one of the first to break with the then-popular concentric model of green belts and satellite cities and to propose networked, polycentric spatial configurations to resolve the pressure of urbanization on metropolitan regions’ central cities.
Research methods
This dissertation employs several research methods to explore how the multiple relationships among polycentricity, performance, and planning manifest themselves in the Barcelona metropolitan region. The methods used include qualitative methods such as policy/discourse analysis to answer the first general research question about how the conceptualization of polycentric development in spatial plans has evolved over time and what can be learned from this evolution. Additionally, this thesis employs quantitative methods such as descriptive statistics, correspondence analysis, simple regression models, and advanced regression models (in which both spatial autocorrelation and endogeneity issues are controlled to avoid biased estimation results) to address the second general question, which refers to how polycentricity has been identified and measured in research and how this identification and measurement of polycentricity can inform planning practice. Finally, this research uses advanced statistical methods to answer the third general question of the extent to which polycentricity fosters better performance in a metropolitan area and how the effects of polycentricity can be realized in planning practice. These methods include both multilevel multinomial logit models and multilevel structural equation models. Because of the use of these models, this dissertation can explain the estimated effects of the link between polycentricity and performance to architects, planners, and policymakers in an evidence-informed form.
Contributions to the literature
In fulfilling the threefold goal of this thesis to contribute to the debate on polycentricity with respect to the three interrelated issues mentioned above, this thesis has also made two other main contributions.
First, this dissertation has proposed a novel methodology to identify centers in metropolitan areas by considering the different pathways through which centers, and thus a polycentric configuration, may emerge, namely, the decentralization and the incorporation-fusion trajectories. This required the integration of two quite separate literatures. What also added to the novelty of this methodology was the introduction of the concept of ‘agglomeration shadows’, which has received little attention in the literature, when evaluating this identification method against its fit with the theoretical and empirical (polycentric) models adopted in the economics literature. More specifically, this thesis has also proposed a new, theory-informed conceptualization of centers as not only places with the highest level of agglomeration economies in a metropolitan area but also places that cast the most wide-ranging (spatially), powerful agglomeration shadows over their surroundings. Therefore, the center’s concept proposed in this dissertation is not exclusively static; instead, it is also placed into a dynamic perspective: a center in a metropolitan area must cast an ‘agglomeration shadow’ (growth shadow effects) over its surrounding areas, meaning that the number of firms and the amount of urban development (growth) in areas near a center will be limited because of fierce competition effects.
Second, this thesis has proposed a conceptual framework for exploring the link between polycentricity (on the intra-urban scale) and metropolitan performance aimed at enabling broad testing of the effects of polycentricity. Building upon the relationship between theories of agglomeration and polycentricity in the literature, this thesis argues that the consideration of three distinct dimensions of a polycentric spatial structure that play a role in the development of agglomeration economies in a metropolitan area–namely, (1) the size of centers, (2) the (geographic) proximity to centers, and (3) the aggregate size of centers through their integration–allows scholars to arrive at broader conclusions about the effects of polycentricity. The translation of these three dimensions of a polycentric metropolitan structure into a more comprehensive, systematic empirical framework has required an examination of the effects (1) of being located in or oriented toward centers, (2) of being located close to centers, and (3) of interaction patterns among centers.
Conclusions
Below are the main conclusions regarding the three general research questions.
How has the conceptualization of polycentric development in spatial plans evolved over time, and what can be learned from this evolution?
Envisioning polycentric development in spatial plans has become a hallmark of planning practice in Catalonia. The first vision of polycentric development appeared in the 1930s as a response to the debate about the urban-rural opposition between Barcelona (city) and Catalonia (countryside) that resulted from increasing demands to address the (negative) challenges posed by cities’ industrialization. Since then, the vision of polycentric development in spatial plans evolved, showing two transitions in its conceptualization in successive plans. The first transition was that although polycentricity was first conceptualized as a decentralization strategy aimed at restricting Barcelona’s growth, it later changed into a territorial model to organize and canalize future urban development building on the urban dynamics themselves. The second transition involved the addition of a network perception to the vision on polycentric development. This network perception on polycentricity made a definitive contribution to overcoming the antagonism between Barcelona and Catalonia because it integrated the capital city of Barcelona into a polycentric territorial model for the entire territory of Catalonia.
The applications of polycentric development in various spatial plans in Catalonia also exposed some shortcomings stemming from spatial plans’ prescriptive or normative approaches to defining polycentric development in which the empirical evidence related to existing territory was overlooked. However, the simultaneous consideration of all of the applications of polycentric development in spatial plans–and therefore, when the role played by factors other than evidence, such as interests and institutional policy traditions can be better disentangled–noted that some shortcomings in the definition of a polycentric development strategy can be explained by the fact that to a certain extent, plans are indeed politicized. This posed the challenge of building an understanding of polycentric development that was more closely connected to the ongoing academic debate on polycentricity and thus, a call for a more evidence-informed planning based on an improved knowledge of polycentricity, primarily respect for its conceptualization (identification and measurement) and effects on the economic, social, and environmental performance of metropolitan areas. Public and private actors influencing policy, for example, through their ideology or their own interests, would occupy a crucial role in the implementation of this understanding of polycentric development, based on considering (or not) the policy guidelines/recommendations that resulted from empirical evidence and aimed to improve the effectiveness and feasibility of spatial plans.
How has polycentricity been conceptualized in research, and how can it inform planning practice?
A better integration between the literatures on the conceptualization of polycentricity potentially informs spatial plans about the effectiveness and feasibility of polycentric development strategies. This integration revealed which method (empirical or non-empirical) of identifying centers most accurately defines the polycentric model in the Barcelona metropolitan region, which is an essential step in empirically substantiating the link between polycentricity and performance in a metropolitan area because differences in the identification of centers could lead to different conclusions on the understanding of the costs and benefits of a polycentric metropolitan structure. The main advantage of the novel method of identifying centers that is proposed and tested here is that it considers the various pathways through which centers may emerge, namely, the decentralization and the incorporation-fusion trajectories. This method was better able to identify as centers those cities that have the highest level of agglomeration economies and cast the most severe agglomeration shadows over their surroundings.
In addition, the incorporation of the functional and morphological dimensions of polycentricity–as traditionally coined by the inter-urban polycentricity literature–into the measurement of the degree of polycentricity on the intra-urban scale has contributed to building more sound arguments either for or against supporting a polycentric development strategy in a metropolitan area. Additionally, it has provided planners with valuable insights into not only how to address issues related to the understanding, governance implications, and expectations of polycentric development but also how to monitor the implementation of a polycentric development strategy.
To what extent does polycentricity foster better performance in a metropolitan area, and how can its effects be realized in planning practice?
A polycentric metropolitan structure exerts a considerable influence–both active and passive–on enhancing performance in a metropolitan area through individuals’ travel behavior. The effects of polycentricity–i.e., (1) of being located in or oriented toward centers, (2) of being located close to centers, and (3) of interaction patterns among centers–appear to be generally larger than the effects of individual-specific characteristics (i.e., sociodemographic characteristics and travel-related attitudes) and built environment attributes with respect to encouraging people to use more intensely sustainable mode choices (public transit and non-motorized modes) and reducing travel behavior externalities (i.e., trip distance, trip time, and transportation-related CO2 emissions). More specifically, the most important dimension of a polycentric metropolitan structure in fostering a more sustainable mobility pattern is generally the type of interaction, followed by the type of city, which in turn is more important than the distance to centers.
Based on these effects, polycentric development fosters better performance in the Barcelona metropolitan region because it has influenced individuals’ travel behavior through three different dimensions. First, people living in centers or doing their daily activities in these centers use more public transit or slow modes, and their trips are shorter, take less time, and cause less transportation-related CO2 emissions than if they do not live in centers or are not carrying out their activities in these centers. Second, people living close to centers exhibit a more sustainable pattern of travel behavior than those living further away. Third, people traveling among centers are more likely to use public transportation, to experience shorter-length or -duration trips and to make greater reductions in the environmental impact of their travel than people traveling among peripheral areas. In short, agglomeration benefits in a polycentric metropolitan region explain these three aforementioned findings. Therefore, the translation of the benefits of polycentricity into planning policies requires the simultaneous consideration of (1) the size of centers, (2) the size of and proximity to centers, and (3) the size of and interaction among centers.
Evidence-informed guidelines for planning policies
The estimated effects of polycentricity on individuals’ travel behavior have led to a set of policy recommendations on urban and transportation developments that will enhance the performance of the Barcelona metropolitan region. These policies inform the plans’ makers about how the benefits of polycentricity can be realized in planning practice and therefore, provide them with an improved understanding of polycentric development to more effectively fulfill spatial plans’ economic, social, and environmental objectives.
Essentially, the translation of the benefits of polycentricity into evidence-informed guidelines for planning policies has required the consideration of the various dimensions of a polycentric spatial structure that play a role in the development of agglomeration benefits in a metropolitan area: (1) the size of centers, (2) the proximity to centers, and (3) the aggregate size of centers through their integration. Seven policy recommendations have been elaborated to improve the effectiveness of the planning objectives of the 2010 Barcelona Metropolitan Territorial Plan in terms of individuals’ travel costs and the environmental impact of travel.
Aggregate size of centers through their integration
Support new, more efficient public transportation networks among centers to allow those centers to better exploit their aggregate urban size, leading to a greater development of agglomeration economies.
Enhance the complementarity among centers on the metropolitan scale in terms of economic sectors, occupations, and urban functions through promoting compact-city/transit-oriented development.
Support new, more efficient public transportation networks between centers and their neighboring areas to stimulate interactions toward centers and increase nearby residents’ access to the agglomeration benefits of centers that are integrated with their nearest center.
Support new, more efficient road networks among secondary centers to mitigate congestion along the radial transportation axes oriented toward the central city of Barcelona.
Size of centers
Promote compact-city/transit-oriented development in existing centers (central city and secondary centers) to encourage more residents of centers to access their agglomeration benefits.
Proximity to centers
Promote compact-city/transit-oriented development in larger places near centers to allow more residents of these centers’ neighboring areas to benefit from their proximity to the agglomeration benefits of one or more centers.
Limit growth in areas located further away from centers both to mitigate (as much as possible) the high travel costs (trip distance and time) incurred by the residents of these peripheral areas and to decrease the transportation-related CO2 emissions that they cause.
Agenda for research and policy
Despite providing new insights and conceptual and empirical frameworks to analyze the multiple relationships between polycentricity, performance, and planning in metropolitan regions, further research is needed to address a range of challenges and research gaps that this dissertation could not cover in their entirety. These challenges and research gaps refer both to the Barcelona metropolitan region case and to more general advances that are
The Landscape Architecture of the Polder-boezem system: Structure and form of water network, water pattern and water work in the Dutch lowlands
Get PDFThe Dutch lowlands is an artificial landscape, created as a result of the wish to regulate the water that dominated the topography in the Delta. This ‘confined’ lowland water, the polder-boezem system12, features an enormously diverse range of water structures and forms, which largely dictates the spatial planning of the lower Netherlands.
This dissertation concerns the polder-boezem system, a water system that was created by trial-and-error, has been adapted continually and now needs to be expanded to cope with the effects of climate change. The research focuses on answering the following question: What potential does the current polder-boezem system have, with the help of landscape architectonic design, to define (or redefine) the spatial identity of the lowlands?
So that the lowland water can be discovered (or rediscovered) and reinforced as the spatial and compositional power of the (urban)landscape (chapter 1).
The research into the landscape and landscape-architectonic quality and the potential contained within the polder-boezem system was carried out by reviewing drawings of both existing and self-produced charts (the overlay technique). The 4-form layer analysis method was used for the landscape-architectonic research. This research method, which was developed by the Chair of Landscape Architecture of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft, reveals the design tools for a design. The research showed that it can also be used to analyse a man-made (cultural) landscape (chapter 2).
The water vocabulary that has been illustrated and described introduces, as the basic premise for the research, the water-technical role and position of all the water elements that combine to make up the water system (chapter 3). The boezem water as a cohesive network was illustrated on the basis of this inventory, and the polder water was analysed using a cut-out of the area under study (chapters 4 and 6). The boezem network map, drawn on the scale of the study area (northern Noord-Holland and the Randstad), generated insight into the relationship between the structure and design differences and the situational context of the boezem network for the landscape research. The structure and form differences in the boezem sections can be explained by the landscape types in which they are found - the sand ridge landscape (1), the river landscape (2), the marine clay landscape (3) and the peat bog landscape (4) - and the landscape layers to which they belong - natural landscape (1), man-made (cultural) landscape (2) and urban landscape (3). The original natural boezem sections, in particular, are unique to the area, and express the genius loci, the spatial identity of the location. They form the longest boezem structures in the Delta, are the main carrier of the network and have a perceivable ‘sphere of influence’. These areas with a recognisable identity are called boezem landscapes in the dissertation. They ultimately determine the context for the landscape-architectonic design of the water system (chapter 5).
Prior to the landscape-architectonic research, carried out on the scale of a single boezem area, the term landscape-architectonic quality for every form layer was defined - the basic form (1), the programme form (2), the image form (3) and the spatial form (4). This was done on the basis of the 4-form layer analysis, a deconstruction method.
The basic form of water has landscape-architectonic quality when the geometry of the water form corresponds with, or develops from, the original water form in the natural landscape and the way it has been adapted, which results in a decipherable, potent and ‘dramatised’ landscape-architectonic design. The programme form of water has landscape-architectonic quality when the water system that has developed from the natural landscape has a recognisable, comprehensible and visible structure and form that illustrates the negotium use that corresponds with, or develops into, the otium use. The image form of water has landscape-architectonic quality when the water image elements unite to form a clear, area-specific illustration that refers to the representation of nature and the relationship between nature, culture and urbanity. The spatial form of water has landscape-architectonic quality when the water that originates from the natural landscape, and the way it has been adapted, shows an articulated visual-spatial design in a cohesive sequence, as far as the eye can see.
All the water elements in the study area that showed a degree of landscape-architectonic quality or landscape-architectonic potential were recorded on a conclusion chart, per form layer. The conclusion charts show the design tools used and those that could conceivably be used: the design strategies (1), the design technique (2) and the design elements (3). The qualities identified were used as the basis for recommendations for expanding the tools and reinforcing the landscape-architectonic composition of the boezem landscape (chapter 7).
The specific features of each boezem area are expressed in the structure and form differences of the polder-boezem system and are based on the natural landscape. The cohesion of form within a boezem area serves as the basis for further transformation. The landscape-architectonic tools are specific to a boezem landscape but provide enough information to formulate recommendations for the polder-boezem system as a whole.
The best way to increase the landscape-architectonic quality of the polder-boezem system is to highlight the cohesion of the water system on the scale of the entire boezem landscape. The boezem system defines the spatial character of the system. This cohesion can be reinforced in the form of a link between boezem water and polder water, specifically in the lake bed polder landscapes, by means of the realisation of the water sequence - canal, mill or pumping station, outlet and boezem. The stronger the compositional cohesion between the water sequence and the other polder water in polder or water-level area, the stronger the cohesion of the system. The waterworks set the architectonic tone in the system and belong to the crucial details of the polder-boezem system. It is essential to give attention to the design and position of the waterworks as a visible and/or perceived spatial link between the various water-level areas.
The network character of the water system provides countless opportunities to integrate existing and new ecosystems, nature developments and other water management challenges into the polder-boezem system. This green-blue connection could give the water system a considerable boost and help it develop into the Novel Fine Dutch Waterscape. Experimental designs show how the design. instruments that were detected can be used to allow the polder-boezem system to define (or redefine) the spatial identity of the lowlands (chapter 8)
De gevel — een intermediair element tussen buiten en binnen: Over het tonen en vertonen van het twintigste-eeuwse woongebouw in Nederland
Get PDFThis study is based on the fact that all people have a basic need for protection from other people (and animals) as well as from the elements (the exterior climate). People need a space in which they can withdraw from the rest of the world. The two states, inside and outside, public and private, contact with, or isolation from, the outside world, are relevant in fulfilling this basic need. People also want their home to have a certain appearance or status which they can identify with and which they can present to the outside world. This can also often be derived from the façade. The façade which is on a side which can be seen by the general public can be seen by the most people. Protection and appearance/status are two important characteristics of the façade. The term social filtering is used in this study to mean protection and face or mask to mean appearance/status. The means which can be used for protection embrace a broad spectrum, of which a fence, the doorstep (threshold), the door and shutters are just some initial examples. The means which can be used to lend status to a house are just as diverse. It is impossible to make a strict distinction between the means of social filtering and those of the face or mask and they often fulfil both functions. The façade as social filter and as face or mask of the residential building is the starting point of this study. Both the roles, as social filter and face of the home, have undergone great change as a consequence of the accommodation of several homes in the one building. The history of homes in the Netherlands shows that the individual house has only been one of many dwelling possibilities since the nineteenth century ; the ‘stacking’ of homes on top of each other in larger buildings, described as residential building, became a necessity in the cities. This is why this study is focussed on the residential building and its façade in the city in the Netherlands.
Two questions formed the starting point for this study:
1. How can information about the need for contact or isolation, and the need for status, be read from the exterior of a house?
2. What happens to the face and the social filter of a building when we no longer look at it as a house for just one social unit but as a residential building which accommodates several homes?
The two questions resulted in an investigation into the aspects by which the social filter and the face of a façade can be read. Residential buildings designed as such to meet the demand in cities began to appear more often in the second half of the nineteenth century. Initially, they were cheap and hardly innovative. By the start of the twentieth century, the entrance to homes in the residential building, an important element of the social filter, had become a subject of study for architects and various solutions were developed. The appearance of the residential building showed, on the one hand, pragmatic approaches, but on the other, architects tried to develop a face or mask for this relatively new type of building. Throughout the twentieth century, the period covered by this study, the residential building and its façade have undergone great change. This change reflects the cultural, social, technical and economic factors which have had an effect on the design of the residential building and the significance of the façade with its social filter and its face or mask. Today, the façade of the residential building has reached a freedom which reflects the possibilities, the architect’s creative expression and the client’s commercial needs. The façade hardly contributes to the communication between life outside and the resident and his or her home inside. Social filtering, which often takes place in a dynamic way between the exterior and the interior, is still important, but now takes place to a large degree behind the façade. The face shown is neutral, if not anonymous, and hides the number of homes behind the screen.
In order to follow the changes in the residential building and its façade through the twentieth century and to understand with what means architects have developed the façade in particular, the research question has been formulated as: What factors and architectonic means have been decisive in the Netherlands in the twentieth century for the façade of the residential building as an intermediary element (as face/mask and social filter) between the exterior and the interior? The aim of this study is to learn more about the factors which lead to the decisions about the design of a façade and to understand the architectonic means which are applied to make a façade readable. This study also has the aim of providing an analytical approach to looking at a façade and making a contribution to the design of buildings and a broader study of the relationship between buildings and their façades.
The study is organised in a theoretical framework and the analysis of ten projects. The theoretical framework in respect of façade, face and mask (chapter 4), a historical context of residential construction (chapter 5), a context of the development of public, exterior living (chapter 6), and private, interior living (chapter 7) are included in the theoretical framework. The analysis of the ten projects is presented in chapter 8. The framework and the analysis form one whole. The analysis of the case studies demanded a method which would illustrate the façade as social filter and face or mask. In order to make the role of social filter more comprehensible, the transition from the public space in front of the main entrance to the entrance to the home has been illustrated by means of two isometric drawings. The public space of the steps from the doorstep or pavement to the private home is also documented in a diagram, and the architectonic resources which make up this transition are recorded with photos. For the analysis of the façade as a face, the parts of the human face which are easily included visually are used metaphorically. The eyes are openings, the mouth is an entrance or door, the nose is a vertical feature, the head shape of the face is the most easily read form of the building and the profile supports the information because it shows depth. Visually striking aspects of the face which protrude, recede, frame or divide can be translated in the façade as, for example, bay windows, balconies, beams, framing lintels or windowsills. Visually distinguishing lines of profiles can be seen in the form of balconies or, for instance, a switch in material. In order to use the metaphor of the human face as the foundation for an analysis in architecture, an analytical framework has been assembled. The Gestalt laws, applied to buildings by Niels Prak, demonstrate how we visually perceive the built environment. The head shape and horizontal and vertical parts and sections are perceived faster than free forms or a complex picture with a lot of different information. These laws justify the choice of the subjects for analysis which have been drawn in a reduced form. The subjects for analysis for the façade as face are: the head shape, the profile, the openings for light and for the entrance (door), visible constructional elements in the façade (horizontal and vertical), decorative parts, protruding and receding parts, material and colour. In the analysis, the sociocultural background of the project will be described, summarised as building assignment, and all the architectonic aspects will be shown which make up the social filter and appearance, summarised as building form.
Façade definitions (chapter 4) The term façade means the vertical exterior of the building, just as the face practically vertical is. The roof is governed by its own principles and is not always a part of the façade unless it can be seen. The horizontal roof, like the crown of a head, cannot easily be seen. The term façade carries several meanings. The façade is something that is presented to its surroundings and that is why it is often associated with the face. The term façade (Latin facies = face) makes the connection with the metaphor of the face clear: the façade of the building is meant to be the presentable side which is shown to the public. The human face communicates non-verbally by means of expression. The façade does not have this movement and can only be called a face metaphorically. The façade can still show what happens behind it to a degree, however, what the building is for, for example. The façade can also exhibit an idea or represent an illusion; the façade is then a mask. The term garment is used for both the protective and aesthetic role of the façade. A garment keeps you warm and protects, but it can also be decorative and the status of the person wearing it can be clear if the code included in the decoration is understood. The façade therefore also fulfils this role as the conveyor of information. The degree to which the façade has a filter role is determined by the degree to which it allows things to pass though it: light, air and temperature but also people and animals. This ability to allow things to pass through it is dynamically regulated depending on the means used. Depending on the building’s spatial configuration, there may also be a front façade, rear façade or side façade.
The historic context of the residential building (chapter 5) The urban house changed almost imperceptibly until the nineteenth century into a building which accommodated several homes. The construction of the residential building designed as such intensified in the second half of the century, however, when the increasing demand for housing meant that it was necessary to provide more options. The ‘stacking’ of homes in such a building meant another means of entering the building. The immediate entrance to the home increasingly withdrew from the street and communal entrances and stairwells appeared. The most important change from the individual house to the shared building was the entrance. Architects often lent expression the communal entrance, perhaps to help the resident and visitor become more familiar with its new communal aspect. Various changes to the residential building and its façade can be seen throughout the twentieth century. While architects like Hendrik P. Berlage and his followers in the first two decades enriched the façade with details and news ideas for communal entrances arose, functionalists like Willem van Tijen designed residential buildings in the thirties and during the post-war reconstruction which showed what their function was without any embellishment. Architects reacted to social, economic and technical factors. Where the first residential buildings consisted of six to eight homes per staircase per floor, the introduction of galleries and then, in the fifties, the lift, meant that many more homes could be accommodated. This was particularly the case in the sixties after the first wave of post-war reconstruction. The residential buildings were so big that it was barely possible to see the whole form. They were also a product of mass production. The seventies, with the focus on individuality and consultation, saw the production of homes shift towards small-scale neighbourhoods with façades which made small groups of homes readable. The last two decades of the twentieth century were characterised by more sober façades and larger residential buildings. The façades project neutrality and the anonymity of living in the town or city. The diversity of the façades and the choice of material have increased dramatically and are also used to express the luxury of living in the city.
The façade and the public (chapter 6) The gradual transition from street to house in the town or city in the Netherlands has been present for centuries. The border between the two was vague, people worked both in front of, and in the house. An important change for living in the town or city was the disappearance of city walls and gates after 1874 as a consequence of the vestigingswet [‘Settlement Act’], which allowed non-residents into the city or town without checks, and when the front door was established as the border between the public and the private. The façade became a necessary border between the public and the private. The street lost its importance as public space for those living on it as traffic increased. The introduction of the residential building only increased the distance to the street. The anonymization of the street also played a large role throughout the whole of the twentieth century. The functionalists rejected the street and wanted to connect homes with recreation and green spaces. Urban blocks of buildings were opened up as was the layout of residential buildings. This resulted in residential buildings which had several façades which were visible to the public. In the seventies, some architects, like Herman Hertzberger, returned the street to the resident and a pedestrian friendly zone in front of homes (the woonerf) was created. The house façades on the residential areas allowed openness and space to be seen, fusing the public and the private. This approach was quickly followed by a reintroduction of a distance to the street. The last two decades of the twentieth century were characterised by a withdrawal of the social filter role to behind the façade. The street’s role as part of the home can only be found in very protected environments.
The façade and private living (chapter 7) Private living was initially led by an increasing embarrassment and hygiene. The need to retreat further into the house gave rise to a more differentiated layout even in the traditional house and this can be read from the façade. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the privacy of the home was lost when it was housed with several others in the one building and by the internal entrance in a relatively open landing on the upper floors. The first two decades of the twentieth century saw various entrances which made privacy possible such as the entrance stairwell and the gallery. The homes received their own front doors with a hall behind them. At subsistence level, privacy was reduced to a very small space and this would only change after the Second World War; regulations for minimum surface areas in the fifties contributed to this. Economic growth in the sixties and seventies allowed a need for individual development and private space within the family. Increasing preferences for homes resulted in a greater diversity but also in neutral houses which could be adapted. The façade reflects this. Privacy at the end of the twentieth century meant freedom of choice. The residential building showed the consideration for this freedom in a neutral façade.
The case studies (chapter 8) The case studies reflect the various phases of the changes in the residential building and its façade. The ten projects chosen can be found in the Dutch town or city and have all been designed as homes. The projects chosen are:
1914 — The Hague portico Copernicuslaan, Den Haag, architect unknown
1911-15 — Dwellings in the Indische Buurt, Amsterdam, architect H.P. Berlage
1918-22 — Justus van Effen Complex, Rotterdam, architect M. Brinkman
1925—26 — Residential building Oldenhoeck, Amsterdam, architect P.A. Warners
1932—34 — Bergpolder Flat, Rotterdam, architect W. van Tijen
1955-58 — Dwellings Pendrecht IV, Rotterdam, architects J. en L. de Jonge
1962-68 — Dwellings Het Breed, Amsterdam, architect F. van Gool
1969—76 — Dwellings Molenvliet, Papendrecht, architect F. van der Werff
1978—82 — Dwellings Haarlemmer Houttuinen, Amsterdam, architect H. Hertzberger
1994—98 — City block De Landtong, Rotterdam, architect CIE, F. van Dongen
The first two cases just have six to eight homes per staircase per floor and their entrances are richly decorated while the Justus van Effencomplex and, in the sixties, Het Breed project with a gallery bring many more homes together and their entrances are less expressively designed. At the end of the twentieth century, the Landtong connects the homes visually with each other by means of an internal corridor with a void allowing the other floors to be seen. The expression of the collective and the individual through the century is very different; the home cannot always be read from the façade.
Conclusion The most important conclusion from this research is that the social filter between the public and the private today often lies behind the screens, so that the transition between the public space and the façade is less gradual and the expressiveness of the façade is different and achieved by other means. The façade is more of a mask to protect the anonymous home than a face that exhibits it. The line between a façade as a face or a mask is not always clear, however, because the perspective of the person looking at it can change. A façade can create an illusion in the distance, but show the home from close by.
This study demonstrates the development of the residential building and its façade in the Netherlands with the focus on their development in the twentieth century. The relationship of the façade with the immediate public space surrounding the home and the relationship of the façade with the private home have been important starting points for this study. It places the façade as an important element in protecting the home and as well as an expression of it. The study demonstrates a way of looking at the façade which is very important for design decisions for new construction but also for maintenance and conservation
Conflicten over Haagse stadsbeelden: Van Willemspark tot Spuiforum, deel 1 en deel 2
Get PDFThis study is about the continual stride between 1860 and 2010 amongst the various interest groups involved with what the city of The Hague should look like. The thesis of the study states that the fragmented image that people in the city have or experience is the result of the wide variety of urban ensembles and public buildings, whether or not they are crowded together or even completed, that were successively presented and implemented by the interest groups involved. Stakeholders such as national and local politicians, the royal family, banks, industrialists, housing corporations, developers, architects, urban planners, and organizations of critical citizens have always been in conflict about what public buildings or iconic urban compositions should look like. With the best of intentions each group wants to shape the city with public buildings and urban compositions in their own way and the urge to achieve this is always playing a role in the background. It is as if the city is being stripped of space, movement, and time and that only the image of the city is what counts, an image that is endlessly being reproduced in the media to influence the public opinion. The scramble over the Spuiforum is just the latest affair in a long series of incidents in The Hague. The hardhearted efforts of those involved to create one balanced townscape has only delivered more fragmented images, yet perhaps this is the city’s greatest quality.
It seems like just about everyone has been occupied with the Spuiforum since 2009 to the present. The battle between supporters and opponents has been going on for years. The media critics are always there looking for the next scandal, finding fault with motives that may not always be clear. However, as intense as the conflict appears now, it will soon be forgotten. Who remembers the conflict over the Willemspark or the Peace Palace? The numerous conflicts around the sea resort Scheveningen? The battles over urban renewal, the haggling around the competition for the House of Representatives or the rivalry and troubles around the The Hague City Hall? The Eurojust (The European Union’s Judicial Cooperation Unit)? The International Criminal Court? Such stormy conflicts arise and no sooner ebb away again, often into silent oblivion. And still, in most cases, the construction of the urban image is executed as planned, though often partially. Even more, the conflicts are of importance because they reveal how people experience the city and want to see it. Cracks in society are bluntly exposed this way. For example, the most monumental gateway in The Hague is that of the The Hague Police Precinct built in the 1950’s, which faces the rear side of The Hague’s progressive party’s flagship (1986-1989), the residential complex designed by Ricardo Bofill with parking access, garbage containers, and other utilities. A good observer can see the many contradictions of society mirrored in this situation in the city.
The object of this study is to examine the image of the city and the conflicts pertaining to it. The image of the city, also referred to here as the city image, has become particularly popular in recent years. This is due in part to the new position of cities in the global urbanization process, whereby cities have become competitors and moreover, new opportunities for cities to present themselves worldwide result from the revolution in communication technology and digitization. The research shows that the city image, despite its elusiveness and fluidity, played an imperative role in the genesis of the city far earlier. Churchill’s statement ‘we formed our cities and the cities formed us’ could be broadened to: ‘we imagined our cities and that image formed us.’
Nancy Stieber (2006) gave in the book de STAD (2006) an insightful analysis on the relationship between images and the city. The city is conceptualized as a metaphor. According to her, that is one of the transformations of the urban fabric might undergo in our minds. She distinguishes three categories: the image of the city, the imagined city, and the imaginary city. The image of the city is the idea that is composed by individuals or groups: a creation that is triggered from experience of the city in the mind or a concept based on the actual city itself. The imagined city is the virtual arena conceived by artists, architects, city planners, marketers, and others through art, film, literature, music, advertising, architecture, and urban designs. This idea is certainly related to the first category, but here the focus is on the representation of the city by specialists that are making the presentations to convince people of the value and significance of an urban composition or public building. In this sense, the producers of the images are crucial since, after all, who needs to be convinced of which statement? Using a caricature on Berlage’s Amsterdam South, Stieber demonstrated that the categories are inseparable and all three are about metaphors of the city. ‘The city between the ears’, as noted by the geographer and urban marketing specialist Gertjan Hosper (2010).
The goal of this study is to discover and describe consecutive city images of The Hague and the conflicts associated with them between 1860 and 2010, as well as to determine for whom, with what motive and background these city images were developed, where, in how far, and if these consecutive city images were realized, what the conflicts were about, and why the often unfinished images disappeared again, which resulted in the current fragmented image of the city. The human activities that take place in the buildings and surroundings, no matter how significant, were left out of the study for practical reasons. Every case study is of a dominant city image from a certain period. The central context is the relation between ‘the city between the ears’, the actual built city, and the many conflicts pertaining to that image. Each image will be analyzed in this study on the basis of iconic ensembles in the urban setting. The urban ensemble is iconic if it has been part of a public debate. It is unraveled by way of three aspects: the motives for and against of those involved, the shape of the urban space, and the architecture of the buildings.
This study inevitably comprises multi-disciplinary research. Results of research on the morphology, typology, imagery, and historical sources are associated to each other. Aspects like urban space, development, and motives of stakeholders concerning the appearance of the locations are compared and present a new light. It’s not the knowledge acquired about the cause, a condition or situation from the past that is central to the study like in the research of a historian, but the knowledge gathered about the exchange between image and reality during a certain time frame. Throughout the case studies on particular urban ensembles, cross references are made between the histories of architecture, town planning, and politics and the social reality. The case studies chosen to prove the above mentioned thesis led to the following conclusions.
The fragmented look of The Hague was directly caused by debates on the image of the city. Images of a city are a kind of visual or esthetic category that cannot be sharply defined but rather have something intangible and are fluid. Only at the project level can images be bright and clear. All of the city images were found to run a certain course in time of no longer than a 20 to 30 year time span. The image of the city is not always visually homogenous or in one particular style, but can instead be diverse. It also tends to bind places together that are distant, such as typical Dutch cauliflower neighborhoods from the 70’s, which can be found throughout the country. City images can also unite local and international aspects of the city and are more successful and domineering when there is a high development rate. In this respect, there are some large gaps in the historical context, blank areas where there was hardly any building development going on. There is always a motive behind the city image: the spontaneous city is fictitious. However, the motive is often forgotten whereby people wonder later on about the consistency between urban space, development, and the imagery that was used in the development process. As townscapes appear with new city images, they seem inadaptable. They are destructive and intolerant towards their predecessors, especially when those images rise within the existing city. It is normal to demolish an area to a build new ideal. The role of the stakeholders like architects, urban designers, and officials is highly overrated. It is the synergy between them and the context that is crucial. The city image plays a unifying and sometimes persistent role under these conditions, reminding us: the city, that’s us.
On the basis of the study on the image of the city it is possible to draw the map of a city differently, precisely because that way the differences between cities become apparent
Between Flexibility and Reliability: Changing Planning Culture in China
Get PDFThe aim of this research is to provide an outline to address questions with regard to the transformation of planning in China that has occurred after the 1980s. The research is using “planning evolution” as the main research skeleton. The starting point is to investigate to what extent Chinese urban planning has developed after the opening up and other reforms under the state-led and market-driven modes of Chinese reformation, and to investigate how the different modes and various actors have influenced urban planning, based on the investigation of the respective political and economic changes within the initial reformation in general, and planning in particular.
In recent years, China has undeniably undergone a dramatic process of urban growth and transformation. Apart from its speed and scope, it is less recognized that these processes are confronting the Chinese planning institutions with new and unexpected demands almost on a daily basis. In reference to the increasing importance of private investments and developments within the Chinese urbanization process, a new balance between public planning and private developments, and between top-down and bottom-up approaches is required to be able to generate both a reliable and responsible framework for long-term urban development and a flexible system of implementation that meets the needs of changing conditions and new demands. Flexibility and reliability become the new demands for planning practice.
Based on the theory of planning culture, planning traditions, concepts, systems and decision-making processes are always related to the cultural context and cultural background of the people and societies involved. Investigating the contemporary urban transformation and urban development processes in China can allow us to outline the new planning culture of contemporary China in relation to its historical roots and traditional characteristics in a long term framework. I argue that the changing role of urban planning is strongly embedded in the political, economic, and social domains and is a part of cultural innovation.
The research opens a general debate on the circumstances of the contemporary Chinese transformation after the 1980s. After introducing the idea of planning culture and elaborating to what extent the idea of planning culture is applied in this research, I argue that the “soft” characteristics of planning emphasized by the idea of planning culture are crucial to understand Chinese planning evolution. The idea of planning culture is applied to build up the theoretical framework needed in order to approach the research subject: the contemporary Chinese transformation, based on a systematic structure.
Overall, this research states the following. 1). The reversal of Chinese policies in 1978 and the opening up of the country to foreign investments and technology were taking up the job that had been left unfinished in 1949. The momentum is regarded as a part of the long-term evolution of Chinese modernization, for which the term of “critical-modernity” is introduced, situating the changes within the broader context of the globalization. It cannot be disconnected from the roots of Chinese history and tradition and as such is an alternative to Western paradigms. 2). The dissection of the specific Chinese historical evolution results in a sequence of layered modes of hybrid development. 3) Situating the political-economic momentum of the 80s in a longer time span and exploring it beyond the political status of the time by making the contextual linkage to the cultural and traditional consensus of Chinese history, it is seen as a “cultural turn” of Chinese society. 4). This study applies the idea of “planning culture”–to compare different periods in one country and to analyze the changes that have taken place with regard to both the planning system and the cultural context; and to approach urban planning transitions from political, social, and economic aspects by investigating the conditions, approaches, and results of current spatial planning in China.
According to the application of the idea of planning culture as a systematic framework, the research comprises three major research themes: the transformation of society, the transformation of the planning system and the implementation of planning in practice.
The Transformation of the Society comprises two parts. The first reviews the philosophical roots of the Chinese norm and value system and the second part introduces the contextual background of the emerged evolution of Chinese modernization. The purpose is on the one hand to anchor the contemporary Chinese transformation within the Chinese context, and on the other hand to argue that the transformation of contemporary China in the 1980s is a new turn that is part of the evolution of modernization.
The Transformation of the Planning System offers the specific information about the transformation that took place in the 1980s, in particular in relation to the reforms initiated by the central government. The focus is in on the re-modification of the urban planning system after 1978; special attention is given to the political structure, planning organization, and plan forms. It is the analysis of the top—down system.
The Implementation of Planning System in Practice zooms further in on the micro-scale of planning evolution by analyzing the planning implementation in practice in one of the fastest growing cities of the country: Shenzhen, located in the Pearl River Delta, which can be regarded as an almost newly constructed city with approximately 300.000 inhabitants in 1980 and reaching 10.47 million in 2011. During a relatively short period of development the degree of acceleration and the scope of an entirely unexpected growth forced local planning authorities to constantly readapt to changing conditions and new demands. In this framework, different planning documents and the process of decision-making are analyzed, with special attention to the coordination and fine-tuning between planning intervention and planning implementation.
These three clusters of research themes serve to answer a series of research questions respectively. The main research question is: How does urban planning in contemporary China face the challenges of the emergent urban evolution within the current world society? This research argues that planning strategies have to be developed, on the one hand under the circumstances of inevitably increasing uncertainties in China society generating the flexibility for new and unexpected developments, and on the other hand to confront the unpredictability and uncertainty of initiatives from diverse public and private actors by generating and building up a reliable framework for sustainable long-term developments. Planning embodiment (ideology, aim, system etc.) must be understood and used not only for political-economical interventions but, furthermore, as a spatial agent in order to mediate the changing confrontations of socio— spatial demands embedded in the cultural domain, instead of being used only as a top—down dominating intervention tool.
China enters a critical era of modernity, a society in which to retrieve the socio-spatial meaning for people is a much more powerful force than only focusing on economic success and political stability. This reflection shall be based on the revival of Chinese traditions and values and the re-evaluation of those values in a systematical manner.
However, in comparison with drawing a concrete conclusion, this study’s intention is to inspire reflection, to provoke further debate and to disclose and dissect the context of Chinese planning culture. It is by the same consideration that I found the idea of planning culture a useful and valuable framework to access urban development and planning evolution in non-Occidental countries. The “soft” core of planning culture has the same essential cultural value everywhere, and for countries like China who share the similar hybridity of evolutional history, the processes of industrialization, urbanization, decolonization, Westernization, post-industrialization and globalization are affecting the country not in a linear—subsequent manner, but on different layers simultaneously and sometimes with contradicting demands.
Being embedded in this unique Chinese political—socio—economic environment, urban planning is used by the state as a powerful instrument providing a vision for the country’s future in the transitional process between the rules of both extreme modes of top-down and bottom-up approaches, balanced by involving the governmental and public sectors simultaneously.
I am convinced that the idea of planning culture can trigger a new wave of discourse leading to a completely new insight in and understanding of cultural differences, not only in an abstract sense for Chinese culture but also in general for everybody whose live is strongly influenced by planning decisions and whose daily activities are interactively incorporated in the socio-spatial domain.
 
Social Housing Organisations in England and The Netherlands: Between the State, Market and Community
Get PDFRapid and deep changes in society, the economy and policy over the last decades ˬare having an increasing impact on the delivery of social housing in North Western Europe. These changes are transforming the way in which social housing providers perform their task and are reshaping their relationships with the State, communities and with other market actors. The combination of continued State withdrawal from service provision, the deep and persistent effects of the global financial crisis that begun in 2008 and profound changes in the type of demand for social housing across North Western Europe call for a reflection on the implications of these phenomenaˬfor social housing providers. Several studies indicate that social housing providers in Europe have begun to adopt new (social) entrepreneurial strategies and are becoming more innovative as a response to these challenges. These strategies imply tackling the tensions between (at times) conflicting drivers, notably those arising from the State, the market and communities. However, research in this topic so far is fragmented, focussing on one country or on specific sub-areas such as asset management and non-housing activities and rarely connects with the relevant wider literature on the third sector and social enterprise.
Within this context, this PhD research has sought to widen this discussion by providing new insights through a comparative study of the ways in which individual social housing providers are relating to (i.e. responding to and influencing) these contextual changes. More specifically, the research sought to better understand the complex process of decision-making these companies undergo to manage their responses to competing drivers. Companies operating in two countries (England and The Netherlands) were studied in-depth. In both countries, the social rental sector has played a prominent role in their respective welfare states for decades. While both are amongst countries with the highest share of social rental housing in Europe, each represents a different type of welfare state and of social housing provision - following Kemeny’s classification, a unitary system (the Netherlands) and a dualist system (England).
 
Off The Shelf: Projects Surrounding the Chair Collection at the Faculty of Architecture
Get PDFThe faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft houses a unique teaching collection of over 300 chairs. Unlike any other collection in the university, and because a collection’s purpose and needs deviate somewhat from the more common features of a given university department, its position can be challenging in terms of management, funding, and goals.
Generally, university collections were used for either research or teaching, and they remained key teaching resources until the 1960s. However, due to changes in research, teaching practices and university budget cuts since the 1980s, many university collections are at risk. Losing the connection between a collection and active education and research can result in its neglect or dissolution because it is seen to have lost relevance. This is a real shame as university collections form an artefactual record of pedagogical methods, and store a wealth of future educational potential and are therefore very valuable from a heritage point of view.
When it comes to the use of collections, developments in architectural education have not always run parallel to those in other university disciplines. Whereas in other disciplines the connection between teaching collections and education has often been lost completely, at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment some of the collections have remained in active use. What is significant in the case of the Chair Collection was that it was being compiled at the very time that many university departments elsewhere were turning away from their collections.
To explain the position of the collections at A&BE and to map their future, I will place them in a framework of university collections in general. Although university collections form a large and varied group, and the different nature of the various collections often call for a specific approach, they all face a number of the same challenges. For the purpose of possible cooperation between institutions, and the formulation of new approaches and goals, an overarching theoretical framework helps curators to escape the limitations posed by a narrow, disciplinary or organizational categorization. However, the broad spectrum of university collections and their changing use makes it difficult to universally categorise them.
Lourenco (2005) provides a theoretical framework for a better understanding of the origins, nature and possible significance of university collections. Lourenco based the framework on extensive literature research on the museological approach to university collections, documenting the existing confusion of terms and classifications. In general, Lourenco proposes to classify university collections according to the following typology:
Research collections
Teaching collections
Historical teaching and research collections
Collections of university history (memorabilia, biographical collections)2
With time and changing approaches to research and education, collections may shift from one category to another; research collections may be used for teaching, and once active research and teaching collections may no longer be used for their original purpose, becoming historical collections. Lourenco proposes to take the process of admission of objects into the collection as an additional criterion for a division of the typology into two main categories. First generation collections are the result of purposeful collecting, for research or for education. Second generation collections are formed by historical accumulation and may contain for instance historical instruments, but also portraits of professors and other memorabilia.
When we apply this categorization to the collections at TU Delft, we see that most of it can be classified as a second generation collection. The majority of the research and teaching collections formed at the various faculties of TU Delft are now in the care of TU Delft Library under the heading of Special Collections. Special Collections is subdivided into the Trí©sor, housing the historic publications, photographs and prints, and the so-called Museum Collections. The latter contains around 8000 items, amongst which are included historic instruments and equipment, lecture materials and research collections. Besides the items that members of staff used for research and teaching in the past, the Special Collections house furniture, portraits and other memorabilia.4 The purpose of the collections, as stated on the website, is research into the history of science or technology or industrial archaeology, exhibitions, or ‘leisure’ research. This implies that the items contained in the Museum Collections are no longer relevant to current TU Delft research and teaching and that the collections, therefore, fall into the category of a second generation collection. The general trend in TU Delft is to regard collection items as an illustration of educational practices of the past, to be stored in a closed depot.
The current stagnation of these collections has occurred relatively recently. The Technische Hogeschool Delft (as TU Delft was then called) became a national pioneer in the use of historic technical collections when the board founded the Technisch Tentoonstellings Centrum in 1976. The goal of the TTC was to popularise technology through exhibitions, and many items from the teaching collections found new purpose there. Due to budget cuts, the TTC was privatised in 1993 and its name was changed to Techniek Museum Delft. In 2008 the museum was relocated, a change that also prompted a change to the overall concept. The Techniek Museum was renamed Science Centre, but more importantly, decided to no longer base its activities on TU Delft’s Museum Collections. As a result, the Museum Collections lost an important means of outreach.
However, there are exceptions to the general circumstances of the collections at TU Delft, and some collections are still in use for education. As was mentioned before, the Faculty of A&BE still houses a number of active collections. The collections of A&BE include construction models and building fragments from older teaching collections, an image archive largely resulting from educational activities and field trips, and material samples of wood, stone and some brick. In addition to these older items, a large collection of architectural scale models has built up over the last three decades, largely the result of research and exhibitions both at the faculty and at other venues. Amongst these were travelling exhibitions with an international audience, such as Raumplan vs. Plan Libre, and monographic exhibitions on The Smithsons and Melnikov. Many of the models in the collection were built by students under the direction of professor emeritus Max Risselada. Finally, the faculty houses a teaching collection of chairs.
The Chair Collection consists of over 300 chairs, most of them present in the faculty building. It has been part of the Faculty’s educational facilities since a number of students started collecting in 1957.6 As the collection was initiated to support design education, it reflects a special interest in material use and construction, making it a ready source of inspiration for designers In contrast to most of TU Delft’s heritage collection, the Chair Collection is a living collection, in the sense that it is still growing, mostly thanks to donations. In the past year, donors have contributed a small collection of (mostly anonymous) working chairs, as well as several chairs by well-known designers.
Activities around the Chair Collection include exhibitions and research, but there are also frequent loans to museums. Recent loans to prominent museums include a Rietveld chair at the Rijksmuseum, a Berlage chair, amongst others, to the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, and a sofa to the Krãller-Mí¼ller museum. The chairs are currently on permanent display in a central location in the faculty building, and information on the items can be accessed through touch screens. Therefore, in contrast with most TU Delft collections, the Chair Collection is still a first generation collection. But to the curators, it seems that the preservation of a collection and the heritage value it represents is best served by the continued or renewed use and significance for education and research, especially since these are the core activities at the university.
In order to activate the faculty’s collections and to realise their full potential we, the curators of the faculty’s collections, tried some new activities in which the Chair Collection served as a guinea pig. Until recently, the chair collection was used predominantly during lectures to exemplify work by the designers or was exhibited in tours of the collection. There were also instances where students might write their thesis paper or undertake research on a chair or designer. Otherwise, the collection mainly provided loans to museums. One of the issues that the curators wanted to investigate was the question of how to deal with the future of the collections in education. Other uses besides education and research could also become relevant. In planning the future use of the Chair Collection, it will be useful to consider the future and other possible uses of university collections generally.
In the past, the main purpose for a university collection would have been research, and the second purpose would have been teaching. Since the 1980s, a third mission became more important to collections looking for renewed relevance: outreach to the general public through public exhibitions. With increasing competition among universities to attract students from abroad, a fourth mission is added: forming a display window aimed at prospective students.7 This kind of activity could achieve another goal at the same time, by appealing to alumni. Alumni are another important new audience; the university sees their involvement with their old university as a possibility for networking, potentially beneficial to research and education purposes.
This publication discusses projects around the Chair Collection because this collection served as a test case for possible new approaches. Some of the projects in this publication appear to be part of a trend to reconnect collections to education. At the annual meeting of the European academic heritage network (Universeum) of 2016, these projects were presented to an audience of mainly university museum staff or university collection curators. The introduction of a dedicated session read:
Connecting the collections with research and education … In the last few years, we have seen an increased demand by university boards to demonstrate the use of collections as resources for research and education. Many university collections that originated and then dissociated from teaching and research are now reconnected to education and scientific investigation. Did the collections find their way back into the labs and the curriculum? How do new ways of object based learning and research give new meanings to collections?
Other educational activities presented in the session centred on research carried out on items in university collections, sometimes in an educational context.
Our recent collections activities have not just been aimed at expanding research on and teaching with the collections, but also at expanding on the other two aims through the exhibition of the results of the educational research and design projects to our various audiences. The third and fourth missions, of outreach to a general public and appeal to prospective students, form a viable option for part of our collections. By incorporating selected student work into the collections, a highly representative picture could be created of what it is like to study at the faculty. Thus the future for the collections can be found in all four missions: integration into education, generating research, active in outreach to international students, alumni, and the general public, in cooperation with museums.
The main question throughout the project was: How can we activate the faculty’s collections through integration with education, research and exhibitions?
The goals that we identified were:
Better integration of research education into the curriculum, which is dominated by design education
Getting the collections involved in design education
Output: using student output, to create exhibitions for students at the faculty as well as other universities and the general public.
The curators aimed to achieve these goals by initiating projects that advance the integration of research and design education, by using research on items from the collections as input for design projects. The results were presented in exhibitions and are shown in this catalogue
Sustainable Neighbourhood Transformation
Get PDFUrban renewal through the large-scale restructuring of post-war neighbourhoods is a major challenge throughout Europe in the decades ahead. Current urban restructuring programmes in the Netherlands focus on the demolition and replacement of the existing housing stock. The motivation behind this strategy is creating a better social mix between ‘poor’ and ‘better-off’ households, to improve the general quality of the housing stock and to create a financially viable restructuring programme. The general aim is to improve various aspects of sustainability in urban neighbourhoods. Are demolition and replacement strategies the most effective and efficient way to achieve this objective? In this book, we examine the effects of demolition and replacement strategies on sustainability from different perspectives. An economic perspective: the market position and the value of the neighbourhoods, a social perspective: the levels of social capital and residential stability, and an environmental perspective: the energy efficiency and the use of materials in restructuring strategies
Health performance of housing: Indicators and tools
Get PDFHuman health is a condition influenced by many aspects: genetic predisposition, food and water, lifestyle, age and the physical and social environment. Outdoor hazards penetrate the house and add to the indoor hazards. The physical housing conditions and also occupant behaviour create health hazards. In maintenance policy and renovation projects, the opportunities to reduce health risks and adapt houses to the health needs of households are not used to their full potential. Health criteria were until recently poorly integrated into sustainable building, and some technical innovations to save energy are associated with health related complaints. Good diagnosis of environmental problems is often a bottleneck for home owners and housing managers. Better insight into health performance qualities and a clear framework and common language can improve health performance. The major question of the project is: What physical parameters and which type of occupancy and behaviour result in exposure to health risk and how can this risk be evaluated and reduced
Housing Policy and Housing Finance in the Czech Republic during Transition: An Example of the Schism between the Still-Living Past and the Need of Reform
Get PDFThis book contains the description and evaluation of a profound housing system reform constituting part of the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy in the Czech Republic. It addresses two goals: to evaluate housing subsidies (reforms) by application of improved methods of welfare economics and, secondly, to list the main factors explaining the particular outcomes of selected reforms. The author applied methods of welfare economics for an evaluation of housing subsidies in a scale unique in housing studies. The analysis of underlying factors influencing formation of housing reforms brought new findings about the essence of transition in post-socialist countries