Atlantis #24.1 Conveying Society

ATLANTIS

MAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR URBANISM SOCIAL DOMAIN Articulating Soft and Hard Infrastructures Questioningt the Dutch Delta Social implicatitons of mobility infrastructure On Neighbourhood Effects

NETWORKS A layer-model perspective on the creative economy Expanding a salt marsh Places and Patterns of a Festival

HARD INFRASTRUCTURE Re-think Urban (Infra)Structures Healthy city Conquering a Void Post-infrastructural Solutions

SOFT INFRASTRUCTURE People’s Commune 2.0 Reconfiguration Shenzhen as a place of conflicting rationalities From Khlongs to Thanons Reclaiming Governance

#24.1 October 2013

CONVEYING SOCIETY THROUGH INFRASTRUCTURE

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From the board Committees 2013

Dear Polis members,

We could not be as visible as we are without the great effort of a lot of active students. With the help of them we can organise excursions, lectures, workshops, drinks and events. The Polis board wants to thank all the people involved for their great efforts and positive input!

In front of you lies the third edition of Atlantis to be published under this board year (2013). We have chosen the theme: Conveying Society through infrastructure. We are very proud of the, once again, great achievements of our Atlantis-committee.

We are always looking for enthusiastic people to join. Interested in one of the Polis committees or becoming the new board of 2014? Do not hesitate to contact us at our Polis office (01west350) or by mail: contact@ polistudelft.nl

Polis board.

Kevin van der Linden - President Tjerk Wobbes - Treasurer Sarah Rach - Secretary Lizet Krabbenborg - Events Jet van der Hee - Atlantis

Urbanism Week: Rogier Hendriks, Divya Jindal, Joppe Kant, Lizet Krabbenborg, Eva Nicolai, Erifyli Vlachvei

Big Trip.: Klaas Akkerman, Larissa Guschl, Kevin van der Linden, Egle Varapeckyte

Symposium: Luuk van der Burgt, Sarah Rach, Daniel Radai Atlantis: Talya van der Brink, Emilia Bruck, Jet van der Hee, Yuhui Jin, Todor Kesarovski, Jiayao Liu, Yos Purwanto, Tess Stribos, Jessica Vahrenkamp

In this issue of the Atlantis, we take up both the hard physical infrastructure on the one hand, and the soft virtual infrastructure on the other. We attempt to reconcile both forms and show opportunities for them to come together. All this, to highlight means to convey society.

Meanwhile, Polis is using both ways of infrastructure to communicate with you as a member. We may run into each other in the faculty and tell you about upcoming events or post something on social media about it. A short overview tells us about the wide range of interesting events taking place in the upcoming months. Most immediate, we will be hosting the idea competition in cooperation with ‘Urban Management’ and the municipality of Blaricum which deals with the temporary use of construction sites. And come the first week of October, we will once again be stage our most exciting event of the year: the Urbanism Week.

We are looking forward to unveiling our lineup for this week, with hot topics and interesting speakers. In November, the excursion committee will be traveling to Istanbul together with 25 master students to discover this metropolis and their unique approaches to dealing with urban questions.

This is a continuation of the period just before the summer holidays during which we arranged several nice events. The Spoorzone workshop in cooperation with Palmbout Urban Landscapes was a great success with the results presented on the ‘Dag van de Architectuur’ in Delft.

And the annual Polis dinner was a pleasant end to the academic year.

The academic year 2013/2014 has now begun, and with it, the second half of our board year, as well. If you are interested in joining us to help organize events, please let us know. Ideas for new events are welcomed, as well. Also, Polis is looking for new committee members and board members for 2014. If you want to be a part of Polis or one of its committee, do not hesitate to contact us!

We wish you very pleasant reading!

On behalf of the Polis board 2013, Jet van der Hee, Lizet Krabbenborg, Kevin van der Linden, Sarah Rach & Tjerk Wobbes

polistudelft.nl

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ATLANTIS

Editorial

MAGAZINE BY POLIS | PLATFORM FOR URBANISM

In last year’s final edition of Atlantis, we addressed the spatial legacies of past and future

Atlantis Volume #24

socio-cultural, political and economic paradigms owing to the urban agglomeration of

Are you passionate about urbanism and

human capital. Continuing from that theme, the first issue of the new Volume takes up

would like to contribute?

the subject of infrastructures conveying such paradigms and with particular focus on the

Contact us at: atlantis@polistudelft.nl

complexity of networks (Gabriel Dupuy) that reinforce our urban environments.

Infrastructure, a fundamental term in the lexicon of urbanists, deserves a closer look at just what is meant when we speak of it. The Oxford English Dictionary offers a two part definition. Firstly, “hard infrastructure, or that bound by capital assets”*; the most commonly recognized form for its large physical networks and structures. This infrastructure is central to the functioning of our modern industrial societies by enabling the transport of people, commodities and information. Secondly, “soft infrastructure, or that consisting of the institutions running society”; this form complements the function of hard infrastructure through social networks and myriad other inconspicuous systems. Soft infrastructure

#24.1 Conveying Society

relates to the latin suffix ‘infra’, meaning ‘below’. It refers to the underlying, invisible

Keywords: Network, Social Domain,

mechanisms that are crucial for the functioning of the visible world.

Hard & Soft Infrastructure Following the Oxford Dictionary’s definition of and differentiation between hard- and soft-infrastructure, in this issue, we wish to analyze their interface with particular interest for how it may shape the rules and our understanding of urbanism. Articles have been specially chosen with the aim to juxtapose the variety of hard and soft, physical and virtual infrastructures on which we depend. To open the issue, Louisa Calabrese stresses the bias of planners and designers toward infrastructure. The interconnected relationship of urban infrastructure, governance and civil society is then explored by Roberto Rocco referencing the recent demonstrations in Turkey and Brazil, followed by an interview with Han

#24.2 Trends & Tools

Mayer on the delta systems. The social implications of hard and soft infrastructure are addressed in an Austrian Quality of Urban Life study as well as in the Neighborhood Effects

by Martin van Ham. While Arie Romain and Jan Trip reflect on the invisible networks constituting the creative economy in theory, a landscape architectural thesis depicts the collaboration of institutional networks wtihin the research and design practice. Atlantis further discusses new means of physical infrastructure with Urban Think Tank, complemented by Matthijs van Dijkstra’s essay on healthier cities through bicycle infrastructure and a talk with Marcel van der Meijs about the revitalization of the Spoorzone. To round off this issue, we close with a discussion on the politics of infrastructure and particularly in regard to citizen responsibility in a conversation with Wouter Vanstiphout.

#24.3

In the last edition we have announced this year’s Urbanism Week, which will take place between the 7th and 11th of October 7th . As we indicated an incorrect location, we hereby affirm the venue to be the Faculty of Architectural, TU Delft.

On behalf of the entire editorial team, I want to thank all contributors, and wish you enjoyable reading!

Emilia Bruck

* quotes from the Oxford English Dictionary

#24.4

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CONVEYING SOCIETY Through infrastructure

PROLOGUE

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D. Piccinini, T. van Geest, L. Wray and R. Miller

URBAN FLATLINING

Luisa Calabrese

CONCEPTIONS OF LANDSCAPES IN THE HIGH SOCIAL DOMAIN

ANTHROPOCENE

6 ARTICULATING SOFT AND HARD INFRASTRUCTURES Roberto Rocco

Kalle Samuelsson

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INTERVIEW

TOP 5

HARD INFRASTRUCTURE Enabling Social Activity

10 QUESTIONING THE DUTCH DELTA

Todor Kesarovski

Interview with Han Meyer

32 14 SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF MOBILITY INFRASTRUCTURE

ARTPAGE

DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE Eric Fisher

Emilia Bruck, Eva Haslauer, Thomas Prinz HARD INFRASTRUCTURE INTERVIEW

18 ON NEIGHBOURHOOD EFFECTS

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Interview with Maarten van Ham

INTERVIEW

RE-THINK URBAN (INFRA)STRUCTURES

Interview with Alfredo Brillembourg & Hubert Klumpner

38 HEALTHY CITY

NETWORKS

22 A LAYER-MODEL PERSPECTIVE ON THE CREATIVE ECONOMY

CYCLE INFRASTRUCTURE Mathijs Dijkstra

Arie Romein & Jan Jacob Trip

40 DEFINITION BOX

25 HARD INFRASTRUCTURE, SOFT INFRASTRUCTURE, NETWORK AND SOCIAL DOMAIN

INTERVIEW

CONQUERING A VOID

Interview with Marcel van der Meijs

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POLIS REPORT

POST-INFRASTRUCTURAL SOLUTIONS STUDENTS IDEAS ON THE SPOORZONE DELFT Yos Purwanto

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Prologue

43 EXPANDING A SALT MARSH USING SOFT INFRASTRUCTURE TO OPTIMIZE A DIKE REMOVAL Talya ten Brink

46 PLACES AND PATTERNS OF A FESTIVAL IOPM: INTERACTIVE DATA COLLECTION PROJECT Denise Piccinini SOFT INFRASTRUCTURE

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COMMENT BOX

IS INFRASTRUCTURE A POLITICAL TOOL?

Bart de Hartog, Dirk Sijmons, Shenglin Chang and YANG Yuzhen

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GRADUATION PROJECT

PEOPLE’S COMMUNE 2.0 RECONFIGURATION Xiayu Wu

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GRADUATION PROJECT

SHENZHEN AS A PLACE OF CONFLICTING RATIONALITIES Matthijs van Oostrum and Andrew Reynolds

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REPORT

FROM KHLONGS TO THANONS Matthijs van Oostrum

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EPILOGUE

RECLAIMING GOVERNANCE Interview with Wouter Vanstiphout

GRADUATION LIST

When viewed as ‘landscape’ - that is as a field of systems and scales expressed through processes and patterns, either digital or physical, automated or mechanical infrastructure is both an index and interface that involve constructed technological systems (hardware) and designed biophysical systems (software). As such infrastructures are more than a pragmatic response to a functional necessity of society. They constitute a true opportunity to physically and culturally integrate the fragmented urban entity with the experience and culture(s) of the people who live in it.

Whether they are made out of asphalt or iron tracks, transportation infrastructures – the spaces of mobility - are the most densely populated public interiors. As such they should be planned, designed and ultimately managed with the same care and skill as public buildings. They should guarantee accessibility, safety and multi-functionality to all. Responding to the inertia of land use zoning and overexertion of technological systems at the end of 20th century, the predominant challenges facing urban regions today ask for the implementation of a strategic design of “infrastructural ecologies” (Belanger, 2013), a synthetic landscape of living, biophysical systems that operate as urban infrastructures to shape and direct the future of urban economies into the 21st century. There is no singular field of knowledge skilled to address exclusively the present challenges of global urbanization, climate change, population mobility, infrastructures and transportation. As claimed by many, the merging of disciplinary fields into an urbanism of complex urban ecologies is a non-negotiable move. The coupling of different flows and the calibration of different processes bears the potential for transforming mono-functional structures into poly-functional infrastructures. The historical pace and spatial synchronization of these reclaimed exchanges is paramount.

Thus, if social networks can be understood as latent infrastructures of our contemporary urbanity, then the design of softer, leaner, ecological systems can reform, protect and drive contemporary spatial morphologies, as well as emerging regional economies.

Luisa Calabrese

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Emerging New Roles for Designers and Planners:

Articulating Soft and Hard Infrastructures Roberto Rocco Assistant Professor, Section Spatial Planning and Strategy, TU Delft Hard infrastructure are often purposed by urbanists to facilitate further economic and societal development. However, the recent protests in Brazil and Turkey against the urban plans told the other side of the story of infrastructure: the design of hard infrastructure alone is not enough.

Roberto Rocco, an assistant professor of TU Delft and also a Brazilian, reviews the underlying causes of the protest in Brazil, from which he stresses the importance of soft infrastructure and the political role of urban planners and designers.

The idea explored in this edition of Atlantis, that cities are composed by “hard” and “soft” infrastructure, immediately caught my attention.

I was initially not familiar with the work of Edward Malecki, for whom both “public and private sectors, and their interactions, are sustained by networks. To be effective, these networks must operate at the global, national, regional and local scales, gathering knowledge via social interaction, that is, through ‘soft’ networks”.

Of course, these expressions are open for interpretation. Hard infrastructure is easily understandable as the physical environments and places where life occurs. But what is “soft infrastructure”?

An understanding of soft infrastructure could perhaps include culture, political structures and institutions or the way these things are articulated and bound together by values, rules, traditions and conventions. Together they conceivably form the soft infrastructure that inhabit (and produce) physical space.

In urban planning and design studies, however, there is a specific way to understand these relationships. We try to understand how governments (and most specially formal spatial planning systems and spatial intervention practices) interact with civil society and the private sector for the production of space. This is called “governance”. Governance is perhaps an effective shorthand to express the complexity of soft infrastructure in urbanism. The relationships among the public sector, the private sector and civil society happen within formal institutions (of which the rule of law is the best expression) and informal institutions (cultures, traditions and customs).

As I hinted in the first paragraph, the correlation between hard and soft infrastructure in the production of space is diachronic and mutual.

Hard infrastructure simultaneously produces and is produced by soft infrastructure. Space is socially constructed, as Henri Lefebvre so masterly argued in his 1974 book “The production of space”. Here, I argue that one of our roles as Urbanists is to try and understand the complex relationships between the hard infrastructure and the soft 6

one in order to be able to effectively and responsibly act and intervene in space.

The interactions between society and space are complex and to a large extent indomitable, as they cannot be fully understood and managed.

However, in times of “big data” and “smart cities”, we must still acknowledge the importance of governments and formal planning as steerers of urban development. We must also acknowledge the role of politics in urban development and accept that urban planners and designers have a political role. Bringing politics back to design and planning studies is crucial in order to avoid the irrational belief some designers and planners seem to have on the effectiveness of architectural and urban designs and plans to “solve” social conflict by themselves; without an understanding of and without real connections to the larger social and economic processes and decisionmaking structures.

Urban space is essentially the space of politics, as Plato and a host of other thinkers have stated. It is the space of dispute and conflict, but also of negotiation, cooperation and cross-fertilization of ideas (as Jane Jacobs has brilliantly theorized in her book “The Economy of Cities and new economic geographers have been busy investigating ever since). All decisions concerning urban development are political decisions, since they must be negotiated among different parties that often hold conflicting views.

All this became evident to me while anxiously watching recent developments in Brazil and Turkey, where millions took to the streets because of spatial demands, which quickly turned to pleas for better democracies. It is revealing that both movements stemmed from two crucial urban demands: the demand for public space and green in the city and the demand for mobility. In Turkey, a peaceful protest against the construction of a shopping centre in one of the last remnants of green in the symbolic centre of Istanbul, quickly turned into a plea for real democracy when authorities turned a blind eye to legitimate demands from civil society and instead repressed demonstrations

Figure 1. Protest in Brazil 2013 ©http://blogs.independent.co.uk

Once we have acknowledged that the design of hard infrastructures alone is not enough, is it possible that the design and planning of soft infrastructures can help us attain our objectives? violently. A similar development took place in my native Brazil, where a peaceful movement for better public transportation was equally violently repressed by the authorities. Demonstrations multiplied and the nature of those movements changed into full-throttle pleas for better democracies, effective government, transparency and accountability.

What is the role of design and planning in all this? It seems evident to me that we, urban planners and designers, can contribute to the debate of what better democracies mean today through the understanding of how to act on urban space democratically and responsibly. Turkish urbanists can design good inner-city parks and Brazilian trafficengineers are very good at planning bus and metro lines. But there is nothing good design can do against ineffective and corrupt governments or failures in negotiation and implementation. Or is there? Once

we have acknowledged that the design of hard infrastructure alone is not enough, is it possible that the design and planning of soft infrastructure can help us attain our objectives?

But before we try to answer that question, let’s examine the events in Brazil more closely. What are people so angry about and what do they ultimately want? As I said, the initial demand concerned a plea for free public transportation. An organized movement called “Movimento Passe Livre” (roughly translated as “Free Pass Movement”) argues that it would be feasible and even economically beneficial if public transportation were entirely subsidized by public money. They claim that mobility is a fundamental right and that by providing free transportation to the poor, the government would be greatly advancing their life chances, allowing them prompt access to jobs and services frequently

located far from where they can afford to live. They argue that the economic benefits of such a scheme would far surpass the costs of subsidizing transport, and have even produced studies demonstrating the viability of their proposals.

Mobility is a serious issue in Brazilian metropolises. A heated economy means that more and more people have access to private cars. As car ownership is already high and public transportation ineffective, traffic jams are inevitable. On the other end of the social spectrum, the poor must struggle with inefficient but expensive transportation systems that highly limit their possibilities of social and economic advancement.

As radical as the proposals of ‘Movimento Passe Livre’ might seem, they have played a big role in steering opinions about the role of the State, the nature of urban rights and the importance of urban mobility.

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Hard infrastructure simultaneously produces and is produced by soft infrastructure.

After the initial grotesque and violent repression of demonstrations for free transportation, other sectors of society got mobilized.

Perhaps the Passe Livre Movement’s ideas seemed undoable, but they certainly had the right to demonstrate and propagate their views.

More demonstrations were called, and more violent repression by the military police took place. There we had the recipe for a full-fledged movement for the right to protest, much like what had already happened in Turkey.

Rapidly, the movement grew in scope and in numbers, as people expressed their dissatisfaction at services being delivered by governments, like transportation, health and education. A new focus emerged: why would we have all these new stadiums being built for the World Cup in 2014, when we do not have good schools and hospitals and our subways and bus systems are so deficient? FIFA, the international governing body of association football, has very strict standards about the quality of World Cup Stadiums. People in Brazil felt that, if the country could afford such high level venues, certainly it could afford “FIFA-standard” hospitals and schools?

On top of it all, several stadiums had largely gone over budget and Brazilians were weary of public money going into the pockets of corrupt officials and equally corrupt developers. Here we had the ultimate paradox: Brazilians, for whom football is second nature, were angry about having to pay so much to host the World Cup. So, Brazilians went out in the streets in great numbers asking for effective, transparent, accountable, democratic governments.

In short, Brazilians felt that the country’s prosperity was not reflected in the quality of the services and environments they got. According to the World Bank, Brazilian economy is currently ranked 7th in the world in terms of total GDP output, just behind that of the UK and ahead of Russia’s. But the GINI coefficient (the index that measures

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social inequality) is very high (54.7 according to the World Bank, similar to Guatemala and Zambia) and the Inequality Adjusted HDI (Human Development Index) is 0.53 (which puts Brazil as 70th in the world in terms of social equality, closer to Suriname and Vietnam, rather than to countries with a similar GDP per capita and culture, like Argentina (43th) or Costa Rica (54th). Clearly, economic prosperity is not reflected in the population’s well being, despite the enormous gains of the last decade, when millions of people were lifted out of poverty.

The World Bank recognizes that “Brazil’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) program also known as Bolsa Família helped millions out of the poverty and is among the most effective social protection programs in the world, having helped raise approximately 20 million people out of poverty between 2003 and 2009 and well as significantly reducing income inequality”. However, it was not the very poor who went to the streets. Largely, it was the traditional middle classes, who have seen few if any gains in the last decades, who took to the streets.

Rapidly, it became clear that those in the streets were not asking for basic services. They were asking for better services, which would match the level of economic development of the country. Although Brazilian cities are generally vibrant and economically viable, livability is low and problems concerning mobility and environmental quality, as I mentioned earlier, are very serious.

This put the focus on the ability of the government to deliver services and better urban environments. Inevitably, we must ask ourselves about the possible roles urbanists, as members of governmental institutions, deliverers of physical proposals and professionals directly involved with policy making, can have in delivering public goods.

This brings us back to our question, is it possible that the design and planning of soft infrastructure can help us attain our objectives?

1 MALECKI, E. J. 2002. Hard and Soft Networks for Urban Competitiveness.

Urban Studies, 39, 929-945.

2 OSTROM, E. 2005. Understanding Institutional Diversity, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.

3 LEFEBVRE, H. 1991. The production of space, Oxford, OX, UK; Cambridge, Mass., USA, Blackwell.

4 JACOBS, J. 1969. The economy of cities, New York, Random House.

5 OTTAVIANO, G. & THISSE, J.-F. 2004. New Economic Geography: What about the N? CORE Discussion Paper No. 2004, 1-26.

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You can get more information

(in Portuguese) at the official site of Movimento Passe Livre http:// saopaulo.mpl.org.br. Former Transport Secretary of the city of São Paulo, engineer Lucio Gregori, argues that Figure 2. Brazil stadium for 2014 World Cup ©http://www.wsdg.com

the tributary policies in Brazil do not allow for free transportation, but that otherwise transport could be free, just

It is my profound belief that our task is not only to deliver the plans and designs that will shape the physical world (the hard infrastructure), but we must also simultaneously design the soft infrastructure that will allow those designs and plans to take place effectively and democratically. But what do I mean by the design of soft infrastructure?

like the public health system (SUS), public schools and garbage collection.

All these things are already free in Brazil, although paid alternatives are sometimes more effective. An intervbiew with Gregori (in Portuguese) is available at http://www.ihu.unisinos.br/

I believe that while understanding governance is crucial, it is not enough. We must be able to design new relationships between civil society, the private sector and governments in relation to the plans and designs we wish to propose. For instance, if a new housing scheme is put forward in the form of drawings and regulations, we must, as designers and planners, be able to answer the questions of what, by whom, when and how these designs are going to be implemented.

Designs and plans must be anchored on a firm understanding of the role of stakeholders and the socio-political context where these plans and designs will take place. We must understand legal systems and existing forms of partnership and financing. But most importantly, we must also be able to propose new forms of partnership and financing, and new roles for stakeholders and ourselves.

noticias/521161-transporte-coletivogratuito-e-tao-viavel-quanto-o-sus 7

Data available at http://databank.

worldbank.org/data/download/GDP.pdf 8

Data available at http://data.

worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI 9

The Netherlands ranks 4th (0.921).

Available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/ statistics/ihdi/ 10 WORLD BANK (2012), Lifting Families Out of Poverty in Brazil - Bolsa Familia Program, available online at http://web.worldbank.org/ (accessed on July 23, 13:00)

Research is essential. Nothing can be done without knowledge about the context, the issues present and the solutions that have been tried elsewhere. But research is not enough! We must also be able to reach out to other forms of knowledge that are not in books, papers and statistics, but in the minds and doings of people, investors, politicians and citizens. There must be a large measure of activism involved in Urbanism, as we move away from the utterly ridiculous idea that we (acting alone) have an answer for everything through our spectacular designs and plans. Without understanding and acting upon the soft infrastructure of the city, we will not be able to deliver hard infrastructure that works in the real world.

11 The Economist Intelligence Unit publishes a ranking of cities by livability, which they derive from a mix of several indicators. The report, which is sometimes criticized by scholars, is available at https://www.eiu.com/public/ topical_report.aspx?campaignid=Livea bility2013 12 I like to call people who propagate this position “messianic designers and planners”.

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Questioning the Dutch Delta Interview with Han Meyer

Delta areas are one of the most densely populated in the world. In combination with the inevitable water infrastructure, the relation between infrastructure and society is strong.

The Dutch Delta with its omnipresent hard infrastructure is a famous example of this.

But now the delta’s reliance on hard infrastructure is being questioned. What are the

Han Meyer Professor Urbanism, TU Delft, Leading research program Delta-Urbanism

alternatives? And what do they mean for society? Atlantis sat down with professor Han Meyer and discussed the future of delta infrastructure.

To begin this interview, could you please give us your definition of infrastructure?

Literally, infrastructure means underlying structure. If we do it well, infrastructure functions as the main elements in the spatial structure of the city. If we do it poorly, infrastructure has the potential to really destroy or conflict with the main structure of the city. The most important part of the definition is that infrastructure should promote the best possible spatial organization of the city and the landscape. So maybe this is the best definition: infrastructure is a system which lends high quality support to the spatial structure.

The Dutch delta is a prime example of infrastructure intertwined with society. Can you tell us more about this?

The Dutch delta is special, due to the physical and social context. In a political sense, it is possibly only comparable to Bangladesh, because the delta is the national territory: 60% of the Dutch national economy is located in the lowlands of the delta. Other deltas, like Pearl River Delta in China, are also very important, very urbanized, but the Chinese government still sees it as just one region. With 120 million inhabitants, it is yet only a tiny part of China and so China is not completely dependent on it. But the protection of the Dutch delta, comprising a lot the nation’s heavy infrastructure, was and is a matter of life and death. For example, in the storm of 1953 the dikes around Holland were severely threatened. Had one of these dikes broken, the heart of the Dutch economy would have been affected. This scenario is unique the world around.

How did these conditions develop?

The strong relationship between our economic state and flood defence dates back to the 12th and 13th century when the Dutch began to drain the land and build dikes in order to reclaim farmland and build fortified and accessible port cities.

These conditions were enhanced in 19th and 20th century, during the age of industrialisation. The Zuiderzee Works and the Delta Works, were part of a policy of societal development, dominated by 10

a policty promoting industrial economy and nation building. The Zuiderzee Works, in particular, was a means to increase agricultural productivity in response to food shortages experienced during World War I as a result of insufficient food imports; This argument against international trade dependency was instrumental in the fight to close off the Zuiderzee and to create more land in it. It was part of a larger project to modernize and industrialize the economy of the Netherlands. First came the Zuiderzee Works (1920s), followed by the Delta Works (1950-90s). The Delta Works upgraded the peripheral area and almost third-world state of the Southwest Netherlands into a modern port, where infrastructural and industrial development could take place. Originally, the northern part of these delta islands were meant to be industrialized. The first designs sought to transform these otherwise recreational islands for large industrial purposes.. The 1960s indeed saw a lot of industrialization, but with a high labour intensity, meaning less land was needed than previously thought.

This big focus on hard infrastructure should be seen in context of this societal development.

What is the current state of development in society? And what is the influence on infrastructure?

Currently, western economies are developing in a different direction.

The welfare society is based on an industrial society, but heavy industry is no longer the most important. The result is that the whole idea of society and economy is now very much changing. We do not know the details of how the new system will look or function, this is still a (political) debate. What is important to keep aware of though, is that development in the delta areas is related to other phenomena. Like the rise of the knowledge economy, for example. The Port of Rotterdam now tries to pay more attention to its environmental impact, focussing not only on its port area, but also its surroundings. The port is aiming to create conditions that are attractive for everyone connected to the knowledge economy in the long term. Because the port is angling to becomea ‘smart port’ with innovative transport solutions and clean industries in remain competitive, the Rotterdam Port Authority

has proclaimed its ambition to become the cleanest port in the world. This is but one example of how the economical and societal context of the delta is changing. Now, the Port of Rotterdam is forming a coalition with the World Wildlife Fund which is focussing on delta areas due to their extensive biodiversity (greater than rainforests) and endangered situation by industrialization. They stress significance of the Dutch delta for Western Europe or from Gibraltar to the North Pole.

with a large fish industry. City and port authority are working together to balance industry with conservation. Further, large manufacturing firms like Microsoft and Boeing who are based in Seattle, are aware that employees, blue and white collar alike, enjoy living in Seattle both due to work opportunities and its proximity to unspoilt nature.

How does this relate to your views on infrastructure?

Can you tell us more about this new pattern of port development?

Starting form the early 90s, the awareness of port developments grew, particularly in regard of a cohesive development agenda for deltas and cities. For port workers living in the city is important, but equally so is the quality of the natural environment. One of the most famous of these ports is Seattle, which became important on the West Coast of the United States due to the rise of trade with Asia. Seattle is also located in an estuary,

Figure.1 New flood-defense structures at the Haringvliet, combined with fish and oyster

In this combination, it is primarily a question of how you organize your flood defence strategy. Because if you continue to build strong dikes, (which is now the discussion), it is very safe, but also has a negative impact on the ecology. Also, it is a question whether these flood structures are as resilient as they are resistant. Is a system able to deal with uncertainty? And if disasters occur, can they be dealt with it in a more flexible way? This kind of strategy works best together with environmental and recreational strategies.

What kind of infrastructure should be included with this kind of trend? If hard infrastructure is no longer sufficient?

Generalizing is really dangerous. The Netherlands, for example, cannot go back to the old situation. It used to be the case that much of our now-reclaimed land was once above sea level; however, due to drainage and other factors, a large part is now below sea level, so you cannot just remove the dikes. But the Mekong Delta, which is comparable to the Netherlands in terms of size, population and frequent floods, but the farmers know how to deal with this. Now the Vietnamese government has asked the Dutch to draw up a development plan (‘because the Dutch know how to do this’) to protect the area from flooding; several plans to close off river mouths and to build dikes were proposed, but there are concerns that potential risks of such a plan include developing some of the same and subsidence problems as in the Netherlands. So the safety of such a plan is questionable in the long term.

What is important to keep aware of though, is that development in the delta areas is related to other phenomena.

farms. Project by Joon KIM, EMU-project 2011

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Figure.2 Design for new urban development in the Cau Lanh, Vietnam. Urban development and new public transport systems are concentrated on the higher grounds; the lower grounds are maintained for water retention during high water levels in the Mekong river.

Graduation project by Trang Le, 2013.

If the Mekong Delta is comparable to the Dutch delta, but does

Currently, is this question realised?

not have the extensive dikes systems like the Netherlands,how

It is being debated whether they should stick to the traditional approaches or learn from the Dutch example. A large conference in May 2013 about the Mekong delta was organized around this issue by America’s Wetlands, the Vietnam National University and the Dutch Embassy in Hanoi. I read the report of it and introduction, and saw the struggle between different opinions. The discussion will persist, and in this type of context, it is our responsibility, as people from the design disciplines and with an academic background, to show possible perspectives-not based on nice ideas, but to provide other options than just dikes and dams. And maybe we should go in combination of the two directions (Figure 2, 3).

do they deal with the safety issue?

First, there is the economic and societal context. The Mekong Delta is the largest rice producer of the world. Acknowledging that the global population will only increase in the coming decades, we have to address the question of how to organize our global food supply. Deltas have the most fertile ground of the world, and thus they are very important agriculture land. But there is a pressure from the national government to transition Vietnam’s agricultural production into an industrial system. So all the small towns in the Mekong Delta, which used to be the marketplace for regional farmers, are increasingly industrial centres. Unlike traditional agriculture which depended on floods, industries in those towns require protection against floods.

These societal changes, thus, in flood defence strategies and the pressure to develop industrial economies are comparable to the Dutch delta of the 19th century. The big difference is that the Dutch delta was not a large global food producer whereas the Mekong delta is. So, the question of how to deal with this delta is not only for Vietnam, but also for the world.

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What can Vietnam learn from Western history?

Vietnam should be aware that industrial economy is just a phase and society will not developing there. In the Western world of the 50s and 60s, the dominant idea was that when everything is industrialized, then developments would be complete. We assumed that in the 2000s, the Netherlands would be ready and ‘fixed’, but now we see that development just goes on. Also in China, Vietnam, and South Africa,

you have to keep in mind the situation 10 or 20 years out. Your current projects should not destroy the situation in 40 or 50 years.

In Asia, and also in Africa, more or less a repetition of the Western 20th century process is taking place, but in a much denser and explosive way. China and Singapore are now considering that industrialisation is not the only way of economic development, but there are other kinds of economies where the environment plays an important role.

So, if hard infrastructure is a hallmark of Dutch tradition, how will the public react to this new way? Won‘t they think it is an unsuitable method of dealing with the delta?

Yeah (thinking), in Holland we cannot completely go back to soft infrastructure. But it is happening where it is possible, like the sand engine, co-designed by our colleagues of hydraulic engineering. The principle is putting a lot of sand in the sea, and let the forces of nature distribute it along the coast, making new beaches and dunes. It is an experiment, and if it is a success, people in Scheveningen will be more enthusiastic of proposals like this. If you keep in mind the prevailing public opinion in the Netherlands, then a proposal like this fits very well.

In the same way, similar experiments are now being developed in the Southwest delta. We, ourselves, are now busy with this, cooperating with so-to-say soft institutions like municipalities, national and regional institutions and the WWF and Natuurmonumenten. In the future, the main outlet of the river going through Rotterdam, might change to the ‘Haringvliet’, south of Rotterdam, which will impacts people in the islands of Dordrecht. To deal with that, we should do something to increase the capacity of these waterways. In addition to raising dikes, we also try to use the land between new and old dikes. We found from historical analysis that the islands were made by rings of small dikes. Behind the main dikes, you

can always find older dikes. In fact, the transitional zones between land and water are one of important aspects for the delta, which originally used to be slow gradients, from dry to wet to real water. It changed due to hard dikes. Repairing the transitional zones is very much possible due to the dike system in the Haringvliet, and it provides opportunities for natural development and new relationships between the town behind the old dike and the water, making the area attractive for recreation and tourism (figure.1).

It also means another water safety strategy.

Instead of linear dikes, we are focusing on broader zones. So how are different institutions in the area organized for this?

The water board is only responsible for the dike, but we need also other organizations to deal with the safety, maintenance and layout.

Things need to be organized in such a way as to bring more benefits to institutions and people. We propose starting ‘communities of practice’ to start small experiments, which we hope will eventually grow into a new project, and become a model of another type of water safety infrastructure. Several institutions are now interested in the project, and we are beginning to discuss how to implement it.

We are not talking about aW design whose end-goal is implementation. Rather, we hope a set of principles and concept will result which can inform future action.

Taking it as an example, could you explain where the funds for such a comprehensive solution come from?

That is an interesting question. There is the Delta fund, reserved by Dutch government every year to maintain the safety of the Netherlands. At the moment we want to use the money on other kinds of water protection systems aside from just dikes, which will generate other benefits, and allow us to generate a different cost-benefit picture. For the plan to re-route the river, there is a lot of resistance from engineers who argue that the plan is too costly. The rebuttal is that

even though it will cost more, the benefits will be even greater. The difficulty in such a discussion is that it is easier to calculate the cost than forecast the benefits. One can never be sure to what extent it will be beneficial. An interesting example is the delta works. There were two proposals for that project: closing off the estuaries or raising the existing dikes, which cost more or less the same. Eventually they chose closing off the estuaries because it was supposed to have more benefits. After 15 years, research showed that closing off the estuaries resulted in six times the costs, but also six times the benefits compared with the calculations when it was planned. So you see, there are always two sides of the story of costs and benefits, and especially benefits, which is more or less a political debate, about our expectations and how we manipulate data about them.

As a final question, what is the relation between infrastructure and politics?

Throughout history, the design and construction of infrastructure has played a role as an important tool of economic and social politics. The Romans constructed a Europe-wide street network, as a mean to establish their empire. Hitler developed he German Autobahn-network as an important mean of national unification ànd to provide fast movements of his armies and military equipment. In New York, the battle between Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs concerning the construction of highways through the city was essentially a political battle. It revolved around the question how and by who the city should be used. In the Netherlands, the design and construction of flood defense systems play a similar role. It is not only about flood defense itself, it is also about spatial, economic and social policies.

Yos Purwanto, Jiayao Liu

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Social Impact of Mobility Infrastructure Emilia BruckA, Eva Haslauer, Thomas Prinz B Msc Student Urbanism, TU Delft B Research Studio iSpace, Salzburg, Austria A

The following article stresses mobility networks as determining infrastructural layer for the accomplishment of sustainable urban development, in its triarchy of ecology, economy and sociology. Urban Quality of Life, hence our satisfaction with our urban habitat, builds upon our experience which is spatially enhanced through the duality of mobility and urban form. The Austrian research studio for applied geoinformatics, iSpace, conducts complementary studies of geocoded commuter traffic development and socio-demographic trends. In the following case studies commuter behaviour in urban concentrations and dispersed settlements in periurban regions are juxtaposed to assess their socio-spatial and economic impact.

• Background

Transportation modes as form defining catalyst of urban development Urban form, both in its organic and master plan driven development, has been conducted by the pace of demographic growth and prevailing mobility structures. Development is, thus, essentially shaped by the capacity and requirement of urban transport infrastructures (Calabrese, 2004). Urban form, which varies according to the dominance of a particular transport mode, can further be understood as the spatial imprint of urban transportation systems. Particularly since the revolution of the automobile, in the wake of the Second World War, the socio-cultural influence of mobility infrastructures and modes has become apparent. The rise of individual transportation fostered the development of a monocentric city model (Alonso, 1964) characterized by expanding urban footprints, diluting in density at its urban edge. Political and economic interests have therefore not only shaped our urban form and road landscapes, but most importantly our social behaviour and affiliation with private transportation.

While the automobile enabled us to push back the boundaries of the city, the dispersed and low density urban settlement and the decentralization of activities, in turn, foster car dependency. “The use of an automobile became not so much a choice but a necessity in the Auto City.” (Newman and Kenworthy, 1998: 31).

Social satisfaction, urban form & transportation opportunity Since its revolution, the automobile’s availability among the households not only built momentum of high speed travel, but further influenced the increased scope of an individual’s activity space (Vilhelmson, 1999). Mobility as a social and spatial phenomenon therefore exceeds the realm of commodity transportation, but engages in our social domain and shapes our contemporary urban lives (Calabrese, 2004). Socially and spatially adapting to increased mobility standards, our society has turned the freedom of mobility into a demanding necessity (Vilhelmson, 1999).

Particularly due to the persistent dichotomy of comparatively low transportation costs and high urban land prices the spatial and social impact of mobility infrastructures challenges a sustainable urban 14

development. Mobility behaviour and commuting patterns dictated by the contemporary urban form have shown to have significant influence on our social activities and opportunities. As accessibility and connectivity depend on the transport supply, in terms of frequency and quality of network, social isolation can particularly be caused in dispersed peri-urban regions.

In an Australian study it was found that one’s residential location within or beyond the metropolitan area of Melbourne significantly influences social opportunities and the corresponding feeling of well-being (Delbosc et al., 2011). By comparing residents’ realised mobility in the inner metropolitan, outer suburban, urban fringe and regional area of Victoria, differences in car reliance and transport disadvantages could be defined. Citizens residing at the urban fringe have shown to travel the longest distances, thus, were the most affected by car reliance and fuel prices. Affected by transport disadvantages residents of the fringe and regional areas were also more likely to suffer from constrained time spent with friends and family or leisure activities. In contrast, residents of dense urban settings or inner metropolitan areas have shown higher social activity and increased usage of slow traffic modes (walking and cycling).

From an urban perspective, our society has proved capable of spatially adapting to increased mobility standards by e.g. extending catchment areas of schools, shops and hospitals or turning transit oriented development into catalysts for social and commercial activity. In view of the correlating dispersed settlement, however, the future socio-economic impact of long distance commuting has yet to be established as incentive for denser, more sustainable urban development. Reacting to the urban phenomenon of the generally active city (Calabrese, 2004), mobility infrastructures bear the potential to influence sustainable development in its threefold capacity - ecologically, socially and economically.

• Social Satisfaction & infrastructural connectivity in urban Vienna

To further investigate the intrinsic relationship between urban form, mobility infrastructures and social satisfaction, the social impact of infrastructural connectivity in dense urban settings will

be elaborated using the example of Vienna.

In a joint venture between the University of Vienna and the City government a study was conducted on residents self-reported level of satisfaction in reference to their living environments. Residents’ subjective perception was acquired by means of a quality of life survey, which was issued to investigate societal trends and social positions. Later, the socio-demographic data and the mean perceptive quality evaluation were spatially assessed using GI software by the Salzburg-based research studio iSpace. The correlation between the location-based level of infrastructural connectivity, neighbourhood affordance and residential social satisfaction could thereby be investigated.

In the report on the study the authors stress the essential influence of individuals’ social interaction on their quality of life (Delmelle, Haslauer, Prinz, 2013). In accordance with the Australian study on the relation between social opportunities and transport disadvantages, the Viennese study focused on the significant interdependence between people’s residential location, within the City of Vienna as well as in relation to their place of work, and their social satisfaction (Delmelle, Haslauer, Prinz, 2013).

While the social-science survey focused on a wider range of quality of life measures, the social implications of mobility opportunities are of particular interest. Evaluating the reported subjective indicators of individual social satisfaction it was found that the quality of public transit service had a significantly positive effect. Residents living in proximity of transit stops and neighbourhoods with a high frequency of hourly departures reported a high social satisfaction. Connectivity further showed to compensate for lacking urban centrality, which was found to have relatively little impact on social satisfaction with one’s social contacts. Limited access to transportation or low levels of service quality can consequentially devalue other positive residential factors.

High frequencies of connectivity alone, however, do not ensure high social satisfaction. Levels of satisfaction were further assessed in relation to commuting distances and times. Residents commuting 30 minutes or longer on a daily basis indicated reduced well-being, contrary to residents commuting 10 minutes or shorter, who showed positively influenced levels of satisfaction. The authors translate long

distance commuting as socially constraining, particularly compromising time available for social activities with family and friends.

It was also found that both high population densities and car ownership were positively perceived. In accordance with earlier studies the Delmelle elaborate the notion that: “social satisfaction is shaped by both the quantity and quality of social networks and contacts.”

While higher urban density implies greater opportunity for social activities, a high level of mobility allows individuals to maintain relationships despite spatial remoteness. Both the ability to access the extensive Viennese public transit system and car ownership are therefore assumed to foster activities and relationships “in times of dispersed social networks” (Delmelle, Haslauer, Prinz, 2013: p. 110).

The positive significance of transit level of service, car ownership and commute times all emphasize the importance that transportation plays in self-reported social satisfaction scores. The study therefore argues that resident’s social satisfaction is shaped both by neighbourhood level factors such as urban form, density or urban centrality, but also by transport related indicators, particularly considering the time spent commuting. Taking this notion

from a dense urban setting, supported by an extensive public transit network, the social implications of mobility patterns due to sprawl in peri-urban areas become apparent.

• Regional urban dispersion & mobility challenges in Salzburg

In contrast to the Viennese based study set in a dense urban context, the assessment of mobility behaviour and commuter patterns within the peri-urban region stresses the complexity of socio-economic influence on residential locations. Earlier studies have shown that urban fringe areas are persistently affected by low access to public transport and extensive travel distances. A consequential paradox occurs: housing affordability which often attracts low income housing is accompanied by marginalized public transit service, hence it “forces” the residents into investing large portions of their income on car ownership (Delbosc et al., 2011).

The following study exemplifies extensive car reliance due to spatial dispersion and potential transport disadvantage within the northern region of Salzburg, Austria.

Regional mobility and settlement assessment towards MORECO – Mobility and Residential Costs

Figure.1 This map shows the averaged travel time from seven sub-centres (rings) to each neighbourhood block in the city of Vienna. This was the basic-analysis for further investigations concerning perceived versus real travel efforts.

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The Alpine Space project, MORECO, is a joint venture of five EU member states (Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia and France) addressing the challenges of mobility infrastructures in periurban regions. The Alpine countries face the critical condition of dispersed urban settlement within a firmly restricted expansion area.

Increasing commuter traffic and car dependency due to insufficient public transport networks, demands an extensive regional mobility assessment. As project partner, studio iSpace assessed an Austrian pilot region, encompassing 1,070 km², 38 municipalities and 290.443 inhabitants in the northern province of Salzburg.

The project region, affected by dispersed settlement and intensive commuter traffic, was analyzed on basis of current development and challenges. The spatial data was visually elaborated using GIS and complemented with future trends in demographics and settlement development. Time expenditures and mobility costs were defined as key indicators for efficiently planned mobility structures influencing commuter’s social satisfaction.

Despite the major concentration of population in the city of Salzburg, the housing price in the regional capital perpetually motivates residential mobility into smaller cities in its urban periphery. The average price for building land varies between 662.5 €/m² in the city of Salzburg and 87.5 €/m² in the municipality of Hintersee, 30 km further East. In regards to “external commuting”, travellers leaving the municipality of their residency, distances in the study area range from 61km (43 minutes) to 3km (4 minutes).

Given the 148.344 annual commuters, of whom 65% rely on private transportation, the significance of efficient mobility infrastructures, particularly public transport, becomes evident. A comparison of mobility behaviour in urban and rural areas further illustrates the discrepancy in traffic habits. Citizens living in the urban periphery not only prevail to travel by private transportation further distances, but additionally they travel less frequently. The analysis, thus implies a significantly higher mobility, therefore social activity, within the urban area of Salzburg, coupled with lower travel costs as 1/3 of the population makes use of eco-mobility (public transport, cycling or walking). As was found in the Australian study on mobility opportunities in Melbourne, transport disadvantages are less apparent for car owning households; however, those lacking the access to a car in peri-urban regions suffer much greater hardship than carless residents in urban areas (Delbosc et al., 2011).

The study further confirmed the common notion that urban density produces lower traffic production, as the average number of car ownership in rural areas exceeds those within the city of Salzburg.

However, two demographic trends influence a growing volume of individual motorized traffic, the projected growth in population and the simultaneous decline of household sizes, in view of cars being commonly acquired per household.

The developments within the peri-urban region of Salzburg resemble the increasing willingness to hazard the consequences of remote residency, coupled with the general aspiration of a single family house embedded in nature. Respectively, the challenge lies in establishing incentives for both planners or mobility actors and searching residents to make more sustainable decisions. Factors fostering sustainable urban development, such as compact settlement structures and frequently operating public transport systems need to be addressed on a collaborative basis between the municipality, urban 16

planners and mobility actors. Citizens, on the other hand, need to be informed about the long term effects and follow-up costs of specific residential areas (Haslauer et al., 2012).

• Socio-economic implications as incentive for

sustainable

development

Tools for Planners & Mobility Actors Based on the extensive regional analysis within the Alpine Space project, the iSpace team developed an online “Settlement Assessment” tool to alleviate the decision making for planners, municipal authorities and public transport agents. Drawing from the established pool of spatial and demographic data, potential sites for residential development are assessed in terms of accessibility of local infrastructure, connectivity & public transport and municipality & settlement (see figure 02 upper right to lower left). The resulting fact sheet gives information on the mobility costs for an average household according to the potential modal split of transportation.

Based on the calculated mobility and settlement costs the potential site can be evaluated in terms of existing spatial, social and economic challenges or future potentials. In the long run the tool generates supportive measures for necessary policy strategies or training tools for a more sustainable urban development and mobility planning.

Tools for Households Through the comparative assessment of two potential housing sites, searching homeowners are able to calculate prospective housing and mobility costs. Specific information on all household members’ commuting frequency, modal preference and destination is used to generate the average monthly, annual or scenario specific expenses for a residential location. The cost calculator also informs the user on the annual devaluation of household vehicles, potential monthly mortgage amortization and monetary value of commuting time costs.

Not only does the tool help to estimate overall economic implications of a particular site, but it also visualizes more sustainable modal alternatives through the indication of time and cost expenditures of individual mobility types. The mobility and household cost calculator helps residents to evaluate the social, economic and ecological consequences of a particular site. Potential cost and time burden due to daily commuter habits can be foreseen and socio-spatial potentials or challenges reconsidered.

• Conclusion – A long term vision for European Cities

Given the substantial influence the choice of vehicle, used for mundane activities as well as daily work commuting, has on the overall energy consumption of transportation, the environmental potential of mobility infrastructures is evident. Whether one uses multiple transport modes or solely relies on the automobile; however, depends on the transport political framework and targeted incentives (VCÖ 2007).

In the White Paper on the Future of Transport (2011) the European Commission stresses the significance of a single European transport area in the quest of tackling exuberant CO² emissions, congestion costs, the accessibility gap between the cities and their hinterland as well social expenditures until 2050. Particularly in view of the prognosis that already by 2020 80% of Europeans are going to live in urban areas (EEA, 2007), such joint effort appears to be pressing.

Figure.2 Travel time from Salzburg central station to each grid cell of the regional study area

Infrastructural incentives, both physically built and virtually informative, need to be implemented to trigger a diversion of mindset amongst the population. The idea of the modal shift towards informed mobility patterns relies on the expansion of effectively operating public transit, cycling and walking infrastructure as well as communication systems (VCÖ 2007). To advance towards a region of short distances as a strategy for urban development, collaborative measures by urban planners, transport agents and traffic managers need to be set. Quality of Urban Life surveys, as it was conducted in Vienna, bear the potential of enhancing the assessment of potential infrastructural improvements by the aspect of individuals’ social satisfaction. The social studies show that the objective of inducing less sprawling, more compact development, which constrains commuting times, relies on the reciprocity of social satisfaction.

Currently 19% of the population within the EU27 member states lives in households without a car (EEA, 2007); it is up to joint ventures between planners, designers, and mobility actors to react upon prevailing socio-economic incentives, which ultimately trigger residential mobility.

Calabrese, L. (2004) Reweaving UMA –

of travel impedance as determinants of

Urbanism Mobility Architecture, Rotterdam:

commuting stress’, American Journal of

Optima.

Community Psychology, 18, 231–257

Delbosc, A. & Currie G. (2011) ‘The spatial

Olsson, L.E., Gärling, T., Ettema, D., Friman, M.,

context of transport disadvantage, social

Fujii, S. (2012) ‘Happiness and Satisfaction with

exclusion and well-being’, Journal of Transport

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Delmelle, E.C., Haslauer, E., Prinz, P.

Stutzer, A., & Frey, B. S. (2008), ‘Stress

(2013) ‘Social satisfaction, commuting

that doesn’t pay: The commuting paradox’,

and neighbourhoods’, Journal of Transport

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Haslauer E., Schnürch D., & Prinz, T. (2013), ‚A Spotlight on Mobility and Interconnection in Rural vs. Urban Areas’ in Jekel, T., Car, A., Strobl, J´., Griesebner, G. (eds.): GI_Forum 2013. Creating the GISociety, Wichmann

Institution Research Studio iSPACE

Verlag, Heidelberg, pp. 177-186

The Research Studio iSPACE is one of six

Haslauer E., Prinz T., & Schnürch, D. (2012),

studios within the national research organisation

‚Frameworks – MORECO Tools for Planners

Research Studios Austria, which is a not-

and Mobility Actors’ www.moreco-project.eu

for-profit company under the auspices of the

Lawrence, X. D. F., Sallis, J. F., Conway, T. L.,

Austrian Ministry for Science & Research.

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systems and its main research topics are

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renewable energy sources, sensor web

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technologies, and Spatial Data Infrastructures.

(1990), ‘Objective and subjective dimensions

Web: http://ispace.researchstudio.at

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Neighbourhood effects Interview with Maarten van Ham

To follow up the theme of infrastructures influencing our social well being, the following interview addresses the invisible mechanisms triggered by our urban

Maarten van Ham Professor of Urban Renewal Head of the Neighbourhood Change and Housing research group at OTB TU Delft

environments. Neighbourhoods provide us with social infrastructure in terms of networks and community engagement, which fosters our social activity, ties and well being, but also status. For the following interview we approached Maarten van Ham, Professor of Urban Renewal and head of the Neighbourhood Change and Housing research group at the Department OTB - Research for the Built Environment.

We discussed the phenomenon of Neighbourhood Effects, their impact on social conditions of individuals and the community, but also corresponding policy measures informed by his research.

This summer the third book of a series on Neighbourhood

Could you elaborate more how the peer group effect or the role

Effects is being published. Could you explain how these

model effect occur in urban environments?

complement each other and foremost what a Neighbourhood

It is really important to remember that these effects take place at different scales. If you have a city as a whole divided by neighbourhoods then within these neighbourhoods you have streets, houses, blocks.

The peer group effects, especially for children, take place at a very small scale. My children only play with the children left and right.

They don’t even go to the next street. As they grow older their neighbourhood grows with them and when they go to a school the area extends even further. Peer group effects for children, but also fro adults in depraved neighbourhoods, are in that sense very localized.

But if we talk about the effect of a big high way and air pollution, the effect of the high way is much larger. And then we can talk about stigma effects of neighbourhoods, in the Netherlands for example you have the Poptahof in Delft, the Hoograve, Zuilen, Overvecht or Kanaleneiland in Utrecht, and the Bijlmermeer in Amsterdam. These neighbourhoods have a national stigma, which is about reputation.

Reputation is something that applies to a larger unit and reputation can also be a neighbourhood effect. If you apply for a job and they see on your letter of application the post code of an area or a street name, which they recognise as being a neighbourhood with a negative reputation,they might think that there is something wrong with you and you might not be selected for the job. Insurance companies do the same. If you fill in all your details such as your address, your university degree, married status, two children and you drive a Volvo estate of a certain year and then you put down the postcode 2611, which is the centre of Delft, you would probably pay a lot less for your insurance than if you would put down the exact same details but then with a postcode of the Poptahof. Not because you are a different person, but because you live in a specific neighbourhood. Insurance companies work with risk profiles, which are, amongst other aspects, connected

Effect is?

A neighbourhood effect is an independent effect of the place where you live on individual characteristics such as your health, income or educational level. There are about 15 or 17 different theories which help us think about neighbourhood effects. One of such theories is the Peer Group Effect. It asserts that if you live in an area in which the majority of adults are unemployed then you might start to think that it is normal. A health related example would be if all children aged 12 smoke, a child in such a neighbourhood might also believe it to be normal and starts smoking itself. So, this has to do with the peer group effect, with peer pressure, but also with role models. There are both positive and negative role models. What is really important about these theories is that a true neighbourhood effect is an effect of the residential environment, which is independent from your own characteristic.

In the first book, Neighbourhood Effects Research: New Perspectives, we identified that one of the problems in understanding neighbourhood effects is – and all kinds of policies related to them – that you need to understand why people move out from or into a neighbourhood.

In the second book, Understanding Neighbourhood Dynamics, we then discuss mobility caused by neighbourhood effects, for example if different people move in, the neighbourhood can change quite rapidly in a short period of time. In the most recent book, Neighbourhood Effects or Neighbourhood based problems?, we finally focus more on policies. So we examined six or seven different countries in terms of how their governments respond to problems in neighbourhoods addressing different policy areas such as crime, health, education and employment.

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to the postcode of the client. So they might assume that you are a less responsible driver because of the neighbourhood you live in.

These are all neighbourhood effects. Effects of the residential environment on individual lives.

Particularly in view of neighbourhood related

stigma

and

its

impact

on

individuals opportunities, hat sort of policy measures does your research trigger amongst politicians?

In this case we need to go one step back to the general response or believe in neighbourhood effects by policy makers. This believe is very strong. Yesterday I gave a lecture for the municipality in Delft. All professionals involved were invited, so there were 40 people ranging from nurses, policemen, social workers and the ministry of housing.

All professionals who are involved in the redevelopment of the Buitenhof, one of the most deprived neighbourhoods of Delft, with an almost national reputation by now (Figure 1). As I said, there is a strong believe in these neighbourhood effects and a strong believe,also among architects and planners, in a solution to these effects. Which addresses the mixture of neighbourhoods. When we talk about neighbourhood effects, we never talk about the city centre of Delft or villa’s in Rijswijk. We normally talk about neighbourhoods with a concentration of

poverty and households with low income.

Well, the idea is that if you want to avoid neighbourhood effects,if they exist,then you have to disperse these households and bring middle income or also higher income into the neighbourhood. The only way to do this is to demolish half of the buildings and build owner occupied housing amongst the social housing. If you do that, then it is an almost immediate success for the neighbourhood, because the average income will go up. In such a case in which you replace people without a job with people that have a job and you come back after a few years, you will see how the neighbourhood statistically is doing, how it has improved. But this is an easy one.

In this way you simply redistribute the population. It doesn’t relieve the problem of residents having a low income or none at all.

No, but that is the theory. If you believe in neighbourhood effects, then the theory suggest that if mix the households in a neighbourhood the reputation of the place will go up, the services will improve, the police will be more active., But there will also be less negative role models or less negative peer group effects, because the children from the low household incomes will play with those from households with higher income.

Mixing, according to the theory, will improve a few indicators of a bad neighbourhood, but

also benefit the original population due to the positive role models and positive peer group effects. So, that is sort of the policy response.

Now, if you start looking, and this is what these books are about,at the evidence weather the effects really exist and mixing actually has a positive effect, then, to say the least, there is not much evidence. People living in mixed neighbourhoods do not do necessarily better than people living in neighbourhoods with a concentration of poverty. The neighbourhoods simply do better, because the social housing was replaced, but the original population does not do better. There might even be some negative effects. You can imagine there would be more conflict in a neighbourhood which used to have a high concentration of social housing and low-income households, and which where partially replaced by owner occupied housing or more expensive rental flats. the different crowd you attractmight be quickly annoyed by youth playing in the street making noise or they might misbehave themselves.

There is more potential for conflict in the neighbourhood, because you introduce people with very different lifestyles and different incomes. There are theories that claim the original population to suffer poverty only after mixing. There is real poverty, but most of the time it poverty is relative.

Figure 1. Voorhof, Delft Š Tess Stribos

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"What is really important about these theories is that a true neighbourhood effect is an effect of the residential environment, which is independent from your own characteristic."

It seems that residential diversification is misconceived as a mean for better integration, but shouldn’t education stand in the foreground? Education is linked to cultural affinity and language proficiency, therefore also to better job opportunities and the potential aspiration to leave a certain neighbourhood.

Despite the cultural ties.

Yeah, but the question is how to do that. So my point of view is, I am very much in favour of improving society, if you have a billion Euro, because in the end it is about money and budgets, and you can choose to invest that money in physical changes of a neighbourhood, such as fixing the physical environment or invest it in social programs.

Yesterday (when Van Ham gave a lecture for the municipality of Delft) there were people present who actually run such programs and they said that they don’t work. You organise all kinds of activities and then once all the people come together at a BBQ, you observe that they only talk to people they had already known. Mixing communities is already very difficult, but forcing them to communicate is even harder. So those one billion Euro I would invest not in the buildings but in the people, the teachers and the facilities they have. If you give teachers 30% more for working in a deprived neighbourhood then you might attract good teachers, because the issue is that good teachers often choose to work for schools in which children are easier to deal with. But what you really want is that these good teachers come to work in neighbourhoods where improvement is needed.

Earlier you mentioned that deprived neighbourhoods can be important for the people who live there due to social ties. They don’t actually perceive them as negative environments. In your second book, Understanding Neighbourhood Dynamics, there is a chapter addresses Social Capital, could you explain this phenomenon?

Social capital or social cohesion, there are lots of terms. But this makes me think about yesterday’s meeting with the municipality of Delft.

The municipality has identified a number of indicators on which neighbourhoods need to score well. The municipality invests money in these neighbourhoods and they want them to score better after the investment. The indicators were housing prices, unemployment, feeling at home and social capital. To really improve housing values you need quite heavy measurements in order to improve such. But there is sort of a friction between these two indicators and the two softer social ones. Social cohesion can be really strong in a neighbourhood we perceive as problematic. Yesterday in my slides I used a typical picture of a Dutch working class neighbourhood “Volksbuurt” around the time of a really important football tournament. The whole street turns 20

orange. People paint their car orange, cover their houses orange. A neighbourhood, a street, that manages such a high level of organisation around such a football event, has a very strong sense of social cohesion – or pressure. If you happen to hate football you are in real trouble in such a neighbourhood. But at the same time, next to social cohesion, the neighbourhood could have a high rate of unemployment, low housing value or maybe a high level of alcohol abuse. If you then start to mix, in such a neighbourhood and you demolish parts and rebuild new types of dwelling you are destroying the social structure in these places. It will be a lot more difficult I would say, or impossible, to cover the whole street in orange once you have created a mixed neighbourhood of owner occupied housing, social housing and renters.

So there is a tension between the indicators, social cohesion is not necessarily good social cohesion. At least as perceived from the point of policy makers.

Social capital I find a lot more complicated, as there is also negative social capital. When children learn to deal drugs on the streets at a very young age you could say there is social capital. It means they all know each other, are friends and help each other. They learn from each other, they are part of a network, but you can not defend these to be positive aspects. When you think about social capital and urban renewal then there is the notion that certain common values within the neighbourhood could be stimulated through urban renewal programs, are physical and social networks. A sort of positive culture where people help each other and use each others network. One way of measuring social capital by means of people´s willingness to help others without getting something in return, is the letter dropping experiment. You put a letter in an envelope, a stamp on it, you put an address on it and researchers drop these letters randomly about the neighbourhood at different times a day, in the weekend, in the morning and evening. And, then people finding them should find them in their mailbox. With more social capital you would expect to have these letters being delivered more often than in neighbourhoods with a low social capital.

The current issue of Atlantis highlights the diversity of infrastructures we rely on. In relation to Neighbourhood Effects a variety of non-physical networks or infrastructures are significant. By what means can the enhancement of the non-visible become an urban strategy?

Frans Kleinhans, with whom I work here, does quite a bit of participatory planning, addressing means by which residents can influence the physical renewal processes of their neighbourhoods.

With him I now run a project for the ministry of internal affairs on community enterprises. Community enterprise is an organisation run by local residents. They set up some kind of business, which is not for profit, but they reinvest the returns in the neighbourhood. We have a research project in which we study and evaluate an experiment with twelve community enterprises all over the Netherlands. The concept has its roots in the UK where there are about 1700 community enterprises right now. Many of these enterprises originate from renewal projects, which tried to activate citizens. Participation is a term that assumes a top down way of thinking where the government allows you to participate.

If you don’t participate well, than you are a bad citizen. The more we move towards activating citizens, citizens start to deal with the problems in their neighbourhood. So citizens do not to participate, but citizens lead. There are a few examples in the Netherlands were citizens jointly started to run community centres without anybody from the government involved. In Arnhem there is a group of residents who are now renting the ‘Bruishuis’, which is an old care

home owned by a housing association. This group is renting it from the association and subrenting it to students, or individuals who are willing to live in a small flat. These residents get a deduction on their rental fee but in exchange they need to spend time on the neighbourhood and invest in it.

Refering to complexity theory, we could say that in order for cities to be in a predominantly good condition, you need a negative balance. Thus, shouldn’t we be wary of policies which want to establish an utopian condition of solely mixed neighbourhoods?

Absolutely! Inequality will always exist.

There will always be a top ten percent and a bottom ten percent. Within a city I am convinced that you need low-income areas, as these imply cheap living areas with social housing, rental flats or even cheap owner occupation. Students, recent immigrants or in the case that you get divorced and you need a house quickly, you need to be able to find a cheap flat even if it is just on a temporary basis. Cities therefor need a distribution of cheaper and expensive housing. If the aim is to simply redistribute poverty throughout

the city in order not to see concentrations of poverty any more, I think that is a complete waist of money. In order to actually make a difference one would have to address inequality in the first place. The believe in negative neighbourhood effects would cause a problem in the case of poverty distribution.

A wealthy neighbourhood might have predominantly positive elements, while a bad neighbourhood has a majority of negative elements. The population mix would then cause an average of zero. There would no longer be a difference. Particularly if you take into account negative peer group effects then these ‘bad’ households influence the good ones. So you take away a bit of the problem here, but you might introduce a problem there. So for the thing as a whole there is no benefit. Generally you want to live next to people who are to some extent similar to you and your lifestyle. The moment you start mixing too much you create new problems and new issues. It makes no sense to make zero cities, you need the inequality of cheap and expensive.

Emilia Bruck, Tess Stribos

Figure 2. Agniesebuurt, Rotterdam © Tess Stribos

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A layer-model perspective on the creative economy Dr. Arie Romein & Dr. Jan Jacob Trip Researcher, OTB, TU Delft

Due to economic restructuring and technological advancement in the last decades the way that people live, work and connect to each other has irreversibly changed. The development of a wide range of new economic activities, mainly concerned with the generation or exploitation of knowledge and information e.g. creative industries, have affected the organization of the metropolitan, national and global networks. The following article focuses on these issues by exploring some major creative economy notions in combination with ‘networked urbanism’ concept of Gabriel Dupuy (1991). The latter defines the city as a territorial organization, made ​​possible by the urban networks of transport and telecommunication, production and consumption through which people experience urban life.

• Scenes and businesses

‘It’s in the air’. Thus described Alfred Marshall (1920) the local atmosphere of competitive clusters of related economic activities about a century ago. This is particularly true for the creative economy.

Much creativity flourishes in scenes that are rather invisible and intangible, like being in the air, for firms in the mainstream economy.

Still, if unveiled, fruits of creativity which range from basic ideas to, occasionally, prototypes may be turned into concrete innovations.

Some scholars explicitly suggest that such hidden creativity could potentially be transferred into innovative commercial products and services produced by firms in the formal mainstream economy (e.g.

Currid 2007; Zukin 2010). This is elaborated most explicitly by Cohendet et al. (2010) who distinguish 1) the ‘underground’ which contains the informal local scenes; 2) the ‘upperground’ where we find the firms that (may) utilise the ideas generated in the underground; and 3) the ‘middleground’; an amalgam of actors, communities, venues and amenities which is supposed to connect the underground and the upperground.

Underground subcultures and scenes often harbour a lot of creativity but are hardly focused on practical use or on commercial exploitation.

Nevertheless, there are quite a few examples of ideas from subcultures influencing product development in the upper ground, and even of scene members cooperating with regular businesses; think of the long-standing impact of the hacker subculture on software development and ICT security (Flowers, 2008) or the influence of youth subcultures on mainstream fashion design (Frank, 1998). The extent to which creativity generated in local scenes can be transferred to clusters of firms – mostly small and medium-sized ones – to be 22

utilised in innovations and new products or services, depends on both strong and weak ties within and between these scenes and firms. Ever since Granovetter’s classic study The Strength of Weak Ties (1973), “the power of weak ties has been lauded in sociology and network theory” but “strong ties have a vital place too” (Zolli and Healy, 2012, pp. 245 - 246).

• Power of weak ties

Small and clearly demarcated networks of more or less congenial actors tend to be connected by strong ties, while weak ties provide bridges to actors who are not or less well connected. Strong ties are found within firms or business clusters in the upper ground where they are essential to incorporate external information and knowledge into innovations, as well as in subcultures and scenes in the underground with their often tight communities. It is in particular the middleground, however, that provides opportunities for the weak ties that are essential to transfer ideas emanating in the underground to the upperground. In the middleground these are often the source of ‘out-of-the-box’ breakthroughs that inspire new ideas in rather unexpected ways (Campbell, 2012).

Gaining insight in how these relations are structured and how ideas are transferred from local scenes through the middleground to mainstream firms may contribute to our understanding of the local ‘ecosystems’ for innovation. However, problematic is the tendency for many connections going through the middleground to be not just weak, but also largely invisible. This makes it quite difficult to get a clear idea of the ‘missing links’ between the upperground and the underground. Who connects to who, what exactly is the connector, what determines the shape of these connections, and how does the

actual transfer of ideas take place? And, one step further, can we identify cases where a connection may be expected but does not show up?

• Dupuy’s model

Terms like underground and upperground suggest a layered structure. Triggered by the focus of this issue of Atlantis, we therefore confront the above ideas on the creative economy with the model of ‘networked urbanism’ by Gabriel Dupuy (1991), which presents a layered structure of ‘level operators’, i.e. the urban networks of transport and telecommunication, production and consumption. Can Dupuy’s model shed a new light on the less tangible interactions between the underground and the upperground?

Compared to the networked urbanism of Dupuy, a networked urbanism of the creative economy is focused less on physical links such as roads and cables – although especially the latter remain important to facilitate transport and communication

– than on the nodes where people and knowledge come together and are exchanged. These nodes consist of ‘hard’ infrastructure (e.g. educational institutions, laboratories, cultural venues, meeting places and amenities) as well as ‘soft’ infrastructure (e.g. social media, events, curricula of education and organisations such as interest groups or professional associations. Quite a few of these belong to the middleground as defined by Cohendet et al. (2010).

The first level operator in Dupuy’s model – infrastructural networks – is characterized by a firm hard infrastructure in the upperground, consisting of ICTs, office buildings and planned knowledge locations, but also by theatres and restaurants. In the underground, on the other hand, hard infrastructure tends to be of a generally smaller scale and less dependent on sizeable long-term investments. This is usually true for the pubs and clubs where scene members meet, but also for the places where they work and live. Whereas large firms or universities tend to own considerable amounts of real estate and equipment, many scenes and

subcultures typically do not own the venues where they work and meet. Instead, they often rent or squat places, always on the look-out for cheaper alternatives, making them rather ‘footloose’.

Opportunities for connecting individuals and networks, the other two level operators in Dupuy’s model, in the upperground and the underground are not just defined by their respective hard and soft infrastructures.

Scenes and subcultures on the one hand, and firms and business clusters on the other, are likely to use largely (if not completely) different infrastructures.

Interaction may take place where these respective infrastructures overlap: directly (the underground hacker and the ICT professor meeting at the computer fair) but more likely indirectly by a number of intermediate steps (the hacker meeting a fellow hacker, who contributes to a computer magazine, the editor of which talks to the ICT professor). The main part of these linkages take place in the middleground of physical meeting places such as pubs, college rooms and outdoor amenities, but also events and digital platforms such as LinkedIn, where people gather in particular groups, or the organisations of which they are a member.

In the end, the mutual impacts of interaction between underground and upperground depends on who meets who. In this regard, it is decisive which specific venues, events or platforms are visited mostly by members of which actor groups and which networks in both the underground and the upperground.

Scenes connote specific places and venues where likeminded assemble and meet.

They value these places for the performance with and to one another (authenticity), for being ‘on stage’: seeing and being seen (theatricality), and for shared senses of what is right (legitimacy). At the other end of the spectrum, there is the often small circle of restaurants and cafés where managers and politicians meet and talk. The aggregated pattern of individuals’ norms and values thus define the places where the members of a group know they can expect to find each other. These norms and values more or less resemble the vertical arrows that connect the levels of Dupuy’s model.

Figure 2. Dupuy's Urban Networks - Network Urbanism Model

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“The power of weak ties has been lauded in sociology and network theory” but “strong ties have a vital place too” Summing up, it may be said that weak ties between people representing networks in both underground and upperground establish in certain physical or digital places in the middleground where they (1) can meet and (2) actually go to and do meet. Dupuy’s model may be useful in the analysis of where exactly this interaction between underground and upperground occurs, which may help to reveal successful transfer of creativity and ideas and to identify bottlenecks and lacunas in the middleground that hinder or block such transfer. Both may be relevant for local and region planners and policymakers who aim to strengthen the innovative capacity that is considered crucial for the competitiveness of their city or region.

• Putting it into practice

To the best of our knowledge, empirical studies that analyse the ties between upperground and underground from a perspective as described above do not exist yet, nor do policies that explicitly and systematically aim to establish such ties. Nonetheless, some examples may be mentioned of projects that, at least in some aspect, suggest such a line of thought.

policy areas, real estate values, public safety, ethnicity and parochial domains. They combine detailed information from various levels of Dupuy’s model, starting with types and location of venues where people meet, the 1st level operator. This followed by information on who are expected to go where, why and when. The ethnicity and parochial domain (who), the accessibility, public safety (why) and the day, evening or night (when) fit in Dupuy’s other two level operators.

These rather unique maps provide much information about ‘how the city works’. Sadly the analysis was never continued, and a clear connection to policy is lacking.

As these example of underground scenes and upperground businesses shows, models such as Dupuy’s can structure the analysis of the creative economy. However, it cannot identify where the weak ties between the underground and the upperground occur. Therefore, detailed research remains needed to disentangle the networks and interactions through the middle ground.

Campbell, T. (2012): Beyond smart cities; how cities network, learn and

The project 3x3 in Oldenburg (Germany) starts from the idea ithat artists open up new perspectives and ‘outside the box’ ways of thinking to companies in mainstream branches. Three teams, each composed of three artists or creative entrepreneurs (stage actors, industrial designers, photographers etc.) and three employees of a formal company in whatever non-creative branch, work together for four weeks to solve an internal problem of the company. The problems discussed may be about all kinds of issues, for instance regarding the company strategy, staff issues, logistics, product renewal or marketing. This method effectively brings together the underground and upperground, although it involves somewhat ad hoc meetings of individuals in specific locations rather than establishing lasting ties between different networks. In a way, it jumps from Dupuy’s 3rd level operators directly to the infrastructural level.

innovate. Earthscan, London & New York.

Cohendet, P., D. Grandadam and L. Simon (2010): The anatomy of the creative city. Industry and Innovation, 17(1), 91-111.

Currid, E. (2007): The Warhol economy; how fashion, art and music drive New York City. Princeton University Press, Princeton/Oxford.

Dupuy, G. (1991): L’urbanisme des réseaux; théories et méthodes. Armand Colin, Paris.

Flowers, S. (2008): Harnessing the hackers: the emergence and exploitation of outlaw innovation. Research Policy, 37(2), 177-193.

Frank, T. (1998): The conquest of cool: business culture, counterculture, and the rise of hip consumerism. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Gemeente Rotterdam (2004): Sense of place; atlas van de culturele ecologie van Rotterdam. Rotterdam Granovetter, M.S. (1973): The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380.

The Atlas of the Cultural Ecology is an example that, at least graphically, resembles Dupuy’s model. It is published by the Municipality of Rotterdam in 2004 (Gemeente Rotterdam, 2004).

It contains three sets of different maps that can be layered over one another. These are (1) basic maps showing the degree of public accessibility of places during the day and at night, (2) functional maps showing e.g. types of shops, nightlife and cultural venues, event locations and knowledge infrastructure, and (3) ‘perspective’ maps of for instance movement flows of people, building periods, 24

Marshall, A. (1920): Industry and trade; a study of industrial technique and business organization; and of their influences on the conditions of various classes and nations. MacMillan, London.

Silver, D., T.N. Clark and C.J. Navarro Yanez (2011): Scenes: social context in an age of contingency. In: T.N. Clark (ed.): The city as an entertainment machine [revised ed.], Lexington Books, Lanham MD. Zolli, A. and A.M. Healy (2012): Resilience. Headline Publishing Group, UK. Zukin, S. (2010): Naked city; the death and life of authentic urban places.

Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Definition BOX In this issue, ‘Conveying society through infrastructure,’ four urbanism professionals from around the world (Seattle, New England, Delft, and Rotterdam) reveal their interpretation of and relevant ideas associated with these infrastructure-related terms. Specialists have more detailed perception of a term’s meaning than laymen. Through these definitions of common urbanism terms, we see the depth of understanding that these urbanism professionals bring to their practice.

Hard Infrastructure D. Piccinini: refers to the large functional networks built to make new or to improve already existing physical relations, to transport and distribute good and energy, to shelter or to give place to human activities in closed or open (green) spaces.

T. van Geest: Built construction based on the rational needs of a city, which then has irrational

Denise Piccinini Lecturer Landscape Architecture TU Delft

consequences on the economy, the environment and people’s lives. For example, a water point built to provide clean drinking water which then becomes a gathering place for local people.

L. Wray: Underlying foundation of the system of public works for core services such as water management, energy, transportation and information technology.

R. Miller: is the physical systems that support urban lifestyles, such as water and sewer pipes, roads, rails, and electrical and telecommunications wires, and are often associated with a community’s level of development.

Soft Infrastructure D. Piccinini: refers to the flexible network, where virtual (invisible) ways of connecting are used, social and cultural network T. van Geest: The rational processes and organizations used to build cities, which then have irrational

Tom van Geest

consequences on the economy, the environment and people’s lives. For example, the decision to develop

Professional Urban Planner

a site with one big developer or with one hundred small developers will produce two entirely different neighborhoods and ways of living.

We Love The City Rotterdam and Canada

L. Wray: Human institutions that provide core services to a culture such as health, public safety, emergency services and education.

R. Miller: can refer to social, political, and cultural institutions and services supporting a community or nation, but we also informally use this term to describe infrastructure that mimics natural systems (e.g., rainwater filtration through earth rather than a treatment plant).

Network D. Piccinini: a multiple choice connection in between points or people (users). The user determines the speed and complexity of a network. A built infrastructural web may contribute to stimulate those connections.

T. van Geest: The people that care about the city and know how to connect its physical, economic and social components to bring visible results.

L. Wray: Interrelated systems in key domains of environment, social systems and information technology for example.

Lyle D. Wray Executive Director Capitol Region Council of

R. Miller: can be any interconnected set of people or things. A person’s human network provides access

Governments

to information and a way of exchanging ideas. Other networks common in our field include transportation,

Hartford, Connecticut

computer, and any of the infrastructure systems above.

Social Domain D. Piccinini: an area (or network) where social activities (interactions) take place.

T. van Geest: A network that is open and inviting to everyone, rather than only the elite or a select group of professionals. This includes residents, entrepreneurs and experts in a wide variety of fields.

L. Wray: Human interaction at the population or group level characterized by competition and cooperation, hierarchy and collective or common actions.

R. Miller: refers to any place (real or virtual) allowing interaction among humans. However, its technical definition is more associated with “socialization,”the process of learning customs and norms to participate

Rachel Miller

in society. It’s an important concept for urban designers as these behaviors and beliefs influence and are

Associate Urban

reflected in our landscapes and urban form.

Designer/Planner Makers Architecture, Seattle

25

Urban Flatlining

Conceptions of Landscapes in the High Anthropocene

Kalle Samuelsson Msc student, TU Delft Msc student, KTH. Stockholm

This essay, being an analysis of the emergence of western suburbia, obviously deals with hard infrastructure. Afterall, extensive road networks are a fundamental

This essay was selected as one the

necessity, and a constituent, of suburbia. To a greater extent, however, it deals with

best essay from the course History

soft infrastructure. Suburbia is the result of policies just as much as technological

and Theory of Urbanism. This is a

advancements. But then there’s a third kind of infrastructure that is rarely included

shortened version of the original

in the term, although it fits the definition – organizational structures needed for

essay.

the operation of a society or economy – and that is the infrastructure of natural processes. Arguably, natural processes, or... are the fundamental infrastructure on which all of society is dependent. During the suburbanization process, the perception of landscape was flat, a nice view. Today, understanding of... is growing, yet still lacking. In a sense, the aim of this essay is to call for a focus on the infrastructure of the landscape, rather than the image of it.

Scientists of different fields have started to use the term anthropocene to describe the presentgeological age. Anthropo- meaning human, implies that the anthropocene is the age in which humans are the driving force behind the development of the planet on a global scale.

It is not widely agreed upon when the anthropocene age began. .

Lithospheric evidence points to a ceasing growth of biodiversity due to human activities about 14,000 – 15,000 years ago. Others emphasize the change in land use that came with the rise of agriculture about 9 000 years ago. However, there is no doubt among scientists that in the last 200 – 250 years, the time during and after the industrial revolution, human activity’s influence on Earth increased vastly. clearly placing it inthe anthropocene.

easily be replaced. This type of provision, however, was insufficient to supply the entire workforce with dwellings. Attempts were made to build workers’ housing connected to factories, but more importantly, social housing was built in several European countries during the interwar period. Social housing expanded its share of the housing sector in Europe, while owner- occupied housing did in the Americas.

USA built its wealth earlier than the European countries, and economic advancements were to a larger extent driven by capitalistic ideals. With the period after the financial crisis of 1929 as an exception (when owner occupied housing did retreat for some years) the rise of owner occupation in USA was constant, and immediately after the war accounted for a majority of the housing market. (Harloe, 1981: p. 25-34) The industrial revolution Thus, the situation is also considered one in Europe and USA, of the main drivers respectively, was behind the urbanization remarkably different of western societies upon entranceinto during the 19th and 20th the second half of centuries. Technological the 20th century. advancements made This was a period of agriculture less labourrapidly rising living intensive while at the Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) standards. People had same time creating the desire to move a larger demand for to larger homes, and manufacturing labor. Factories were located in the cities, close to with cheap energy and car ownership on the rise, the hinterlands of where the products could be traded. This instigated a massive urban the cities became accessible. This caused massive suburbanization, migration and placed significant pressure on the housing sector. a process for which the respective economic and regulative policies Several types of housing provision tried alongside each other to meet made a substantial difference. The process is a great example for the housing needs of the people flooding into the cities. At first, illustrating the high anthropocene, one where the landscape’s mainly private landlords carried out the task. These landlords could influence on the city is neglected, while the city’s influence on the provide housing for a workforce that was relatively mobile and did land is more than explicit. not have the financial means to buy their own dwelling. This was also desirable for the landlords, as the stream of people coming into Rapid suburbanization covering large areas of land nowadays the city seemed endless, and tenants that could not pay the rent could is referred to as sprawl, a term bearing negative connotations.

Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small That we can never get away from the sprawl Living in the sprawl, dead shopping malls rise Like mountains beyond mountains

26

Figure 1. Suncity in Phoenix, Arizona © Google Earth.

This was not the case in the early days of suburbanization in the USA when decentralization and fragmentation was though of as progressive. The introduction of the car made it possible to maintain the exchange of goods and services even with decentralization. In the 1930s, the Resettlement Administration worked to speed up sprawl, which it referred to as decentralization . (Krieger, 2005, p. 50) Coming out of the depression of the 1930s and the Second World War, with a stable economy and rising incomes, suburbanization became an important part of the capitalist machinery in the US. Development of rental housing demands a significant investment upfront, whereas incomes are spread out over a long period of time. The payback period for developers was often between ten to fifteen years before any profit was generated while owneroccupied housing provided the developer with profit from the moment of sale. For this system to perpetuate, buyers must borrow large sums of money, banks must distribute mortgages, and a stable economy with rising real incomes in the long term is necessary; hence, the sprawl development of America exploded in the post-war period.

The case of American sprawl can be described as a paradox. The narrative of the American dream is one of an individualistic life in natural surroundings where contributions are voluntarily paid to the local community rather than on a grander collective basis. This narrative runs throughout American history from the founding fathers, to Henry Thoreau,

to the aforementioned Resettlement Administration, and continues to this day.

As energy became cheaper and wages increased, this dream became a reality for a growing number of people. This is the first paradox: realization of the American dream is premised upon - an ever growing number of people wanting access to untouched natural beauty. The second paradox is that developments were realized by a developed economy with division of labour, requiring commuter distance to the workplace, in turn requiring the construction of an infrastructure that fundamentally alters the landscape that was considered so attractive in the first place. It is, in essence, a perfect example of what Garrett Hardin wrote about in his 1968 article “The tragedy of the commons”: the depletion of a shared resource by a group of people acting according to one’s self-interests, despite it being contrary to the group’s interest (the resources in this case are natural beauty and isolation, but also road space).

This is something that developers obviously do not mention in their rhetoric, as their profit model is premised on selling bigger houses to people moving further out into the suburbs. When residents organize in NIMBY-like constellations to stop unwanted neighbours, developers point out the hypocrisy in one development counteracting a similar one. Yet, it was the developers that raved over suburbanization, and continue to do so, with, in the words of William Fulton, “the anti-urban bias, the small-town atmosphere” (Russell, 2005: p. 103). When looking at Figure 1, which illustrates the Sun City in metropolitan

Phoenix, Arizona, small-town atmosphere is hardly a description that springs to mind.

This example highlights another paradox: for a kind of urbanity that uses proximity to natural beauty as a selling-point, any evidence of a relation between the natural landscape and the built form is strikingly absent.

In contrast to the experience of America, the post-war period of urban development period in Europe was more multi-faceted..

As mentioned previously, owner-occupied housing accounted for a majority of the housing stock in the US immediately after the WWII. The primary type of housing in Europe was privately rented homes at rates of about 75 % in France, West Germany and the Netherlands and roughly 60 % in Great Britain (Harloe, 1981, p. 34). Whereas American cities faced a steady stream of immigrants from both international and domestic origins. , many European cities were left in ruins after the war, and on top of that a baby boom was erupting. There was political consensus that the issue of housing provision was a pressing matter, if not the solely most important social problems to address. Architects and planners responded to this concern by prioritizing social housing. (Wagenaar, 2011, p. 407). It became a way for all of the countries whose physical infrastructure had been devastated during the war to increase their housing stock, To a certain extent, social housing continued to account for a large part of the new housing construction into the 60s and 70s when European economies their transatlantic counterpart depending partly 27

Figure 2. Demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe proclaimed as 'the death of modernist architecture'

by Charles Jencks © http://www.pruitt-igoe.com/

upon political sympathies of governments.

In the Netherlands, for example, the political left was most influential upon housing policy, and in the early seventies, social housing made up about 40% of the housing stock (Harloe, 1981, p. 39). This was a considerably higher percentage than in Great Britain, West Germany or France where governments had instead promoted owner-occupied housing throughout the 50s and 60s (Harloe, 1981, p. 42).

Although the ration of social to private housing was more mixed in Europe than in the United States the two versions have shared characteristics.

In both narratives, the dense city of the 19th century was chaotic, unhealthy and devoid from nature, and something to be spurned. In Europe, a neighbourhood’s openness and proximity to “nature” was greatly valued (Wagenaar, 2011, p. 417). The suburb was said to be an autonomous unit rather than an extension of the city centre, and while the American example simply intoned rhetoric of smalltown atmosphere, the European suburb was elaborately planned to provide the full spectrum of everyday life (Wagenaar, 2011, p. 416). However, such comprehensive planning proved insufficient because the European suburbs were connected to the same kind of public infrastructural system as the American became highly car-dependent.

Did the Americans ever look towards Europe for planning guidance? In few cases they did. The story of the Pruitt-Igoe complex in St. Louis is one such legacy that all-tooclearly shows the difference between the modernistic planning of the neighbourhood set against a city region in transformation.

With a lifespan of less than twenty years from first occupation to demolition, it is

The projects were inaugurated in 1954 with great pomp and circumstance, and tenants marvelled at the view from their balconies and the clean and open environment. But after only a few years it was revealed that insufficient resources were set aside for maintenance. Pruitt-Igoe was never realized as the ideal modern way of living; rather it seemed to be the only option to get rid of the eyesore of inner city slums, which hampered downtown business interests. Inquiring into the ways different stakeholders were treated in the deal, it is hard to label it a social housing project at all. The construction was government sponsored, but the maintenance was supposed to be financed by rents. It was a way for business interests to clear valuable land with federal funding and make space for new developments.

If the maintenance equation was uneven from the start, it was soon strained yet further in the direction of a breakdown.

Pruitt-Igoe’s short lifespan ran parallel with the most intensive transformation of American cities. Industries were shut down and relocated causing unemployment, but more importantly, there was a mass exodus of the middle-class took to the suburbs.

Unlike other cities that annexed surrounding land to try and keep its population within the city limits, St. Louis was an independent city with fixed borders since the 19th century. The population of St. Louis proper contracted by 27 % between 1950 and 1970asinhabitants relocated to the suburbs, taking with them their contributions to the tax base. In a desperate attempt to handle the upkeep of the buildings, rents at Pruitt-Igoe were increased with some inhabitants paying as much as 75 % of their income as rent (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, 2011).

As a result, inhabitants of the development began to look for housing elsewhere in a rental market suddenly overwhelmed by vacancies. As many of the apartments were left empty, the whole area became overrun with insecurity and crime. And after two decades of on-going decline, the complex was razed with footage of the demolition broadcasted on national television.

Urban historian Joseph Heathcott argues that the public housing system was designed

When looking at it from the perspective of the modernist planner, suburbia is chaos, but when taken in consideration with economic policies, it makes perfect sense.

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regarded as one of the greatest failures of American public planning of the 20th century. However, the reasons for the quick decline and subsequent demolition are still debated. Charles Jencks proclaimed in 1977 that the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe marked the death of modernist architecture. This idea that the spatial form of the complex somehow made decadency inevitable is now widely accepted (Bristol, 1991, p. 163).

Troubling as this position might seem, some critics went so far asto suggest that the tenants’ lack of money and education made them unable to take care of themselves and their neighbourhood, essentially reducing them to vandals and thieves beyond salvation (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, 2011).

in a way which required overcrowding (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, 2011).

His colleague Robert Fishman summarizes the story in this way: Pruitt-Igoe failed because housing alone couldn’t deal with the most basic issues that were troubling the American city. There was just no way to build your way out of that tragedy. I think we have a responsibility to understand those failures, and to learn from them and to do better. (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, 2011) The movement of New Urbanism that came about in USA in the 1980s certainly wanted to do better. The movement addressed (and still does) the placelessness and American cities’ lack of authenticity that developed over the previous decades, and tries to promote concepts of neighbourhood and community (Harvey, 2005, p. 21-22).

Does this sound familiar? It tries to promote these concepts by introducing a diversity of functions in the neighbourhood, making it pedestrian friendly, and increasing public places. Noble as these aspirations are, the movement does not acknowledge any relationship between the urban environment and policy-making. Like modernism, the movement it criticises, New Urbanism believes that spatial form is a driver of social change. Utopia is once again based upon a sense of community, and even though most New Urbanism neighbourhoods are in-the-middle-of-nowhere-, there is, according to New Urbanist Vincent Scully, a more urgent need for community building among the urban poor (1994, p. 236). It is a nostalgic notion that evokes images of the working class neighbourhoods of early industrialized cities. As both suburban developers and New Urbanists talk of community and small-town atmospheres, the American people have clearly shown over and over again that the concept matters little when the ease of the suburban, car-bound, mind-your-own-business life is taken into account.

The American case is straightforward. Although wrapped in appealing, rhetoric of “small-town atmospheres”, the reality could not be more opposed. It was never regulated, and it was never meant to be. It is, in a sense, honest: the built form is a direct result of economic-based planning policies. It is environmentally catastrophic and socially eroding; but as a lifestyle conceptualization translated into the built form, it is pure. The European case, on the other hand, is somewhat more schizophrenic with owner-occupied singlefamily houses sprawling alongside modernistic apartment buildings, both settlement types equally scorned. European suburbanization is characterized by a schism between the intended consequences of spatial form and the actual result of suburbanite behaviour.

Cor Wagenaar, in Town Planning in the Netherlands from 1800, summarizes it like this:

It is implied here that suburbia developed into its current configuration regardless of the preferences of planners. It also implies that, if planners had stuck to the concept of the compact city, suburbia would not have happened. However, planners could never have prevented suburbanites. The inner city streets might get clogged up before the suburban highways, but the point is that that the roads will get clogged up sooner or later, no matter the size of them. It is stated in the quote that suburbia happened in spite of rules and regulation, but it is not described in more detail what kind of regulation the passage is referring to. The toolbox of the modernist planner contained a set of rules for the spatial form, but spatial form alone cannot shape behaviour.

In summary, the quote is telling that the course of urbanism is beyond the control of urbanists and planners. The rise of suburbia had little to do with the desired concepts of planners, but rather is the consequence of technological advancements and economic policies.

When looking at it from the perspective of the modernist planner, suburbia is chaos, but when taken in consideration with economic policies, it makes perfect sense.

The utopia of planners has not been reached yet because most planners, from modernists to new urbanists, tried to take shortcuts by assigning it a spatial form. If we are to look upon the city as a landscape, we must look at the processes that shape it. In the high anthropocene period, we humans are the driving force for shaping the landscape, not just on a city scale, but on a global scale. We have influenced those processes enormously, but we are only just learning about them now. We must stop yearning for nostalgic scenes of the community neighbourhoods with small town atmospheres because when we zoom out and inspect the landscape on a global scale we can really see what the landscape of the high anthropocene looks like. No one knows what utopia looks like, but this is clearly not it. Instead of creating fantasy narratives to go with those pictures, we ought to look at the processes that in fact shape the spaces around us. Only then will we be on our way, not to utopia, but somewhere better. And if the processes we shape are environmentally and socially sustainable, then we can at least continue going.

BRISTOL, Katherine G, (1991), The Pruitt-Igoe myth, Journal of Architectural Education 44/3: p. 163 – 171 HARLOE, Michael (1981), The recommodification of housing, City class and capital, 17 – 47. London: Edward Arnold Ltd. HARVEY, David (2005), The new urbanism and the communitarian trap: on social problems and the false hope of design, Sprawl and Suburbia, William S. Saunders (ed), 21 – 26. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

A consequence of the choice to abandon the concept of the compact city was the emergence of a phenomenon that less than twenty years earlier had still been seen as a nightmare: suburban commuter neighborhoods. Working in the same place where one lived became the exception to the rule. “To work anywhere and live nowhere,” Osborn’s definition of commuting, originally an American phenomenon, now changed the lives of millions of Dutch people as well. Whether the planners liked it or not, suburbia was what economic expansion led to, and no matter to what extent it was molded by bureaucratic rules and regulations, suburbia meant chaos.

(2011, p. 432)

HARVEY, David (2012), interview with the Guardian. May 29th. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiTFL83RM3Q (watched 2013-01-27) KRIEGER, Alex (2005), The costs - and benefits? - of sprawl, Sprawl and suburbia, William S. Saunders, 44 – 54. University of Minnesota Press.

THE PRUITT-IGOE MYTH (2011), motion picture, Unicorn Stencil, distributed by First Run Features, USA RUSSELL, James S. (2005), Privatized lives: on the embattled 'burbs, Sprawl and suburbia, William S. Saunders (ed), 91 – 108. University of Minnesota Press.

SCULLY, Vincent (1994), afterword, The New Urbanism: toward an architecture of community, Peter Katz. New York: McGraw-Hill.

WAGENAAR, Cor (2011), Town Planning in the Netherlands since 1800.

Rotterdam: 010 Publishers

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Hard Infrastructure enabling social activity Infrastructural projects

TOP 5

around the world have demonstrated marvelous engineering and

innovative feats overthe years. However, these achievements do not mean anything if they do not bring something more than pure mechanical improvements to the social reality. In

todor kesarovski atlantis editor tu delft

the following paragraphs, five projects are presented that have impressed our committee as examples of progressive thinking and which have contributed to the social vivacity and technical advancement of urban areas, often initiating new lifestyles.

Yas Island Waste Management System, Abu Dhabi The Yas Island Waste Management System in Abu Dhabi is set to revolutionize the recycling industry worldwide with its state-of-theart vacuum waste management system. This automated system consistes of 43 inlet points and 5.3 km of pipes, and is capable of handling nearly 40 tonnes of waste every day, services the whole of this major new leisure and entertainment destination that includes the Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix circuit, Ferrari World, seven hotels and a marina. The waste, thus separated, is transported at around 75 km/h through underground pipes to a central collection point. The waste is then compressed and removed to a waste facility run by the center, where it is further sorted for recycling or disposed of in a landfill. Compared to the dirt and noise created by waste trucks slowly making their way along routes, this system offers a solution that saves up to 90 percent of truck journey times, greatly reducing CO2 emissions. Therefore, the system seems to be an effective long-term solution for the island’s residents, making the local environment a healthier and more pleasant place to be.

Figure 1. Yas Island Waste Management System © www.cleanmiddleeast.ae

Tuas Seawater Desalination Plants (I & II), Singapore The extreme population density in Singapore has presented challenges to the management of the state, especially in terms of resource stewardship. One such item of particular importance is the availability of drinking water. Currently the country relies on rainfalls and imports for freshwater supplies. These preconditions led to the construction of Singapore’s first desalination plant in the industrial district of Tuas. As the largest of its kind in Asia, the facility ranks among the most energy efficient ever constructed, enabling Singapore to achieve the lowest desalinated seawater price in the world. It opened in September 2005 and, in its first years of operation, the plant gained industry honors for efficiency. At 110,000 cubic meters per day, the Tuas seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant boasts capacity enough to meet roughly 10% of national demand,and all while operating at a cost that challenges the notion of desalination as a high-cost option. Its success motivated both public and private authorities to begin working on the development of a second desalination plant in Tuas. Pre-estimations suggest the facility will serve a vital function, delivering 318,500 cubic meters of water per day for a 25-year concession period from 2013 to 2038. By investing in such projects, Singapore aims to become more independent in meeting the water resource needs of an increasing population.

Figure 2. Tuas Seawater Desalination Plants © www.tuaspower.com.sg

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Øresund Bridge, Copenhagen - Malmo (Denmark / Sweden) Øresund is an emblematic international infrastructural project connecting Copenhagen (Denmark) and Malmo (Sweden). The whole transport link is an approximately 16 km long road and rail connection between Denmark and Sweden. It consists of a nearly 8 km bridge, the artificial island of Peberholm and the 4 km in length Drogden tunnel. Collectively, the project is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe and it is considered a complicated and impressive infrastructural construction. However, it could be stated that it is much more than this. The Øresund Bridge has created a region with a population of 3.7 million inhabitants bringing together two main provinces, one in Denmark (Zealand) and one in Sweden (Scania).

Furthermore, this Danish/Swedish region aims to continue foster economic growth via proposed 18 kilometer Fehmarnbelt Tunnel which will enhance even more the connection between Germany and Figure 3. Oresund Bridge © www.wikimedia.org

Scandinavia.

Princess Nora Bint Abdul Rahman University Solar Heating System, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia is the poster child for a world fuelled by hydrocarbons.

Nonetheless, the Princess Nora Bint Abdul Rahman University in Riyadh (the largest women-only university worldwide) aims to capitalize on the Kingdom’s other abundant resource – sunshine via its solar heating system. In fact from July 2011 onwards since it has gradually come into operation the structure has become the world’s biggest solar thermal plant. The solar plant comprises 36,305 m2 of collector surface as well as special solar glass and an improved mounting system which are designed to protect the installation from the severe sandstorms in the region. Impressively, the plant distributes energy over eight square kilometres with a district heating grid for 40,000 students supplied only by the thermal solar collectors. When a similar infrastructural project is executed in the Persian Gulf this should not be simply seen as a sustainablesolutionwhichsuppliescertainenergydemands.Moreover, it sends a message to the world that it is time to seriously reconsider the global energy production.

Figure 4. Princess Nora Bint Abdul Rahman University©www.constructionweekonline.com

Metro Cable, San Agustin, Caracas, Venezuela This project is developed as an alternative to the local government’s plan to build a road through the San Agustin barrio in Caracas. The cable car system has been introduced as transportation model that suits the mountainous typology of the district and it could be constructed with minimal demolition of the existing urban fabric. The system is 2.1 km in length and has the total capacity of moving 1200 people per hour in each direction. Along the cable line few stations are located on the mountainous terrain considering the major local pedestrian routes and the demands of the community access. What is more, the Metro Cable has been integrated with the exiting public transport network incl. the Caracas Metro system improving the connectivity on different metropolitan levels. In short, this transport system represents an innovative approach to enhance the access and mobility of the local inhabitants and simultaneously preserve the urban heritage of the area.

Figure 5. San Agustin © www.domusweb.it/en

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Digital infrastructure Eric Fisher used Twitter data to map the tweets of blue-dotted locals and red-dotted visitors, orange dots could be both. It is part of a global serie of maps, first published on his flickraccount. This is not his first and neither his last mapping of digital data. With information generated by digital infrastructure, he has mapped the use of language, human paths through cities and the distribution of phone brands. Using more conventional census data, he shows the ethnic divisional lines of US cities. This map of visitors and locals in London offers a new way of reading the city's structure. Or at least of the part of the city with a twitter-account.

Depicted: London. All credits to Eric Fisher

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Re-think Urban (Infra)Structures Interview with Alfredo Brillembourg & Hubert Klumpner

Alfredo Brillembourg & Hubert Klumpner

Considering the major focus of this issue of Atlantis, e.g. the ways in which hard and

Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert

soft infrastructures convey urban societies, the editorial board was really excited to

Klumpner are co-directors

approach Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, co-directors of Urban-Think

of Urban-Think Tank, an

Tank (U-TT). In most of their urban projects the U-TT are characterised by innovative

interdisciplinary design practice

design solutions and operational approaches seeking to enhance the social and

dedicated to high-level research

infrastructural settings of urban areas. Therefore, we asked Brillembourg and

and design on a variety of

Klumpner to share their experience and view regarding the infrastructural challenges

subjects, concerned with

in the contemporary cities.

contemporary architecture and urbanism. Since 2007,

Infrastructure is a termused in a very broad sense

in the field of urbanism. How

Brillembourg and Klumpner

would you define ‘urban infrastructure’?

have taught at Columbia

Put plainly, urban infrastructure of yesterday included roads, parks, waterways, dams, railroads, canals, public spaces, airports, bridges, levees, sewage systems, ports, lighthouses; things of this nature. Urban infrastructure of tomorrow, however, has to expand. When told that infrastructure development is underway, for example a new canal being constructed, we find ourselves asking, “A canal… and what else?” Urban infrastructure must serve multiple functions in tomorrow’s increasingly urbanized world. A telecommunication tower and water collection facility, a parking garage and social housing complex, a bridge and a school, an urban agriculture plot and solar energy harnessing surface. Urban infrastructure must integrate an array of facilities while also blurring the lines between them (Figure 1).

University, where they founded the Sustainable Living Urban Model Laboratory (S.L.U.M. Lab), and since July 2010, they hold the chair for Architecture and Urban Design at the Swiss Institute of Technology, ETH in Zürich.

Their work concerns both

Does infrastructure performance have the potential to transform the quality of urban

theoretical and practical

life and resolve social and cultural problems?

applications within architecture

Absolutely! Infrastructure weaves through the fabric of a city connecting all of its complex parts. Its performance dictates much of what characterizes an environment and the people within it. One could argue that infrastructure has a hand in influencing unemployment rates, levels of education attained by children, obesity statistics, tourism, racial prejudices, technological breakthroughs, the price of produce at the grocery store, and much more.

and urban planning. Working in global contexts by creating bridges between first world industry and third world, informal urban areas, they focus on the education and development of a new generation of professionals, who will transform cities in the 21st century.

Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner have been awarded the 2010 Ralph Erskine Award from the Swedish Association of Architects for their innovation in architecture and urban design with regard to social, ecological and aesthetic aspects.

Figure 1. Multitasking Infrastructure in Istanbul

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From: www.u-tt.com

Can you give an example how this is expressed in reality?

Perhaps a specific scenario would paint it best. Wealthy and impoverished environments within cities are often separated by physical barriers, a river or a mountain range, perhaps. Put yourself in the shoes of an 11-year-old living on the poor side of such a mountainous divide. It’s no secret that education is better in more affluent areas. It is also no secret that school districts are typically gerrymandered in ways that keep the ‘haves’ sheltered from the ‘havenots’. However, for the case of our scenario, say that with respect to physical proximity to a top-performing public school, your home is nearby. Unfortunately, to get to school, you would have to travel over the mountain. A task unfeasible by foot, dangerous by bike, and painfully time consuming by mule. Did we mention that you are only 11 years old?! So, because of this combination of misfortunes, you are forced to attend a school on your side of the mountain that is actually a further distance from your home and has a far weaker graduation rate. The only thing standing between you and a fair chance at upward social mobility, not to mention the improvement of your city’s education attainment statistics, is inadequate urban infrastructure. A train going through the mountain, a cable car system going over it, a tunnel system and formal carpooling network under the mountain, any of these would help resolve this serious social issue of poor connectivity. Unquestionably, infrastructure has the ability, really the responsibility, to transform urban life.

Urban infrastructure is providing access to…? What are the most important means of provisions in your opinion?

Our outlook on what a city truly is aligns nicely with that of Robert E. Park. In his text titled The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment, Park says, “The city is a state of mind, a body of customs and traditions, and of organized attitudes and sentiments that adhere to this tradition. The city is not, in other words, merely a physical mechanism and an artificial construction. It is involved in the vital process of the people who compose it, it is a product of nature and particularly of human nature.”

Keeping this in mind, we believe that every city’s most valuable resource

is its people. Urban infrastructure is at its best when it adequately provides people with access to other people. To be more specific, urban infrastructure need to serve as a vehicle of connection between different types of people within a city. The physical divides between socio-economic classes, races, even professions needs to be breached.

The idea of the city in which each activity (banking, shopping, living) and each demographic (the elderly, young professionals, families with children) has its own sectioned off segment of the environment takes away from what makes cities so wonderful.

A densely woven framework of interconnected networks is present in a city. Urban infrastructure must link these networks as much as possible, not sever their connections. The dry cleaner, the car salesman, the school teacher, the postal worker, the 11-year-old with dreams of being the next Beckham or Ronaldo; all of these people can benefit in some way from knowing one another and interacting in their everyday lives. Urban infrastructure must foster these relationships.

Are the infrastructural capabilities of the cities being challenged and what are the biggest challenges we are facing nowadays? It is not that existing infrastructure is no longer able to support cities. Rather, it is that urban growth is now occurring in areas that were not predicted as the sites of mass urbanism. Mega-cities of the likes of Tokyo, London, Mexico City, Paris, Lagos have infrastructural systems that were designed to support a densely populated urban framework. However, mega-cities are not the sites where infrastructural need is growing the most quickly. Mid-sized cities ---Beihai (China), Ghaziabad (India), Lubumbashi (DRC) --- are the sites of mass urbanization today. These cities were not expecting to have to support such dense populations with such extensive infrastructural needs.

We are currently partnering with the Inter-American Development Bank(IDB) on their Emerging and Sustainable Cities initiative. The IDB launched the Emerging and Sustainable Cities Platform in 2011 to help growing intermediate cities make more informed planning decisions and take immediate actions towards smart and sustainable

Figure 2. Working Relationships

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Figure 3. Community Involvement

urban development. The new approach we tested mobilized and coordinated our technical capacities to deliver informed, prioritized and practical Action Plans.

Our focus is on cities with populations of 100,000 to 2 million, with economies that are growing rapidly. The IDB piloted the sustainable urban development approach in five cities: Trujillo in Peru, Port-ofSpain in Trinidad and Tobago, Santa Ana in El Salvador, Montevideo in Uruguay, and Goiania in Brazil. As architects and designers, our role to merge the research done

by IDB, the needs expressed by the on-theground communities, and sustainable design techniques. Much like urban infrastructure should bring different people together, design teams are the mediating link between political bodies and development teams (Figure 2).

municipalities, there is regular turn-over of actors involved in a project. What one mayor might prioritize or agree upon with the design team, the successor may disagree with. This results in slowed construction or changes to building plans midway through a project.

Needless to say, this is less than desirable and the community is the entity that ultimately suffers the most. A half-built structure does them no good and can be dangerous. We have seen a glacial slow-down in the construction of one of our Vertical Gym projects in Baruta, Venezuela. Fortunately, we have not had to face this situation too frequently. None the less, politics tend to be a big challenge in urban infrastructural development around the world.

which are poverty and a lack of support from professionals. From a theoretical standpoint, informality is a complex, nonlinear system in which patterns intersect and mutate in unexpected ways. From a design standpoint, the “informal” can serve as a laboratory for the study of adaptation and innovation.

We operate under an experimental research and teaching methodology that rethinks the former physical limitations of contemporary architecture and shifts the emphasis from form-driven to purposeoriented social architecture. We aim to merge the methodologies and the expertise of previously separated fields with the ultimate goal of improved urbanism. Politics, design, research, education, NGOs, community leaders, international finance groups; these actors are all at play within the city and have a hand in its success or its failings.

We seek to integrate these players all the way from the first to last stage of the decision making process as it pertains to the future of cities around the world.

“Cities need to make better use of their air space, waterways, electrically powered vehicles; designers must not think outside the box… we must think as if there is no box at all!”

Additionally, these new growing cities cannot simply be retrofitted with systems that proved successful centuries back when megacities were implementing their infrastructural networks. The parameters are different, the budgets are different, and, fortunately, advances in technology have greatly expanded the toolbox of urban designers. It is actually an exciting time to be a designer or transportation engineer. There is no pressure to stick to traditional methods. Cities need to make better use of their air space, waterways, electrically powered vehicles; designers must not think outside the box… we must think as if there is no box at all!

The largest barrier, or challenge, to urban infrastructural design today is, as it always has been, politics. When working with 36

What major principles underpin your approach

to

urban

infrastructural

development?

Urban Think Tank (U-TT) is an interdisciplinary design practice, dedicated to high-level research and design in architecture and urbanism. The point of departure for our research is architecture’s failure to define informal urbanism and its effects on the city. Both our current research and the trajectory of our work over the past decade aim at increasing understanding of the informal city from three perspectives: From a humanitarian standpoint, urban shantytowns are wracked with problems, not the least of

Paramount in our projects is community involvement! We feel that this practice is the key to sustainability. In all stages of our designs, we are on the ground asking residents exactly what they want; what their neighbours needed most. This practice gives the community a stake in the construction and design of whatever urban infrastructure we want to implement. As a result, they own a piece of its success as well as its condition in the future. A sense of collective ownership and responsibility is very much a part of the positive externalities that we have seen with our projects. If a community feels this sense

of ownership, they are more likely to invest in its upkeep and security.

It is simply really: we aim to design infrastructure that invokes a sense of pride from the communities it serves (Figure 3).

While the two projects were very different - they had different target users and different project goals - both projects resulted in reductions in crime and involved the community from the drawing board phase all the way to completion.

You have developed numerous urban infrastructural projects in Caracas, Venezuela. Can you reflect on them in terms of their

What is the future of the urban infrastructure (both ‘hard’ and

contribution to the urban quality of life in the city?

‘soft’)? What should be preserved, transformed, regenerated,

Our Vertical Gymnasium at Barrio La Cruz (the pilot project of this design), constructed over 1,000 square meters, transformed the site of a former makeshift soccer field into a fitness complex with basketball courts, a dance studio, weights, a running track, a rock-climbing wall and an open-air soccer field, an integral leisure facility for this densely populated sector of the city. The former training ground was located at street level, and due to the densely built surroundings, it could not expand outwards. The solution was to build upwards. The first of its kind, this Vertical Gymnasium bustles with activity day and night, and currently welcomes an average of 15,000 visitors per month. We have been particularly happy to find out that the Gym has helped lower the crime rate in this barrio by more than 30 percent since its inauguration in 2004 (Figure 4).

modified etc.?

Our Metro Cable Car system in the barrio of San Agustin, which is integrated with the Metro System of Caracas, is 2.1 km in length and employs gondolas holding 8 passengers each. Metro Cable’s capacity allows for the movement of 1,200 people per hour in each direction.

Two stations in the valley connect directly to the Caracas public transportation system. Three additional stations are located along the mountain ridge on sites that meet the demands of community access, established pedestrian circulation patterns, and also spatial availability for construction, ensuring minimal demolition of existing housing.

The five stations’ designs share a basic set of components in common; platform levels, ramps for access, circulation patterns, materials, and structural elements. However, each station differs in configuration and additional functions, and the separate stations include cultural, social and system administrative functions: replacement of demolished residences with more homes, as well as public spaces; a gym, supermarket, and day care center; and a link between the cable car system and the municipal bus circuit. The project began in 2007 and was completed 3 years later (Figure 5).

Figure 4. by Ana Luisa Figueredo- vertical gym Chacao Venezuela

For Audi’s Urban Future Initiative exhibition in 2012, we designed a cityscape model of what Sao Paulo could look like come the year 2030: foot bridges connecting the tops of skyscrapers, elevators on the exterior of buildings traveling up to helicopter landing pads and down into the main subway system beneath other buildings, bus and tramways integrated and accommodating of bicycle transit, metro cables traveling high above roads that are currently congested, ramps providing access to different elevation levels of transit both inside of buildings and externally. Rather than a city having a single transportation center, urban infrastructure would act like satellite dishes all over the city forming many hubs. Rather than having almost no choice but to go to the central hub to engage in certain direction and medium transfers (from a north-south trajectory to an east-west or from subway to bus) one would have many points of mass integration (hubs) better connecting the city. Essentially, we see the future of urban infrastructure as trading in decentralization for localization.

Although our Audi proposal involved many infrastructural upgrades, with respect to technology, that is not to say that we don’t see future value in the downgrade of infrastructure (technologically speaking) as well. Poor areas of cities tend to be in the most need for improvements in mobility (both physical and social mobility). Problem-solving urban design needs to be case-specific and localized to particular situations.

In informal urban areas, implementing a regulated tuk tuk or motorcycle taxis system may do more for people than a tram system that displaces 40 percent of an informal community. We believe that urban infrastructure in the future must be the meeting point between upward social mobility for the poor and downward adaptability of today’s obsession with advanced technology. with Lindiwe Rennert: U-TT/ETH research assistant Todor Kesarovski

Figure 5. Metro Cable Car San Agustin

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Healthy city Cycle infrastructure

Mathijs Dijkstra landscape architect MD landschapsarchitecten

Health has become a major societal issue in the past few years. Following the Chinese example, every self-respecting manufacturer of playground equipment also supplies an outdoor fitness line. Outdoor sports courts bearing the names of famous footballers or tennissers, for example, are also spreading all over the country. Although such initiatives undoubtedly promote movement, it remains dtebatable whether or not these are having a real impact upon public health and well-being. We have all become aware of the fact that healthy eating does not involve the consumption of a muesli bar or vitamin pill, but rather requires a consistently healthy eating pattern. This same principle applies to healthy exercise: it is not a matter of a few amenities for specific motion but a healthy daily exercise regime.

• Health in urban design

Health has been an important starting point for urban design in the past and, during the industrial revolution, it even formed the primary impulse for urban design. In 1845, Friedrich Engels was one of the first political theorists to write about the undesired results of the unrestricted construction of industrial cities upon the health of the residents. The basis of modern urban design issued from this rising awareness, with clean water, sewerage and a waste collection service as vital elements of a new system, as well as pedestrian paths and public greenery. With the introduction of public parks at the beginning of the twentieth century, where the function of the park shifted from aesthetics and promenading to functionality, sport and play, there was a clear emphasis on healthy design.

After the advent of the motor car, the recreational function of parks in the city moved to parks outside the city. Although these recreational areas were often very suited to active recreation, the accent did not lie on recreation as a form of amusement. The large distance from the city ensured that visits were incidental, with the areas generally being accessed by motorized transport. With this, the journey no longer contributed to public health. While the parkways of Olmsted were originally intended to make the city healthier in physical and social terms, by providing cyclists and pedestrians with a spacious green route, the design principles of the parkway in the 1960s were primarily applied to shape the approach roads for cars.

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threshold that inhibits one from taking up sports oneself. This applies particularly to sports complexes, which are currently often concealed behind bushes and fences.

More benefit is to be gained by promoting ‘daily exercise’. In contrast to ‘specific movement’, this can be more useful in reaching a broad public. By making walking, running and cycling a more attractive alternative to the car and public transport, these can become logical and standard ways to reach a destination, and movement will become a component of everyday movement: movement with no strings attached.

• Ease ready to ambush

In attempting to stimulate daily exercise, ease and comfort are the biggest enemies. Offering a healthy alternative along with an easy one will probably not produce the desired widespread result. That being the case, the art is to make the easy option healthy, or the healthy option easy. Although interventions are frequently relatively straightforward, they must be implemented consistently and integrally. In contrast to ‘specific movement’, this option cannot be realized by simply adding a single element. Thus, healthy design is much more a matter of an attitude or an awareness of an extra layer, than an extra tool in the toolbox of the public space designer. With this awareness, healthy design can easily be included as a component of a multidisciplinary assignment.

• Daily exercise and specific movement

• Solution within the network

In the discussion on healthy design it is important to distinguish between two forms of movement: specific movement and daily exercise. Specific movement takes place in activities that have movement as their aim, such as sports and active recreation. Daily exercise is a side effect of activities that have a different objective.

The stimulation of specific movement is a good idea in itself.

However, we must ask ourselves two questions: Are the new public sports facilities an addition to the public assortment, or are they replacing an existing facility? Would not the people who make use of public sports facilities otherwise go to the gym or sports club?

Our conclusion is that the introduction of sports facilities in public space does not directly contribute to the health of a broad section of society. However, making sports facilities visible may help lower the

A healthy solution is a design that invites one to start moving: to mount a bicycle or go walking. This means that attractive routes

Figure 1. More complex urban patterns require a system for each facility hub

Figure 2. City canalside changes from automobile circular to cycle loop

must be made for the cyclist and pedestrian.

We propose the construction of spacious, attractive urban axes (Figure 1). These urban axes provide a mixture of modalities, but give pride of place to the cyclist and pedestrian. They are attractive in terms of both functionality and allure. Functionally appealing routes transport the traveller directly and with as few obstructions as possible; in other words, there are few frustrating junctions, traffic lights or railway crossings along the way. But the allure of a route also contributes to its intensity of use. A route that has an attractive layout, sufficient points of recognition and a clear identity will be more rapidly adopted into the mental map of the user than a more nondescript route.

Figure 3. Potential for conversion of petrol pump to point of interest

• Parking policy as a planning resource

By equipping multimodal hubs (P+R locations, stations, car parks) with a public cycling system and by linking up to the urban axes, visitors can also make use of the healthy network. The conversion of innercity car parks to local parking amenities will ensure that the streets provide more space for pedestrians and cyclists and for quality experiential space (Figure 4). With this, parking opportunities for visitors will be shifted further away from their final destination. They will now have to park at P+R locations and car parks outside the inner city and the last part of the route can be completed along the healthy route.

• The healthy network as a modern park

A precondition of this situation is that a larger network is taken as the basis of the plan. After all, the improvement of the layout of a limited part of the route will not lead to more use if the rest of the route is unattractive. By constructing a number of urban axes in each city section and by mutually connecting these, the entire city can be furnished with a healthy network.

Depending on the type of city, this network will be expressed in various manifestations.

In towns with an obvious centre and equally developed peripheral suburbs, a strong radial structure will arise, whereas in towns with more complex urban patterns, various radials will arise around facility hubs and nuclei and will link up and flow into one another.

In addition, the new urban axes will connect existing parks, squares and public gardens.

These green elements from the old city structure will be reactivated and a citywide network park can be created to reinforce the drive for ‘specific movement’. By connecting existing playing amenities, pitches and sports complexes to the network park, these will also become part of a healthy, attractive and safe route.

• Agenda for the healthy city

The healthy city demands an integral approach. This means that the health aspect should not be treated as a separate policy aim but ought to be deliberately placed on the spatial agenda. Only in this way can a

comprehensive solution be realized. Budgets for health and welfare are being increasingly deployed to prevent an increase in the demand for care. This is now primarily directed toward information and education.

But the deployment of health and welfare budgets in integral plans for public space can actively contribute to the health of residents. In this context, the breadth of the effect should be decisive. No longer will only those who are willing to apply themselves be rewarded by better health, but also those who make use of the general public facilities.

• Conclusion

- Commit to stimulating ‘daily exercise’.

- Regard health as an integral component of design assignments.

- Ensure consistent priority for cyclists and pedestrians in the urban context.

- Construct a network that connects the outskirts and P+R locations to the city centre.

- Reorganize parking policy: convert car parks in the centre to local parking facilities to realize a qualitatively better experience of the district.

- Ensure that visitors to the town can switch to a pubic cycling system at P+R locations.

- By routing urban axes through existing parks, public gardens and squares, these old structural layers can be reactivated.

- By deliberately taking ‘healthy design’ as a theme, health and welfare budgets can be devoted to a healthy layout of public space.

Figure 4. Urban axes connect suburbs and P+R location to the city centre

39

Post-infrastructural Solutions students ideas on the Spoorzone Delft

Report

Yos Purwanto Msc 3 urbanism student TU Delft

Between 1950 and 1970, many western cities saw many large scale infrastructure

On the 7th June 2013, Polis

projects being built. New highways and railway expansions cut through the inner

organized a workshop about

cities. Although they improved the mobility, they divided cities and produced a

the Spoorzone Delft. The

lot of environmental distress. The last two decades increasingly recognized these

participants rethought and

drawbacks and tried to repair them. Like Boston’s Big Dig, many cities removed or

elaborated on Palmbout Urban

buried their major inner city infrastructure, replacing it with public space or new

Landscapes’ winning design

buildings. The purpose is to reintegrate the city and to create new structures of public

competition entry. The event

and private space. Therefore, many cities and urban planners face the question how

gave 15 students the possibility

to fill the urban crevice left by infrastructure.

to gain some experience working with professionals of

The city of Delft currently has to deal with this question as well. As the 1840s railway (elevated in the 1960s) is moved underground, a strip of 2,3 km next to the city center is left open.

The complexity of a extremely varied context, many other infrastructures systems are further enhanced by the uncertainty caused by the financial crisis. The answer to this conundrum is started by the area vision by Joan Busquets. The vision recognized ‘a gap that should be woven’, left by the railways, advising to use the historic functioning of the city as a start for the rebuilding plan. The masterplan by Palmbout further detailed this vision. Their plan aims to be a framework, provoking the development of the area. The water structure, three distinct neighborhood identities and the accessibility of the park area are the main amendments to Plan Busquets.

Last June, five student teams also addressed the post-infrastructure situation of the Spoorzone Delft. During a POLIS workshop, they focused their attention on the ‘Voorhof’, in the southwest of the spoorzone, which is currently used as a sand storage area. Placed in the city center, the TU Delft and the 1960s Poptahof-newtown, it is a place of crossroads, both for people and water.

The ‘gap-condition’, as suggested by Busquets, is the starting point for all the groups. For two kilometers the rail tracks are brought under the surface. Typical of Dutch urban morphology, the railway tracks border the historic center. After the construction of the railway in the 1840s, Delft grew around it. The university campus in the east and in the west a mix of early 20th century housing and post-war projects. With the burial of the railway, a big urban gap suddenly borders a diverse set of neighbourhoods.

Combing routes, interventions and a specific phasing are the student answers to this gap.

Palmbout's plan places a park on top of the railway tunnel. The first student group used this as a starting point. The park is seen as a crucial element, which links all parts of the plan to the context. By proposing several interventions it is connected with its immediate surroundings.

Another plan focuses on the connections to the south edge of the park, re-imagining the Abwoudseweg as greenlane. This route connects Poptahof with the university-campus, by altering the route brings cycling students’ attention to the park. Routes and their use also were a basis for a different proposal. By shaping the use and exploiting the elevated position, conditions for desirable development are made. Another way of shaping conditions is made by placing specific catalysts on the site. By designing these catalysis specific to the border and phase, the diverse area context is used and the plan gets connected to it. Identifying the several building phases is the last plan’s concept. The location’s time specific potentials (i.e. declining sand dunes) are used as a design inspiration (i.e. recreation).

All groups rise to the challenge with a mixed tool set of routes, interventions and phasing.

However, the gap left by infrastructure is foremost filled by designing from the context. It is done by making sure the plan fits in with the rest of Delft, and by using the special possibilities the city and which its district offers. Neighborhood based solutions offer the answer to a national infrastructure-caused emptiness.

40

the Architecture/Urbanism field and local citizens. Five group took part in the workshop consisting of 3-4 students and a professional.

Figure 1. Catalysts as means to change an area

by Van der Burgt, Gandhi, Radai & Wolthoff

Figure 2. The gap-condition

by Georgula, Nolten & Wessels

Conquering a Void Interview with Marcel van der Meijs

Marcel van der Meijs Urban designer, Palmbout Urban Landscapes Presently, a 2,3 km cleft runs through Delft. As part of a massive transformation of the city, the railtracks are brought underground, opening up a significant amount of land for new development. The spoorzone lies at the heart of the city, but is a tabula rasa after this transformation. How does one design, given this post-infrastructural situation? Students in the spoorzone-workshop used routes, phasing and structural elements as possible solutions. How are those implemented in the actual context? To answer these questions, Atlantis interviewed Marcel van der Meijs of Palmbout Urban Landscapes who is currently working on the urban masterplan for Spoorzone Delft.

The spoorzone is a really specific kind of assignment. The site,

Aiming to reintegrate the city, many student proposals use

the context, it is all defined by infrastructure, but this is no

connections and routes. How does Palmbout’s plan uses

longer visible. What are the characteristics of this situation?

them?

The railtracks always have defined the area. Now, the tracks are placed underground, so it has completely disappeared, leaving a void in the city which you try to fill like it was never there. It is quite special to have such a large area in the city center devoid of space and function. Around the station, houses had to be demolished, but mostly it was a lot of empty land, because rail tracks require so much land.

This gives you space to reintegrate the city.

The informal is really important: not focusing on cars, but giving cyclists and pedestrians more opportunities. The building blocks have breakthroughs, so people traversing the area are offered many different routes, which are not there now. They can follow the canal or go through the park. They go in the direction of the station or of the Schie. There is a rich variety of routes, especially routes for cyclists and pedestrians.

Are there other characteristics?

Orientation. Delft has always placed its backside to the railway strip.

Now the city wants to direct itself to it. No longer is it a sound-nuisance, so it can start to fulfill a real urban function, perhaps comparable to the market. This transformation, from backside to frontside, can happen in more places: The ‘Voorhof’, for example. Also, the urban fabric has always been very limited by the railway tracks,especially in the southern part. The northern part was elevated by a viaduct, so a high degree of permeability was achieved. This was one of our reasons to use [east-west] routes as a starting point to expand the urban fabric and to weave it together, to get to a situation which is brought closer together.

Your answer to the situation suggests giving the space more of a city-feel, right?

Yes, it needs to become a part of the city by attaching it to adjoining city districts. Not only do you use the urban fabric, but also with the buildings and the inhabitants who will want to live there. It is designing the context, using the context to bring the city together.

Figure 1. Catalyst interventions © Van der Burgt, Gandhi, Radai & Wolthoff

41

Phasing also came up in the students’

The final tool used in the student

plans. This is a large-scale project many

proposals

risks of failure. How you deal with this in

or, interventions that influence the

the spoorzone?

complete area. What are some examples

We want to make a plan that is robust and can react to many changes in society and the market. Therefore, the blocks are highly adjustable, and this gives you the means to be very flexible in phasing. The different demands are given different opportunities in the phasing.

Secondly, the question is when areas are free to be built, because work on the tunnel will continue for a long time. And then, which areas do you want to build? The area close to the Voorhof will be available soon, but it is the furthest most point from the city center.

You want a smart way of building your plan to make the right ambiance. You want to get the feeling that if you start at the station, you want to conquer the area from there and make a new vision of Delft.

of these in the Palmbout plan?

You talked about the phasing of the ‘final’ plan. But how do you think about the temporary use of the spoorzone?

Currently, there are many initiatives.

Temporariness, which we are talking about, should be designed because initiatives will last for a couple of years, and they should be fitting for the location. So at the station area, which needs to be developed at a later stage, you can organize something relatively long lasting with a high degree of urbanity.

cornerstone

elements,

The water structure and the park [are our cornerstone elements], forming two long lines. The Nieuwe Delft starts at the station like a ‘gracht’ and turns greener with softer edges. And like the water in the city center, it goes everywhere, connecting everything.

And the park-the park itself is actually not that big, about 30 meters wide,ut it is a long space, and it is giving Delft something new.

The plan itself calls for ‘provoking elements’. How does this work?

Kollert & Kounavi

In working on the plan for the spoorzone, what were your methods?

Temporary use can set an ambiance, ‘we are making a city’. We do not know what specific kind of use, but there are many initiatives: urban agriculture, city greenhouses, viewing towers or festival areas. Those should be used to set the groundwork for the area,to make the area part of the city. Thus phasing and temporary use are heavily interconnected.

Do you have a strategy to deal with the

As a closing question, how do you define

initiatives?

infrastructure?

We do not program it, but we are part of a long term conversation. I think that the municipality of Delft should take up the main responsibility for this. As a design office, we can put this on the agenda though.

Phasing mostly deals with buildings, but is also about the public space.

The first images springing to mind are large scale constructs like roads. But it is actually so much more. It is above and below the surface, it is between people and how they live together. It is a broad definition, perhaps, having more to do with connecting.

have in the plan?

Figure 2.Linking and organising routes by Fu,

Well, you offer possibilities to realize a certain program. On the one side you draw an attractive cityscape, on the other side you make someone feel fitting in an area. So we make collages, showing what kind of city this can be. People then can meet this challenge, actually realizing it, but in their own way, within certain boundaries. The provoking itself it based on making an area attractive to live,. and showing the many possibilities of how people can work and live there.

We draw a lot. You try to find the lines which fit logically in the area. You try, starting in the public space, to draw a way in which it all comes together. You do this again and again, until it fits nicely.

While drawing you try to imagine the public space. Should it be part of the city center, finely grained? Or more modernistic? And while you draw, you get closer and closer to the image in your mind. For example, if you make a ‘gracht’, the distance to the water determines how you experience it. So this had consequences for the way the height levels interact.

What significance does temporary use

42

is

Figure 3. Development proposal for the southern part of Spoorzone Delft. Palmbout Urban Landscapes

And in the spoorzone, what is the defining infrastructure?

The structures below grounds: there lies the most important railway in the Netherlands.

But in our design, the Nieuwe Delft, Not so much the road but the water and its edges, is the binding element. It should be more than just a road, but also a popular public space that people really use. Because it ties everything together, everything is attached to it. It binds the outer borders with the city center. It is the axis of the area.

Yos Purwanto

Expanding a salt marsh Using soft infrastructure to optimize a dike removal and brownfield remediation design proposal

Talya ten Brink Msc 3 student Landscape Architecture TU Delft

What is the role of an university in affecting local infrastructure? An university has the network and research abilities to connect with other soft infrastructure institutions and affect local policy. Soft infrastructure institutions are the systems that maintain the visible environment, including governance, education, and health care systems. These institutions connect through networks and transfer knowledge. This article highlights how soft infrastructure functions in the United States on a city and community level. Using established channels to affiliate the knowledge, skill and advocacy base of an university, city, independent environmental firms, and a non-profit organization introduce a viable proposal for change in the visible realm is introduced.

The thesis project in this article was able to use a variety of soft infrastructure to promote the redesign and expansion of an existing salt marsh in Edmonds, Washington State.

To summarize, University of Washington collaborations between the Geography and Landscape Department, and between the Honors Program, Masters of Landscape Architecture faculty, and Environmental Science: Wetland department, as well as collaborations with a non-profit organization, city engineers and GIS experts, and the environmental firm representing Chevron, were used to inform the redesign of the Marsh.

half of each year. As the one of only two salt marshes in the greater Seattle area, an area that once had hundreds of salt marshes, Edmonds marsh now has the opportunity to provide necessary wild salmon habitat, and expand into the Chevron Oil Refinery area.

• Finding

the

problem

statement

and

involving main actors

The theme of this Atlantis issue defines soft infrastructure as the role of institutions in

carrying society. These ‘invisible’ systems of social networks, communication, and political channels are the decision-making factors that allow the visible city. As Figure 2 demonstrates, these connections used skills and knowledge from the University.

Bridges between local policy and the University strengthen both entities. Figure 2 additionally shows the importance of public-private partnerships and non-profit organizations in both the direct design of the

• Site description

Edmonds Marsh is a saltwater estuary and public park, currently 90,650 square meters, but was historically covering an area of over 161,874 square meters. Adjacent to the marsh lies a brownfield site, a contaminated oil refinery area that includes traces of polymers and heavy metals. Two freshwater streams end in the marsh and a railroad runs over the outlet from the marsh into the ocean. The outlet from the marsh into the ocean is part of an antiquated pipe overflow mechanism that does not allow inflowing water during winter months, transforming the marsh into a freshwater marsh for the

Figure 1. Map of Saltwater Marsh Expansion by MSc Geography student Kate Witsell.

43

Figure 2. Thesis Production Network Map, by Author.

built environment, in supporting experimental initiatives, and in the gathering and disseminating of information.

Through the Honors Program system at the University, I gained a thesis advisor, Nancy Rottle, the head of the Green Futures Lab, who was both well-connected to the surrounding community and qualified in tidal landscape design. Rottle suggested partnering with Keeley O’Connell, at the People for Puget Sound (PPS) nonprofit organization, to help O’Connell envision the remediation of Edmonds Marsh. The other main actors from the University were the Geography 495 students, who responded to a community Request for Proposal derived from the thesis project statement as their GIS capstone. The thesis was able to use documents on the current status of the underground areas of Edmond Marsh through the collaboration with this class.

PPS had many materials on the marsh and had a clear path for advocating remediation of the Marsh in political channels, ensuring that the thesis would have a meaningful impact.

PPS at a lecture on scientific tests using poplar trees to remediate polluted soils, which informed the thesis redesign. PPS also suggested contacting the Friends of Edmonds Marsh group of community members, in order to increase visibility of the redesign vision.

Some maps from the Environmental firm representing Chevron about the pollutants were also received through the Toxic Waste Cleanup Program at WDOE. Once these materials were gathered, I was able to layer the maps and understand where the polluted areas, underground pipes, overflow areas, and species types were situated.

Although the academic thesis functions as an unbuilt work, it demonstrates the importance of soft infrastructure, networks, and collaborative planning practice.

• Collecting data

To learn more about the brownfield site, I spoke with a senior engineer of the Toxic Waste Cleanup Program, who gave information on the location and content of the pollutants and advice on techniques to remediate the pollutants, as well as on the redesign. While at the office in the Washington Department of Ecology (WDOE), I represented 44

•

Formulating

Design:

Wetland

a and

Park Aspects

Case studies of marsh remediation in the Northwest were researched, and I talked with my second academic advisor, Kern Ewing of Wetland Sciences, about how to redesign the slopes within wetland and place plantings to promote biodiversity of salt marsh species, remediate pollutants, and respond to the opening of the outlet to saltwater year-round without flooding nearby roads. After the research of case studies, discussions with environmental engineers, and discussions with advisors, I was able to draft a possible redesign and expansion of the marsh that would promote biodiversity of local salt marsh species, remediate the pollutants using some removal of soil but mostly phytoremediation and nutrient additions to the soil, grading and drainage changes map and a light planting plan for the expansion of the marsh. Within the planting plan were also

maintenance recommendations informed by discussions with ecological restoration experts, which would ensure that the plants would have enough time to become situated without being eaten by migrating birds, or that the invasive species would not overrun the marsh. Although a full site contour map was not available, LIDAR data was available for the entire site. LIDAR is a remote sensing laser technology that is used to measure contours and geomorphology. Unfortunately, the accessible LIDAR data was too coarse to allow a detailed grading plan; if the proposal were to be built, the plans would need to be refined by contractors and checked with a detailed slope survey.

Another layer of the marsh redesign was the park aspect: a boardwalk with various stations that related to the history and pedestrian function of the marsh was designed. Stations included views of an old Chevron building, a pollutant measurement station within the boardwalk, a pedestrian bridge over the railway so that pedestrians could access the beach, a floating boardwalk that moved with the tides, a Modernist bird blind, a boardwalk bridge that functioned as a game, and oil towers embedded as a gateway within the marsh. Within the design interations, feedback from O’Connell, Rottle, and environmental engineers was received and incorporated. The GEOG 495 students were able to map this plan using 3-D GIS software, allowing a clear understanding of how the plan would relate with the context and how the drainage would function.

expanse next to the marsh, currently serving no purpose and allowing no bioremediation.

Although the academic thesis functions as an unbuilt work, it demonstrates the importance of soft infrastructure, networks, and a collaborative planning practice. It demonstrates that designers should be knowledgeable about a variety of communication methods, from tide charts, to LIDAR maps, to pollutant flow charts, to CAD maps, to underground infrastructure GIS maps, to town meeting community notes. The non-profit organizations, city officials, and university opportunities and knowledge base allowed the thesis to have the depth of information needed to create a meaningful proposal. The collaborative

planning practice also enriched the final design, because it was able to incorporate the experience of many advisors from different institutions. These sources of information also had a two-fold function; by advising the design process, the advisors began to see the opportunities for the marsh, and themselves became citizen advocates of a coherent vision.

A university network allows academic theses that are not constrained by current political feuds; as one of the institutions with the most flexible actors, the university network fosters a free-thinking, collaborative, knowledgebased, and interdisciplinary approach to solving infrastructure issues in the local visible realm.

• Results and Reflection

After the thesis was complete, it was presented at the Honors Research Symposium and at a Washington Association of Landscape Architects meeting. It was also presented to an American Association of Landscape Architects Nomination Board and to the GEOG 495 class. A copy of the thesis was given to the main advisors. Keeley O’Connell (PPS) presented the thesis to the Board of the City of Edmonds. Currently the status of the Marsh has not changed; the contaminated area proposed for Marsh expansion is neither a ferry terminal (as it was proposed to become), nor is it part of a marsh expansion. The Board noted that it did not have the funds to expand the park or marsh into the Chevron Oil area because of the economic crisis. This brownfield area is simply a fenced-in, flat compacted dirt

Figure 3. Visualization of some pedestrian stations in the Edmonds Marsh Redesign and Expansion. Visualizations by Author.

45

Places and Patterns of a Festival IOPM: Interactive data collection project

Denise Piccinini Lecturer Chair of Landscape Architecture Eva Nicolai Msc2 student The contribution of the chair of Landscape Architecture to the Oerol Festival 2013-Sense of Place is called ‘The Institute of Place Making – IOPM‘. The IOPM is an interactive project, built during the ten days of the festival, which explored and visualised the experiences of visitors and inhabitants within the landscape of the island of Terschelling. It is based on the idea of discovering the places and landscapes, which people appreciate most. Tagged test tubes and a website were used to communicate with people. About a thousand responses came from the more than six thousand visitors of IOPM. The responses were mapped, categorized and stored in cabinets in our ‘open air archive’ annex to our base camp on the island and on our website – www.iopm.nl. The project on site is the result of a project developed by TU Delft in a master elective course offered by the chair of Landscape Architecture: Landscape Architecture ON site, as part of Oerol Festival 2013.

It eventually developed into a project in which people were asked to take a closer look at the landscape in order to stimulate their awareness of the island.

The project has identified and created two interrelated patterns, on two different scales; the pattern of those places people appreciate most, and the pattern of the ‘open air archive’. The first pattern, on the scale of Terschelling, was identified by our ‘project-like research’, seemingly compromised by the festival.

The second pattern was designed by the IOPM during the festival, on a local scale.

Both patterns are simultaneously real and virtual; they are the result of individual and collective manifestations. The small scale pattern was created as a place where collected information about people’s favourite places on Terschelling could be stored, classified and pointed out on a map. It developed into a platform for exchange among the public. The projections of intentions, desires, memories, stories of the festival’s visitors, on the landscape of Terschelling, turned mere sites into meaningful places.

Landscapes became‚ 'containers' of collective memory and desire and places for geographic and social imagination to extend new relationships and sets of possibilities.

• Pattern of places that people appreciate most – a compromise between landscape formation, infrastructure and Oerol festival manifestations.

As a result of our project, the digital and analogue maps of Terschelling show close to a thousand places around the island.

This data forms an important collection of places that people assign a special meaning to. Different layers of influence on

46

the end result were made visible. The places specified by almost a thousand participants of our project seem to have a correlation with the landscape formation of the island, with natural phenomena, with the network of paths, and with Oerol’s manifestations.

The present-day landscape of Terschelling is the result of thousand years of natural influences by the sea, wind and sand as well as the influence of man in varying degrees of intensities. This gradual process determined which places were made inhabitable and in what way. These man-made patterns have been used for a multitude of purposes, lately increasingly in a recreational and cultural way.

These patterns are the basic infrastructure people use to move between different functions such as sleeping, working, eating and leisure, and they form a precondition to appropriate places. It seems that where paths and roads (mainly bicycle paths) are clearly accessible, it is easier for people to take ownership of the place, rather than of those places further away or more difficult to reach, like the Boschplaat indicated by an empty space on our map (Figure1). This particular place has no paths as it is a protected natural area and it forms an important piece of landscape in the imagery of the island.

Like the Boschplaat, the participants of our project named many other pieces of landscape and natural phenomena. For instance, the constant presence of the wind blowing through the island, the main colours of the landscape –green, blue and yellow, or the ‘draadgentiaan’. This freshwater plant grows on the island, one of the few places in the Netherlands where the species is resistant because of the two eastward moving layers of primary and secondary dunes.

would also be interesting to see the formation of the same process when Oerol is not taking place. It is likely to assume that the experience of places and their surroundings would be different. The data collected in the institute would probably also show other results (Figure 1).

• The ‘open air archive’- a projection of landscape perception

Figure 1. Layer model of different factors influencing the collected data. a. landscape types and accessibility, b. path network. Oerol manifestations(locations), d. map IOPM - as a result of collected data (around 1000 points/places) during the 10 days Oerol 2013

During the annual Oerol festival, the island of Terschelling is a stage for location theatre, land art and other forms of art manifestations, with a big impact on the island and its landscapes. During the festival some fifty thousand visitors come to the island. Most of them originate from urban areas elsewhere in the country. These visitors come here especially for the combination of art and landscape, for the proximity to others who think alike, and for the specific identity of the festival. During the ten days the festival takes place, the landscape of Terschelling becomes part of an urban public realm, belonging to the collective.

If we compare the map of Oerol locations

with the map that shows the results of our project we can see a contour of Oerol places.

We could say that the patterns (during those days) were created by processes originating from the activities related to the festival.

The location of our project at ‘Duinmeertje van Hee’, a central place on the island and one of the locations of the festival which has shown a clear preference by the visitor. This is where most points are located on the map (Figure 1). The location of our project turned out to be one of the places people appreciated most, along with the harbour and the beach on the north side of Terschelling (see map).

Considering the large influence the festival had on the final outcome of the project, it

Apart from the final result, the digital and analogue map of the island, a flow of communication and influences among people took place in the ‘open air archive’ of the IOPM. The archive was built as a basic infrastructure installed to facilitate relationships among participants, and to store and show the material they brought back to us.

The ‘open air archive’ was built in the forest at ‘Duinmeertje van Hee’, where nine thematic cabinets were installed in accordance with the old dunes’ topography, the raster of trees, and the patterns on the forest floor forming a group of ‘objets trouves’ with tagged test tubes as a tool for communication. Through the contribution of each visitor and the interaction between visitors an exchange of information was created. The visitors affected/influenced each other, directly or indirectly, by a constant exchange of information, and thereby determined the direction in which the subject (of the cabinets) evolved. The visitors were brought in contact with each other through the observations that they left behind in a tagged test tube, and through direct confrontation with each other in the archive. In the end, the archive with its test tubes formed the conditions for the growth of a soft network of data and relations.

The archive was built far away in the forest, a place by itself, thus creating silence and isolation. The entrance was placed at the base camp. Here a path of about fifty meters gave access to the forest. The path, a corridor made by bushes, trees, sounds of birds and rustling of leaves, gave the visitor time to appreciate the surroundings. The archive room was where the interaction among people took place, a place that grew from a forest covered by pine cones and needles to 47

Figure 3. Cabinet: communication tool between

Figure 2. The ‘open air archive’ in the forest: paths made by visitors

visitors

a system of cabinets and paths made by the users crossing each other, and materialising relations (Figure 2). Over the course of the ten days of the festival, with more than six thousands visitors, a pattern of paths was formed between the cabinets, going up and down the old dunes and connecting in all directions.

The cabinets transformed similar places in the forest into special ones (Figure 3). By introducing these new elements- the cabinetswith a potential significance, a new meaning was introduced to the place. Each cabinet and the group of them became like a sacred place by itself.

All cabinets differ from each other, are distinct entities, formally and thematically, and placed in special moments in the landscape. Such diversity is, according to Dupuy, axiomatic and necessary to create a network. The tension created between these points allows the movements to materialise. By placing several cabinets on strategic points within the same distance of each other, a field of tension is created among the objects with a geometry mostly determined by straight lines, as a result of the human habit to choose the shortest, most accessible routing. Those straight lines are deformed by the topography of the old dunes (with high level differences of about six meters) and by the location of the existing grid of trees, forming a web of, curving and unequal paths avoiding those height differences

and trees. The adaptation of the straight lines formed by the simple tension between the objects and the conditions of the geography created a new geometry where the human scale, the anatomy of the landscape and the sandy, slippery material of the dunes are the decisive factors.

The substrate materials and the slight slope of the dunes can be seen as indirect factors that influenced the creation of the patterns of paths in the archive. It would be interesting to see if those patterns would change with a different surface.

The method we used turned out to be a very appropriate one to collect data, and a functional way to let people participate in the project.

48

• Communication tools – test tubes,

website,

archive,

cabinets,

basecamp

and

overall map

The base camp, the archive with the cabinets, and the website created conditions which were needed to develop the project. In the base camp test tubes and tags where handed out and information was spread. The test tubes were the main tool used to collect data from the visitors and turned out to be a very successful way to let people participate in the project (Figure 4).

Their participation was a crucial factor in the process of identifying and determining a pattern.

In the cabinets all the test tubes were collected and displayed by the visitors themselves. In this way the cabinets worked as a communication tool between the visitors in an indirect and direct way.

Indirect information about places on the island was shared through

Figure 4. Test tube: tool to collect data 1. Types of Cabinet: Cabinet of Natural Unity, Cabinet of

the contents of the test tubes and the writings on the tags. When visitors met each other in front of the cabinets, they automatically shared their thoughts and opinions about the archive, the cabinets and their content.

In this way a platform for communication about meaningful places was created.

Through the virtual infrastructure, the website of the institute, data was collected and shared with all people interested in the final outcome of the project. The map of the island did not only make patterns visible, but was also used as an inspiration and as a means of communication. Visitors could add their own pictures, videos, stories, and sound recordings to the map in order to show more about their special place on Terschelling.

Although the Institute of Place Making was a temporary project developed specifically for the Oerol festival, it gave us a very interesting look into the mind of people and the way they think about places. The method we used turned out to be a very appropriate one to collect data, and a functional way to let people participate in the project.

Social networks certainly have the capacity to form themselves; enlarging or shrinking, forming new branches like the Cabinet of

Nonsense, where the visitor could make his or her own category (in the other cabinets the categories were made a priori), actually initiating a new branch of categories within the already determined ones and initiating an interrelation on another level of scale, similar to fractals structures often found in nature. It was like a discussion among the participants about which categories should be added to the already present categories in the other cabinets and as such, it was also a way to address us, the designers, to make a critical addition.

Something extraordinary happened on Terschelling that was far beyond our expectations. The ‘open air archive’ became a meaningful place that related the scale of Terschelling with the local scale of the archive. What started as one test tube and one tag grew to almost a thousand tubes and tags, each one with a very different content and approach. The growth of the archive was an interesting process to see, both for the designers of the Institute as for the visitors, who sometimes came back to the archive to see the latest developments of this kind of loop feedback among patterns at different scales.

Time, Cabinet of Meaning, Cabinet of Colour, Cabinet of Points of View, Cabinet of Solitude, Cabinet of Sound, Cabinet of Landscape, Cabinet of Nonsense.

2. Participants: Denise Piccinini and Michiel Pouderoijen, tutors of Elective MSc2 – Chair Landscape Architecture at the TU Delft. Students: Kaegh Allen, Ilse van den Berg, Erik van der Gaag, Charlotte Grace, Bart de Hartog, Rogier Hendriks, Doris van Hooijdonk, Marleen Klompenhouwer, Emiel Meijerink, Eva Nicolai, Pépé Niemeijer, Sarah Roberts Bell, S., Landscape. Pattern, perception and process. Routledge. 2012.

Corner, J., Terra Fluxus in Waldheim, C.(ed.), The landscape Urbanism reader., Princeton Architectural Press, NY, 2006.

Dupuy, G., Urban Networks – Network Urbanism, Techne Press, 2008 Teerds, H., and Zwart, van der Johan., Levend Landschap. Manifesto voor stad en land. Uitgeverij SUN, 2012.

49

IS INFRASTRUCTURE A POLITICAL TOOL? Bart de Hartog

Dirk Sijmons

Shenglin Elijah Chang

YANG Yuzhen

Student

Professor

Professor

Professor

Architecture

Landscape Architecture

National Taiwan University

Chongqing University

TU Delft

TU Delft

much

Infrastructure networks, as with

Recently a message from Weixin

infrastructure is a political tool

a political tools as it is a,

any solid or virtual matter, cannot

(similar to Twitter) was widely

that works twofold, where the

sometimes underestimated, tool

harm or improve our society in

spread in China. It included two

physical infrastructure is mainly

for urban planning. Infrastructure

and of themselves. Rather, our

images, one of which was a man

a means of transportation for the

is not confined to people, cargo

socio-cultural values that direct

from the late Qing Dynasty lying

public and the market, and the

and transportation, but also

how we relate with others in

in bed smoking opium, the other

virtual infrastructure is our new

includes energy, biota, waste,

our society and our universe

one depicted a man lying in bed

marketplace providing political

food distribution, heat, and water,

have the potential to harm or

looking at his mobile phone.

power to whoever is able to use

to name some others. These

improve us through our everyday

There was a text below the two

it to their benefit. It conveys many

different infrastructures act as

politics. Who is it that we believe

images: Like the opium, the

dilemmas; can a company, which

the veins, nerves and skeleton of

ourselves to be? Do we treat

phone makes the closest person

through extensive lobbying only

urbanmetabolism.Throughthem,

each other with decency and

to be the farthest one.

has to pay a minor amount of

urban landscapes can be planned

humanity? How do we satisfy

Meanwhile,

its profits to public funds, freely

as the spatial order will gradually

our way of life as an individual

media of China have a series of

use the same infrastructure

follow the infrastructure. That is

and as a community? We are

reports on the “Network Celebrity

that

tax-payer

because these various forms of

the sole agents responsible for

Social Responsibility Forum”

uses? Governments in poorer

infrastructure dictate potential

either taking care of or taking

sponsored

countries are, for example,

and possibilities to which people,

advantage of our fellow human

Internet

creating favorable positions for

institutions andbusinesses react.

and our ecological habitat. Just

The government issued “seven

multinationals to start a branch

Neith er politicians nor urbanists

as we create infrastructural

bottom lines” of cyberspace

on their territory, where as a

should overestimate the role of

networks, we manipulate politics.

ethics to promote a civilized

result they empty the aquifers

real estate or of owning a hotel

How then could we place blame

internet. However, it is countered

that the local communities use

on a popular street like Mayfair

on the infrastructure networks?

by other voices from non-

for drinking water, to sell it to

or Park Lane, but rather realize

mainstream websites “defending

them in bottles for a higher price.

that the outcome will be equally

freedom of expression on the

Here the economic infrastructure

dictated by their ability to use

internet.” Nowadays, the internet

allows a private company to take

the transport stations and utility

is the world’s most powerful

power over public property.

services.Therefore,infrastructure

infrastructure.Themostimportant

can be a highly political matter

political tool. While the World

for politicians who understand

Wide Web changes civilization, it

its potential and can also be a

also allows oppression in society.

powerful planning instrument

The fast transmittal of information

for urbanists and landscape

creates, as Carl Marx had said

architects able to discover

about two hundred years ago,

the alternatives it offers for

a time “When Liberation Means

masterplanning.

Enslavement.”

The

50

expansive

the

network

average

of

Infrastructure

is

as

the

by

mainstream

the

Information

National Office.

GRADUATION PROJECT

People’s Commune 2.0 Reconfiguration

Developing a Participatory Strategy for Upgrading Chinese Post-Danwei community Xiayu Wu TU Delf t Urbanism Graduate After 1949, in the wake of major development and and industrialization in China, the danwei community emerged as the predominant for of spatial planning, radically transforming the socio-spatial landscape. The danwei was a walled compound that housed anywhere from just a few families to thousands of inhabitants, and served the combined functions of home and work, allowing for self-sufficiency of each unit. Danwei space served not only as an institutional formation that put communist governing ideals into practice through mass mobilization, socialist education and industrial production, but it also harbored collective social arrangements centered around work and production that extended to living spaces, everyday rituals and group identity.

A major feature of China’s more recent urban transformation has been the breakdown of the danwei system and consequent efforts towards new forms of community building. Chinese community post- danwei has become a meeting ground for citizen activities, business organization involvement and party-state intervention.

No longer just a supplementary institution in state control, danwei has to confront the crisis in the spatial, economic, political and social transformation. In the process of the revitalization, there is the dilemma between grass roots democracy practices and top-down state governance.

This project sought potential governance strategies that could assist urban planners to facilitate Chinese postdanwei community promoting local democracy to deal with complex urban conflicts, and explore the democratic effect of the urban planners’ participation in and support of network governance.

shaped by strict top-down governance during the Mao era that succeeded in fulfilling the basic needs of its members. As a “miniutopian society”, it provided entitlements and maintained basic services that ranged from housing and dining services, to hospitals and education. The integration of workplace and living space differentiated Tegang from other communities. However, within the larger society, it served to give them a group identity and a sense of belonging.

On the other hand, after experiencing the

high-rise, gated neighborhoods rising among the post-communism mansions.

So, how can design facilitate informed, collective decision making by the community to effectively address the biggest threats to their livelihood? How can the conflict be changed to a force for positive interaction between different stakeholders to create winwin situations with all parties collaborating on new rules of play? How can urban design promote democratic development in Tegang community and, in doing so, revision a realistic model of a 21st century commune? The core research findings of my project are found in three important periods of the evolutions of danwei: the past, present and future. The first research finding models the working of the danwei as a people’s commune 1.0 model, which reinforced the socialist political and social order and identity in both its members and territory. The second research finding demonstrates the shock and dramatic decline of the danwei community in spatial, economic, political and social aspects. The subsequent rapid expansion of informal urban development triggered by local residents, impaired the traditional system of party-state control and generated a transformation from socialist political control to modern autonomous community management. I identify this as the People’s commune model 1.5. The third research finding derives from a combined literature review and case studies, and envisions a participatory democratic community model within the conception of the people’s

"The aim is to design a platform for engagement and potential spatial interventions, which address local needs and resources."

After a intensive two month period of searching for a representative site, I chose the Tegang community in Chongqing a post- danwei community that has undergone typical political and economic transitions, disrupting communist traditions of collective living. Being the biggest municipality in China, Chongqing’s urban territory management changes, while the community life and social status of danwei residents transforms: On the one hand, as an economic and communal group, Tegang community was

societal transformation instigated by the introduction of a market economy, Tegang’s social structure now shows a departure from the old danwei system. In the new arrangement, democratic processes govern local affairs rather than the top-down control mechanisms and mobilization employed by the Chinese state for more than 50 years. After the collapse of the danwei, residents became increasingly aware of the absence of state control and began to take advantage of a laissez-faire mentality . The danwei community also bears evidence of cultural, spatial and economical vulnerability owing to its decline: illegal infrastructures, abandoned industrial buildings, informal commercial use of the public space, and

51

GRADUATION PROJECT

From People’s Commune 1.0

To People’s Commune 2.0

Post-Communism Danwei Compound

Communism Danwei Compound

Economy policy: Planned economy, addressing heavy industrial production

commune, version 2.0. This configuration strategizes a future Participation strategy: scenario for post- danwei community revitalization.Economy policy: Civic economy,

addressing mixed mode inputs & active co-creation with local residents and resources

PLAN

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informal urbanism

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Danwei-community

TEGANG

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residents’ committee

developers

The theoretical framework, consisting of a literature review and Tegang community public space case studies, brought to light a vision for participatory democratic People’s commune 2.0 platform social enterprise community model within the people’s commune 2.0 model. This professionals local residents’committee direct election property configuration is largely a methodology for community-participation. management office local residents The conceptCQ Metro is to media/ create incentives for participation through a visitors Political ideology:participatory democracy Communication strategy: combined communication strategy and network-governance tool Political policy: governance by non-interference user co-creation members using a platform that allows user-generated content. The aim is,in accordance with co-governance local needs and resources RCs therefore, to design a platform for engagement skilland spatial & time potential donation interventions, which address local needs and resources. Such an approachdiscount alsosupport acts to respond to the potentially conflicts caused by loans the trend of danwei-community regeneration, as part of interest-free current municipal planning and governance agendas. The objective is to small-scale public subsidy design a win-win method for giving equal representation to all mixed mode stakeholders’ voices, expectations andinputs values. The expectation is that such a platform will promote participatory democracy development in local communities, in order to reduce the vulnerability of post2.0 Danwei residents.

Tegang Danwei

TEGANG

TEGANG

TEGANG

TEGANG

As advocacy planner in RCs direct election; professional strategist & process designer; as network manager& communicative designer of the Pople’s commune 2.0 platform

Political ideology:Equalitariansm but asceticism Political policy: the state strict top-down governance

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To achieve the vision, the following five design components are identified for implementing the people’s commune 2.0: • A participatory strategy with a social support network-governance tool that represents all local stakeholders including community members, businesses, institutions and public authorities.Website:People’s Commune.2.0 m em that offers opportunities and transparent • A communication strategy Service and welfare resposibility: ber s to peer exchange for everyday channels for more participatory and deliberative processes of “peer dialogue service”/mutual interdependence •Actors’ A Engagement user-generated content platform and website as People’s commune 2.0’s user-co-creation platform and social support networkat what ar! Take a look governance tool Member Calendwhat you’d fancy doing!

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To People’s Commune 2.0

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addressing mixed mode inputs & active co-creat with local residents and resources

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H components of the OBAMAO face, combing the features of president public!

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However, its architectural typology makes it the best option for involving members in community input sessions and forums; the court space and grandstand have a great potential to be a part of public-realmS intervention by using creative design approaches with the participatory input from local residents as their key feature.

Job Assignment

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In this proposal, the basketball court at Tegang’s Carnival is 1/20 selected asschool thedanwei first pilotmilitary site.

The basketball designed in the5kg factory danwei store danwei court was danwei standard socialism-style sports amenity with a walled feature, but its 80 courts and grandstand fell into disrepair after the collapse of danwei system. As a result,the inside court is difficult for local residents to Only for the people access andresponsibility: hard to be reestablished aswork/live an integrated part for public in Danwei!

Service and welfare “from cradle to grave” service and community economy.

helpers & members are encouraged to meet in Tegang

gq

Tegang’s Carnival is recognized as an opportune platform to gather the various stakeholder groups to discuss and vote on potential scenarios of revitalizing some key deteriorating Danwei amenities.

Such a scenario would claim these places as sites for real civil engagement and to bring back the power into the hands of the citizens. centralized industralization

cho

n

Community life:

people’s danwei 2.0 strengthen the unseen social networks and communi identity that will enable the phisical sp to presper and be more resilient

53

GRADUATION PROJECT

Shenzhen as a place of conflicting rationalities The role of soft and hard infrastructure

Nowhere else could there be a more intriguing juxtaposition of hard and soft infrastructure than

Matthijs van Oostrum and Andrew Reynolds TU Delft Urbanism Graduates

in the Chinese city Shenzhen, which rocketed from a small fishing village of 30,000 people to a mega city with a population of approximately 14 million in only 30 years1. However, following rapid economic growth and the ensuing urbanisation, Shenzhen is now at a cross roads. The previously successful approach of economic growth at all costs has to be reconsidered to better address the needs of local residents and the migrant population and there is need to engage with specific local conditions and new forms of planning (Friedmann, 2004). Commencing in September 2012, eight students from the Complex Cities studio (TU Delft Urbanism) agreed to take on this challenging city in the graduation studio Shenzhen Scenario’s led by Dr. Stephen Read, Dr. Diego Sepulveda and Dr. Lei Qu.

The urban development of Shenzhen is shaped by two intertwined rationalities. The first has been driven by the Municipal and National Governments pursuit of economic growth, where urban planning and the development of infrastructure has been a tool of the political economic development program (Chen, 2010). The second is the associated urbanisation process, a by-product of the economic growth that resulted from the arrival of millions of migrant workers, the development of local industries, local economies, and the daily life of the residents.

• Urbanisation: A product of economic growth

In 1978, Deng Xioping instituted the ‘Opening up policy’, which led to the creation of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ), an area of relaxed financial regulation and increased local Government autonomy, which was designed to encourage foreign direct investment. The urban development of the city was guided by an approach of infrastructure led urban planning. This policy was extremely successful with an annual GDP growth rate of 38.9% between1980 and 2001 (Ng, 2003).

In 1992, Deng Xioping introduced further reforms allowing the paid leasing of land use rights by the Municipal Government. This had the desired effect to further stimulate the economy, but it also created a land based economic development model. This land based approach provided a valuable source of income for the local government, but caused land price spikes and the development of a land rent gradient in urban areas. This system encourages projects that will achieve high financial returns in well located urban areas, often to the detriment of the existing urban residents as cities are considered to be capital for making profit by the Government, businesses and developers (Ye, 2012).

• The Regional Infrastructure

Shenzhen is now being redefined by new urban scales and increasing levels of competition. The cities of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) have an estimated combined population of 27 million people (Woetzel et al.

2009). Driven by the National and Municipal Governments’ aims to 54

develop an urban agglomeration to improve economic competiveness and innovation these cities are becoming increasingly connected by major regional infrastructure. At the same time, competition between the cities in the PRD, as well as intra-urban competition between city districts, intensifies.

The city is also currently caught up in China’s infrastructure fever with new metro lines planned to outer areas and a new high speed rail connection to Guangzhou constructed. The rapid development of the metro network has been another major factor in driving economic growth and urban development. The development of the metro is counted as local infrastructure investment, improving the figures of local economic growth, while also increasing land prices in the areas adjacent to the new stations. The arrival of new stations has catalysed a series of new development projects, however, the new stations have also created a number of local problems and displaced the existing residents.

• The logic of the urban village

A significant source of income for the Shenzhen Municipal Government is the leasing of land use rights, which has led to the creation of a land-based economic development model. For example, large urban projects are attractive to the government as they provide instant economic progress and demonstrate rapid urban transformation. However, the development of these projects does not address the needs of the existing local residents. There is, however, another logic to the development of Shenzhen and that is the logic of the migrant. Shenzhen is principally a migrant town and for the last four decades, people from the Chinese interior have flocked to the city in order to find work in the factories. Many of the migrant workers in Shenzhen are living in so called urban villages (Chengzhongcun) which were created when the expanding city engulfed existing rural villages. The urban villages then developed into housing and commercial areas with a distinctive seven storey typology providing affordable housing for the city workers. The arrival of migrants created an opportunity for the landlords of the villages sited around the original SEZ. The migrants and the

landlords influence each other in a positive cycle; landlords offer housing and space for businesses and the migrants rent these spaces and raise the revenue of the local shops and industries. This new revenue allows the landlords to make new investments and the cycle starts again.

• Local soft infrastructure

The urban villages are no black boxes that magically turn poor rural migrants into affluent middle class. The villages offer a soft infrastructure that is key to the socioeconomic upgrading process. The land in the villages is communally owned by the landlords who manage their land in village committees. Similarly to many other arrival cities, migrants from different regions in China cluster in different parts of the city, although this can be difficult for foreigners to notice. The social ties from a migrant’s home region often transfer to the urban villages and can play an important role in local integration. If not for these social structures, life in the villages would be very difficult.

Without local city rights the migrants have no access to public services, so the landlords also provide education, healthcare and child support (against payment). The local soft infrastructure used by the migrants manifests itself in very real hard infrastructure. The ancestral hall, which still exists in most urban villages, is the place where the village elders come together, play cards, and discuss the future of the village. In the informally constructed market hall, people meet, trade,

socialize and engage in commerce. The piece-by-piece growth of the village around a centuries old urban fabric allows a natural connection between all these spaces.

• Studio work

Understanding how the local soft infrastructure operates and its relationship to the hard infrastructure forms a key area of investigation for the graduation studio. In the research that we undertook, it become clear that the spatial demands of local residents and migrants rarely align with the financial demands of the government and developers. Generally, the projects argued for a more endogenous planning approach from the perspective of the current inhabitants.

In our descriptions, we show that the value of existing spaces is greater than the mere price of the land. Most of the designs did not represent final answers or projects that could be readily implemented, rather the designs considered what elements should be taken into consideration, who should be involved in the development process, and developed strategies to better integrate the different demands.Conclusion The issues raised in this article provide a snapshot of some of the questions that the studio has been dealing with and the relationship of the projects to the hard and soft infrastructure. It has become clear from the projects that there needs to be more effort in connecting the regional scale economic demands for increased growth and improved competiveness with improving

the local scale urban environment and living conditions, particularly for the low income workers and migrant residents of the city.

The urban planning of Shenzhen is famous for its innovation and agility. As Shenzhen moves into its fourth decade, the challenge now is how it move from the successful economic growth led urban development model focussing on hard infrastructure, to one that includes the existing inhabitants and focuses more on the soft infrastructures necessary for an inclusive city.

Chen, Z. (2010). The production of urban public space under Chinese market economic reform - A case study of Shenzhen. The University of Hong Kong.

Friedmann, J. (2004). Strategic spatial planning and the longer range. Planning Theory & Practice, 5(1), 49–67 Ng, M. K. (2003). Shenzhen. Cities, 20(6), 429–441 Woetzel, J., Mendonca, L., Devan, J., & Negri, S. (2009). Preparing for China’s urban billion.

McKinsey Global Institute, …, (March).

Ye, L. (2012). Promoting integrated metropolitan governance: The case of the Pearl River Delta.

In Governing the Metropolis: Powers and Territories. Paris.

Zacharias, J., & Tang, Y. (2010). Restructuring and repositioning Shenzhen, China’s new mega city. Progress in Planning, 73(4), 209–249 Officially 7 million plus an estimated 7 million ‘floating population’ according to Zacharias & Tang, 2010

Shenzhen Scenarios Studio With the constant pressure for economic growth, increasing dissatisfaction from residents about public service provision and the costs of living, social inequity, and rising environmental pressures, the possibility for the local scale to act as a critical space of change and the potential for endogenous development to counter the negative effects of the global development model is a key focus of the studio.

The ‘Shenzhen Scenarios’ studio (Complex Cities Graduation Studio: Urbanism) was undertaken in co-operation with the International New Towns Institute (INTI) in 2012-13.

Figure.1 History of infrastructure development ©Ankit Bhargava

55

        

GRADUATION PROJECT

 

 

 

   





  

             

Street profile analysis altered -



Street profile analysis Profile A main city road Profile B secundary city road Profile C main shopping street Profile D secundary shopping street Profile E1 urban village main street Profile E2 urban village main street Profile F local back street Profile G park road

  

 



  

 





0



200m

N

Street profile analysis altered -

 



 

 

Street profile analysis Profile A main city road Profile B secundary city road Profile C main shopping street Profile D secundary shopping street Profile E1 urban village main street Profile E2 urban village main street Profile F local back street Profile G park road





0

200m

N

• Travel to Justice: Research on social spatial effect of Transport

• A network to network (Sylke Koemans)

Oriented Development in China (Xia Hua)

Many of the migrants living in Shenzhen are facing socio-spatial

In the current context of infrastructure construction fever and with

segregation, limiting their opportunities to improve their living situation.

industry shifting and upgrading, many coastal cities in China are

However, the government does not currently actively address this

undergoing large scale gentrification. In the name of ‘transportation

issue. Therefore, an alternative approach to migrant integration and

modernization’ the master plan, decorated with a metro cobweb not

the redevelopment of urban villages using public space is proposed.

only attracts high-end investment and improves travel convenience, but

The approach is developed from literature outlines to a network of

also potentially leads to an unbalanced sharing of a public resource.

public spaces, which by activating specific places in this network can

The research starts with the idea of Transit Oriented Development and

increase the social interaction between different inhabitant groups.

using the British concept of Transport poverty, discusses the practical

According to various literature social interaction can form a basis to

experience and values in the Chinese context. This is done by analysing

stimulate the integration of the migrant population in an area. Social

the conflicts between different stakeholders in the game of today's

contact can also help in finding opportunities to climb up in the cities

metro networks expansion, and offering a design strategy that should

hierarchy and improve one’s living situation. By creating a system of

be considered for public transport development in the future. Briefly

spaces in which specific places stimulate public social life, the project

speaking, the research marked out the different social issues related

aims to improve the social interaction, helping the integration of the

to public transportation between China and Western world, while the

migrant population.

research result could also be transferred to solve other similar issues.

Main Square Food Street 2 Reservoir + Park

Metro North Station Main pedestrian way to metro station

New road planned to encourage spin off commercial areas.

Following TOD mode, New Park

New Park

Highway section as boulevard

Reservoir + Park

Food Street 1

• Urban form, Water waste and Energy systems (Bram Groeneveld)

• Planning in a Restless Landscape: Restructuring Spaces of Mobility

To keep pace with the rapid population growth large water and

as framework for future development in Dalang (Ankit Bhargava)

sanitation system developed in Shenzhen. However, they have failed to

Throughout the development of Shenzhen, infrastructure has been

keep pace with the urban growth as the city continues to face increased

a primal agent of the urbanization process, conforming largely to the

environmental challenges. The project focuses on the relationship

logic of mobility flows. In turn, this has meant a lack of focus not only

between the system of urban form and the underlying triangle of the

the spatial dimension at the local scale but also a lack of spatial quality

water-waste-energy systems, using the historical Guanlan market as

and fragmented public space. The areas outside the original Special

a case study. This area is already transforming due to government

Economic Zone (SEZ), which haphazardly developed according to

interventions along the river, however, the local residents do not seem

local roads are now about to be reshaped with the arrival of the metro

to benefit and a process of gentrification threatens to take place in the

system. The project reassesses the infrastructure spaces of mobility in

coming 15-20 years. By studying the complex interrelations between

addressing the conflict between space of flows and space of places

the systems and by trying to incorporate the informal ways the residents

using Dalang (a transit space) as a case study, and develops a design

currently solve some problems, the project explores possibilities for

for new metro infrastructure that can improve the spatial quality and

both more social and environmental sustainable approach for the water

liveability in the surrounding urban areas

and waste.

56

Metro South Station

A brief summary of the Shenzhen Scenarios thesis projects, which are available in full at http://repository.tudelft.nl/

• The cultivation of urban villages: Integration of informal development in

• Qingshuihe: A Regeneration Approach for Rapid Functional

the formal planning process of Shenzhen, China (Matthijs van Oostrum)

Transformation (Andrew Reynolds)

Guangming lies on the periphery of Shenzhen and is a typical ‘arrival

The project develops a new planning tool to connect the economic

city’, where over the last 20 years more than 800,000 migrants have

objectives of higher levels of government with the local scale spatial

settled. The rural migrants arrive in the city with the hope of entering

needs. The Sungang-Qingshuihe district is a former logistics hub

a slow socio-economic upgrading process. My research focused on

in central Luohu and has been earmarked for redevelopment with a

processes of informal urban growth as a consequence of this rural

focus on international visions. By taking the existing local conditions

migration and the spaces that are important for the socio-economic

as the starting point, the approach identifies the trends affecting the

upgrading process. The spatial research articulates the relation

site at different scales, with a detailed multi-scalar, multi-actor analysis

between the natural landscape, Chinese perceptions of space, informal

considering the connectivity and flows, urban form, function and public

growth and socio-economic profile of the village. The project led to

space. The analysis identifies the local scale needs and problems

three conclusions. First, the current simplification of the villages to

with the existing development model, and forms the basis for design

isolated settlements prevents a systematic understanding. Second, the

guidelines and principles that can be used to define common objectives

socio-economic profile of the village and the socio-economic position

between the actors, developing a negotiation platform creating a bridge

of the migrants are closely connected. Thirdly, interventions in the

between the regional economic ambitions and local scale spatial and

villages should take the articular development position of the village

functional demands.

into account.

• 'On-Site' Evolutionary village: Re-scripting the transformation

• Slowing down ‘Shenzhen Speed’: An inclusive planning approach to

mode of urban villages Shenzhen, China (Zhang Fanying)

regenerate the homogeneous industrial areas of Shenzhen (Maaike Zwart)

This project tries to discover an on-site evolution program to guide the

The goal of this master thesis is to show how an area with an existing

future redevelopment of urban villages. This program will mainly focus

homogeneous economy and population can transform into a liveable

on the inhabitants who live in the urban villages, especially the low-

and resilient neighbourhood. Currently the economy of Shenzhen

income migrants. The target of this project is not only to propose a

is transitioning away from its traditional manufacturing base towards

good living environment for the large population of migrants, but also to

services and more specialised types manufacturing. In response many

transfer the urban village into a liveable community, which will integrate

industries are departing the city, leaving behind vacant factory buildings

into the city in the future. Moreover, the project aims to accommodate

and the former workers. The current reaction of the municipality does

the interests of all stakeholders as much as possible, and especially to

not adequately address these upcoming problems. This master thesis

improve the bottom-up participation in the transformation process. This

develops an alternative strategy in the form of an inclusive planning

project should be regarded as an exploration of future Chinese urban

approach, which empowers local people by, among other strategies,

planning and design especially from the perspective of migrants and

forming diverse partnerships. A number projects, diverse in size and

attempts to increase the concern for the migrants in the field of urban

perspective, are developed by these partnerships. These projects

planning and design.

allows the city to transform gradually, with the aim of creating a more liveable and resilient neighbourhood.

57

Ch

From Khlongs to Thanons Socio-spatial transformation in Bangkok

Old

Royal p

Matthijs van Oostrum TU Delft Urbanism Graduate

Bangkok is a city that seems in constant conflict with its own infrastructure. The small roads in the centre, overcrowded with tuk-tuks, streetpeddlers and disorientated tourists.

A new metrosystem that seems to fight its way through the urban fabric displacing people as it grows. The few open spaces of the city around the beautiful wats do not seem to

Col

compensate the everlasting encroachment of time and space in Bangkok. That is, until

Manda

one arrives at the tourist laden shores of the Chao Phraya river and sees the boats bringing tourist from and to the floating market of Bangkok and one starts to wonder if Bangkok has always been like this?

The most tranquil place in Bangkok is probably the Jim Thomson house. Situated in the dense shopping area of Bangkok, this extraordinarily beautiful house is actually a combination of multiple traditional Thai houses. It is one of the few places in the centre of Bangkok that has not been changed much over the last 50 years. At the far back of the compound, the house reveals the essence of its history. Jim Thomson made his fortune by trading with silk and therefore needed a convenient transport system. The canals of Bangkok were the early 20th century equivalent of the 21th century highways. Looking out over the channel, one can see the remnant of its function as a highway as public transport speedboats skip across the water.

This public transport boat service is the last of its kind, as most of the khlongs (canals) in Bangkok seized to be used for transport and are merely used for the management of waterlevels (www. transitbangkok.com, 2013). But as roads did not exist in the old capital, were the khlongs just used for transport or did water have another significance?

58

500m 1000m

2000m

• Khlong life

To find an answer to that question one must travel from the city centre to the periphery of Bangkok. Turned away from the urbanized city around them, some khlong-edge communities survive in the modern day city. Here it is possible to get an idea of the social and cultural life that once existed in all of Bangkok. People use the khlong for transport, but the water is also used for markets, social events and fishing. The houses along the khlong are well adapted.

The main living space of the house is directly connected to the water edged veranda. The whole structure is built on stills to prevent the house from being flooded in the rainy season. In addition, the natural flow of wind underneath the house helped to keep the house cool. Thai people are highly superstitious, so the houses are not just a place to live, but are also a place of worship. In the Thai believe system every house has two shrines: one for the ancestors and one for the spirit of the house. The significance of water in Thai daily life is even reflected in royal customs, as Thailand is one of very few countries with a collection of royal barges.

Figure 1. Houses under highway in Khlong Toey Slum Š Matthijs van Oostrum

C

Phr aya

hao

Figure 2. Map of Bangkok. Thanons radiating from the old city in black, Khlongs organized around the river in blue © Matthijs van Oostrum

d city Jim Thomson house

palace

Central-World Khlong Saen Saep boat service

Thanon Charoen Krung

Downtown

lonial settlement

arin Oriental Hotel

Chao P

Khlong Toey slum

hraya ri

ver

• First thanons

Life around the khlongs remained unchanged for much of Thai history until the first Thanon Charoen Krung was constructed in 1862 on order by king Mongkut (King, 2011). The road was built by a request from westerners in the colonial settlement alongside the Chao Pray River.

They demanded a space to connect their numerous institutions like hotels, embassys', warehouses and banks, to each other and the old city where they had to go for business.

The idea of the Thanon (the road) was from the beginning directly connected to the idea of becoming western and civilized. From the mid-1800s until the mid-1900s the khlongs were slowly being replaced as the prime public space of the city. The new structure of roads also demanded a new building typology. The Chinese had an interesting role in this transition. Being the largest minority in most South-East Asian cities, they took the shophouse typology from cities

like Malacca and Singapore and aligned the roads in Bangkok with hundreds of them.

Sometimes the thanons would be built on top of the khlongs, but often also alongside the khlongs, thereby literally providing the building with two parallel worlds. A typical example of these parallel worlds can be seen in the oldest hotel of Bangkok from 1879, the Mandarin Oriental hotel (Augustin, 2000).

One side faces the water, by which people entered from the river and one side faced the road by which people reached the rest of the city.

• Khlong Toey slum

These parallel worlds are most clear today in the klong Toey slum (literally the slum around the Toey canal). The slum is a direct consequence of the employment created by the nearby port of Bangkok.

The construction of the port started before the war, but it was only after the war that the port, and with it the slum, enormously

grew. The slum houses approximately 140.000 inhabitants, making itthe biggest in Bangkok. The area has many different faces; some parts of the slum are inhabited by lower middle class who live in well-constructed houses, while other more marginalized areas are tugged away in niches along the canal and highway arteries. Although a lot can be said about this area, in the context of this article I would like to focus on the apparent absence of the thanon system. The people in the khlong Toey area are mostly first or second generation migrants from rural Thailand. They left their rural culture, but once they have settled in the city there seems to be no urban culture that is willing to accept them. Their informal architecture neither relates to the traditional water structure nor to the modern road, but to the in-between pathway. The absence of shrines in this neighborhood, which implies the absence of a relationship to their ancestors and the land, is an indicator for a people in transition, trapped between rural and urban life. Nothing symbolized this idea better than the odd giant lizard, sulking in the khlong underneath the highway, trapped between urban and rural life.

It is clear –to answer the introductory question – that Bangkok has gone through a massive transformation, not only of its hard infrastructure, but especially of its soft infrastructure. To conclude this article I would like to go back to the city centre, not far from the Thomson house, to the Central-World shopping mall. Where the transformation from vernacular Thai culture to global western culture is most evident. It was here that the red-shirts protest group violently clashed with the police in 2006.

Many of the people supporting the redshirts come from the Khlong Toey slum, which gives reason to read this recent clash in Bangkok as a struggle between the urban population –represented by the police–, who profited from the transformation and the rural population –represented by the Khlong Toey people–, who have been underrepresented in this transformation of infrastructure. Kob kun krab.

Augustin, Andreas; Williamson, Andreas, The Oriental Bangkok, 2000 www.transitbangkok.com, viewed on 29/08/2013 R. King , Reading Bangkok, 2011

59

Epilogue: Reclaiming Governance Interview with Wouter Vanstiphout

To conclude this issue’s comprehensive analysis of infrastructure, we give one last consideration to the relationship between cities, structural networks and the public domain. In the following interview with Wouter Vanstiphout, professor of Design as Politics and co-founder of Crimson Architectural Historians, we discuss the collective role of infrastructure in our societal development and, particularly, for its contemporary influence in the social domain. Vanstiphout points out that although cities almost never function as they were planned, their process of establishment is largely defined by political interests. And in this age of infrastructural systematization, the importance of citizens in finding new ways to re-claiming processes of urban governance is increasingly important.

This issue of Atlantis has addressed infrastructure in its

You describe cities as the backdrop for exchange and life.

manifold forms. What is your personal understanding of the

We could also consider them to be stages. If so, can urban

term infrastructure?

planning, which directs to a certain extent what it wants

Infrastructure is one of these words such as architecture that has taken on a much broader meaning than it originally had. In the past, the term used to describe really technological and utilitarian physical systems such as railroads, motorways etc. Today infrastructure has become a more extensive term which is also utilized in a rather different sense.

For instance, people speak about a cultural infrastructure - a term that incorporates the whole complex system of subsidies, institutions, galleries and even artists; elements which together form a network that functions as an infrastructure. This concept implies something that you can design and build from scratch. Therefore, I think that there is a huge amount of wishful thinking behind the term infrastructure.

staged,

In what way can cities be understood as an infrastructure for the social domain?

It is funny to use the term infrastructure while referring to cities, because this notion defines them nearly as a technological object, which is planned and built with certain goals and strategy - this is a typical technocratic understanding. Maybe the city is a technological object, indeed, but it is essentially something else – something in itself. We can consider the city as a type of infrastructure for the social domain;however, I would say that it is a kind of found infrastructure because the way the city has become an infrastructure for the social domain is completely different than the way it was planned. Cities nearly always work differently than they were planned. Thus, in respect to the social domain, it rather uses the city as a physical backdrop for its exchanges and life.

60

be understood as a political tool, and thus, have

potential for misuse?

Potentially, planning always has been a political tool because what every plan does is imply choices which essentially mean ‘this is more important than that’ and beyond that ‘these people are more important than those people’ or ‘this activity is more important than that activity’ etc. In a sense, a plan in an existing city is always about reshaping the equilibrium and pushing the development into a certain direction.

Therefore, there is no way that a plan could not be considered as a political tool. A misuse of an urban plan would be when the political goals behind it were not discussed or communicated and the plan was presented as something else. You see a lot of similar situations in the case of urban renewal of post-war neighbourhoods, for example.

In such cases, the restructuring plan is presented as very sensitive to the local context and community by proposing a better housing, renewed public space and new facilities aiming to resolve the specific socio-economic problems. However, usually these projects comprise a replacement of social with private housing or high-rise with terrace housing. Thereby, in fact, the demographics of the area change through architectural means, but designers still talk about the plan in terms of spatial quality or sustainability etc. In fact, this kind of planning solution is one of the most violent, metaphorically speaking, interventions that you can undertake because it simply means ‘we need less from these (poor) people and more from those (middleclass) people’. However, this is never the essence of the designers’ representation. What is interesting with planning in the last decades

is that the academics and professionals in the field have accepted that planning is no more the shaper of society but practically it still does. We just do not represent it in the same way. Thus, the major problem of the contemporary planning practice is the denial of its strong relationship with the politics.

have no obligation to explain themselves to the general public. Therefore, architectural practices, which are driven by the market, have the tendency to alienate themselves completely from the community.

Wouter Vanstiphout Together with Michelle Provoost, Wouter Vanstiphout founded ‘Crimson Architectural Historians’ in 1994. They describe themselves as ‘historians of the present’ and

So could we say that in order for people

they have worked passionately

to re-claim their cities, they

and consistently with the current

need to

Considering the intertwined relationship

re-claim their process of governance?

city and the post war city. Their

that architects and planners inevitably

Yes, absolutely. People would have to reclaim the governance, however, they have created these problems themselves in the first place. When citizens authorize the central government to take care of, for example, the water management, health care, education etc. they already have partly lost their responsibility and supervision of these public services. This seems to be the tragedy of the Western welfare state. In order to systemize and establish an efficient working mechanism of public services, they have been transformed in larger structures in terms of scale and authority. In these words, one of the most positive movements that you can see these days is the common people’s desire to win back urban governance.

Today, citizens are willing to re-claim their responsibility and take charge once again over the provision of public services e.g. energy production, the establishment of private schools, kindergartens, libraries, the maintenance of green areas etc. I believe very strongly that this idea of people taking back governance could happen and contribute to future performance of cities. However, this movement could bring also negative consequences, such as exaggerating the social inequality and spatial fragmentation, which we should be aware of.

point of departure is that the

have with politics, what

should be

the role of people, and particularly residents?

In a lot of the rhetoric that can be heard about planning and public policies, there is a notion implying an opposition between the government on the one hand and the people on the other. In fact, this is a weird situation because one of the greatest ideals of democracy is that the government represents the citizens. Interestingly enough, mostly the politicians are the agents who try to alienate themselves from the people, maintaining the statement that the government is incapable of providing certain public services and therefore respectively delegates some of its power to other parties which operate on the market. This can be a dangerous setting because people have nothing to say about the operation of the market although they pay taxes and elect the government.

If you look at what architecture has done for the market compared to what it has done for the government (e.g. the public architecture), you can see that once it starts working for the market it loses at an incredible rate its contact with the people. In this case, architecture and planning mainly deal with agencies such as institutional investors, large scale developers, entrepreneurs etc. who literally

way that we perceive, and hence describe history, is one of the most powerful tools for shaping the future. As historians they have been deeply involved design and urban planning. The Dutch Wimby!

(Welcome into My Backyard), Past, Present & Future of a New Town is an alternative to traditional tabula rasa social housing development and with their Venice Biennal contribution, The Banality of Good, Crimson express their concern with the disappearance of ideas and visions in contemporary urban development. In 2013 Crimson was selected together with FAT Architects from London to curate the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014. Wouter Vanstiphout is Professor of Design and Politics at the Technical University of Delft, and member of the Dutch National Advisory Council on the Environment since 2012.

See also http://www. crimsonweb.org/ and http:// designaspolitics.nl/

Emilia Bruck, Todor Kesarovski

61

Graduation list Y.T. Angkotta

Y. Kim

K. Salonikidi

Back on track: Redeveloping the railway zone in Gouda

Re-activating the inner-city fringe

Questioning the urban myths: in search of coexistence and integration in Athens

S. van Baren

The Connecting Waterscape; The case of the Maashaven in Rotterdam

The design as a process instrument

K. Kokhuis

Citizens urban regenerating cities - Urban regeneration of a desolate site with the power of the people

A. Bhargava

K. Kozlovskaja

Planning in a Restless Landscape

Keep calm and let the water come.

A. van den Berg Jeths

T. Kuipers

Self sufficient working-living environments, prospects for office areas with structural vacancy: Plaspoelpolder

Connect’In Delft: Social, spatial and functional integration by transforming Schieoevers as entrance to creative city Delft

Making the invisible visible: a re-activation strategic project starting with the invisible groups and the spatial formation of the area, using a neighborhood as the activator unit

I. Cardoso Gonçalves Lêdo

P.L. Lakenman

A.M.L. Stokvis

Fair Play: Olympics as a catalyst for a sociospatially inclusive city

‘Op weg naar bereikbare stedelijke vernieuwing!’

X. Che

S. Li

De werkende wijk: Een studie naar de effecten die kleinschalige bedrijvigheid op de leefbaarheid in een wijk kan hebben

Post-industrial area in transition renaissance of a derelict industrial area in Beijing

Landscape into Urbanism

D. Tahery

P. Madani

Active Cities - Spatial conditions for a healthier lifestyle in The Hague’s Transvaal and Moerwijk

M. Stamati

I. Dimitrakou

Dealing with segregation: Improving livability in a segregated neighborhood

Redefining abandonment through inhabitation

P. Nolten

C.A. van Es

Safety First: verbetering van de veiligheidsbeleving in de Gillisbuurt in Delft

From threat to growth: A regional development strategy for volcanic risk management at the Galeras region, Colombia

Creative with History: Creative industry in the inner-city of Delft

Oostdijk, B.P.

L.T. Trang

Can you design self-organization? Providing affordable housing in Houthaven through building groups

Flood adaptive cities

A. Feltins Research on how to diversify microrayon

J. F. Tascon Valencia

M.S. Vermoolen Almere 2.0 floodproof

V. Gailiute

M.W.L. van Oostrum

Greater Kaunas in pursuit of coherence

Cultivation of the urban village

E.C. Grun

E.L. Prins

Rebinding the centre

The Open Ended City - The case of Yongsan

X. Hua

N. Prins

Travel to Justice:The Research on social-spatial effect of Transit Oriented Development in China

Urban acupuncture: Creating a method to strategically apply and design small scale interventions

F. Zhang

J. Jung

I. Rackauskas

Safe and Dynamic Rijnmond-Drechtsteden

Urban Streetscape

Redefining the Baltic way - Exploring opportunities to consolidate the structure of Panevezys

Koumans, S. A Network to Network

A.W. Reynolds Qingshuihe: A regeneration approach for rapid functional transformation

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G. Slagmolen

A.J. Wolters

Revitalizing the heart of Rotterdam

X. Wu People’s commune 2.0 reconfiguration

“On Site” Evolutionary Villages

N. Zhao E. Zioga Urban space under negotiation

Polis Partners

Colophon ATLANTIS

DIMI

Magazine by Polis | Platform for Urbanism Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft Volume 24, Number 1, October 2013 Editor in Chief

Polis Co-sponsors

Emilia Bruck

Editorial Team Talya van der Brink, Jet van der Hee, Yuhui Jin,

Todor Kesarovski,

Jiayao Liu,

Yos Purwanto,

Tess Stribos,

Jessica Vahrenkamp

Editorial Address Polis, Platform for Urbanism Julianalaan 134, 2628 BL Delft office: 01 West 350 tel. +31 (0)15-2784093

Polis Sponsor

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