International Forum of U I
On July 10th 2009, students from around the globe came together to answer a call for the International Forum of Urbanism’s annual summer school. The event was organized by the Delft University of Technology and the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial planning, and Environment. Top students from Delft, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Taipei, and Barcelona gathered in the Glasshouse East to brainstorm new and untested ideas of architecture, urbanism and planning.
BY GABRIELA SEMECO AND MARCELLO FANTUZ
t was the first time that the International Forum of Urbanism’s summer school took place in Delft. The title of the course was Metropolis in Transformation – The Randstad Challenge. International minds faced a unique and typically Dutch “theme-based” approach to urbanism.
vidual identity would compete against each other, sometimes causing deep divisions. Some areas were growing quickly while others were decaying. The growth is unstable. A final presentation was given in the end, a well-deserved party and finally an excursion to the centre of Delft. What is the Randstad?
The summer school began with a series of preparatory lectures followed by excursions in the first weekend. One of the visits explored the North Green Heart, Amsterdam-Almere and another went to the South Green Heart, Rotterdam and the Coast. Groups were formed by mixing disciplines and backgrounds. Work began the following Monday with mentors aiding research and concepts at the TU. Each evening mentors gave lectures at the Scoutcentrum Kruithuis on different metropolises in development as study cases. One night they focused on the city of Taipei, a polycentric model connected with fast rail infrastructure. The towns lacking indi-
The Randstad is an urban agglomeration of the Netherlands encompassing the largest cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht). Alone they are small by international standards, but together the cities form a powerhouse of trade, governance, and culture, which competes on a global level. The goal of international competitiveness was juxtaposed with considerations of ecology and technology. The Course
sults in the end. In each case students were asked to consider local actors and their governing bodies working on a developing vision and operative strategy. Sub-centralities were explored in detail, emphasizing links between global and local actors. The endogenous forces inspire themes or identities while promoting bottom-up participatory development. The local and global forces were seen as interdependent, working together to achieve stability, which usually fails in large models. The pedagogical framework for the course was organized in themes designed to explore the polycentric components with their varying scales and identities such as Synergy, Twin cities Amsterdam and Almere, The Green heart, the Coastal city of The Hague, and Bridging islands of Kop van Feijenoord. The differences were considered as strengths, which together could make Holland more competitive on an international platform.
The starting concepts and evaluation criteria for each group was similar, but produced different re-
Twin city – Almere The study began with the question of how to unify the north-eastern extension of Amsterdam, Almere, via the water. However, the group branched out, seeing Almere as more than just an extension of Amsterdam, but a place of its own strength and enormous potential. They envisioned the city’s potential as a network connecting Amsterdam to Germany and other parts of the country.
The Randstad Synergy The Synergy theme merged regional character with global vision, creating opportunities out of current problems, searching for endogenous development in a global interaction scope. The identities of each city were seen as unique and non-competitive. The global city of Amsterdam, the port-city of Rotterdam, the coastal city and international centre of The Hague had a different strength and character, which came together to form an internationally competitive city of 6 million inhabitants. The group even considers nature as a necessary component and an active actor for the cluster of cities, a network in itself of water and greenery, which can then be integrated with all other functional networks in the city.
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B_Nieuws 01 | september 01, 2009 | ifou summer school