Posts

Privately Owned Public Spaces: curse or blessing?
Last week I saw some interesting information at the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) about the so-called  Privately Owned Publicly-Accessible Spaces (POPS). POPS are a specific type of open space which the public is welcome to enjoy, but remain privately owned and maintained. What are the pros and cons of these POPS?

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Small is beautiful
In order to increase the quality of life in cities, it is not necessary to make major investments or interventions. During the past years unloved spaces in London were transformed into ‘Pocket Parks’ – tennis court sized green retreats for local neighbourhoods to enjoy.

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What's in a name?
Maps provide a modeled representation of the earth’s surface: a geographical representation of the countryside or the planned city. On the basis of different kinds of lines, shapes and colors, you get an overview of the most important roads, buildings and facilities. Convenient for those on the road. However, there are also so-called typographic maps, these are maps with mainly words. Words that can be places within the physical structures to represent a social theme or an activity: the lived c…

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Civic economy
Mutual involvement, active citizenship and the ability to manage for themselves of inhabitants. Themes that, also prompted by cutbacks, become more and more prominent. But does this ‘civil society’ exist in the Netherlands? What can we expect of the self-organizing capacity of inhabitants?  And to what extent can a local authority or corporation stimulate or facilitate this?

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To Be or Not To Be?
It is already a couple of years ago that I interviewed my former coworker Leeke Reinders (TU Delft) on municipal policy in the French suburbs. In 1998 and 2001, he carried out an anthropological research in Paris into the relation between the city inhabitants and the developed surroundings in Sarcelles, a suburb 15 kilometres north of Paris. He investigated how the developed space (the hard city) transformed into a by people lived and experienced city (the soft city). When I asked him about the…

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