Posts

How to design a play-friendly living environment
Civil servants, project developers, and urban planners involved in housing construction often find themselves embroiled in debates about balancing affordability, return on investment, and the need for adequate housing. Architects, on the other hand, tend to focus primarily on issues such as floor plans, private outdoor space, and sunlight exposure. Often overlooked in these kinds of design processes is the (semi-)public outdoor space surrounding and between the homes, which determines the play …

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København: new city life
Copenhagen is considered to be one of Europe's leading cities in regards to quality of life and sustainability. Over the past couple of years a range of public buildings and spaces, infrastructure and entire quarters have been developed whose architecture and urban planning are in many aspects inspirational and exemplary. A new book about these projects was recently published.

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Soft City: building density for everyday life
Due to their increasing popularity cities are under pressure. To accommodate the influx of people, more and more buildings are being built in higher densities. The challenge is to keep these cities liveble, inclusive and sustainable. In his book Soft City David Sim gives numerous tips and examples for this challenge. He shows that higher densities and quality of life can go hand in hand. It's just a matter of people-friendly architecture and city planning.

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The Open City
Nowadays we make cities to much as a closed system: segregated, regimented, and controlled. Instead of this 'Closed City' we need an 'Open City' where citizens actively hash out their differences and planners experiment with urban forms that make it easier for residents to cope. This is the main message of urban sociologist Richard Sennett in his new book 'Building and Dwelling' that came out last month. Yesterday he gave an inspiring lecture at the Rotterdam Academy of …

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How to make inviting and attractive public spaces? A top 10.
Public spaces come in many different sizes, shapes and forms. Squares, parks, playgrounds, shopping and residential streets, all belong to the outdoor space. They can be found in inner cities and beyond. They can be both big and small. Despite this diversity, there are a number of factors that determine whether a public space attracts or rejects people. In this article, a top 10 - in random order - of items that can serve as a checklist for the realization of an inviting, lively and attr…

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Toronto Tower Renewal
Toronto, the city of towers, is facing a major challenge as 1.200 high-rise residential concrete frame buildings are approaching the end of their effective service life. In the so-called Tower Renewal Program different parties are trying to improve  the quality and  the energy efficiency of these high-rise buildings. It will also - indirect - generate social, economic and cultural benefits by creating local green jobs, increasing small-scale retail, and upgrading green space. I spoke with Graem…

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Torre David; informal vertical community
In Caracas stands an unfinished 45-story skyscraper. Despite the physical shortcomings it has become an improvised, continually revised home to more than 750 families. Urban-Think Tank, an interdisciplinary design practice, spent over a year studying the physical structure and the social organization that turned this ruin into a ‘squatters’ home. They summarized this process - were the planned city meets the lived city - in a wonderful book.

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Le Medi
There are projects that you just don’t know what to think of. Projects that are food for discussion.  Or at least raise some questions. Le Medi in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) is such a project. A new complex that I personally find beautiful, it gives me a true feeling of a city in spring, but that’s a matter of taste. There are much more interesting questions, like: is this an interpretation of multicultural building and/or multicultural living? Is there a market for these kind of living …

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