De Bouwbubbel van Rotterdam

Posted on May 22, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Rotterdam_bbubbel

Crisis or no crisis, Rotterdam continues to construct new buildings. In front of the central station, foundations are being laid for a 120m high mixed-use tower, just behind it looms the almost finished colorful complex ‘The Calypso’, a bit further down town, a giant market hall will be constructed, and ‘The Rotterdam’ -the country’s largest building- has recently reached his highest point.

Many citizens are proud of these new developments: they make Rotterdam a contemporary city, full of architectural masterpieces. But how come large real estate projects are still being constructed in Rotterdam, while they are suspended or canceled in the rest of the Netherlands? Is so much office- and retail space really needed in the city? And what kind of city does Rotterdam actually wants to be?

AIR and Arminus brought together the supporters and opponents of the city’s current construction policy. Wouter Vanstiphout joined the debate with Rotterdam alderman Hamit Karakus, which led to an interesting discussion on twitter and an article the Dutch newspaper: NRC Handelsblad. Missed it? The recordings are now online! (Dutch only)

Screen shot 2013-05-22 at 17.19.24

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Posted in Achitecture, Debate, Economy, News, Politics

Design as Politics Exhibition @ BK City

Posted on May 18, 2013 by | Leave a comment

DasP_Expo_BKCity_May_Screenposter
From May 22nd until June 13th, the Design as Politics exhibition which was developed within the framework of the 5th IABR: Making city, will be shown on various locations within the TU Delft, faculty of Architecture. Pass by if you’re around!

Design as Politics
Architecture is politics. Why? Because the city is politics. The city is the place where money, power, business, culture, religion and leisure come together, each fighting for primacy. The exhibition ‘Design as Politics’ shows these fights through spectacular three-dimensional images. They show how an entire district was sacrificed for a beautiful project, how bringing the Olympics to a city can lead to social unrest and how political revolutions can throw a wrench in the works of great architectural projects.

But if architecture is politics, then architects and urbanists must make careful choices in their design and planning. Students within the Design as Politics design studios are therefore challenged to take a clear position in the ongoing urban conflict. The exhibition shows a selection of these projects.

Finally, the exhibition plays the soundtrack of the urban conflict, focusing on how popmusic has always chosen a side concerning the politics of the city. These examples range from Marvin Gaye’s Inner City Blues, to The Clash’s Guns of Brixton to the Grime music that accompanied the 2011 London riots.

The Design as Politics exhibition is supported by the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR), TU Delft, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment, the City of Rotterdam, Crimson Architectural Historians, and de Hofbogen B.V.

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Posted in Blame the architect, IABR, Riots

Political Philosophy Seminar – Design as Politics

Posted on May 16, 2013 by | Leave a comment

PhilosophyDuring next years autumn semester, Design as Politics will offer a complete new course: The Political Philosophy Seminar. Instructor is the Philosopher and Architect: Marta Relats.

This philosophy seminar is aimed at solidifying the reasons why designs are created. Why is the world better with your design rather than without?

The emphasis will be put on political philosophy and the economic theories related to it through design issues. This will be done by means of lectures, readings and little exercises in various fields: aesthetics, politics, economy, ethics and value theory among others.

The seminar has two objectives: Firstly and most essentially, to provide an awareness of your own position at a philosophical level, and to build up on it. The result will be a strong well-argued standpoint from where to look at the world that, in itself, manifests a commitment from a designer’s perspective. Secondly, there will be a basic training in rhetoric, where you will learn to make arguments persuasive, attractive and convincing. These argumentations will be expected to have the endorsement of a deep reflection that the lectures and readings will help you construct.

This course is compulsory for students enrolled in the graduation studio ‘Follow The Money – Finance Architecture and the City’  (AR3DP110), but also open to  students from other studios as an elective course. Enroll here for the complete seminar (TU Delft Students only) or keep an eye on our blog and visit one of the sessions!

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Posted in Education, Lectures

Symposium de Energieke Stad

Posted on April 25, 2013 by | Leave a comment

MarktenoverheidOn Tuesday the 26th of March 2013, Wouter Vanstiphout was one of the guest speakers at the symposium named: “The energetic city”, organized by the Dutch “creative industries fund.” During his talk, Wouter argued for a strict division between the government’s responsibilities and that of the market, concerning urban development and investments in real estate. Wouter’s text and the video recordings can be found below, or click here to download the text in pdf (unfortunately all in Dutch only).

skip to 01:08:30 for Wouter Vanstiphout’s talk

De scheiding van Markt en Overheid
In Rotterdam woedt al een paar maanden een felle discussie over de rol van de Gemeente in het bouwbeleid, met name bij grootschalige projecten in het centrum van de stad. Het meest recent is de kwestie ‘Forum Rotterdam’,  een voorstel van het architectenbureau OMA voor een immens kubusvormig gebouw aan de Coolsingel, met daarin een high-end shopping mall, kantoren, appartementen en de nieuwe behuizing voor het Historisch Museum Rotterdam. Het project wordt fel bekritiseerd door onder andere een groep winkeliers die zich zorgen maakt of het gebouw – in deze tijden van afnemende behoefte aan winkeloppervlakte – de finale doodslag zal geven aan de toch al worstelende zaken aan de Lijnbaan en de winkelstraten daarbuiten. Voorstanders zeggen daarentegen dat de winkeliers er juist van zullen profiteren, omdat een dergelijk ‘concept’ weer winkelaars naar Rotterdam zou trekken die er anders niet zouden komen.

Opvallend is de rol van de wethouder, Hamit Karakus. In plaats van als politicus boven de partijen te staan en met zijn dienst stadsontwikkeling tot een goede analyse en afweging te komen, heeft hij zich juist verknocht aan dit project. Dit gaat tot op het niveau dat er zelfs een paginagroot portret van hem is opgenomen in het glossy promotieboek dat ontwikkelaar Multi Vastgoed heeft uitgegeven met een interview waarin de wethouder stelt hoe belangrijk dit project is voor de stad. Dit kwam aan de orde tijdens een gemeenteraadsdebat waarin de oppositiepartijen de wethouder trachtten te overtuigen om voor dit zeer omvangrijke project, dat bij veel partijen zo gevoelig ligt, toch de gewone procedure te doorlopen voor het verkrijgen van een zogenaamde Verklaring van geen bedenkingen. Dat wil zeggen de mogelijkheid tot het indienen van zienswijzen, tot inspraak, en het geven van een controlerende taak aan de raad, in plaats van de verkorte, automatische procedure, die in feite is ingesteld voor kleine, oncontroversiële gebouwen. Na veel weerstand moest de wethouder uiteindelijk buigen, en ‘zijn’ project onderwerpen aan democratische controle en inspraak.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Achitecture, Debate, Economy, Politics

Resort Castelfalfi

Posted on April 23, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Castelfalfi_bnnrestate2_02

In 2007, the German travel company TUI, bought an almost abandoned Italian village plus its surrounding land, to turn it into an 11.000 hectare holiday resort. Our PhD candidate Els Leclercq wonders if this approach is desirable and if so could this be a solution to the problematic shrinkage of other European villages.

Castelfalfi, once a thriving agricultural village with 500 inhabitants, located near Florence in Tuscany, depopulated rapidly during the ’60’s. Only two people remained while buildings deteriorated rapidly, until the German tourist operator TUI bought the village and surrounding countryside in 2007 with the intention to develop the village into a luxury resort, including a top-notch golf club. The local government of Montaione, under which Castelfalfi falls, were of course interested in the capital injection by the German tour operator and the rise of employment possibilities for local Italians.

castelfalfi

In the masterplan that TUI presented, the authentic Tuscan aesthetics were used meticulously to renovate the facades of the buildings. Inside though the houses and apartments are fully equipped with all modern comforts. The overall aim was not to create a gated community for wealthy foreigners but to also attract locals in order to create the ultimate authentic feel. In addition a market, local shops and a public pool are part of the proposal. So far a boutique hotel has opened its doors and a number of houses have been sold but only to other Europeans.

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Of course this is not the only project of this kind and many Germans, English and Dutch have bought houses in France, Italy and Spain, but projects at this scale have been scarce so far. The question arises how a village made for wealthy foreigners can retain a certain authentic feel? With the renovated facades as the single element referring to its glorious past it might quickly feel fake or Disney like. The question at stake is if people mind the fake authenticity; probably not the new home owners who come to enjoy the Italian pleasures without having to deal with Italians altogether. And maybe also not the locals as a waiter at the local pub says to an interviewer: For us, it is work. If that is the case could this be a solution for shrinking villages that happen to have a touristic value? And do we end up with numerous tourist resorts in otherwise empty regions? Should we worry about this trend or salute it as another step forwards to European integration.

See for more on this subject:
- ‘Ein birra grande in Toscane’, Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, in Vrij Nederland 03.07.2012
- ‘It takes a village: TUI Builds Tuscan Playground for the Wealthy‘, Fiona Ehlers and Thomas Tuma, in Speigel online 14.06.2011.

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Posted in Achitecture, Economy

Design as Politics presents: Follow The Money – Finance, Architecture and the City

Posted on April 11, 2013 by | Leave a comment

FTM_WEB

Also the coming semester the chair of Design as Politics will offer a master graduation studio to architecture and to urbanism students. After having focused on inequality (‘In the Ghetto’, 2010-2011), on vacancy (‘Rotterdam-Detroit’, 2011-2012) and on Democracy (‘We the People’, 2012-2013), we will focus on Money in 2013-2014.

Why Money? What does design have to do with money? We would say: everything!

Money has become the central critical issue for architecture and planning. How to plan and build when public and private funds have dried up? Why design new buildings, when the existing ones are not even finished or used? Why design public spaces when cities are unable to even care for or maintain the existing parks and streets?  If architecture and urbanism is to survive, it will have to place financing and money at the center of its attention, and it will have to be just as creative in its financial architecture, as in the design of spaces and materials.

Design as Politics says: Do not let this crisis go to waste! Profit from the freedom offered by the collapse of the old financial systems and create an architecture that can exist on its own terms, either through an extreme sobriety of materials and construction, by using innovative financial tools, through crowd funding, unexpected profitmodels or by using entirely new ways of payment from bartering to bitcoins.

Follow the Money, will offer an intense Msc3 and Msc4, that offers great freedom in defining and developing your own Idea, but also collective workshops and lectures by specialists in the fields of finance, project development, philosophy, art and politics.

If you are an architecture or an urbanism student, willing and able to dedicate yourselves to a studio that is at once rigorous and experimental, freethinking and superpragmatic, individualist yet with a strong team spirit, then send us a mail with your motivation and some examples of previous writings and designs before May 6. More info here.

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Posted in Economy, Education

Tagged , , ,

Video Recording Venice Takeaway Debate – The Working Village

Posted on March 22, 2013 by | Leave a comment

The Working VillageScreen shot 2013-03-22 at 10.24.51Click on image to watch video.

Wouter Vanstiphout was at the AA, London last week, to participate in the live think thank ‘The Working Village’, exploring Darryl Chen’s concept of a radical entrepreneurial village. Chen argues that audacious urban planning could spur entrepreneur-led economic growth. Against a backdrop of failing high streets and dying neighbourhoods, this debate asked whether there is a radical way of putting planning in the service of the economy. Could the Localism Act be a mechanism to spark growth? How radical can or should we be in rethinking how we draw plans for our cities?

Speakers:
Darryl Chen (Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today); with Wouter Vanstiphout (Crimson), Beatrice Galilee (Lisbon Triennale/Domus), Finn Williams (Common Office/Croydon Council), Adam Scott (FreeState), Paul Evans (UK Regeneration), Levent Kerimol (GLA).

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Posted in Debate, Economy