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Samenvatting: Theory of Urban Design
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Urban Design Theory Urban design theory Given by: Joachim Declerck
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Theory of Urban DesignLecture 1
Transformation: from theory to practise of change
(4)
• River basin
• Coming together of the different rivers: Rhine, Meuse, Scheldt delta
o My complete focus is on the transformation of this place
▪ Not one big core with enormous intensity of activity
▪ There was a very fine maze of a river system – enabled traffic + along
this river types of agriculture was possible everywhere
▪ Abundance of water → urbanisation
▪ Network of cities – Dender connected to Aalst – we have a network
spread over this territory - polycentric urbanism
o This historic map is more telling then contemporary maps: we would normally
draw roads & we would negate rivers (especially smaller ones)
o You see remainders of the forest (all the other parts were argiculure)
▪ Show why region is intriguing! Als one of the first regions in the
western world, with massive urbanisation rate
▪ Fertility, ports,… → already the case in these times
▪ Flip this: Fertile soils, biodiversity, a lot of traffic between cities, urban
waves of intensification – you see all I said leads to incredible
challenges: today climate change impact
• How can you be the port of Europe if global traffic is responsible for enormous
amounts of CO2
o How do we reconcile our immense sprawl with the fertile soil, diversity and
presence of water (very dry and wet summers)
o Water bomb on Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands → our system is no
longer fit for dealing with the water system
• How do we transform this environment? And what does it mean for our practise, how
do we operate in such an environment? Which types of practises are being
developed to deal with this
• How this is an experimental environment → go back further
(5)
• Brussels Capital of Europe. From a design studio to a manifesto, exhibition, public
debate & political agenda-setting (2004-2007)
o Design laboratory working on real questions in outside world
o How could it really become the capital of Europe? Not just host bureaucrats.
o The moment with designers → really thing through with architects how
Brussels could change, new infrastructure, buildings, topography…
o It becomes a conversation that design can provoke…
o No one commissioned this question but suddenly it provoked a debate (well-
known Portuguese personality, Barosso & next to him Guy Verhofstadt →
opening an exhibition how Brussels could look like.
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, o Bottom left → foam models, visualisations → exhibition; provoking debate
with politicians at the highest level
o We have a specific capacity in our hands – we deploy our techniques -
drawing & designing things, but also activate the designed work = it becomes
a public debate! This was a professional debate and had influence on policies
o None of this was schemed. It’s a discovery of the role we can play if we don’t
always wait for the commissions that are given also see in which condition or
context it should be positioned to provoke a debate you didn’t design in
advance or foresee
(6)
• Same logic: Power – Producing the Contemporary City (Biennale Rotterdam 2007): a
cultural manifestation launching design research on socio-urban challenges
o Same year where on certain big challenges we invited big experts
o People from a more theoretical background (Dehaene,..)
o Also designers were invited to develop a strategy
▪ All on a different city
▪ Each in their own city: try to go to city council → what would this lead to,
could this be realised?
o Sao-Paolo! Most important example
▪ Person who worked on this as an architect, had been doing a phd on the
urban transformation & has become schepen/ alderman in the city to
continue what he was developing there
o Visionary Power it was called: what are the questions we face as a city, the
presence of economy, corporate cities, politics, representation, presence of
tourism, presence of exclusion, informality,.. 5 topics they looked into
• This publication = moment when for the first time design practises were invited not to
present what they have already done but to design something for the exhibition
specifically and not something they already made! No finished models, photographs.. it’s
a thinking exercise in an exhibition.
(9) Architecture workroom Brussels
• = “a cultural innovation platform for the transformation of the social and physical
living environment.” Or innovation house for transformation.
• “Its central ambition is to initiate and stimulate the development of new practices,
principles and visions for the design of our habitat.”
• Bridge between the challenges that are out there, which don’t have answers yet, and
the capacity of designers who work in coalitions with governments and companies.
(10)
• 2012 Belgian pavilion: The Ambition of the territory – Venice Architecture Biennale
o Cultural context → thanks to which some of these aspirations have been
taking place
o On what has been done with Flemish government architect on our housing
question
o Replica of the pavilion bottom left: built in the singel, where in the middle of
the replica, a table was put and suddenly it became a working space - not
only talking and designing about transition on argiculture but they also invited
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, experts! This was a really surprising moment because the experts said yes &
came.
o One of these things that is important to understand – when you make a space
that doesn’t belong either to experts of energy, or food and agriculture, we
need a new connecting space to start discussion with stakeholders → find
combined challenges = completely different conversation → designed
conversation: provoked by design, analysis, proposal. New conversations
emerge.
o On the right: it ended in a conversation where people working on urban policy
& ppl on water challenges met for the first time
o Also tools from the design logic → connected to how to we develop the open
space system
(11) A version of the scheme from 2012 made for Biennale Rotterdam
• Top left: challenges
• Bottom right: the transformation we see is mostly
• While we say there is need to open space to collect water, we continue to build
• Statistics for Flanders: still consume 6 ha per day or open space
o Funny: in psychology it’s called cognitive dissidence
o We know they don’t match but we still continue
o We are good at that at human beings: doing things that are opposite & don’t
connect them
• We need a completely different table: how can we make a table where this question
is shared with others
o If we continue how we work now: the planning department makes a plan for
maintaining open space and the planning department gives permits to built in
open space → same unit of our government but at other scales!
o How can we find new coalitions? Work more together?
• Pentagon / Table
o We started to broaden the scope of who defines what is at stake
o Politics – Operators (who build) – Design capacity – Civil Society – Market
o (12) They tested this – continuation
o Vlaamse Land Maatschappij VLM → we are supposedly working in the
countryside but we don’t know what to do for water or what the energy
transition is coming to the open space. We have no idea what to do with this
o With our tools we are framed like that but we are hitting other problems
• How can we renew our tools & what are the projects we should then focus on?
• Top left: example new projects that could be focussed on → lead to open space
platform, new collaborations & new investment in these new collaborations
• One of the longest trajectories they have been working on
• Setup & role division between different stakeholders
• Working together with local citizens also quite important
• Broaden who defines what is at stake!
• Curator: quite a clear role division, you’re selected or not selected. But if you’re not
selected, how can you bring all these people together and co-formulate what the next
steps are.
3
, • (14)Top right: biennale 2018 – the missing link
o We need to invite practises, what can you bring in? Can we match this with
what others can do
o Can we then formulate the next step?
• (15) The exhibition: co-formulated by practises
o Instead of waiting for a government to commission something or only
organising it yourself, you can also say: we have to find new spaces to co-
evaluate what is at stake & what is to see where we can find breakthroughs
but we can only find these together → start revealing what is possible
(17) AWB = 6 core processes
• 1. Cultural Productions
• 2. Community Facilitation
o Open space platform: community of different stakeholders: energy, water,
policymakers,…
• 3. Deep Dive in Pilots (help realise)
• 4. Acceleration & Multiplication Strategies (make sure it’s not 1 time successful
project can be more then that)
• 5. Forecast (look ahead & set agenda)
• 6. Learning Program
o Our physical environment is hard to learn from internet
o Focus on fact that we are educated that we can click on everything that exists
• (18) From agenda-setting to implementation, and back (via learning environment).
o Festival kanal
▪ question of industry, real-estate developers: is the city a place to live
or also a vibrant place? deployers unions & labour unions .. → a good
city has industry conclusion
▪ 2016 part of biennale
▪ Picked up by policy makers & beyond
▪ Biennale -> influence! picked up by policy makers; results sometimes
still pop up in Ghent -> circular economy
▪ Trajectory in Delta working on ports
Framework Lecture 1: No Transition without Transformation
• How make sure it’s not only in the cultural area → going to actual projects & policies?
• We can’t succeed to do anything alone, we are stuck because we need new
coalitions
• The missing link – biennale of 2018
o Top right: a lot of people working on setting very important goals and signing
on these goals
▪ Paris climate agreement = crucial moment
▪ Sustainable development goals
▪ Ghent klimaatstad
▪ 50 for 55
▪ At all levels there is an enormous amount of goals
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