Viability Feasability strategy for micro-programming and urban regeneration..

11. SURFACE
GEOMETRY
ORIENTATION
CONSTRUCTION
AESTHETICS

14. NUMBER
PROGRAMME
AGENDA
BUDGET
NETWORK

15. SURFACE
GEOMETRY
ORIENTATION
CONSTRUCTION
AESTHETICS
NUMBER
PROGRAMME
AGENDA
BUDGET
NETWORK
POSITION

66. §2.2 URBAN INERTIA
There are many texts about the end of the city, old ones and new ones, but
the fact is, cities are still there, like old pubs. The city exists, it’s changing
and growing gradually; a metamorphosis is taking place. The use of the urban
space is changing faster than urban space itself. It’s a question of scale and
inertia. Like a giant petrol tanker can’t change course in a matter of minutes,
the urban body has a certain resistance against big and sudden changes. To
harmonize the discrepancy between the relatively static city and it’s dynamic
users, a new layer of intervention must be conceived. Architecture can play
a harmonizing role. Not only by filling the envelops that were developed
in urbanist terms, not only by aesthetic facades, but by taking a responsible
position in the development of urban fabric. Aesthetics are an important aspect
of this harmonizing, as it has enormous influence on how we appreciate urban
space subjectively. But more important, the functional aspects of small scale
urban interventions and their ripple-effects, can influence the urban growth-
pattern.
The consequences of urban inertia are very apparent in the development of
urban amenities. Urban (re)development needs amenities, but specifying what
kind has its complications. If we suppose that the term for urban planning
includes at least ten years, we know that it is difficult to know ten years ahead
what specific amenities a certain area will need. We have a general indication,
but can we specify between a grocery store and a supermarket, between library
and a gym? Urbanists play it safe and call the amenity ‘multi-functional’
or ‘hybrid’, and leave specification for a later instance. This is where the
task is handed over to architecture. A building can be conceived with the
responsability to render a public quality. The volume and the place have to be
specified, but not the activity. This is a symptom of urban inertia, an open end.
This is where architecture comes in. Components like acces-, traffic-, main
and secondary spaces, and performances like ‘openness’, privacy, distribution,
(re)presentation and flexibility, have to be considered carefully so as to
activate the site as required. These subjects can be suggested in urbanism, but
have to be determined in architecture. Whether it concerns new developments
or redevelopments, buildings have the capacity to induce urbanism by their
functional scheme, and this capacity must be applied to improve the city.
If we can describe urban inertia, we can write an agenda for inductive
urban enhancement. If we can find out where urbanism fails, we can see
if architecture can help out. Architecture must therefore develop an urban
ambition. The long term goals of urbanism, that are generally managed top-
down, can be made attainable by strategic architecture, bottom-up.

67. §2.1 URBAN DYNAMICS - ARCHITECTURAL STRATEGIES
(For this chapter The Netherlands were taken as example since it is the writers native country.
However the situation could be symptomatic for other countries.)
With the population growing and society changing at the speed they do, it is
becoming increasingly difficult to manage all aspects of society in one model.
Repetitive changes in education, research and health care management create
enormous bureaucratic papermills and leaves no time for optimisation. Post-
colonial demography introduces questions of multi-cultural co-habitation.
Relationships and family structures change. Technology changes the
geographical pattern of our professional and private life. Can we still respond
to all these challenges with a management tool of lasting value, in an intergral
approach? Meanwhile the scale of management is increasing parallel to the
development of global economics and politics. More participants, more issues,
more changes, more specifications.
The Netherlands have a long history of collective managment structures. For
a relatively small country there are an incredible amount of political, technical
and social instruments, all concerned with the optimal and equal welbeing of
its inhabitants. But despite the effort of course some things tend to slip through
our hands. The models of management are reaching their limits.
The same situation can be questioned for urbanism: until what scale can
urbanism still aspire to regulate co-habitation within a single integrated urban
model? Spatial needs change at such speed that we can ask ourselves if the
spatial provisions can follow. Big scale urban coordination gets bigger, and
slowly it becomes inevitable to leave some responsabilities for the quality of
urban space to smaller scales like architecture. Architecture should be aware of
this responsibility as a particle of urbanism and develop an agenda for better
co-performance with urbanism.
To write this agenda we must find out how architecture can complement to
the goals of urbanism (and society) and pick up the pieces that urbanism can’t
take care of. There are symptoms in today’s urban development that require
analysis. Acting in accordance with the results of those analysis, and doing
so on an architectural scale, is introduced as ‘Inductive Urban Enhancement’.
This strategy approaches urban problems with architectural tools. While
urbanism is dealing with the long term development of an area ‘top down’,
architecture can act immediately and activate a site with the intended urban
direction ‘bottom up’. Ideally the two interventions will meet halfway and
share the succes. Architecture can be the flexible tool that bridges the gap
between planning and growth. To fullfill that role it needs a corresponding
political status.
PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3

68. FLEXIBILITY
The present-day condition of the western city demands a more flexible tool
of management, since its population, use and technology change ever more
rapidly. The modern city is the result of an attempt for controlled modification
and growth, but things are getting out of control. Too many intentions of
different periods are superimposed which blurs our comprehension. The city
has taken control of itself as points out Koolhaas when he mentions urbanism
despite planning [*04/S,M,L,XL].
The city has taken on a proper life almost like a natural phenomenon. We look
in awe at its technological and cultural manifestations but we can no longer
understand or control it. An exemplary case was explained by D.C. Dennett:
“If British Telecom sponsors a conference on robotics, it’s because they have
an interest in developping a tool that could control their network that oneone
can grasp anymore. This shows the uncomfortable position of a company
that no longer controls their own invention.” [*04/D.C. Dennett] The city has
become a second nature. The original biotope has become a techotope, i.e.
our daily living environment - and so, as Darwin established, survival is for
the fittest, meaning the most adapted. Buildings have to adapt to a changing
context, in other words to be flexible, to survive.
Paradoxically, recapitulating the paragraphs, a. acquiring identity requires
time and sustainability, b. sustainability requires flexibility towards changing
conditions, so c. identity requires flexibility. This situation calls for ‘hybrid
identities’, multi-functional objects with a multiplex profile and the capacity to
adapt.
Hybridity in architecture means the end of programmatic typology (the ‘form-
follows-function’ kind), and if nothing else replaces that, it will introduce the
architectural degeneration as was announced : “all buildings are hotels..” [*06/
S,M,L,XL].
Instead of fleeing forwards towards a ‘generic city’, design approaches can
be developped that intend the construction of ‘speciville’. In this ‘city’ each
occasion for specificity in architectural design is seized in order to maintain
and increase the profile of a specific public landscape, even during dramatic
changes. The extreme complexity of this mission, to embrace the need for
hybrid architecture and acknowledge the value of architectural diversity,
requires taking some distance and re-evaluating certain matters.
SCULPTUUR De specifieke sculpturale vorm
van de stedenbouwkundige volumes zijn een
garantie voor een locatiespecifiek stedenlijk
weefsel - een plek identiteit - houvast voor de
verdere ontwikkelingen.
STRUCTUUR De open structuur van de
gebouwen refereert naar prototypische pre-fab
haven architectuur, en biedt de mogelijkheid
van een exploitatie-afhankelijke invulling
terwijl de sculpturaliteit herkenbaar blijft.
HOUT Houten pallets zijn typisch elemnten
uit een haveninrichting. In het nieuwe
ontwerp komt het hout in verschillende fases
terug in eenvoudige basis en een luxe en
gerafineerde uitvoering.
STUC De zakelijk ogende pleisterlaag van
een aantal bestaande gebouwen is goed
toepasbaar. Het maakt een stapsgewijze
upgrade van kaal casco naar chique volume
mogelijk.
METAAL De sierlijk glans en curven van de
scheepsschroeven, en de daaraan verwante
materialen, vult de geometrische architectuur
aan met feestelijke elementen. De totale
compositie is daarmee compleet.
B
C1
C2
D
E