Urban Change - Projetos Urbanos » Wastelands

Luz – Left Hand Rotation

Merten — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:33:59 +0000

In the last couple of years, project Nova Luz has begun to transform one of the liveliest and most central parts of São Paulo. Low income groups fear they will have to leave the area soon, due to expropriation, demolition and gentrification. Questions are raised regarding the inclusion of these social groups in the urban plan. Spanish media collective Left Hand Rotation recently launched a documentary on this topic (Portuguese/Spanish).

Nos últimos anos, o projeto Nova Luz começou a transformar um dos bairros mais centrais e movimentados de São Paulo. Moradores de baixa renda são expostas á desapropriação, demolição e gentrificação, processos que acabam expulsando-0s da região central. A inclusão desses grupos no projeto, na forma de zoneamento ZEIS, está sendo debatido no momento. Coletivo Espanhol Left Hand Rotation recentemente lancou um documentário sobre essa situação (Português/Espanhol).

Welcome to Lagos

Merten — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:35:17 +0000

Lagos is the fastest growing megacity in the world. In the process of attracting millions of new people, its inhabitants have found resourceful ways of making a living, building homes, recycling materials and trading goods. This creative attitude of the Nigerians are at the center of this BCC documentary.

Part 1 focuses on recycling and making money from waste in one of the city’s major land fills.

Part 2 tells the story of a shantytown built on poles in the lagoon (a type of settlement that would be called Palafitas in South America)

Part 3 describes the ambition of Lagos to become a succesfull megacity through implementing infrastructure and regulations. Both elements obviously clash with the existing informal settlements and commercial activities.

(all parts available on youtube, by clicking through the different sub chapters)

Lecture: the Atlanta Beltline

Merten — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:20:49 +0000

Thursday October 6, the Deltametropolis Association and the Department of Spatial Planning (TUDelft) organize a lecture by Ryan Gravel, on Transit Oriented Development (TOD). As urban planner he is responsible for the development of the Atlanta Beltline, a new light rail connection on an abandoned cargo track around the city. The project emerged bottom-up with help of local stakeholders. The lecture is part of our project SprintCity.

Time and Location
9:45 – 11:30h | Delft University of Technology, faculty of Architecture, Julianalaan 134, Delft – Berlagezaal 1 (ground floor) | Free admission

Debate panel
- Ryan Gravel (Perkins+Will)
- Caroline Bos (UNStudio)
- Dominic Stead (OTB)
- Paul Gerretsen (Deltametropolis Association)
- Roberto Rocco (TUDelft)

Click here to read more and register for the lecture.

Retirement cities

Merten — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:05:17 +0000

September 2011, Susana Alves and Merten Nefs will present a paper at Environment 2.0, a conference organized by Technical University Eindhoven. The paper discusses the possibilities for Shrinking Cities to attract elderly by spatial features and services and transform their economy to focus on leisure and health care – in other words, to become successful Retirement Cities.

Retirement Cities – Analysing the opportunities and challenges of a co-existence of ageing and urban shrinkage in Europe

Authors:
Merten Nefs (Deltametropolis Association, Rotterdam)
Susana Alves (Edinburgh College of Art; OPENspace Research Centre)
Ingo Zasada (Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research Institute of Socio-Economics, Müncheberg)
Dagmar Haase (Humboldt University Berlin and Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig)

ABSTRACT
Urban shrinkage has been acknowledged a major trend in many urban regions across Europe and elsewhere. Increasingly, policy makers and planners have been developing strategies to cope with these new urban development paths and their socio-spatial consequences. The authors advance the idea that active retirement migration and health tourism can be part of such strategies and ask the question: What are opportunities but also challenges for retirement migration in shrinking European cities? The authors, all from different disciplines and countries, share the idea that retirement migration and urban shrinkage in Europe are connected, bound together by the search for urban ‘quality of life’. Both processes have already been discussed extensively as separate subjects in academic literature. However, in this paper a conceptual model is proposed, which provides an approach of how to assess the suitability and identify development perspectives of shrinking cities in the context of an aging society and the in-migration of retirees. Based on two carefully selected case study regions with particular relevance of aging population – Walcheren (NL) and Leipzig (GER) – the conceptual model is exemplarily applied to investigate both quantity and quality of green open spaces and living environment, a major aspect in urban quality of life. It is argued, that shrinking cities provide valuable opportunities to adapt to the affordances of an aging population. Retirement in-migration again might represent a crucial catalyst in urban renewal for shrinking cities.

Walcheren – retirement at the North Sea coast, in a region facing shrinkage

Leipzig – reuse of urban green space in a shrunken city, for recreational use and active ageing

Scheldekwartier

Merten — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:54:05 +0000

The history of Vlissingen was largely influenced by the shipyard in the centre of the city. Already in the 16th and 17th centuries, wooden vessels were made here for trade and military purposes. Once in while the shipyard expanded, demolishing part of downtown Vlissingen. In 1875 the wharf became private property and was the largest company in town in the 1950′s, with 4.600 employees. For many years the wharf carried the name Royal Schelde Group. In 2003 Damen Shipyards sold large part of the area to the Municipality to build an ambitious new housing project of 32 hectares, called Scheldekwartier. Part of the wharf will maintain its old function, for construction and maintenance of luxury yachts. The masterplan foresaw five different areas of urban development, including a marina and waterfront high-rise.

It can be questioned whether the plans could be realized in Vlissingen, with limited population growth, threat of shrinkage, and historically low real estate prices. A fact is that since the real estate crisis of 2008, the plan completely lost ground. The project developer of the first phase postponed the construction of the first houses, since it required 70% pre-sale of the housing units. Another investor was brought in to save the day. Now the first 51 units are under construction. The structure of the carpenter’s workshop has recently been restored, with help of subsidies. In general, the city has stated that the masterplan has to be adapted to the new economic reality and that ambitions should therefore be lower. The city fears that the gigantic vacant space may turn the city unsafe and unattractive over time. Money has already been spent and profits are lower due to problems on the real estate market. The delay of the housing projects costs the Municipality milions of Euros per year of interest. So they’re obviously in a rush.

The alternative of temporary use, however, has not been deeply investigated. Some temporary artistic work is being done, such as the work by Enzo Producties. But temporary housing, small scale production or student facilities have not been planned in the area. Preparing this new part of town with temporary activities might just be the way to create a market and identity for the area, and could easily use the opportunity of the location: a waterfront between the city center and the railway station. In such a gradual development approach, ambitions may not have to be lower in the end. They can even be higher and better adapted to the future circumstances. The Municipality quickly acknowledges the need to exit the old masterplan, but at the same time does not embrace a more flexible and temporary strategy. It will certainly take some time to develop the full 32 hectares, so the chances are still there!

Visit Scheldekwartier Vlissingen on Google Maps