Urbanism research brochure_light.pdf - AESOP

56 Pages·2010·9.41 MB·English

Department of
Urbanism
Research and
Education
‘Stedebouw is de synthese van alle
factoren, die in collectief verband het
ruimtelijk gebruik van de grond be-
stemmen.’
‘Urbanism is the synthesis of all fac-
tors that collectively determine the
spatial use of the territory.’
Pieter Verhaagen, 1939
Title picture: Urbanism Office, BK City
ii | department of urbanism |
Mission
The quality of the urban environment is a determining factor in the social, eco-
nomic and environmental performance of societies and the quality of life of their
citizens. Global forces bring about continuing urbanisation and urban transfor-
mation. These changes have increasing impact on the environment and on the
liveability of cities and landscapes. Urbanism seeks to influence these processes
through explicit design and planning interventions.
Urbanism is the academic discipline that is concerned with understanding the
spatial organisation and dynamics of urban areas; and with comparing, evalu-
ating and inventing new ways to maintain the balance between public and
private, the built and the unbuilt, and local and global perspectives. Urbanism
underpins practical action to shape the urban environment in a sustainable way.
The Urbanism research group’s core task is to mobilise its multidisciplinary
knowledge, skills and reputation towards the creation of more sustainable living
environments. The priority is to contribute solutions to the urgent challenges of
urbanisation in the context of climate change.
The Department of Urbanism in the Faculty of Architecture at Delft University of
Technology was established in 1948 and since then has contributed to academic
knowledge of the urban environment and design and planning interventions. It
provides education for reflective professional practice. The Department aims to
maintain its leading position, both in the Netherlands and abroad.
mission | department of urbanism | iii

Table of Contents

1 Strategy
2 Research Areas
4 Randstad Centre
8 U-Lab
12 Urban Landscape Architecture
16 The Why Factory
20 Books
25 Events
28 Collaboration
32 Who we are
44 Research-based Studios
50 Colophon
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Strategy
TU Delft has a distinctive and valuable research programme on urbanism. It
makes a significant contribution to the challenges of urbanising deltas and com-
plex urban regions in the face of climate change impacts. It is providing new
knowledge and tools for urban design, spatial planning and the integration of
landscape in the urban and delta contexts, as shown by the strong international
interest in our work.

From this strong base, a reorientation of research activity in Urbanism research
is underway. It will maintain the best of current activities whilst boosting our
academic output and profile. It will reinforce the extensive collaboration with
Dutch practice partners, consolidate international networking activity, and con-
tinue growth of PhD studies. We will focus research activity more tightly around
specific topics. Individual scholarship will remain important especially in deep-
ening our specialist disciplinary knowledge, but we will do more to create com-
bined research teams to progress research on socially relevant questions.

The Urbanism research programmes will be reviewed to merge with parallel re-
search in the OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment and to incorpo-
rate the Why Factory and the Chair of Design as Politics. The programmes will
direct individual and team research, external funding proposals and the design
of PhD projects.

The emergence of a stronger academic research culture in Urbanism demands
continuing development of staff competences in publication, third stream fund-
ing and PhD supervision. Actions have been taken to raise the visibility of Ur-
banism research and enhance the cohesion of the Urbanism PhD community.
Submission of academic journal papers has increased and this will continue so
as to achieve a rebalancing from professional to academic peer-reviewed publi-
cation.
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Student Model
Research Areas
The Randstad Centre for U-Lab
Strategic Spatial Planning and
The Urbanism research group Design Today’s issues and challenges demand
a fundamental renewal of the techniques
investigates the patterns and
and instruments of design and planning.
effects of urban development, The Randstad Centre is concerned with The fact that the Netherlands is located
spatial development and planning of
their wider impacts on society, on a delta, which will create new chal-
complex urban regions like the Randstad
lenges as a result of climate change and
and appropriate tools for de- Holland. The increasing significance of
ecology, makes it necessary to reorgan-
sign and intervention. We aim the regional scale and changing rela- ise the technical nature of urban design
tions between the state, market and civil
to strengthen our reputation and consider partnerships with other
society demand evaluation of planning
disciplines such as hydraulic engineering.
for research in delta urbanism, and regional design. The centre aims to
urban resilience, design sup- improve understanding of spatial devel-
opment and planning in the Randstad
port tools, networked regions, Urban Landscape Architecture
and to use this knowledge in mutural
the urban landscape and learning through international case stud-
cross-national comparison of ies and cross-national comparison. The unique Dutch tradition of making
Dutch landscapes is widely relevant else-
spatial planning.
where. The transformation of these land-
The Why Factory (T?F) scapes through continuing urbanisation,
Our starting point is the Dutch changing land use and climate change
is creating unprecedented challenges
territory and design and plan- T?F is a global urban think tank of the
for the designs the future urban land-
ning practices, whilst we also Faculty of Architecture and MVRDV. It scapes. Research on landscape design
was founded in 2008 with the ambi-
aim to maintain our wide inter- is organised to provide an elaboration of
tion of expanding the argumentative
the fundamental relationship between
national scope and relevance. power of the architectural and urbanism
architecture and landscape.
professions. Research on the Future City
is carried out through the interactive
The research is organised in
composition of three fields. It speculates
four interconnected multidisci- on possible theoretical models, makes The OTB Research Institute for
the Built Environment is joining the
plinary programmes: counter-proposals for existing cities, and
Faculty of Architecture. Its well-known
stores knowledge using an evolutionary
scientific research complements very well
gaming programme.
• U-Lab the interests of Urbanism in housing,
urban renewal, transport and infrastruc-
• Randstad - Spatial Planning
ture, planning, sustainable building and
• Urban Landscape Architecture geo-information. Urbanism will strength-
• The Why Factory. en its links with OTB over coming years
and combine forces in shared research
programmes.
research programmes | department of urbanism | 3
The Randstad as Planning Concept