Vacant land can provide social and ecological benefits to cities as they are informally used by people and spontaneously populated by animals and plant-life. However, planners and policy makers often frame vacant land as ‘empty’, ‘blank’ spaces, making it difficult to acknowledge informal and more-than-human shaping of these places. This paper demonstrates how a reconceptualization of vacant land through a relational lens enables the inclusion of informal and more-than-human placemaking in planning policy. Analysing the recent Scottish planning policy debate on vacant land through the analysis of policy documents and key informant interviews, we demonstrate that the inclusion of informal and more-than-human placemaking in the Scottish planning policy is fostered by growing recognition of concepts such as urban biodiversity, but hindered by persistent nature-culture divisions. Waymarkers for future policy making are, firstly, strengthening the presence of informal and more-than-human actors in policy debates by seeking representatives who can speak on their behalf and, secondly, supporting new placemaking traditions specifically for vacant land that are incremental and collaborative.
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Elk jaar wordt een afgelegen locatie, zoals een eiland, getransformeerd tot een internationale ontmoetingsplaats waar workshops over kunst, media, gaming, wetenschap, technologie en duurzame innovatie worden gegeven. De uitwisselingsweek is transdisciplinair en stimuleert dialoog en actieve interactie tussen studenten, docenten, gastartiesten en deelnemende bezoekers, wat uiteindelijk leidt tot een klein festival. De publicatie 'Crisis! Re/Constructing Europe' gaat over de Island CQ editie die plaatsvond in Hongarije van 1 tot 13 mei, 2013. Tijdens de voorbereidingen van deze editie werden de media en het politieke debat beheerst door de financiële crisis in Europa. Elk land heeft een andere geschiedenis en dus een unieke relatie met Europa. Dit bracht de vraag naar boven wat de crisis eigenlijk betekende voor de mensen in verschillende Europese landen, en hoe ieder daar op zijn eigen manier mee omging.
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INAUGURAL LECTURE The world is in disarray. Species are extinct, climates are changing, we are becoming unhealthier.To liberate ourselves from this doom scenario we need to take care of ourselves and our environment. The solutions of former generations offer no future solace. Moreover, these caused the current problems. Instead of exploiting our environment for energy, resources and capacity we need to increase the potential for the recuperation of the environment, the planet and our minds. Instead of taking, giving!The reciprocity of the urbanized land we live in should be our main objective. The professorship Spatial Transformations - Sustainability will therefore design and plan for our physical and mentalcity and surroundings. This way the city becomes a purification machine for polluted water and acts as a net carbon sink. The city becomes a source of biodiversity, transformed into an urban nature reserve. Food will be produced that extends our lives. And wouldn’t it be nice to see the city as a place for contemplation so our mental abilities can grow instead of vegetating in dull offices? The city should offer people a healthy life, replenish resources and be beautiful. The professorship contributes to educating a new generation finding extraordinary solutions for current problems. With creativity, initiative and a healthy dose of disobedience this must work!
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Both research and practice acknowledge that an increasing number of business models are realized by multiple organizations in innovation ecosystems. Little research addresses how organizations develop these business models jointly over time and balance the tensions that occur from the divergent goals and interests of each actor. We propose that the concept of value valuation may be helpful in understanding this process. Value valuation is a balancing process that takes place between actors in an innovation ecosystem when collaborating around a business model for sustainability, making sure that the benefits of ecosystem membership outweighs its costs, leading to continuing support of the initiative. Based on four smart city projects for a circular economy we find that value is valuated along two dimensions: economic, environmental and social value; and mutual and individual value. Value valuation takes place in iterative cycles and is characterized by a number of mechanisms, including action-based experimenting. These findings open up a research agenda to study the dynamics of ecosystem-based business model development.
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This booklet holds a collection of drawings, maps, schemes, collages, artistic impressions etc. which were made by students during an intense design moment in the project (re)CYCLE Limburg, which took place in December 2016. Students of Built Environment, Facility Management, Social Work and Health & Care cooperated in making designs and developing strategies for urban renewal in Kerkrade West (Province of Limburg, the Netherlands). The study focused on the importance of qualitative and shared public spaces. The local community (inhabitants, shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, municipality, housing corporation) was actively engaged by sharing knowledge and information, ideas and opinions. These reflections are part of the Limburg Action Lab (part of the Smart Urban Redesign Research Centre). It engages in research by design on innovative and tactical interventions in public space, that might enhance the identity, sustainability and socio-spatial structure of neighbourhoods.
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Summary (English):Current planning policies place great expectations on citizen participation to resolve complex societal and spatial challenges such as urban renewal and housing development. This essay explores what transitions in citizen participation have taken place on this issue in the Netherlands and to what extent citizen participation in its current form can address the complex socio-spatial challenge of providing affordable housing in cities.The essay introduces a paradox of the transition in participation in housing development in the Netherlands as part of broader transformations in Dutch spatial planning and development: in spite of increased institutionalization of participation, the actual citizens seem to have been served less and less. There is potential for the inclusion of citizen participation in the planning processes to encourage acceptance where resource distribution creates conflicts (i.e. affordable housing markets and lack of supply) for more effective cooperation during implementation. However, giving citizens more say in small parcels of spatial development does not disguise and overrule the structural forces in policy and real estate market trends that have grown in the last decades and push out lower and middle income groups from the city.This essay reviews state-of-the-art literature on the evolution of citizen participation, co-creation, and decision-making structures and processes in spatial planning and housing, and discusses participation trajectories in urban developments with housing functions in Amsterdam (Havenstraatterrein, Marineterrein) and Groningen (Suikerunie, Ebbinge), and Almere (Oosterwold) to showcase the paradoxical transition.__Summary (Dutch):Participatie krijgt een steeds prominentere rol in het oplossen van complexe maatschappelijke en ruimtelijke uitdagingen, zoals stedelijke vernieuwing en de ontwikkeling van woningen. Dit essay verkent welke veranderingen zich hebben voorgedaan in de rol die burgers spelen in woningontwikkeling in Nederland en in hoeverre participatie in de huidige vorm helpt om voldoende betaalbare woonruimte te ontwikkelen in de stad.Het essay schetst een paradoxale transitie op het gebied van participatie in de woningbouw in Nederland. De transitie is onderdeel is van grotere veranderingen in ruimtelijke ordening en ruimtelijke ontwikkeling in Nederland. Ondanks toenemende aandacht voor en institutionalisering van participatie in plan- en ontwikkelingsprocessen, lijkt het erop dat de burger die het meest de hulp van de overheid nodig heeft om passende woonruimte te vinden, steeds meer het nakijken heeft gekregen. Burgers een grotere rol geven in de planprocesen en planuitvoering kan helpen de acceptatie van plannen waarin schaarse middelen worden verdeeld, te vergroten. Tot nu toe echter blijft de inspraak van burgers beperkt tot kleine, specifieke gebieden. Deze uitzonderingen bieden onvoldoende tegenwicht aan de structurele krachten in beleid, grond- en vastgoedmarkten die midden- en lagere inkomens de afgelopen jaren steeds verder de stad uit hebben gedreven.Dit essay schetst op basis van literatuurstudie de grote lijnen in de ontwikkeling van woningontwikkeling en participatie sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Op basis daarvan beschouwt het essay de ontwikkeling van participatie, co-creatie en besluitvorming in gebiedsontwikkeling in Amsterdam (Havenstraatterrein, Marineterrein), Groningen (Suikerunie, Ebbinge) en Almere (Oosterwold) om de paradoxale transitie die plaatsvindt in participatie in gebiedsontwikkeling en woningbouw te illustreren.
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Paper which introduces an method developed by the research group Duurzame Projectontwikkeling of the SIA-RAAK project Energieke Restauratie. Besides an discription of the method, it also describes the application of the method for three (fictional) case study projects: Dairy Factory Dongeradelen (Lioessens), Strawboard Factory Free (Oude Pekela) and Der Aa church (Groningen).
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More and more people worldwide live in urban areas, and these areas face many problems, of which a sustainable food provision is one. In this paper we aim to show that a transition towards more sustainable, regionally organized food systems strongly contributes to green, livable cities. The article describes a case study in the Dutch region of Arnhem–Nijmegen. Partners of a network on sustainable food in this region were interviewed on how they expect the food system to develop, and in design studies possible futures are explored. Both the interviews and the designs give support to the idea that indeed sustainable food systems can be developed to contribute to green livable cities. They show that the quality and meaning of existing green areas can be raised; new areas can be added to a public green system, and connections with green surroundings are enforced. They also show that inhabitants or consumers can be stimulated to become so called food citizens, highlighting that the relation of food systems and livable cities is a very close one.
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