March 01, 2003
What clever contrivances lie hidden in buildings or on drawing tables, waiting for a wider application? What research if any is taking place in architectural offices? On which architectural frontiers can movement be detected? Is there (still) a role for architectural firms in the development of new typologies or products, in finding answers to new regulations, in suggesting alternative forms of process control?
Since the 1980s, the standard no-nonsense approach in urban renewal has been to plan, then construct, and only then to discuss things. The attendant spatial planning procedures deliberately shift the potential conflict between the parties concerned to the end of the process. Local government sets the preconditions, the developer develops within these constraints and at the end of the process the resident can raise pro forma objections at a ‘consultation evening’. If there is a real need, an official appeal can be lodged. Everyone is aware that it will have little real effect. This invariably turns consultative evenings into a farce, with a familiar division of roles and an all-too-familiar outcome.
Resistance to this planning methodology is on the rise everywhere. The parties involved in development feel increasingly hemmed in by conditions imposed by local authorities, and would like to have some say in these conditions themselves. Residents feel cornered and grasp at ever more forceful political or legal means. There are more and more referenda and court cases. This resistance leads to big delays, often even postponement. A great deal of time and energy is squandered in the process. Yet this could be avoided with some extra effort during plan development by involving all parties in the process. What’s more, this increases the chances of ending up with a better plan.
Prior to the rise of modern urban planning it was standard practice in the Netherlands for planning to take place in collaboration with all the interested parties. The greater part of the Netherlands was made by alliances. Most canals, reclaimed land, railways and urban expansions are the result of temporary alliances between citizens, bankers, contractors, politicians, engineers and the royal house. They transformed wasteland into cultural land.
Nowadays space is scarce, and spatial planning is increasingly a struggle between pension funds, property developers, government bodies, nature preservationists, automobile associations and citizens clubbed together in associations. On this battlefield, the modern and generally accepted ‘top-down’ government planning procedures inspire only resistance and opposition, certainly in areas where there is a high density of interests. The laborious genesis and realization of projects like the Betuwe Line freight-train link and Amsterdam’s new IJburg residential area demonstrate that it is once again becoming more important to establish temporary agreements between parties with divergent agendas. For urban planners this offers the ideal opportunity to take up a new position in the field of action, namely as builders of coalitions in physical planning.
Coalition-based urbanism entails forming coalitions between diverse parties keen to enter into a relationship that benefits all. This form of urban planning is rooted in a context of spatial tension and spatial instability. The underlying principle is that physical planning is the preserve of the initiator and not the government’s monopoly. Alliances are possible through smart combinations of interests. In coalition urbanism there is consensus about projects, not about an all-embracing final vision. Depending on the goal they wish to achieve, initiators will repeatedly select new coalition partners. The changing composition of coalitions determines the dynamism of the spatial order.
Coalition urbanism assumes that initiators and interest groups harmonize their respective ambitions vis-à-vis time, space, speeds, surface areas and levels of scale. Urban planners can play a pivotal role in this process by mapping out the existing situation, reconnoitring the various starting-points, assessing the margin for potential solutions, and then translating the outcomes of this process into a clear-cut plan. This holds for large-scale projects, such as national infrastructure, as well as for local renewal plans for urban transformation areas.
In recent years Must has developed a set of instruments for urban restructuring tasks, looking for means that make it possible to involve all parties in the planning process while simultaneously improving the quality of the final plan. Underlying this methodology is the idea that every party is an expert in their respective domain: the developer understands price/quality ratios, the resident knows his or her daily living environment and the municipal council understands public interest.
This has led to an approach driven by a matrix. This matrix is composed of various layers. The first layer is formed by a reasoned selection of conditions and starting-points furnished by the various parties concerned. The second layer consists of an inventory of desirable solutions compatible with the various conditions. The third layer consists of a selection of solutions that are tested for feasibility and desirability within three or four exploratory models. The fourth layer consists of a selected preferred model with the attendant conditions and possible solutions. This forms the basis and quality guarantee for the plan to be developed.
The matrix functions as a testing and selection instrument for all the furnished ideas and solutions. It offers a concise and unambiguous overview of all the necessary building blocks and all the agreements struck during the planning process. It helps all the parties involved to take steps simultaneously and collectively, so that during the process it is always possible to refer back to previously agreed points. In this way, all parties thus work together to build an urban planning framework robust enough to withstand capricious reality.
Lakerlopen is a pre-war residential area close to Eindhoven’s city centre. A few years ago the city council drafted a ‘vision for the future’ to guide restructuring of this area. The vision prescribed almost complete demolition and building the neighbourhood afresh. No sooner had work started on the first phase – the demolition of the first houses – last year, than it became obvious that the main objectives of the blueprint for the future would not be achieved. As planning progressed it gradually became apparent that the renewal operation was creating more problems than it solved. The neighbourhood’s residents were the first to raise the alarm. But also the housing corporations and developers concerned made no secret of their growing loss of faith in the quality and chance of success of the vision for the future.
This eventually led to the collective resistance of nearly all the parties concerned, with the result that the renewal process was in danger of grinding to a halt. Since everyone agrees that the Lakerlopen area is in need of thoroughgoing urban renewal, this standstill was socially undesirable. Almost simultaneous with the sinking of the foundations of the first new-build project, the city council came to the conclusion that the vision for the future was, after only three years, outdated. In order to get the renewal process back on track and to regain the trust of those concerned, Eindhoven city council decided to reorganize the vision for the future into a series of steps.
The decision to throw open the debate and to invite all the parties concerned to contribute to a series of ‘Vision Debates’ was crucial. After three debates with residents, users, corporations, developers and civil servants, the trust between all parties was sufficiently restored for them to think about the future together. At the city council’s initiative, Must was invited to develop a strategy in which all parties would work together, moving stepwise towards a new masterplan for the redevelopment of Lakerlopen. For Must, this project was an opportunity to test the previously developed matrix method in an unpredictable practical situation for the first time.
The first step, the reassessment of the basic principles and conditions, opened a great many certainties to discussion once again. The city council had tabled a couple of hard and fast parameters that served public and civic interests, and which all parties had to accept. The high number of dwellings to be constructed in the future Lakerlopen was of particular concern to a number of parties. On the other hand, all the city council’s other unilateral conditions included in the old vision for the future were abandoned. This amenable attitude persuaded the other parties that they, too, could make a contribution to the planning process. They did this by putting forward their own starting-points and conditions. After making an inventory and selection, Must then elaborated the most important conditions and arranged them along the horizontal axis of the matrix in the making.
The second step was to investigate the consequences of the new conditions for the neighbourhood and the gamut of solutions possible in Lakerlopen for each condition. For example, we examined which parking options might be realized within the constraint of ‘parking on one’s own property’. This produced the data for the vertical axis, resulting in a matrix with possible sector-specific solutions for each condition. Presenting these data in simple pictograms made them easy for everyone to comprehend.
The third step is the most important for the eventual elaboration of the masterplan. A model-based exploration of potential combinations makes clear which possibilities the matrix offers for the renewal of Lakerlopen. On the basis of three fundamentally different living environments (street city, garden city and park city) we explored which potential combinations were possible within the matrix. (This also served to reveal which combinations were not possible.) Eventually it became obvious to everyone involved which living environments could be realized within the set conditions, and which solutions support or exclude one another.
The results of this exploration were presented in a fourth Vision Debate, the aim of which was the joint selection of building blocks for the masterplan. Because everyone enjoyed equal status in the debate, residents, developers, interested parties and civil servants could have a frank discussion about the pros and cons of each condition and possible solutions. The final vote for each proposed solution eventually made it obvious which solutions were most desirable.
The outcome of the final vision debate constitutes a solid foundation for the drawing up of a draft masterplan for Lakerlopen. We are currently translating the results into a clearly formulated vision for the future. This means that we still have to make a lot of crucial decisions in order to turn all the separate components into a strong and coherent plan. Within a few months the vision for the future with the accompanying argumentation will once again be discussed with all the parties involved. It will then be worked up into a masterplan for the urban renewal of Lakerlopen.
It is still too early to be able to present the final outcome of the entire planning process. However, it is already clear that all the parties now feel they are working together on a plan that everyone backs. Ultimately, we expect that the process described above, together with the application of the matrix, will produce a plan of higher quality than would have been achieved if the plan had been drawn up in an ‘ivory tower’ by a small club of ‘experts’. The process involves four principles which together form the basis of a strong plan:
1. A specific plan
The contributions of all the different parties have provided us with a great deal of knowledge about the target groups and partners for whom we are making the plan. This knowledge makes it possible to formulate a specific and tailor-made plan. By systematically organizing the results of the open initial phase in a matrix it is possible to make a focused analysis, thus avoiding the pitfalls of vague generalizations. The matrix enables designers to base specific design interventions on widely supported starting points.
2. A supported plan
Support is necessary, everyone must feel involved with the plan, as only then is it possible to guarantee its qualities. A plan stands or falls by the contributions of the planners, testers, constructors, investors and users. If every link in the planning process is involved with the plan, and feels responsible for it, the chance of a successful realization, from drawing board to completion, is much greater. Retrospective accusations that corners were cut in inappropriate areas, or that the users should not have been allowed to put up fencing, can in fact be traced back to a party’s lack of engagement in the planning process.
3. A fitting plan
Urban restructuring operates in an environment with a continuous time line. History moves on while the plan sets out on the road to the future. A good plan adopts an appropriate position on this time line, translating the ideas, stories and habits of the current users and residents into a feasible future. Though the majority of the residents may not return after the renovation operation, the plan is the guardian of the place’s spirit. It at least guarantees psychological continuity and increases the place’s layeredness and complexity.
4. A robust plan
A plan must be able to take a few knocks. A chorus of voices means a variety of criticism. A plan that succeeds or fails on the choice of colour for the window frames is too vulnerable. This means that during the planning process a clear distinction must be made between main and side issues. For example, there are spatial, social and cultural-historical values that must at all costs be guaranteed in a robust framework. On the other hand, there is potential freedom in the elaboration of individual sections of the plan by individual parties.
Wouter Veldhuis is an architect and a partner in Must.