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New Towns for the 21st Century: the Planned vs. the Unplanned City Click here for detailed program. The New Towns of the 20th Century were planned cities: they were built according to a blueprint designed by an architect or planner. From their inception, they were complete cities; rationally designed with a certain image of the city's future in mind. They displayed a perfect equilibrium of infrastructure, housing, services and a social-economic and cultural identity. But what has happened after the planners departure? New plans are being made, the original design is being adjusted, inhabitants appropriate the city, and in short: the perfect equilibrium is shaken and the complexity of society takes over.
Does this overruling of the planned city imply the failure of planning? Or is this appropriation, the so-called ‘unplanned' additions and unforeseen use of the planned city actually the key to its success? Is it a sign of the maturation of the New Towns, of reaching the point where they become a normal and real city? For the next generation of New Towns, which is presently on drawing boards from Western-Europe to China, to succeed and become whole, vital and socially sustainable cities it is of utmost importance to analyze the benefits both of the planned and the unplanned, of the top-down and the bottom-up, of the institutional and the self-organized. Is it possible to combine both sides in the planning of the New Towns for the 21th Century? In this two-day conference INTI will explore the relationship between the planned city and the unplanned city in two ways: by looking at means of reanimation for existing New Towns and of anticipation for future New Towns to achieve programmatic, social and cultural change. Thursday June 4th Reanimation of old New Towns Plenary Session with Wolfgang Kil (Germany); Normalisation of planned communities and Urban Think Tank (Venezuela/USA); Rules and strategies of the informal city. Friday June 5th Anticipation of new New Towns Plenary session with Margaret Crawford (USA); Everyday urbanism and Claudio Acioly (Kenya, Brazil); Informal Settlements & Brasilia. Costs Click here for detailed program. Lecture Evening: Who's Afraid of Planning? Thursday June 4th 2009 20h00 The public lecture evening ‘Who's afraid of Planning?' is about flexibility and adaptation in architecture and urban design. Is it possible to design a New Town in a flexible way? Can architecture be adaptive after the construction of the rigid master plan? Anne Lacaton (Lacaton & Vassal Architects, Paris); on regeneration scenario's for modernist highrises. Thursday June 4th 2009 20h00 The admission is free, but registration is compulsory. Register for this event by sending an e-mail to: info@newtowninstitute.org PhD meeting Wednesday June 3 2009 The International New Town Institute is pleased to invite all PhD researchers to the annual PhD meeting on Wednesday, June 3 2009 in Almere, The Netherlands. INTI is inviting researchers from all over the world who are currently doing PhD research on new towns and related topics. The purpose of this PhD meeting is to exchange knowledge and extend social and professional networks. The morning will begin with a series of presentations, followed by a city tour of Almere and dinner in the evening. Presentations Practical information PhD meeting Registration & contact We are looking forward to meeting you in Almere (again) in June!
P A S T E V E N T S
Master class with the Urban Think Tank: PhD students/researchers working on urban issues and informality were offered the opportunity to discuss their work with Hubert Klumpner of the Urban Think Tank. The Urban Think Tank (UTT) is a multi-disciplinary design practice located in Caracas, Venezuela. The working area of UTT is the informal city in all its divers aspects. The Urban Think Tank deliberately shifted their attention from the formal, planned city to the informal settlements, which in the case of Caracas touches more than four out of six million people who live in self-made houses. Although in Latin America informal development has been considered so irrelevant as to be entirely missing from local maps, UTT has shown the informal city to have an inventive richness and innovative opportunities, which can produce models for self-organised cities all over the world. This was also the reason to initiate the SLUM (Sustainable Living Urban Model) LAB, a cooperation of UTT with Columbia University Graduate School for Architecture, in which new developments and technologies in informal cities worldwide are being identified and researched. Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner work on an international scale and their ‘acupunctural' bottom up approach in the urban context is being considered an important contribution to a new international form of informal urbanism. The Master class allows PhD students and researchers from different disciplines to discuss issues related to their research and to receive constructive feedback in a small group setting. The focus of the Master class will be on the urban issues that derive form the theme of informality and the relationship between informality and planned cities like New Towns. History, cultural identity, economical and social circumstances and politics on local and national level are all part of this multidisciplinary urban discussion.
Lecture Michelle Provoost on 'New Towns on the Cold War Frontier; urban planning as an instrument in cold war politics' The period from the end of the Second World War to the mid 1970s was a period of great political tension and exceptional creativity which touched all aspects of life, from everyday products to the highest arenas of human achievement in science and culture. Art and design were not peripheral symptoms of politics during the Cold War: they played a central role in representing and sometimes challenging the dominant political and social ideas of the age. C-U There debate Na de eerste jaren van bouwactiviteiten, hebben de bewoners hun nieuwe, monofunctionele woonwijken in gebruik genomen. Waar speelt het collectieve, het 'stedelijke' (of ‘dorpse') leven zich af? Waar en wanneer ontmoeten bewoners elkaar? Hoe ontstaat sociale cohesie? Wat zijn de openbare (buiten)ruimten? Worden de ontmoetingsplekken gebruikt zoals ze door de ontwerpers worden bedacht? Hoe ziet het er uit op een zonnige middag in het weekeinde, of aan het begin van een cultureel avondprogramma? Tijdens de dialoog zoeken we naar naar de essentiële onderdelen en de maakbaarheid van stedelijkheid zoals de bijwerkingen van de snelle groei van gemeentes, de herkenbare identiteit van een plek of de betrokkenheid van de bewoners bij hun stad. Sprekers THE RESPONSIVE CITY: ISTANBUL - RANDSTAD Can designers form a symbiosis between formality and informality; cease to control, and facilitate uncertainty? Responsivity is the socio-spatial quality, mediating between the formal and the informal. It can be measured by the adaptability of space to user's dynamic needs. Visions, negotiations and adaptations, urban regulations and flexibility of urban form influence the responsivity. Organized by INTI and TU Delft, The Responsive City Masterclass visits formal and informal new towns, investigates hidden bottom up visions of the residents, and integrates them to an interactive city game. Masterclass I: Almere 29 September - 3 October 2008 Final presentation masterclass I October, 3rd Corrosia Markt 1 Almere Haven. Masterclasses were run by ir. Ekim Tan, prof. Arnold Reindorp and prof. Juval Portugali. Workshop SELF ORGANISATION & PLANNING, focusing on China In the past decades, as the manufacturing and production center shifting to developing countries, the economy of Asian cities has been experiencing rapid growth. Overwhelming process of urbanization is the physical reflection of the economic prosperity. As the changes are taking place in such a speed, cities have become a complex and chaotic system that diverse urban forces and various urban actors intertwine. On the one hand, unpredictable and uncertain as cities become; conventional way of top-down planning has shown its incapability of controlling and guiding the urban growth and development. It is necessary to search for more flexible and effective planning approach. On the other hand, the study of ‘the city of daily routines' from a bottom-up perspective has been missing in the urban studies of Asian cities. However in everyday life, people are operating in and creating the urban environment according to their daily and personal need all the time, e.g. self-organized market on the street, near station, self-built housing etc. Studying self-organized activities opens another angle for planners to understand the nature of cities, and inspirations for planning might be obtained as well. Programme New Towns abroad, dutch urban design in Asia Lecture Tuesday May 27th 2008 20h00 On Tuesday May 27th the International New Town Institute in Almere organized an evening lecture on new towns in Asia, designed by Dutch firms. Where to start as urban designer when you get a commission for a new town in China or Dubai? How to deal with cultural differences, regulations and language? Is Dutch urban design an export product?
PhD-MEETING The International New Town Institute initiated a meeting for PhD candidates doing research on new towns. Programme and abstracts. |
p l a n n e d Almere, the Netherlands u n p l a n n e d Gulensu (near Istanbul), Turkey
Lacaton & Vassal,Paris |
