Research

Research programme 2009-2012

Urban Architectural Studies for the Dutch Cities.

Scope and aims

The research of Urban Architecture focuses on the architectural transformation and renewal of the contemporary Dutch City by means of architectural interventions.The research program is not only concerned with actual architectural interventions, but investigates also the condition and nature of urban structures. Architecture, as physical artifacts and symbolic expressions, constitutes the most important phenomenon for understanding the city.   

Name of programme leader Prof. ir. L. van Duin  

Chairs involved and their departments: 

Overview of sub-programmes

Summary

The Urban Architecture program is an interdisciplinary research with special focus on architectural design. It aims to bring about an intensive exchange of scientific knowledge on the basis of a long tradition, and to contribute to the further development of Architecture as a reflexive practice by precisely redefining its own position and demarcating its boundaries in relation to the processes of urbanization.

The program comprises three subprograms on the basis of three different categories of research:

- Typological and Morphological Research: Mapping the Cities of the Randstad

- Theories and Methods of Design and Analyses: Urban Studies and Architectural Design

- Research by Design: Projects for the Dutch City

Mapping the Cities of the Randstad gives a comparative analysis of the architecture of the nine most important historical cities of the Randstad Holland on basis of the historical dynamics of the System of the Dutch Cities and its impact on the interaction of urban form and building typology. In collaboration with other parties this subprogram is aiming, next to six Phd. projects, at the publication of an Atlas of the Randstad Holland. The Atlas is seen as an important design tool for future urban interventions.

Urban Studies and Architectural Design studies the development of the disciplinary discourse of architecture with special focus on the role of drawings and other visual media. The research gives an overview of the most important trends in urban architecture over the last century. Their methods will be compared and their theoretical and historical value evaluated. This subprogram is aiming, next to four Phd. projects, at a book publication: The Ideal Model and the Project. Rethinking Urban Architecture. The book is seen as an important contribution to the academic and public debate.

Projects for the Dutch City studies the potentials of research by design. By choosing special study areas and programs architectural design can show opportunities for urban regeneration. Research and design share a common offspring in architectural thinking. Given the limits of the discipline, the architectural project is the most truthful way of showing the impact and possibilities of urban transformations. This subprogram is aiming, next to four Phd. projects, at the organization of the EAAE (European Association for Architectural Education) conference of 2012 in Delft on the subject Research by Design in Architecture, with an exhibition and a book publication.

Exchange of information and concepts between the three subprograms and with connected fields of research in the faculty and other universities is crucial for the whole of the program. Therefore seminars will be held regularly and the publication of the series of OverHolland (bilingual, Dutch/English), two times a year, will continue.

Rationale

The research program Urban Architecture had its start in the Faculty wide project The Architectural Intervention (1999-2000), under direction of Prof. Dirk Frieling. With special funding from the TU Delft, the main issue of the project was to clarify the aims and methods of research by design and the possible links between research programs and the new master programs in education. The chair Typology of Buildings, one of the chairs of the department of Architectural Design, participated in the project with the studio Hybrids, Urban Architecture between Centre and Periphery. The results were published in two publications:

-    Hybrides. Stedelijke Architectuur tussen centrum en periferie. Delft (DUP) 1999

-    Hybride gebouwen en architectuur van de stad. Delft (DUP) 2001

In direct connection with the project the EAAE conference 2000 in Delft was organized on the issue Research by Design. The conference elaborated on the issues put on the agenda of the EAAE conference 1996 in Delft, Doctorates in Architecture and Design. 

As special contribution to these issues by the chair Typology of Buildings is focused on morphological urban analysis as basis for the formulation and design of architectural projects in Dutch towns and cities. An inspiring example of this approach was the Heracles program Dieci progetti per la città Greca (1997). On the occasion of the EAAE conference 2000 the exhibition of the designs for the Heracles program was showed at the faculty.

In the following years the main issues of the research program Urban Architecture were specified in terms of three different categories of research:

- Typological and Morphological Research: Mapping the Cities of the Randstad

- Theories and Methods of Design and Analyses: Urban Studies and Architectural Design

- Research by Design: Projects for the Dutch City 

Phd projects in these fields of research were started, the first results of which were presented at the EAAE conference 2004 in Delft: The European City, Architectural Interventions and Urban Transformations. In the exhibition for the conference, Drawings of the City, special attention was given to drawings as an essential part of the architectural discourse. 

As part of the Research Portfolio 2003-2008 the publication of the periodical OverHolland (SUN) was started in 2004 for dissemination of the research of Urban Architecture and exchange with other parties in related fields of research in the faculty and other universities. Up to now seven issues have been published, in which the main lines of the research program are clarified. 

The same year the Chair Typology of Buildings joint hands with the Departments of History and Urban Composition of the Faculty and the Departments of Architectural History of the Universities of Amsterdam (VU) and Utrecht in making a proposal for external funding of the subprogram Mapping the Cities of the Randstad within the framework of the NWO program Urbanisation and Urban Culture. Our first investigations in this field of research are published in OverHolland:

- Henk Engel, ‘Mapping Randstad Holland’, in: OverHolland 2, Amsterdam (SUN) 2005

- Henk Engel, Iskander Pané, Olivier van Bogt, ‘Atlas Randstad Holland”, in: OverHolland 2, Amsterdam (SUN) 2005

- Reinout Rutte, ‘A landscape of towns: on the genesis of Dutch towns and their street patterns in the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries’, in: OverHolland 2, Amsterdam (SUN) 2005

- Reinout Rutte, ‘Expansion and contraction of Dutch towns. Urbanisation, urban planning and de-urbanisation in Holland from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries’, in: OverHolland 3, Amsterdam (SUN) 2006

- Henk Engel, Esther Gramsbergen, ‘The first Amsterdam Exchange and the formation of the city centre of Amsterdam’, in: OverHolland 3, Amsterdam (SUN) 2006

- Esther Gramsbergen, ‘Hidden Amsterdam: the Binnengasthuis (municipal hospital) and the transformation of the former monastery areas after the Alteration, in: OverHolland 6, Amsterdam (SUN) 2008

- Roberto Cavallo, ‘Railwaystation: monument versus multi-use terminal. The case of Amsterdam Central Station’, in: OverHolland 4, Amsterdam (SUN) 2007

- Filip Geerts, ‘AMS/EHAM elev. Minus 13 ft. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol or the place to land, 1916-2006’, in: OverHolland 4, Amsterdam (SUN) 2007

The first round in the selection of proposals for the NWO program, in 2005, was passed with success. In the final round the proposal fell out of the boat. The Faculty Architecture TU Delft however valued the research and the cooperation with other universities as very important and supplied budget to carry out the program in the coming years. The three proposed Phd projects were started:

- The roots of the profession of the  architect in Holland - Drs. Merlijn Hurx (2006-2010)

- Public works and the making of the Dutch cities - Drs. Kim Zweerink (2008-2011)

- Urbanisation patterns in the Randstad - Drs. Nikki Brand (2008-2011)

In connection with these, three Phd. Projects of sitting staff members were initiated on the basis of educational research projects in the master program Urban Architecture:

- Urban institutions, building typology and urban development of Dutch cities - Ir. Esther Gramsbergen (2008-2012)

- Courtyards in the Dutch City - Ir. Willemijn Wilms Floet (2007-2010)

- Urbanistic aspects of inner city transformations in Amsterdam: 16^th to 18^th century - Ir. Leo van der Burg (2008-2012)

The first two of these projects do participate in the international Phd program Villard d’Honnecourt, organized by the University of Venice. 

In the meantime two Phd. Projects in the subprogram Urban Studies and Architectural Design are finished:

- The city as an architectural construction: The architectural discourse on the city (Germany 1871-1914), Dr.ir. François Claessens 2005.

- Railways in the Urban Context, an architectural discourse, Dr.ir. Roberto Cavallo 2008.

Three Phd. Projects in this subprogram will be finished next year:

- Autonomous Architecture and the Urban Project - Ir. Henk Engel

- Architectural Representation of the Urban Condition since the 1960s - Ir. Emre Altürk

- Architectural Interventions in Historic Industrial Buildings - Ir. Tammara Rogic 

The subprogram Projects for the Dutch City is in terms of scientific research the most experimental part of the program. Although theoretical design has a longstanding tradition in architecture ever since the establishment of architecture as a discipline in sixteenth century Italy, the value of design as a vehicle of scientific practice is nowadays highly controversial. But today as ever before the operative capacity of design is based on its descriptive tools: the concepts, categories and systems of notation to describe the design object. These instruments are not only means for documentation but analytical tools as well. With these artifacts are studied; new ones as well as the great many already existing. The long tradition of manuals in architecture is based on this fact, as is the tradition of mapmaking when the study of territories is concerned. 

A first introduction to Architectural design and urban analysis with acase study - City Hall Extension for Gouda – by Henk Engel and Otto Diesfeldt was published in OverHolland 1, Amsterdam (SUN) 2004. The strategic value of urban design on ‘the middle scale’ and ‘urban projects’ as the key to urban transformation was set out by François Claessens and Endry van Velzen: ‘The topicality of the urban project’, in: OverHolland 4, Amsterdam (SUN) 2007 (also published in: Stedenbouw en Ruimtelijke Ordening 4/2006). 

On the basis of these first explorations in the theory and practice of combining urban analyses with architectural design, a series of five studies on the transformation of railway zones was started. The effects of the introduction of the railroad on the transformation of the five smaller historical cities in the Randstad were analyzed in detail. The studies on Haarlem, Leiden, Delft, Gouda and Dordrecht (published in: OverHolland 5, Amsterdam (SUN) 2007) were used to invite five professors in architecture of the Faculty, with their offices, to make designs for the transformation of the railway zones in these cities, in case that the railway would be put underground. The results were shown in the exhibition for the EAAE conference 2008 in Delft - The Urban Project - and are published in: OverHolland 7, Amsterdam (SUN) 2008. 

Another study was started in 2007; a co-production of De Nijl Architects, CEAN consultants and Urban Architecture TU Delft, with external funding Het Stimuleringsfonds voor de Architectuur. This research is focusing on the restructuring of health care facilities as a special opportunity for urban renewal. A first publication will be published this fall. 

Approach, methodology

As said before, the Research Programme Urban Architecture operates with a combination of three different kinds of research: morphological and typological urban analyses, architectural theory and architectural design. In the past few decades morphological and typological urban analyses has come to be a normal part of the curricula in architectural schools. To some extent it has grown into an independent field of scientific research, as witness the foundation in 1998 of the ‘International Seminar on Urban Form’ (ISUF). In the subprogram Mapping the Cities of the Randstad this approach is used for the further development of earlier research done in the Faculty by Prof.ir. J.C. Visser and Ir. J.G. Wegner on the European ‘Historic Towns Atlas’ programme. In total seven Atlases were made of eight Dutch towns. 

To fulfil the original intention of the ‘Historic Towns Atlas’ program and to provide a key for comparative urban analyses, Mapping the Cities of the Randstad concentrates on a group of related towns and cities in a well-defined territory. To account for the unequal development of these towns and cities, the research harks back to the methods of ‘social and economic survey’ of which the TUD Prof. Th.K. van Lohuizen was a pioneer in the Netherlands. His methods are enriched with more recent ‘system and network approaches’ to analyse the historic developments in a cluster of cities (Lesger). Yet the research of Mapping the Cities of the Randstad sees the pre-urban landscape as a very important factor for the historical distribution of towns and cities in the territory and their urban forms. 

The great benefit, however, of morphological and typological urban analyses with respect to former urban research is its capacity to show the traces of the actual production of urban form by taking into account the typology of buildings of which it is composed. Morphological and typological urban analyses see urban form really as an artefact; as a conscious human production and not as an entity of semi-biological organic growth. For the Dutch situation we can say with certainty that the production over time of the towns and cities was only possible as a succession of collective enterprises. 

Up till now a lot of Dutch morphological research has been done on the successive urban extensions, with special attention to the transformation of the building typology in housing. Mapping the Cities of the Randstad turns the focus to the impact of ‘public works’ on urban form and its subsequent transformations: public buildings, infrastructure and public space. Doing so makes it also possible to trace the impact of the emergence of specialised designers in different branches of the production of urban form: surveyors, engineers and architects; in many cases united in one and the same person. This question connects with the subject matter of the second subprogram. 

The study of written (and published!) discourse in architecture since the nineteen seventies has developed a new course of research by not so much concentrating on the explicit content as to the structure by which discourse gave order to architectural knowledge and created the basis of a self assured discipline (Choay). In the Netherlands Van Eck paid special attention to Rhetoric as the model on which the structure and terminology of architectural theory was articulated. This strand of textual analyses has devaluated the time-honoured place of drawings and geometric rules in theories of architectural design. At the same time a new evaluation of the conception perspective drawing has shown its revolutionary impact on the development of the engineering sciences, cartography, botany and the study of the human body (Edgerton).The subprogram Urban Studies and Architectural Design will concentrate on this issue of the ‘rationalisation of sight’ (Ivins) by which knowledge of material objects is generated and transmitted by drawings. At the same time these new insights in the role of drawings as an integral part of architectural discourse gives a clear view of the inherent ambiguity in the concept of Research by Design in Architecture. Recent developments of educational programs in the related field of graphic design are focused on the reflection of Visual Rhetoric (Boekraad). In the same line the issues of the third subprogram will be elaborated. Projects for the Dutch City operates On the Edge ofVisual Rhetoric and Engineering Science. 

Significance and relevance

The significance and relevance of the proposed research is mainly twofold. First: as the expansion of the cities and towns in Holland is coming to a close, the main issues of architectural design already now are located in existing urban areas. Urban transformation is the main task. The Research Programme Urban Architecture provides more detailed knowledge and instruments to confront the new situation. Second: as European architectural practice can no longer orient on Big Ideologies, architects have to face the complex and contradictory communicative situations in which architectural interventions must be accomplished. Design Education has to give students a profound preparation for that. The main interest of the Research Programme Urban Architecture is to contribute to the development of reflexive didactic principles in architectural education. 

Cooperation

The researchers (PhD’s and others) from different fields of study will be supervised by professors at five Dutch universities (TUD, RUG, UvA, VUA, UU) from various relevant disciplines (urban and architectural design/morphology, architectural and urban history, cultural heritage). On the Faculty of Architecture chairs of Architecture (TyB and AC) and Urbanism (UC and Belvedere) and the IHAAU/Department of History are involved and have blurred the borders. Moreover, the researchers and doctoral thesis supervisors (promotores) will be supported by external advisors with specific knowledge (Lesger, Van de Laar, Borger and Horsten – economic history, historical geography). An international board of famous professors will control the research. Subprogram supervisors Van Duin, Engel and Rutte will be responsible for coordinating these projects and the essential integration of disciplines, chairs, departments, universities and last but not least scientific knowledge.

The very cooperative internal and external network is already integrated and works well. What brings all the researchers together is the content of the program(s). Apart from the usual supervision (see 3.1), the entire research teams of the subprograms will meet at least twice a year during a study meeting and also conduct separate audits about specific topics at certain times, and give presentations at, for example, the International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF), the Werkgroep Stedengeschiedenis and the Onderzoekschool Kunst- en Architectuurgeschiedenis. Several expert meetings will be organised, in which the research will be checked against the standards of specialists from other countries (from the Board and other specialists). 

Overview of projects