Change in the city: building for the future

The urban landscape is in a constant state of flux; there is always someone building somewhere in the city. In fact the only stable attribute of the urban landscape is its changeability. Most of the development will centre around housing as it is the most important form of use in our urbanised environment. Other use like commercial industrial, leisure, transport, water and nature are seldom fixed.

Building something new also means bringing down the old: demolition reveals itself in skips on the roadside filled with debris and waste (left). Building works also mean road closures (middle) and sites being cordoned of or secured by building fences. New buildings always start with laying new foundations (right) which have to be excavated first.

Between the boards the foundations are poured. The holes for future pipes are included and some of the pipes have been put in place (left). The houses can then be built. In this social housing project the houses will be constructed using pre-cast concrete panels which are hoisted into place by a building crane (middle). An alternative is to erect the walls using an inner wall of breeze blocks and an outer wall of bricks with insulation in between (right).

Construction a building from blocks means the builder can be more flexible. Windows are placed in the holes left in the wall before the insulation and outer skin are put on (left). Here re-used bricks are used to construct the outer skin of the building (middle) to make sure it is in keeping with surrounding buildings. The face of the building changes completely once the brick walls are maid (right).

When I was in London I visited the redevelopment area behind St Pancras. Here building takes place on a large scale, redeveloping the railway lands into a modern new housing quarter. Some buildings have been finished, others are being erected. The area is a building site that has to be liveable so covered walkways (middle) have been put in place, a park has been planted (left) and building on the central square have been replaced by a lovely reflector artwork wall (right). 

The everchanging city: disconnecting and plugging in

Climate change also has its influence on the urban environment. The city is hotter, often dryer -but as a result also more prone to flooding at the same time- and an important source of pollution and emissions. Sustainable Urban Drainage systems, with a focus on improving infiltration of precipitation into the soil, storing rain water in bodies of water, creating more water to offset built-up areas, separating sewage from rain water flows and disconnecting rain pipes from the sewer. Other people are disconnecting from the grid, disabling the sewer connection, going without a gas supply or relying entirely on self-produced energy. As traffic is an important factor in tackling pollution and improve quality of life in the city, cycling and public transport are promoted, polluting -diesel- vehicles are barred from entering certain areas and vehicles are replaced by less polluting types. The electric car and the electric van are slowly taking off, as the infrastructure for plugging in lags behind.

Sustainable drainage systems have been pioneered in the Netherlands as it is understood that to build in a delta you need to create more water to balance the system. In some places surface water with variable levels was created in laying out new housing estates (on the left an example from Eindhoven from the 1980s). On high ground and on sandy or gravely soils an infiltration ditch suffices to store water after heavy rainfall and let it drain away into the ground slowly afterwards. In the middle an example from Veghel in an ecological housing estate. In the sustainable housing estate of Nw Monnikenhuizen in Arnhem all housing have rain pipes disconnected from the sewer. The water flows down from the roof into these rills and then onto the pavement into a water retention area (a pond after rain a depression in a field at other times).  

The Netherlands are also famous for the cycling infrastructure. I too cycle short and medium distances within the city. To promote cycling it is important there is enough places to park a bicycle. Solutions vary from bike racks (middle) to underground bicycle parking. Good cycle paths with safe crossings are also very important; on the right the Hovenring, an elevated roundabout for cyclists on the border of Eindhoven and Veldhoven. As most people own at least one bike (I have three, including my handy fold-away) bike sharing and bike hire schemes are not as prevalent as in the surrounding countries. These bike stations can be found in Belgium, England, France and Germany. On the left an example of the Metropolrad from Essen in the Ruhr Area.

Electric cars are still quite rare, but several governments have taken stapes to phase out combustion engines and facilitate a transition to electric vehicles. These don’t just include cars, but also trains (some still run on diesel), bicycles and transport vehicles like small vans for inner-city delivery. The biggest bottleneck for a roll out of electric transportation is the lack of charging points. Many local authorities are now including special places in their car parks and parking structures indicated by a sign (middle) where two cars can be charged from a single charging column (right). In other places home owners are given private chargers near their residence.

Public Art: The Bear Pit, a graffiti showcase

A “Berenkuil” (Bear Pit) is the name used in the Netherlands for a raised traffic circle with a junction (most often a roundabout) of cycle paths at the lower level. The first of this type was built in Utrecht in 1944, but there are several in the Netherlands, some with a different name however. The junction of the Outer Ring with the central thoroughfare (that links the football stadium via the station and the TU/e university campus with the motorway to Helmond) in Eindhoven is officially known as Insulindeplein. The traffic circle is locally known as De Berenkuil.

An outer circle for automotive traffic surrounds a second sunken circle for bicycles and motor scooters; ramps from the bicycle lanes along the nearby streets lead into the lower circle via four underpasses. The Insulindeplein is also a crossroads of pedestrian routes with underpasses and steps leading people safely underneath the ring road. The more recent Hovenring is an opposite solution with a raised circle for slow traffic (pedestrians and cyclists).

This Berenkuil in Eindhoven is also well known for another reason: it has been designated a free zone for graffiti artists, where they can paint graffiti without interference from the police. As a result, artists have created several large and impressive works on the walls and the area has become a showcase. Every year since 2010  the international graffiti festival "Step In The Arena" is held here in September, making it an everchanging open-air art installation.

Each underpass combines a two-way cycle path with a one-way walking path either side. The face of each underpass has been adorned with graffiti art, I especially liked this snake coiling around two eyes staring right at you as you come down the ramp.

The lowered centre of the “Bear Pit” is a roundabout for cyclists with wide walkways around it. Trees have bene planted within the green verges to make for a more attractive place, but also to reduce micro particles. On the faces of the retaining walls around graffiti has been sprayed, mostly as tags, often with little artistic merit.

Tags are usually letters, often with clear edging in contrasting colours. I prefer the figurative artwork. On the right a playful addition to an existing work in the shape of a gnome, which is repeated in the moth of the dystopian head.

Some work is pure graphic art, on the left this landscape of textured shapes as debris after a colourless apocalypse. As a free zone for graffiti work is being added all the time, as can be seen on the right.

Some of the figurative work represents a narrative, as this girl with the cherries, ripe for picking, mixed with % signs -as a comment on greed. The red goldfish within an abstract sea of blue with shapes in red white and blue -representing the Dutch flag- I really love as an image.

The social convictions of some of the artists is clear in for instance this “portrait” of men in Guy Fawkes masks, a reference to the Occupy Movement and the hacking collective Anonymous. For the rest dystopian imagery of angst, violence and disaffection are very prevalent next to references to drugs. Mushrooms pop up everywhere!