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Type: Research / Exhibition / Publication Client: University of Technology Delft, Faculty of Architecture Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Rudy Uytenhaak, Jeroen Mensink, Michiel Jansen Klomp, Felix Quiroga Nora Collaborator / associate: Prof. MSc Arch. Rudy Uytenhaak, MSc Arch. Jeroen Mensink First design: 2004-05-01

2004-01-15 NEXT JOINS RESEARCH TEAM UYTENHAAK AT TU DELFT

Between 2004 and 2007, NEXT formed a research team with Professor Rudy Uytenhaak and Jeroen Mensink BSc at Delft University of Technology. The theme of the three-year study was ‘Dichtheid en Ruimtelijke Kwaliteit’ (Density and Spatial Quality) and it focused on the theoretical capacities of urban tissues in order to formulate a quantitative description of density.

The objective of the study was to acquire more knowledge about the various aspects of spatial density. The outcome of the study resulted in a publication of the same name, to go on sale in bookshops by the end of 2007. 

The Exhibition
As part of the three-year long study on Density and Spatial Quality, a very compact exhibition was put together that travelled to various locations in the Netherlands.

Research results and students’ work were compared with work from Rudy Uytenhaak’s practice. The four sides of the exhibition were used by each to communicate their own message.

Type: Research Client: Projectbureau KAN Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water First design: 2003-09-09 Completion: January 2004

Spatial quality: a concept that is as ambitious as it is unfathomable. No-one will deny that the ambition ought to be pursued, but opinions differ with respect to content. Also, spatial quality has no common denominator: it is about a system of values that may enhance each other when they are simultaneously present, such as cultural-historical value, aesthetic value and experience value.

To specify spatial quality, we need to develop an understanding of the various values that influence a field. The confrontation between the A12 motorway and the territory of the municipalities in the ‘De Liemers’ area currently appears to be in deadlock, with some shared but chiefly different interests and ambitions. It looks like spatial quality will suffer due to the conflicting agendas and it appears that what is missing especially to enter into a discussion about necessities and semantics is a joint frame of reference. We consider the need for a joint frame of reference a worthwhile assignment. 

We developed the ‘Waardenkaart A12’, a tool for working on the A12 motorway on the basis of a joint frame of reference: a sample sheet of possibilities that show how the landscape, the buildings and the infrastructure may take advantage of each other and how confrontation can generate mutual added value.

Type: Research Location: Rotterdam Client: High Rise Team Rotterdam Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water, Jan van Teeffelen, Iris Dudock, Arnold Reijndorp with Frank Hornis Collaborator / associate: Department of Housing and Town Planning (dS+V) Material: Publication, 60 pag. full-color, ISBN 90-72498-18-6 and CD-rom with interactive computer program First design: 2002-11-01

The Atlas of Cultural Ecology of Rotterdam was commissioned by the High-Rise Team and has been drawn up by Arnold Reijndorp, urban sociologist at Rotterdam and member of the High-Rise Team, bureau NEXT Architects from Amsterdam and the Department of Housing and Town Planning (dS+V), working in combination. The High-Rise Team was set up by the city of Rotterdam to further the spatial and programmatic quality of the planned high-rise and other large-scale developments in the city centre. The atlas, being a new instrument, plays an important role in this process.

After more than 50 years of rebuilding, the centre of Rotterdam starts to show the appetites of a real inner city. The cultural dynamics are driven from within, and are no longer the result of planning and project development. This atlas tries to capture the new ‘sense of place’ in Rotterdam, which is the result of spontaneous and informal developments. It shows a series of maps that reveal the city in different formal and informal layers. 

The project aims to inspire policy makers, urban designers and developers to become more sensitive to the fact that urban areas are ever-changing organisms; new developments should be finely tuned to suit to their surroundings.

Type: Research Client: CUR Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water with Claudia Linders, Joost Mulders, Erik Wiersema, Rink Drost, Ana Jara and Mireia Luna Alcaina Collaborator / associate: Rink Drost, Claudia Linders, Joost Mulders and Erik Wiersema Competition: CUR Award Room for Tomorrow, 2nd Prize Special thanks to: Stefan Bendiks, Natal da Graca, Willem Jan Jansen, Laurens Jan ten Kate, Anouk Kuitenbrouwer, Lotje First design: 2002-05-01

a design-research into the future work environment of the Netherlands

Anyone traversing the landscape by any national highway can find themselves surrounded by an endless succession of Brain, Business, Techno and Science Parks, alternated with the flat corrugated- sheet boxes of distribution centres. This is today’s landscape of work. . . 

But the world is changing. Developments such as the network community, individualization, the welfare state and the economy of ideas strongly influence the way we currently work, existing corporate structures and personal development. In this world we see companies as flexible networks, creativity as the new economic ingredient and independence and the pursuit of self-realization as the new work ethic.

The Work Area is given new parameters, such as relaxation and self-realization, making new demands upon the spatial development of the Netherlands. “The Work Area in the 21^st Century” is a study on the spatial conditions and consequences to the design of the urban area that the above-mentioned developments bring about. The study was submitted for the CUR Award Room for Tomorrow and received 2^nd prize.

Type: Urban planning Location: Brabant, The Netherlands Client: De Stad bv Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water Collaborator / associate: ABF First design: 2000-06-01

The southern region of Brabant is the fastest growing area in the Netherlands. It contains four larger cities that are rapidly expanding as well as many smaller industrial areas. Together they form a network of urban areas that can also be depicted as one metropolitan city.  

NEXT architects was assigned to contribute to the image of Brabant as the largest city of the Netherlands by making a range of geographic and tempographic (time-based) maps.

Client: the National Spatial Planning Agency, Ministry of VROM Collaborator / associate: Crimson, Erasmus University and Nirov First design: 2000-04-01

Strategy facilitating the future claims for more space

This visual essay is about provocative, innovative ways to tackle spatial planning dilemmas. First come currents and trends, the challenges we face, followed by the answer: create a robust spatial framework and within that frame, maximize the possibilities for solutions.

Historically, the economic and social differences between city and countryside in Dutch civilization are less extreme than in many other European countries (France, for instance). The ongoing growth of the services sector and increasing ICT development will further reduce the scope of these differences, and will in turn stimulate spatial decentralization. The simple framework in which industry and services dominate the cities and agriculture controls the countryside, which never worked all that well in the Netherlands anyway, is losing its validity.

At the same time the Dutch set high value on a recognizable contrast between city and countryside, the more so as they perceive their country to be overpopulated. This continues to be a strong force that stimulates spatial concentration.

Type: Urban plan Location: Randstad, the Netherlands Client: Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water Collaborator / associate: ABF Research, Delft First design: 1999-06-01

Strategy for the Randstad

‘Deltametropool’ is a new name for the Randstad, the most robust urban region in the Netherlands that includes the cities Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague.

Commissioned by Delft University of Technology, NEXT architects studied the possible development of the Deltametropool into a closely knit urban region that can compete with metropolises all over the world.

The product is a series of maps that represent the various strata of this metropolis, showing the connection network, the delta waters, the man-made landscape and the interactive environments in the cities. The maps are extremely varied graphical representations with a highly informative undertone known as ‘infographics’.

Type: Research Client: Bouwfonds Nederland Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk First design: 1999-03-15 Status: Competition, 2nd prize, first prize Archiprix

First Prize Archiprix 2000

Accessibility is a basic condition of urban development. Accessibility as an article of faith has resulted in one-way thinking: the more connections, the merrier. More and more the Netherlands, dominated by fast means of transport, is turning into a thoroughfare. It is dragged along in the wake of acceleration and slowly, the question is arising of whether there is any place left to stand still. We raise spectres: will the Netherlands soon be exactly the same everywhere? The same shops, the same houses, the same people? 

As a result of the increased accessibility of the big cities in the Randstad, the relative distances between the centres themselves have dwindled over the years. Now that ever more connections completely invalidate the concept of distance, perhaps the question is if we should discard the geographical notion ‘randstad’ and reintroduce ‘time’ as a spatial element in the cartographic exercise. 

The 2030 Tempographic Map of all movements paints a tempting picture of ´Holland – Layer by Layer’. It illustrates the possibility to use both acceleration and deceleration to make progress. If we vary accessibility, we can equip a country of extremes: a land of metro-poles that contrast sharply with rural areas.