With higher building densities and smaller households, the importance of collectivity increases. I have written before that the subject of urban planning is about shaping society. This summer, when everyone flies out again, we will come to places and cities that are all made of stones, streets, squares, parks and water. There are not many more flavors and yet every city is different. City shapes have been modelled on the basis of climate, subsoil and mutual relationships. Sometimes grand and compelling or intimate, sometimes with hierarchical features, sometimes egalitarian or open. As a collection of neighbourhoods or with attention-grabbing buildings, or as a coherent and coherent uniform. The city as a mirror of society.
In recent years, I have seen the trend around me to design districts and neighbourhoods as unique environments. Atmospherically drawn places of well-being, in which the feeling of home, surrounded by like-minded people, is handed to you on a silver platter. Green-drenched. Places that will not always be immediately understood by outsiders. In fact, the plan design often shows an inward-looking order, with a crackle of streets and micro-spaces. In which greenery is not only climatically and socially correct, but also has an effect of impenetrability. Gradually, a patchwork of plans emerges that emphasizes the differences in society.
In Rijswijk, we try to make the streets continuous in line with the environment, in order to stimulate collectivities within the buildings and plots. Public-collective-private in one. I don’t know if this is the answer to all the questions, but I do know that the city belongs to all of us and that it requires an effort. And I also know that in other places and in other times there are beautiful examples of this.
Wishing everyone a nice summer!
Henk Hartzema, LinkedIn, Juli 2024
