year: 2010
status: in progress
commission type: unsolicited
team: Marc van Asseldonk, Auguste van Oppen

Large scale urban developments are complex processes which take many years to complete. The economic crisis has once again made it clear that we are not able to see, let alone plan, this far in advance. The conclusion is clear: predicting the future is precarious, and basing financial decisions on such complex situations is risky. The disuse of large areas of land is a direct result hereof and forms a problem we are increasingly faced with in The Netherlands. On the one hand it causes a standstill in development, on the other it forms a unique opportunity for urban development.

Although we as a society claim that we have advanced far beyond modernist ideals, common planning practice has not undergone such a transformation. Planning processes are still devised and directed into a perfectly tuned machine. With the failure of one or more critical components, lengthy and costly planning processes must be discarded, only to be overdone with revised input. Rather than devising such a fragile machine, we must try to evolve towards a more natural form of development. Through the creation of biotopes, new ideas, connections and forms become possible. However, this line of thought is difficult to resolve with the traditional form of development, which is characterised by permanence and a great deal of financial risk and complexity. Here, a form of temporary use offers a new perspective.

Without the need for a great deal of financial capital, how can we capitalise temporarily on the many acres of land in order to create spatial quality, identity and a general increase in the pressure for development? As with an ecological biotope, we create the conditions in which both existing and new organisms may arise, grow and flourish. This strategy does not entail the top-down planning of such initiatives, but rather the creation of a fruitful set of conditions. By making urban design ‘open-source’, resources are unlocked and a fertile breeding ground is created.

Entrepreneurs have a great abundance of ingenuity, vision and energy. All they need is access to certain resources to be given the opportunity to participate in the development process. The second condition which must be met, is the assurance that all time, capital and energy invested, is guaranteed for a predetermined amount of time. Government and developers do no more than facilitate: they offer a stage on which the entrepreneur shines. This form of ‘open-source’ urbanism utilises the strength of the entrepreneur to create something grander.

In the current paradigm where skyrocketing prices for land effectively exclude initiatives, this form of urbanism makes ideas possible. A fertile breeding ground is created for experiment in urban programme and identity. While larger forces are dealing with the complexity of traditional planning, work is continued on the city in the ‘meantime’.