theresponsivecity

2-the critical 70’s

ekimtan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:56:22 +0000

article post on the architecture of almere-haven’s neighborhoods.

1-the critical 70’s

ekimtan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:45:45 +0000

article post on the architecture of almere-haven’s neighborhoods.

why almere?

ekimtan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:03:50 +0000

article post explaining why almere is almere today, how it emerged and evolved, written by a.k. constandse.

archis on almere

ekimtan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:35:04 +0000

link post for opinion articles on Almere by Ole Bouman, Arjen Oosterman, Bart Lootsma, Gert Middelkoop and Petra Brouwer published in archis 1999.

trojan horse

ekimtan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:01:21 +0000

link post on Almere’s new expansion areas. this is a critical article by ekim tan with a background of Istanbul’s informal growth.

memory of almere

ekimtan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:57:45 +0000

Almere’s residents formed this website. Here, they collect their memories about their new town forming an unusual database on emergence and evolution of a city.

haven-facilities

ekimtan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:42:48 +0000

Click here for the interactive map of Almere’s public facilities.

eco-new-towns

ekimtan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:12:06 +0000

Link post for ‘new new towns conference’
A critical review on the making of new new towns can be found here.

city out-of-nothing

ekimtan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:13:40 +0000

link post on the challenges of building a city out of nothing. Click here for an interview with the foundinf fathers of almere.

inti

ekimtan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:59:08 +0000

Link post for the International New Town Institute
Here you will find a comprehensive animation map of new towns globally through time, from Tehran until today’s new new towns.

kiss in new town

ekimtan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:30:26 +0000

Link post for public space of new new towns by arnold reijndorp.
In this video, city sociologist of almere, arnold reijndorp gives an insight on the public space of new new towns. Please click here and scroll down.

the fun palace

admin — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:04:28 +0000

In Cedric Price’s Fun Palace [1960-1961] public had unprecedented control over their environment, resulting in a building, which could be responsive to visitors’ needs. An open environment pre-defined by the designer to be activated by the user.

In ‘The Responsive City’ visions of the bottom up players calibrate visions of the top down players. Thus bottom up players do have visions just as planners and designers do. [e.g. garden-agriculture in gecekondu] They need to be detected patiently, taken seriously, and advanced collectively. [e.g. developing policies for urban agriculture in gecekondu]

adaptations

admin — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:04:12 +0000

Given the right conditions [e.g. flexible rules for spatial growth, shrinkage or land use] up to 68% of the end users do modify their physical surroundings. The need for further negotiations between individuals and authorities is an urgent phenomenon for emerging city environments; either in a marginalized informal town or in a post industrial suburban community. Urban interventions require mutual agreements of diverse players both in the gecekondu’s that surround Istanbul and Dutch vinex’es

unpredictability

admin — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:03:39 +0000

The end user has particular and difficult-to-predict needs. The comfort level of the environment depends on the proper provision of these specific programs. [think of living, working, and playing needs of not only the nuclear families with or without children, but also single parent families -divorced or separated or by choice- gay and lesbian couples or families, elderly, single households, students, first, second or third generation immigrants with diverse ethnicities and different economical income levels and their collective forms. Combination of all these variables already elucidates the intricacy of the reality.] Thus, it is almost impossible for any designer to provide tailored solutions without being informed in advance. Even in the availability of precise databases, it is impracticable to try to mold this complexity.

Protected: Notes

admin — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 12:22:22 +0000

masscustomization

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:28:09 +0000

Mastering cities based on the agency is not a new approach. There has been an influential wave during the 70’s based on the politically colored discussions of the day. Today, relevance of the agent for the emergence and evolution of the city has its scientific, economical, social and cultural roots. [Think of influence of the complexity theories in science, mass customization in economy, diversification of the society and the acceleration of traversing cultures.]

informal - formal

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:27:56 +0000

Basing the urban emergence and evolution on the agent gives the unique opportunity to study informal and new towns simultaneously. In both cases the agent’s need for a responsive environment remains constant although the conditioning structures change [from social and cultural behaviors to urban rules and building regulations].

almere haven 2007 september

gulensu 2008 april

almere stad 2007 september

open systems

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:27:20 +0000

As agents communicate, interact, negotiate they give birth to unexpected behaviors. The sum of the individual agent’s unexpected behaviors is obviously different than how the society as a whole performs. As the agents communicate, interact, negotiate they give birth to other unexpected hybrid behaviors. In fact, this is a general property of open complex systems. It ensures the emergence and evolution of shared order parameters. These dynamic rules try to reach an equilibrium level.

commons

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:26:56 +0000

The tragedy of commons shows how important the agent interaction is for the existence of an open system. The phenomenon known as the ‘tragedy of commons’ shows how important the agent interaction is for the existence of an open system. It develops in this way; every herdsman in an open pasture behaves individually for maximizing their own gain that is adding new cattles to their own herd. As each herdsman looks at his own reality denying the truth of the commons, [that it is limited] they cause the breakdown of the system in the absence of interaction with other herdsmen and defined common interests.

almere haven

ekimtan — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:58:42 +0000

Almere-Haven [1976] was born as a reaction to postwar modernistic urban design schemes. An idealistic team of planners, sociologists and architects designed an environment that is low rise, pedestrian oriented, and as democratic as possible by providing choice for an immense formal diversity.

gulensu

ekimtan — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:13:38 +0000

Gulensu [started out in the late 60’s and saw an accelerated growth in mid 70’s] was a result of influx into metropolitan cities of turkey; in this case Istanbul. The inhabitants organized an ever-evolving environment mainly based on their conventional building knowledge. The settlement grew in the absence of professional knowledge.

complexity

ekimtan — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:54:36 +0000

book post for Cities and Complexity by Michael Batty

As urban planning moves from a centralized, top-down approach to a decentralized, bottom-up perspective, our conception of urban systems is changing. more