The Institutionalisation of a Creative Practice: Changing Roles of Regional Design in Dutch National Planning

This chapter discusses the organisational setting of regional design in the realms of spatial planning and territorial governance. As a starting point, it argues that rules on how imagined design solutions function in an abstract, simplified ‘planning world’ are an important regional design product. When focusing on these rules, regional design...

Between arguments, interests and expertise: the institutional development of the Dutch water boards, 1953-present

The Dutch water boards perform essential tasks for the Netherlands and generally effectively, yet they have often been called old-fashioned, ineffective and expensive. This paper describes and analyses the discussions on the water boards since 1953 in order to increase insight in the factors that influence institutional change in water...

Design in the context of fragmented regional governance: Studio South Wing (abstract + presentation)

In European regions, such as the Randstad Holland, emerging patterns of interaction and movement result in increasing spatial fragmentation. This development creates enormous challenges for the governance of territories. Classic forms of government, based upon clear-cut divisions in terms of administrative levels, policy sectors and the public...

Deadlocks and breakthroughs in urban renewal: A network analysis in Amsterdam

Urban renewal in the Netherlands has become a matter of ‘networking’. Housing associations, Dutch social landlords, became financially independent in the 1990s and have a responsibility in urban renewal. It is a joint responsibility in which local authority, social landlord and tenants are dependent on each other. This situation is rather new...

Performance assessment of housing associations

This article analyzes the function, design, and effects of a method to assess the performance of housing associations in the Netherlands. First, the roles of performance assessment are discussed from three perspectives: the association as an agent for the central government; the association as a facilitator of local stakeholders’ needs; and the...