A Restorative Last Mile Towards The Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam

Abstract

The Erasmus Medical Center (EMC) campus is working on an intensification of functions for the new Masterplan of 2050. Since densification is only possible vertically due to the enclosed location, there is an increase of 5000 employees and only 650 physical parking spaces, leading to lessened accessibility by car. Simultaneously, vehicles are restricted from the city itself to make Rotterdam more livable by taking away car lanes and decreasing speed. While moving through the city, recent patient journey research shows, that patients are worried until they reach the main entrance and do not feel relieved by the current way of traveling towards the Erasmus MC. These findings lead to researching which mobility scenarios are possible and suitable for inclusive accessibility to the future EMC Campus and how spatial interventions can relieve stress during the last mile in Rotterdam and arrival at the masterplan site.

This is done by assessing perceptions on urban stress and restoratives and digitally researching scenarios by the use of personas. Personas are created to react to mobility aspects, resulting in a multi criteria analysis. The motivations summarized are basic needs, personality lifestyle preference, disability, and stress and restorative level. A procedural model in Houdini of the mobility network of Rotterdam, including future scenarios, is used to assess the behavior of the created personas traveling towards the EMC Campus by calculating the weighted sum per route. The output of the simulations shows the taken route, the chosen mode, and the stress and restorative level at arrival from specific personas. The most suitable and preferred routes based on the 4 motivations show significant differences in stress and restorative levels. Spatial aspects in the city influence mental health and design requirements can be advised to minimize urban stress. Previously collected city restoratives and urban stressors are being evaluated by 65 participants in an online survey. Doing stressor and restorative spatial implementations in the simulation shows how personas prefer different routes to potentially improve their wellbeing. Design requirements of the Masterplan can be based on how certain personas perceive the environment differently from others. For people approaching the building by car, it could be more beneficial for the stress and restorative level to have a more monochrome facade and for people approaching the building by slow traffic to have a fine grain facade. The digital model gives a perspective on where the individual personas approach the campus, which influences the master plan differently from all angles. What do persona based design requirements on urban stressors and restoratives derived from digital simulations mean to the design of our future cities?