Mutualist Urbanism: Achieving mutualism between urban development and strengthening biodiversity through nature-inclusive urban planning and design: the case of het Zomerhofkwartier in Rotterdam

Biodiversity in the Netherlands has been under alarming pressure for many years. Historical drivers of biodiversity loss have been agriculture and urbanization, through causing environmental pressure, loss of natural habitat and fragmentation of habitat for numerous species and ecosystems (PBL, 2014). Pressure on...

Hier en Daar: An exploration of the potential of urban design processes to foster connectivity for urban areas with a high level of residential diversity

Connectivity within residential diversity is seen of high importance in current times of increasing polarization around economic and ethnic diversity. Due to an (1) erosion of institutions such as family and churches, (2) an increase of homogeneous networks, (3) a rise of urban places without clear links to each other, and (4) an upcoming...

Designing the Middellandstraat Food Journey: An initiative to revitalize a multicultural shopping street

The project is an initiative to revitalize a multicultural shopping street in Rotterdam, called Middellandstraat. The design question was how to support the shops to attract more visitors to the shopping street through the food diversity. Investigations into the visitors' experience in the street, the context, and market research were done to...

Innovation District Development in Dutch practice: an exploration on the role of the built environment with recommendations on role-taking by local public authorities in innovation district development: the Case of the Merwe-Vierhavens & RDM – as part of the CityPorts project

This research explores the roles local public authorities can deploy in innovation district planning and development and the spatial conditions and interventions they should enhance to stimulate innovation through the built environment. Because cities are promoting and investing in new locations to agglomerate knowledge-intensive activities on a...

Warming up for the cooling down: The integration of adaptation strategies to the Urban Heat Island effect into urban design

Predictions from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI 2014a) show that high temperatures and heat waves will occur more frequently in the future. Warm weather leads to even higher temperatures in the city, because of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. This is not without risks, since heat can affect the health of people....