A City is to Meet
Enhancing the city as a meeting place through urban design
M. Zeeman (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
T.N. Broekmans – Mentor (TU Delft - Urban Design)
MJ van Dorst – Mentor (TU Delft - Urban Studies)
Robert Gorny – Graduation committee member
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Abstract
As of today, cities are becoming increasingly dense and diverse; thus, the quality of public meeting space is under pressure. This graduation project examines how urban design can enhance the city as a meeting place, thereby facilitating meetings among its residents, using the neighborhood Bospolder-Tussendijken in Rotterdam as a case study. The need for quality public meeting spaces is urgent in this neighborhood, characterized by superdiversity and spatial and social vulnerability. Through literature research, local observations, and design research, a pattern language has been developed that offers design principles to spatially facilitate informal meetings, ranging from anonymous to affectionate. Furthermore, a relationship has been observed between the use and type of meetings and the level of publicness of public space, resulting in three strategies. It was found that parochial places where amicable meetings occur contribute the most to a sense of public familiarity. The design concept focuses on strengthening existing social infrastructures, making levels of publicness more readable and balanced, and activating public spaces as stages for spontaneous interaction. The result is a context-specific design transformation that restores the role of the city as a meeting place.