David Dooghe works as a researcher, strategist and designer on urban development.

The resulting projects can be temporary or long-term designs and strategies. These projects combine different scales and are characterized by their strong connection with the spatial, cultural, social and economical context of where they occur.

For David Dooghe the city is organic. Questioning the city and understanding its working principles is the path to a sustainable project.

For more information, click on the Project numbers:

P31_The New City Gates / P3o_Island Nijmegen-Lent / P29_World Port Days / P28_Water Garden / P27_the International Perspectives / P26_Economics of Beauty / P25_the Vibrant City / P24_CityGallery Cool / P23_Defining the Metropolis / P22_House DDR'dam / P21_Soundpiece @ Schouwburgplein / P2o_between Space and Place / P19_the top is within reach / P18_Transformation as Inspiration / P17_the Art of an Urban Culture / P16_Youth and the City / P15_IFF@R'dam / P14_We love to build / P13_the Rotterdam urban theatre / P12_Caribbean Summer @Afrikaanderwijk / P11_Festivalscity_Rotterdam / P1o_TimeLine R'dam / Po9_Moving East / Po8_Keep it, Green it, Live in it! / Po7_Morpho-Logic / Po6_Luik, Liege,Luttich / Po5_House FDU'sel / Po4_Shelter / Po3_New Alliances / Po2_Tria / Po1_Loft for Rent 

With the bombing of its central city, Rotterdam lost the main part of its cultural facilities. After the war Rotterdam utilized temporarily cultural manifestations to celebrate the development of the city and the identity of Rotterdam.

The past decade Rotterdam acquired the title: Festivalcity of The Netherlands. This success caused a sprawl of festivals. The strong connection to the urban development and the identity of the city seems to be lost.

The strategy Festivalcity_Rotterdam sees the collaboration between the festivals and the city as the interaction between a tulip and its flower bulb.

The tulip is a metaphor for the festival that blossoms once a year and shows its beauty to all who want to see. The flower bulb is a metaphor for the supporting community that organizes the festival. The tulip cannot flourish without the bulb grounded in a fertile ground, the city.

The strategy is substantiated by case studies, which put principles on how festivals and the city can symbiotically collaborate in practice.

Related Casestudies: P12_Caribbean Summer @Afrikaanderwijk / P13_the Rotterdam urban theatre / P14_We love to build / P15_IFF@R'dam

2oo8, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

The last decade Rotterdam has been the breeding ground for many festivals. These festivals are the celebrations of a community. The celebrations of most of these festivals take place in the city centre of Rotterdam. In the time-space capsule that festivals are, the city shows its different identities to others, citizens or foreigners.

The concept of this project perceives the city centre as a theatre. The Coolsingel and the Schiedamse dijk, with their different identities as economical, political, commercial and maritime centre become the central trillzone of Rotterdam with the public space as the main stage and the buildings as the scenery. Between this trillzone and the parking garages, public transport stops is the foyer of the theatre, the chillzone of the festivals. In this zone, shops, restaurant and cafes are supporting the experience of the whole festival.

The public space creates multi-functional (in space and time) urban locations. In daily use as well as when used for a festival, this space invites you to linger.

This urban design project is part of the case studies that substantiate Festivalcity_Rotterdam, a strategy for the symbiotic collaboration of festivals and urban development, creating a strong identity for both.

Related projects: P11_Festivalcity_Rotterdam / P12_Caribbean Summer @ Afrikaanderwijk  / P14_We love to build / P15_IFF@R'dam

2oo8, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

The Summer Carnival is the largest festival in Rotterdam. This procession, that takes months of preparation, is taking over the central city the last weekend of July, to disappear again for a year.

This urban design project uses the preparing programme, long term and temporary, of the Summer Carnival as a catalyst for the development of a district. Looking at social, cultural and demographical data, the district of Afrikaanderwijk could be the perfect breeding ground in Rotterdam to create a cultural incubator for the community connected by the Summer Carnival.

This urban design project is part of the case studies that substantiate Festivalcity_Rotterdam a strategy for the symbiotic collaboration of festivals and urban development, creating a strong identity for both.

Related projects: P11_Festivalcity_Rotterdam / P13_the Rotterdam urban theatre / P14_We love to build / P15_IFF@R'dam

2oo8, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Rotterdam loves to build. In the former century Rotterdam could expand and built its housing demands on the unexploited areas or former industrial areas. Since the last decade these areas are harder to find. Now Rotterdam faces the transformation of existing housing areas, the time of designing starting from a tabula rasa is over and designing becomes working on a going engine.

‘We love to build’ is a strategy on how temporary functions and manifestations can keep an urban area part of the city in the in-between-time and how the temporary and long term functions and manifestations can support the identity of the new area.

This strategy is based on a toolbox with possible temporary and long term functions, differently depending on the scale of the area, the position of the area in the urban tissue and the functions the area will accommodate.

Next to the toolbox, the whole transformation process, starting from the intention of transformation until the final new use, has been catalogued and possible manifestations have been added. The strategy is the result of a design research of different transformation areas.

This urban strategy is part of the case studies that substantiate Festivalcity_Rotterdam, a strategy for the symbiotic collaboration of festivals and urban development, creating a strong identity for both.

Related projects: P11_Festivalcity_Rotterdam / P12_Caribbean Summer @ Afrikaanderwijk  / P13_the Rotterdam urban theatre / P15_IFF@R'dam

2oo8, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

In the industrial revolution, Liege expanded rapidly, a bundle of infrastructure connected Liege with the surrounding regions and cities. Now, since the economical decline, the city shrinks.

The strategy of this project is the elastic city. Looking at history, cities always have been shrinking and expanding. In the phase of shrinking, the city should decide what are its specific qualities. For Liege they are the good infrastructural connections and the nearness of the Ardennes, a region of extensive forests, rolling hills and old mountains.

The urban strategy proposes to invest and densify around the infrastructural nodes. The areas between these nodes, the big declining industrial areas and the worn out housing are slowly transformed to extensive forests like the Ardennes. These transformed areas host recreational functions, and routes connect them with the Ardennes. By transforming a part of the area, a new attractive green quality is created for the remaining houses.

Related projects about shrinking cities: Po8_Keep it, Green it, Live in it! / Po9_Moving East

2oo5 Liege, Belgium

In Europe the groups single adults without children and couples without children are the largest groups of private households by household composition and these groups are increasing. Therefore the question; how to create housing that supports their needs is significant.

Looking more specific to the group of young people starting on the real estate market, it is important to understand that for them the identity of the district, the building and the interior is important. Furthermore the private, collective and public space needs to allow opportunities for social interaction with friends, neighbours and people who share interests. Lastly, its importance to create choice, in the type of house, the surrounding amenities and the mobility.

Currently, due to the high prices at the real estate market and the insufficient regulations concerning alternative ways of living, the cities of Flanders are not attractive for a big part of the groups: single adults without children and couples without children. This is a dangerous situation for these cities because the households with children already have the tendency to move out of the city, unless they have a very positive relation with the city.

Rotterdam Examples.

Youngsters between the age of 15 and 20 are a larger part of the Rotterdam population than they are in any other larger Dutch city. However, youngsters between the age of 20 and 30 are a larger part of the Amsterdam and Utrecht population than they are in Rotterdam. Therefore the Rotterdam municipality, together with housing corporations and developers, are setting up different projects to attract young people to the city.

Rotterdam universities select their best graduates to participate in a contest organised by the municipality, different housing corporations and developers. The winner of the contest can rent an apartment with a discount for the first 2 years. From the 3 year on, (s)he needs to pay the full rent. These apartments are in iconic buildings in the centre of the city, near amenities and public transport.

The other selected, but not winning students also get an interesting offer from the organisation.

2. Starters on the real estate market.

Some years ago, a Rotterdam housing corporation started with a new format to attract starters to live in the inner city of Rotterdam near amenities and public transport.

The principle of the format is that the corporation sells their former rental houses at a price between 80 000 and 120 000 euros, they keep taking care of the external facades, roof and collective spaces, they offer a cheaper insurance for the house and guarantee they will buy the house if the starter would like to sell it again.

If the starter sells the house after 1 year then 50 percent of the added value is for the starter. Every year he stays longer, 10 percent is added until after 6 years, the whole added value is for the starter.

One eighth of the former property of the corporation is sold using this format. With the money received from selling these houses (approximately 50 000 euro a house), the housing corporation reinvests in their property.

3. Young Couples

Succeeding a popular TV Show ‘The Block’ in which several young couples are renovating an apartment in a building block, the Rotterdam municipality together with housing corporation, offered cheap houses in more deprived areas of Rotterdam to be renovated by private initiative. Young individuals or couples have to register at an office who first checks if they meet the requirements and during the renovation process coaches them. After one year the house has to suffice minimal renovation requirements and the new owners have to live there at least 3 years before they can sell the house.

These initiatives are successful and support the strategy to attract young people to live in Rotterdam. However, at the moment these initiatives are still separately organised, isn’t there more to gain with a long-term strategy (supply, financing and regulation)?

The title of the workshop ‘microclimates_ for regional diversity’ intrigued the group. How can something as small as a MICROclimate have an influence on a REGIONAL scale? Working intensively for two weeks on Microclimates, trying to describe or define them and testing this definition on 2 case study locations, the group discovered some recurring principles. By abstracting the design principles used on the different locations, a methodology exposed.

The methodology exists of 3 parts: scouting the area, locating the problem and applying the toolbox.

1. Scouting the area.

Trying to describe microclimates, the group visited the Old West in Rotterdam and put down in words their impressions. With these words the group visited Laakhaven in The Hague and decided that microclimates can be described with the following words; Expressive, Synergy, Democratic, Human and Trigger Your Senses.

Drawings: Valeria Loddo and Ekaterina Yurchenko.

A microclimate is Expressive if there is an iconic expressive building or an ensemble of buildings, if humans express themselves by art (legal or illegal) in or towards the public space.

There is a Synergy in a microclimate if there is a connection with the surrounding quarters, a sequence of different spaces, a space that attracts different people and if the shops show a wide variety.

A microclimate is Democratic if people of all ages can live there or make use of it, if they can come in contact with green spaces, if the area is fit for groups as well as individuals and if there is a clear distinction between vivid and silent spaces.

A microclimate has a Human scale if there is a connection and a clear border between the public and the private atmosphere, horizontal as well as vertical, if there is a hierarchy of spaces and if guests feel welcome in the area.

A microclimate is never in a fixed state, it changes by season, by day, by night, ... These changes Trigger Your Senses and therefore a microclimate is able to surprise you again and again.

The group learned that scouting the area from the perspective of these words makes you aware of different qualities and problems which other urban analysis don’t always show.

2. Locating the problem.

Heatmaps of the areas, one for every word, showed if the microclimates had a good quality and if there was a good relation between the building, the public space and the programme. Problems occur when there was no cooperative relation between these three.

3. Applying the toolbox.

The interventions in the toolbox are ordered by the relation between the building, the public space and the programme they focus on.

Project: Andika Japa Wibisana

The sections of the areas demonstrated a series of different well-chosen interventions. The interventions improved the human scale within the location, made the space more expressive or created more synergy between the area and the surrounding areas. The sections also demonstrated that interventions can work on the scale of the area, as well as on the scale of the city. Comparing the sections from the different locations proved that the interventions were very location specific. This methodology could therefore diverse the microclimates in the region.

Project: Abraham Cohen

The supervisors of the summer school were Duzan Doepel, Rogier van den Berg. The students participating on the summer school were Abraham Cohen, Herve Dawodu, Valeria Loddo, Aanchal Subbaiah, Andika Japa Wibisana, Ekaterina Yurchenko.

the Rotterdam urban theatre

the city shows its diffirent identity to others