The paper starts from 2 observations:

- Technology is developing at a speed limit and some of these implications of technology in products have mayor influence on the urban tissue. What is new today is old tomorrow, so how to create a long-term perspective of the design?

- Due to the end of the welfare state the government is redrawing. This creates a shift in the commissioning of the building projects from the public to the private sector. However, the private sector has different interests than the public sector. Next to the shift in commissioning there is a shift from supplier market to a demand market, giving more power to the future resident of the house. Where there used to be one strong commissioner, the public sector, there is now an abundance of parties, each with different interests. How will this influence the role of the urban designer in the design process?

At the moment the major part of the redevelopment projects in the Netherlands use the tubula rasa approach. First there are no more investments (public space and buildings) in the area. Because of this, people move out and the area gets a bad reputation, which finally results in the demolishing of the buildings.

To attract new buyers, a lot of money is invested in promotion, activities, ...  with the goal to sell the houses and to start the rebuilding.

Within this tubula rasa approach there is no possibility to adjust to the external influences during the process, like technology or economy. Neither is the area inviting during the process, in order to more naturally attract future residents.

In the paper an alternative approach is given. By a strategic demolishing and rebuilding of the area in different parts and by the use of specific temporary functions, fitting for the new identity of the area, a more sustainable process is the result. By demolishing and rebuilding in parts, the adjustments, due to external influences, can be easier implemented. By use of specific temporary functions, the area stays more lively and therefor more inviting.

The urban plan should no longer focus on the final destination but on the steps needed to get there. The urban designer, as continuity in the process from drawing to rebuilding, takes care of the process and adjusts when necessary. By this the urban designer gets a central role in the process and the coalition of the different parties.

He/she does not focus as much on the final destination but on the steps how to get to that destination.

David Dooghe is a studio mentor for the Master Urban Design at Hogeschool voor Wetenschap & Kunst, Sint-Lucas, Gent.

Together with Bruno van Langenhove and Tine van Herck David will run the design studio: Platform Kanal. In the ‘zone d’intervention Prioritaire’ near the canal in the centre of Brussels the students make a strategy and a design for a strategic place in the area, influenced by a chosen political preference.

Together with Jiri Klokocka, David will run the masterproof design. The students will work on the city of Tirana, the capital of Albania, which has experienced radical changes at the turn of the millennium. More parks and squares have been built, changing the “look” of Tirana from Communist to more European city.

The last couple of years Rotterdam invested in the public space of its inner city, with the goal to create a ‘City lounge’, a space where people meet, stay, repose.

“Youngsters are the main users of Rotterdam inner city’s streets  to meet and stay”, stated David, “Being the city with growing percentage of youngsters, this could have a good effect on the goal of Rotterdam, to create a city lounge in the inner city.”

But while Rotterdam invests to create a public space to meet, the use of the public space is more and more regulated. In some places meetings of a group larger than three persons in the public space is prohibited. The security concerning festivals gets stronger regulated, making festivals impossible to happen.

In the debate quickly the Friday evening ‘problem’ on the Lijnbaan, the main shopping street of Rotterdam and the place and time were youngsters meet, became the main case. The presence of the youngsters creates fear, a passive aggressive atmosphere like somebody in the public stated, among the other users of the shopping street.

“Isn’t this fear more of a generation conflict than a real threat?” David asked the other participants and public, “Knowing that ‘staging’, defining your personality by ‘taking the stage” at every possible moment, is an important part of the youth culture. They aren’t really threatening the others, but they will make sure the others have seen them. What better place in Rotterdam than the Lijnbaan to do this?”

For the politician present, the world works in a way that once something is a problem, it stays a problem. Therefor the rest of the debate got lost in convincing the others of the urge of the problem.

A pity, an out of the box brainstorm with all these interesting participants of the debate could have created new insights.