Robuuste collectieve tussenruimte : een onderzoek naar de relatie tussen architectonische en territoriale ruimte in stedelijke woningclusters.

This doctoral thesis explores which design principles have an effect on the robustness of the shared use (and management) of collective in-between spaces within urban housing clusters. In the run-up to the empirical part, I have conducted a cross-curricular literature study and combined a number of significant analysis concepts from urban design and configuration theory with (urban) commons theory. These theoretical concepts have allowed me to explore long-term relationships in three prominent historical housing clusters where an important role was assigned by their initiators to structuring collective space; the residential squares of West-End in London, the residential streets of Kartoffelraekkerne in Copenhagen and the residential courtyards of Sunnyside Gardens in Queens, New York. In response to the proposed research questions a number of relevant conclusions can be drawn following (1) the comparative analysis of longitudinal sketches which reveal the complex relationship between architectural and territorial space at different points in history, and (2) the evaluation of the representativeness of detected patterns on the basis of other historically evolved housing clusters (which were collected within a detailed inventory but have not been examined in depth). These evaluations have provided more nuanced insights into (the mechanisms behind) evolutionary processes in the use and management of collective spaces. The interplay between spaces and their daily use is a complex matter and misjudging these issues within the design process can lead to tragic outcomes such as the decline and even disappearance of collective space as a common-pool resource. However, certain collective spaces may prove to be either more robust or more fragile as an ‘architectural commons’ in resisting the undesirable circumstances that threaten their 'public accessibility' as urban quality. The research provides an empirical basis demonstrating the positive impact of certain spatial attributes as previously put forward in the theoretical framework on the robustness of collective in-between space. These insights were then incorporated in a series of theoretical principles for robust collective in-between space. Although these principles can now be further explored and refined from their applications within design practice, they presumably already have practical relevance. Without lapsing into questionable ‘cookbook’ recipes, they refer to a comprehensive syntactic relationship or typological coherence of form and configuration that can be understood and applied unambiguously by designers, developers, civil servants, policy makers, etc.

Jaar van publicatie:2022

Trefwoorden:Doctoral thesis

Toegankelijkheid:Open