LIVING DENSITY

keywords: Transformation, Regeneration, Public spaces, Streets, built Environment

Earlier design

Density is really important for us Urban planners. To be honest I am not that good in this part of planning. I notice that I can make a design base one location, sun, wind, traffic, nature, the users but I never know exactly how dense this will be. In a case like Almere it is obvious that if I design a new part of the city like Almere-Hout many people will find their home there. In the case of Haarlem where I design an regenerate an old industry location as living, working and shopping are I don't really know how many people are really going to be living there. I notice that I am trying to get to know this better in my current project on the Island of Curacao. On this location the design is aiming to transform an old oil refinery into a new city center with living and working function. Because the terrain is huge I notice that I do not know how to dense it. From my teacher I got to study how many people I would like to have on that location. Also the space between the building are crucial to create a pleasant place to live or be. I notice that I have not many problem with the distance between the building in the street but more with the public spaces. I notices that sometimes I can design enormous public spaces that would not work in that setting. Instead of that I could have better pay attention to a better densification of  the area.

fig.1 Sketch plan of the Isla Refinery Terrain in Curacao, some of the blocks on this sketch can be more dense than now some of the open spaces could be to big for the pleasant and safe feeling in a city.

Future design

In my future designs I will take the density issue more into consideration. We need to relize that it is an import part of urban desing. With the help of the excell program provide by Prof. de Jong we can easely measure and calculate density on the location we are plannen. Pictures below show two excell sheets by de Jong that can be use to measure density of buidling in a built environment.

fig.2 and 3 Two excell sheets from de Jong to measure the density in a built area