now @ Zak Architecture and Design

Blobitecture, Eindhoven 2009-2010

One year ago, construction of the Blob was all but finished, with the opening just around the corner. So, after the long months' wait and the ultimate disillusionment - where do blobs originate, what do they really have to offer and last but not least, who pays any attention to them ?

Eindhoven puts final touches on Blob (NL), Article in Omroep Brabant, October 2009, by Hessel Rippe

photos by Ron Eijkman and Hadas Zemer

Instatements, Eindhoven 2010

Exhibition, Day of Architecture 26/6/ – 27/6/10

with Clare Butcher/Your-space and Freek Lomme/Onomatopee
participants Plan V (Toos Nijssen & Ron Eijkman), Jan Schevers & TU/e School of Architecture, Remote Material of Implication, Marjan Wester, Jozua Zaagman

Instatements will facilitate an ongoing series of mappings, discussions and actions to create a new set of relationships between the historical and the post-industrial fabric in the city of Eindhoven. The value of temporary status as a relevant solution to urban stagnation and zoning must be acknowledged. By deconstructing the hitherto acceptable forms of herbestemming, or adaptive reuse, this project seeks to map out the potential of the city's industrial environment and create an inclusive platform from which to redefine adaptive reuse, through a variety of disciplines.

Over the last months I have collaborated with Your-space and Onomatopee on Instatements, a project seeking to consider new and contemporary ways of defining adaptive reuse under the influence of perspectives from the creative, designed and built environment. The project opened with an exhibition during the Day of Architecture, and invited a group composed of three artists, eight designers, one public-space designer and four students from the department of architecture in the Technical University to start this process. Most of the participants have at one time or other practiced the art of re-inhabiting and reusing in the city of Eindhoven. This inevitably includes its industrial history, a great part of which took place along the 'Eindhovensch Kanaal', the city's former industrial artery. Though the historical evidence has all but disappeared, the industrial allocation has not. It is this setting that has influenced the exhibition and our train of thought.

plan of Eindhoven with industrial zone along the canal

The ongoing research in the geographical context of the canal has three aims: first, to provide new sustainable forms and methods of adaptive reuse that address the real needs of residents and interest groups, avoiding the cliches of industrial heritage projects; second, to reinstate the area into the city centre as a potential living and working neighborhood, while supporting local creative participants; third, to rely on mix-use as a crucial determining factor, to be addressed in a greater urban plan for the future.

For more information on Instatements, Click here

Fietshalte/W neighborhood version 2010

with Gil Molho, Hessel Rippe

dimensions 6.6 x 3 x 3.5 meters

materials steel volume sheets & tubes, wood, polycarbonate

Developed with the assistance of the City of Eindhoven, this prototype takes the bike station back to its primary location - a residential setting, connecting the edge of the neighborhood with an outlying green corridor. Made of a series of steel volume segments and surrounded by variable seating positions, this compact and robust version of Fietshalte/W offers residents and commuters an attractive meeting point, info-box and base from which to explore the area, starting with three converging streets.

Wall and Tower – our very own gated community

Examples abound of communal habitations that arose from the basic human need of security.

Upon visiting the opening of Mur i Wieża (Wall and Tower) by Yael Bartana in Amsterdam, I found it impossible to ignore the link between Bartana’s reinterpretation of the Jewish "Homa ve Migdal" settlement in Poland with its obvious association to the Israeli post-1967 settlement, and the world-famous form of residence known as the gated community. Comparisons have been made between the Wall and Tower settlements that were founded in Palestine in the 1930’s and their more sinister descendants. But looking more closely at all three types of exclusive enclosures raises some interesting issues that most of us planners feel strongly about but do not expressly mention. Here are some points in brief:

1) Typology There’s nothing astonishing about the local-global strategy of establishing an enclave. More interesting, or sobering if you will, is the fact that the building typologies of gated perimeters the world over are no less than Israeli history repeating. In this day and age, when high-technology is harnessed by security experts, the wall, gate and tower still combine to offer the most comforting image of a place free of outside threats, an ideal home. Insiders are distinguished by their common identity. Outsiders are the subject of the guard’s gaze.

reconstruction of Wall and Tower (Homa ve-Migdal) settlement, Negba, IL

MathKnight & Zachi Evenor

Lighthouse tower at Lavigna community, Santa Maria gated community, CA

Vandenberg AFB Homes Blog

Some ‘security villages’, or gated communities in South Africa, use a mode of initial development closely resembling that of the Wall and Tower - staking out a large land claim, building a high wall surrounding the entire zone, then gradually adding roads, dwellings and other infrastructure.

2) Narrative The settlement and gated community strive to nourish and foster a sense of pride and prestige – be it for the national cause or as a result of one’s socio-economical status. The mode of communicating or marketing this old/new lifestyle is by names and allegories that draw on a common, easily-recognizable heritage. Nature and History equals Romance. Think of the parallels in the names of some of the newer Israeli settlements and the names of their capitalist counterparts all over the English-speaking world: Alon Shvut (Oak of Return) vs. Oakdale, Nof Harim (Mountain View) vs. Ridgeview, Mitzpe Keramim (Vineyard Vantage Point or Settlement) vs. Carmel, and Derekh Ha’avot (Path of the Fathers) vs. Kingswood.

3) Territorial consequences Well, the comparison usually ends at this point - the settlements redefine territorial and political borders by pushing the perimeter. Though many gated communities are also located at the urban periphery, this form of habitation is usually represents a means of quiet withdrawal. Their main territorial effect is the added network of roads, infrastructure and suburban sprawl that follows in their wake.

4) Irregular Both settlement and gated community, whether past or present models, offer “a strategy for organizing private infrastructure and services in situations where the state cannot provide them” (Monterescu). In Israel this is usually associated with far-off locations where populations feel threatened and need to fend for themselves. Enter the gated project of the Andromeda Hill residence in Old Jaffa, aka the alliance of private real-estate market with ethnocentric planning. Alas for the Wall and Tower of old!

References:

Bartana, Yael Building Memory: Mur i Wieża

Blank, Yishai The Gated Community as a Private City: Fragmentation of Public Space in Israel

Grant, Jill Challenging the public realm: gated communities in history

Monterescu, Daniel To Buy or Not to Be: Trespassing the Gated Community

www.andromeda.co.il/project.html

wikipedia: gated communities

Fietshalte/W in design competition

In July 2009 Fietshalte/W competed with 60 other designs in Brains Eindhoven, a call for innovative, creative and socially relevant ideas for the city.

click here to view our application at the Brains website.