3x3 STRATEGY & PRINCIPLE FOR DESIGNING METRO AREA

CASE STUDY : PENDRECHT - ZUIDWIJK

VISI

ON

FOR

PEND

RECH

T AN

D ZU

IDW

IJK

POSITIONINGROTTERDAM-ZUID

BARENDRECHT

RIDDERKERKRHOON

HARBOR

PENDRECHT ZUIDWIJKIJSSELMONDE ROTTERDAM-ZUID

I envision the area of Pendrecht and Zuidwijk to be a healthy, well connected area between Rotterdam Zuid (the main city) and the satellite cities (Rhoon, Barendrecht, Ijsselmonde). In the future, they will not be problematic areas anymore, but able to serve as a sub-centrum of Rotterdam Zuid. It will accommodate lively public spaces with commercial functions, such as shops and al fresco dining; thus, promoting vibrant public life on street as well. More importantly, this vision is strongly related to the bigger vision of Ijsselmonde where we want to heal the problematic areas and incorporate them as the coherent part of Rotterdam Zuid and city of Rotter-dam as a whole.

Pendrecht and Zuidwijk are neigborhoods in the area of Rotterdam Zuid. Even though they are con-sidered problematic because of high number of so-cial problems; they have a lot of spatial potentials. They have a strategic location between the center of Rotterdam Zuid (Ahoy and shopping center) and satellite cities. They are also passed by metro line with highway on the south part. More interestingly, they are surrounded by green areas on north and south part which lead to various development op-portunities in these areas.

Neigborhood Scale

City Scale

Street Scale

I observe the situation of the south part of Rotterdam Zuid, in relation to the surrounding satel-lite cities.

I observe the situation of the overall area of Pendrecht and Zuidwijk.

I observe the situation of the area in-between Pendrecht and Zuid-wijk, which is metro station area and street of Zuiderparkweg.

In this project, I will work on

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What is the PROB

LEM

City Scale

NodeConnectivity

Neigborhood Scale

Accessibility Facility

Street Scale

Barrier Non-Place

1 x 30 MinBad connection among

areas/centrums

Residential areas have poor access from the

main street

Metro station and park-ing garage act as spatial

barrier

There are empty places without functions and

identities

Residential areas lack of public social facilities

(playground)

Nodes are not connected to one another

Low frequency of bus detains mobility and acces-

sibility

STRATEGY

City Scale

Node - NODEConnect-ED

Neigborhood Scale

Access-ED Facilit-ATED

Street Scale

LET THROUGH PLACE

1 x 10 MinCreate connections

among areas/centrum

Create new access from residential areas to main

streets

Get rid of the barriers and provide new access

Create the notion of place and assign new

identity

Provide social public facilities in the residential

areas

Connect one node to the others

Increase bus frequency to once every 10 minutes

IJsselmonde

Recreational Area

BarendrechtRhoon

Harbor

City Scale

There are four interventions that I’m proposing in this scale. First, new roads which directly connect the centrums of Pendrecht - Zuidwijk and Barendrecht. Sec-ond, develop new centrums in form of commercial programs surrounding metro and bus - tram station to increase the area’s vibrancy. Third, connect the green areas by assigning green track on existing road. Fourth, design city gates which give stronger identity to south area of Rotterdam Zuid.

BarendrechtRhoon

HarborCity Gates Proposal

S size

M sizeML size

Because of space limitations, I only propose sculptor-like object which provide place identity; and, residential area densification to signify the entrance of urban area.

There are vast area of empty spaces in this part. Therefore, I propose low-rise residen-tial area densification to indicate the en-trance of urban area.

This is the biggest and most important city gate because it leads to the main street of Pendrecht - Zuidwijk. Hence, it has more commercial functions to encourage ac-tive street life and different road material as street bumper to enhance the notion of place for car drivers.

small. BIG.Medium.

Neighborhood Scale

In this scale, I propose new road which connect the residential areas to main streets. Therefore, I decrease the cul-de-sac phenomena in this area and encourage more mobility and openness. Moreover, in response of Child Friendly Neighborhood policy by Rotterdam Municipality and 20% proportion of child inhabitants, I provide playgrounds which type is adjusted with the size of blocks.

SOCIAL

PROBLE

MS PEN

DRECHT

AND Z

UIDWIJ

KTh

e so

cial

pro

blem

s in

Pen

drec

ht -

Zuid

wijk

is m

ainl

y ca

used

by

the

low

leve

l of e

arni

ngs

and

educ

atio

n. T

here

are

a lo

t of

youn

gste

rs w

ho d

on’t

have

any

act

iviti

es a

nd d

o nu

isan

ce o

r fig

ht ju

st fo

r oc

cupy

ing

thei

r tim

e. T

he m

etro

sta

tion

area

is

cons

ider

ed a

s on

e of

the

mos

t pro

blem

atic

. The

re a

re a

lot o

f dru

g ad

dict

s, ha

ng jo

nger

en, a

nd h

aras

smen

ts. A

ll of

thes

e ar

e po

ssib

le to

hap

pen

beca

use

of th

e la

ck o

f eye

s on

str

eet a

nd v

ast e

mpt

y ar

eas

with

out a

ny p

rogr

ams

or a

ctiv

ities

.

VISION FOR METRO STATION AREA

Then, the residents will have places to so-cialize and get to know one another. The better they know one another, the better the chance of social cohesion or under-standing to arise.

Hence, the mobility from one spot to the others will increase. This strategy supports the first strategy to encour-age more social interaction among residents.

I want to create peace, an environment where the residents can live together happily, do activities together at nice public spaces.

Demolition ZERO

SharedGREEN

PLACECreation

Street Scale

In this scale, I will work on three schemes to test the morphological arrangement of building blocks, in order to achieve social cohesion in this area. The schemes consist of main spatial components in this area which are building, road, and green/blue (water) area. Thus, the schemes are testing the possibility of these components’ differ-ent combination.

Providing green areas as public space in the in-between space of Pendrecht and Zuidwijk. Will these new shared space able to enhance the social cohesion?

Without demolishing anything and en-hancing the local qualities of this area, what are the impacts to social and spatial aspects?

Currently, there are green areas which are located next to residential areas. What if these areas are developed into neighbor-hood public space?

The final product will be DESIGN PRINCIPLES instead of JUST DESIGN.

Research Methodology

If I produce one, single, absolute design as a result of this project, I may waste an opportunity of exploring different possibilities and finding out on how to maximize the design output in metro station area development. Therefore, I use the schemes as ‘Research by Design’ tool to generate the principles of designing metro station area, in order to encourage social cohesion.

The rules and theories used for designing and assessing the schemes are Transit Oriented Development principles, Node-Link theory (Rut-ten, Nanet, 2010), Place-Non Place theory (Auge, Marc, 1995), and Spatial Development in Problematic Areas (de Rooij, Lisa, 2010).

This is THE FINAL PRODUCT!

Site & Problems

3 Schemes

Strength & WeaknessSpatial Analysis

Ideal Scheme Creation(3 Schemes Compilation)

Strength & Social CohesionAnalysis of Ideal Scheme

Ideal Scheme UnderlyingDesign Principles

3 SchemesComparison

Social CohesionAnalysis

Using Transit Oriented Development scheme as the underlying principle of putting programs, I put all the commercials near the station area, so that they will be well promoted and visited. As for the civic functions, putting them near the node will promote their new existence in order to en-courage active usage from inhabitants.

All the new programs are complementary to the ex-isting commercial and residential functions. That is why, the new programs focus on social activities and commercial which employ the local resources.

I provide the youth and elderly center as a place for the inhabitants to occupy their time with productive activities instead of fighting and using drugs. These programs are also important to encourage social cohesion in this area.

It opens until 10 PM, providing eyes on street until late at night. With subsidies and low membership fee, it encourages the youngsters to do sports, instead of fighting.

As a complementary and supporting program of metro station.

Presently, there are a lot of people who like to modify their cars on weekend, but they are job-less. The workshop can accommodate their skills and hobby by producing money at the same time.

Multi-functional room which can be used free of charge by inhabitants to play music, study together, do workshops, or for other social events. This program encourage more pro-ductive activities and social cohesion.

Encouraging high educated, low income people, such as students to stay. Thus, it will balance the proportion of under educated people in this area. Moreover, housings will provide more eyes on street.

Similar to car workshop, it employs the local resources of this area. This program is comple-mentary to the youth and elderly center where all the handicrafts produced there can be sold through this shop.

Encouraging new business and economic activities in this area. This programs is also introduced to improve the bad image of Pendrecht and Zuidwijk.

This page is intended to be blank ;)

SharedGREEN

parking area with housing

metro stationarea

metro stationarea

housing

Although this scheme provides diverse type of spatial qualities because of the green stripe in the middle of the road, it scores quite low on other aspects. It is more difficult to provide eyes on street because there are four sides on street instead of just two. Moreover, people need to take more steps and pass more areas in order to move between Pendrecht and Zuidwijk. In short, this scheme doesn’t re-ally encourage social cohesion.

Demolition ZERO

By preserving and enhancing all the local qualities, there are unexpected spatial qualities appear on this scheme. It turns out that the green/blue areas have great potentials as interesting public space, especially with addition of new programs. It has more compact street structure with more eyes on street, so that people can easily move from one side to another and watch over activities going on on street. On the other hand, this scheme doesn’t solve the barrier problem surrounding metro station. Thus, it doesn’t score very high on social cohesion aspect.

metro stationarea

green publicspace

metro stationarea

small lake

greenmedian

PLACECreation

This scheme focus on providing more continuous frontage and putting public programs on the main street’s sides. Hence, it provides most compact building frontage which resulted in a very high score of eyes on street, compared to other schemes. This scheme also enable easy movements from one side to another. In short, it encourages social co-hesion more than other schemes. On the other hand, the arrangement of blocks are typical to other places in The Netherlands which imply lack of special spatial characters. Nonetheless, this scheme is worth considering of because of its good qualities.

metro stationarea

smallcanal

metro stationarea

COMPARISON

The small blocks on the north and south part which en-able fluid pedestrian movements and di-verse path of pedes-trian. The blocks’ size are responding to the need of dimin-ishing barrier in this area.

P r e s e r v i n g and enhanc-ing landscape features which prove to pro-vide interesting spatial qualities in this area.

M i n i m u m demolition of metro station and parking garage is eco-nomically logi-cal and feasible. Furthermore, it encourages big changes with small interven-tions.

What if we take all the good qualities in each scheme and create the ideal scheme which has the maximised qualities of the metro station area?

This scheme is considered ideal because it contains all the good qualities of the three previous schemes. Hence, it can be concluded that all the good qualities in this scheme are maximization of the possible design configurations.

The green areas are very potential as the new public space for social interaction. Thus, new programs are needed to activate these areas and preventing them to be crime scenes.

What can we learn from the exploration of three schemes and the ideal scheme?

Providing barrier-free main street without any in-between space which detain the movement and mobility from one side to another.

It diminishes the barrier effect on the existing condition and provides more intimate scale, suitable for block inhabitants social gathering.

It provides better spatial quality and encourage social interaction rather than unenclosed building blocks

It will enhance the spatial condition of the area and gives more identity as well as vibrancy to the physical aspect. By providing different types of space around the area, we also encourage the movement and usage of spaces by not only the surrounding inhabitants, but also by the neighbor-ing inhabitants who want to enjoy different atmosphere.

So, what is NEXT ? Instead of having a sick (problematic) area, Rotterdam Zuid will have new area which func-tions as the stepping stone (sub-centrum, city entrance, sub-urban area) to city of Rotter-dam. In the future, I also envision this area to be the greater part of Rotterdam with more advanced facilities and urban programs.

(1) Pick up the most important programs which encourage social cohesion more. They are youth and elderly center.

(2) Develop the car workshop and handicraft store because it generates jobs and provide education. Therefore, the number of unskilled and unemployed will decrease.

(3) Activate the empty spaces as public spaces by incorporating temporary structure (such as tent) to accommodate social and creative events. This tem-porary structure can also be used as an experiment to find the most suitable architectural expression for Pendrecht and Zuidwijk. Case study : Hoogvliet.

Thus, the same goal can still be achieved, even though with smaller number of interventions.

Therefore, the number of empty, unidentified areas will decrease. Later on, the level of eyes on street and safety will also increase, which then improve the social quality of this area!

from SICK FACE to SMILEY FACE

And if everything doesn’t work out as planned...