For the second year students from the Urban and Regional Planning Masters of the University of Amsterdam looked at the development of Havenstad, the new city district that is being created to the west and north of Amsterdam.
The project from Urban Lab/Future Societies Lab aims to contribute to the local and international debates on sustainable urban development and the garden city movement. Modern cities are faced with a multitude of challenges, such as climate change, sustainability, societal conflicts, poverty, and housing. This requires a rethinking of urban development. While the Garden Cities concept is over a hundred years old, we think that it can still be relevant for today’s urban development and function, perhaps in an adjusted manner, as a principle for new developments.
These studies also have the ambition to have direct relevance for the Havenstad development, a large-scale expansion of Amsterdam for approximately 200.000 inhabitants. Last year's students looked at the Havenstad as a whole, resulting in Havenstad, A vision for a contemporary World Garden City. The focus for this year's assignment was on the development of the Marshalling yard, a relatively small piece of land at Zaanstraat, next to Het Schip. Three groups of students tackled this assignment and you can read their findings here:
Redevelopment Plan for the Zaanstraat Marshalling Yard.
The Compact Garden City: Creating a Framework for a Contemporary Garden City.
