Ton Schaap, urban designer at the city of Amsterdam, gave the first lecture. In his lecture, he illustrated the design process for the Wibautstraat, Amsterdam and elaborated on several details and explained his design choices. A video of his lecture can be found here.
As a co-reference to the lecture, David Dooghe, praised the conscientious of his design. The street must look, even on a typical Dutch rainy Winter day, still impressive. However, what happens in the street on a sunny Summer day? Does the design leave space for people claiming the street; for personal use by the inhabitants, for events, for protests? Of course streets add to the attractiveness of the city, so they need to be well designed. Streets, however, have also an important social, cultural and political function. Public life, in all its aspects, takes place on the street. Finding a balance between design and use is always the tricky task when developing the public space. A pity, Ton’s lecture ended at the point the street was redeveloped, as for many users at that point the story only starts. Do we, as designers, take enough time to also evaluate how people use what we design?