amsterdam-town planning report_bhanu khanna

8/10/2019 Amsterdam-Town Planning Report_bhanu Khanna

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It is composed of semi-circles that create tiny islands linked by bridges.Amsterdams city center is very compact.


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Amsterdam was originally designed for defense


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City is made of agently curving andvery narrow streetsystem , creates ahighly walkable andinteresting

environment.

The bends in the road create asense of mystery and intrigue andcan prove a little confusing untilyou figure out the names of all thecanals.

The concept for open space withinthe region was the idea of the fivegreen fingers. Each finger leads tothe heart of the city and allowspeople to use them as connectors.


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o Amsterdam is called by somethe "Venice of the North".

o Its 62 miles of concentric canalsmean that more than 400 bridgesare needed to connect its radialstreets.

o The city's distinct character comesfrom a history of deliberate cityplanning, the inherent difficulty ofdeveloping land below sea level, andsuccessful resistance to large scaleredevelopment .

o The city has gone through a unique

and unusually distinct series ofexpansions as its merchant economyboomed requiring more ship berthsand warehouses and its populationincreased -demanding more space

for housing.


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PLANNING

CITY OF CANALS


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Amsterdam started out as a marshy fishing village at the end ofthe Amstel River prone to frequent flooding. As the city'sname suggests, the villagers soon constructed a dam on abranch of the Amstel to create a natural harbor for unloadingships. (This branch of the river has now been paved over toform Damrak, the city's main street .)

The first extension of the canal ring (from Brouwersgracht inthe west to Leidsegracht ) was a huge relief to the city,releasing the pressure on its land.

The second extension (completing the concentric half to theeast) was finished by the time the citys immense prosperityhad already started to decrease.

In the years 1421 & 1452 the city saw sweeping fires whichvirtually leveled the city, then built mostly of wood. The city thenpassed an ordinance requiring that all buildings have brick wallsand ceramic roof tiles. During the 15th century the city wasenlarged twice and new moats were built but the old moats werenot filled up (Kemme). The city's first three canals were dug in

1425 (Kloreniersburgwal & Geldersekade canals) and1428(Singel canal).


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Part II: 1585 expansion (1570 population: 30,000)When Antwerp fell in 1585, William ofOrange who then controlledAmsterdam ordered that a newdefensive wall be built around the city. This wall, completed in 1593,incorporated the western edge oftown and as a consequence, the cityexpanded to cover 415Acres. However, this expansion soonproved to be inadequate and newplans were soon needed.The city, thataround 1570 counted less than 30.000inhabitants, in 1620 reached 100,000inhabitants. Therefore the city

developed rapidly and underwent asignificant urban expansion, namelythe construction of the first canal beltin 1613 . The canals functioned as afortification and a wall was builtbehind them, where nowadays

Nassaukade and Stadhouderskade arenow located.

It took almost two centuries (until around 1900)before all plots laid out were built on. De Jordaanwas also part of the first canal ring extension. Itwas a planned segregation, with the three canalsbuilt for the rich (especially Heren- and

Keizersgracht), and the Jordaan area built for thepoorer workers and industries.


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Part III: 17th Centuryexpansions1613 expansion (Westernexpansion)(1600 population: 60,000)The Dutch East IndiaCompany (VOC) had becomevery successful by this time

in the city's history andmerchants now demandedmore land for warehousing,ship berths, andmansions. The morewealthy merchants desired

to live further away from thecity's center with its noisyports, and therefore the cityexpanded westward.


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Part IV: 1663 expansion (Easternexpansion) (1640 population: 139,000, 1700population: 200,000)An early part of this expansion was the

incorporation into the city of threemostly man-made islands- Kattenburg,Wittenburg and Oostenburg. The VOCsoon moved their base of operations tothese islands. This part of theexpansion may have been overlyambitious and the city soon ran out ofsteam to fully complete it. This explainsthe more open-looking space in thenortheastern edge of the city whicheventually became the recreation areaknown as the Plantage. As mentionedpreviously, the 17 th century expansionslargly met the demand for space untilthe end of the18 th century. In 1848 thecity ramparts were demolished, cityexcises and tolls abolished and furtherexpansion became possible leading tothe 19th century expansions.


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PART V: 19 TH CENTURY EXPANSIONS (Population 408,000)With the industrial revolution, the city'spopulation grew dramatically -almostdoubling from 224,000 in 1850 to 408,000

just forty years later. The 19th centuryexpansion plans followed the pattern ofexisting roads and ditches and was largelycarried out by private developers.The oldcity center was not left untouched by theseexpansions. Canals were filled in to make

the center more accessible, streets werewidened and many old houses weredemolished. Central Station, completed in1889, largely cut off of access from thecenter to the IJ River. Fortunately, thecharacter of the historic city center with itsconcentric canals has remained largelyintact even with the growth pressures it hasseen over the last two centuries andremnants of what used to be the old citywalls remain. This is what makes

Amsterdam's such a unique and rewardingplace to visit and explore to this day.


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WE LOVE OUR

HERITAGE


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THE SINGEL CANALThe Singel encircled the city in the MiddleAges. It served as a moat around the city from1480 until 1585, when Amsterdam expandedbeyond the Singel. The canal runs from the IJ

bay, near Central Station, to the Muntpleinsquare, where it meets the Amstel river. It isnow the inner-most canal in Amsterdams semicircular ring of canals

KEIZERSGRACHT CANAL

The Keizersgracht (Emperors Canal) is thesecond and the widest of the three majorcanals in the city centre of Amsterdam, inbetween the Herengracht and thePrinsengracht. It is named after Maximilian I,Holy Roman Emperor.


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HERENGRACHT CANALThe Herengracht (Gentlemans Canal) is isthe first and the most elegant of the threemajor canals in the city centre ofAmsterdam. The most fashionable part iscalled the Golden Bend, with many doublewide mansions, inner gardens and coachhouses on the Keizersgracht.

PRINSENGRACHTThe Prinsengracht (Princes Canal) is the

fourth and the longest of the main canals inAmsterdam. Most of the canal houses alongit were built during the Dutch Golden Age ofthe United Provinces.


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The resulting urban layout indeed shows clear connections with examples of ItalianRenaissance design , like that of a river town from the treatise of engineer De Marchi from1599.2 Amsterdam could be defined as a maritime variant of these radial city models, inwhich streets are replaced by canals, which led the tidal water from the harbor into town, inwhich the It takes up a prominent place in front of the town. The Amsterdam plan shows

variation and includes differing spatial zones , as result of external practical factors, like theneed for functional differentiation, existing properties and parceling procedures affected byground speculation. From the town planning point of view, not the analogy with but thedivergence from the renaissance ideal model is important. Contrary to the static center of theconcentric city model , in the Amsterdam plan the actual center is located in the harbor basin, infront of the elongated base of the city , jammed in between the symmetrical counterparts of the

two clusters of harbor islands which close off the long urban axis of the harbor, on which thesystem of concentric canals discharges . It is exactly this underside with the water of the It thatshould be added as the fifth urban planning component, which is inextricably bound up with theurban plan of Amsterdam and represents the essence of the planning of

THE MARITIME CITY


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HOW CAN I

TRAVEL IN CITY???


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Connectivecorridors:Transportation systems in

Amsterdam were very wellthought out in their conception.Trains connect Amsterdam tothe Dutch countryside and to allof Europe. Trams within the cityprovide a cheap and fast

intercity transportation. But themain form of everydaymovement through thecompact city is the bicycle. Thebike is a quiet andenvironmentally good solution

to the tiny street systems and aperfect way to enjoy the urbanlandscape. As mentioned above,it is the streets in conjunctionwith the parks of Amsterdamthat act as the connectivecorridors within the city.


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Amsterdam is compact , and the same inCopenhagen. Whilst such an analysis is simple, it isalso true a smaller city is more navigable bybicycle purely because shorter trips are more likely.

85% of journeys by bicycle in Amsterdam areshorter than 5km (3.1 miles), for which the compactsize of the city is inevitably a factor. OV bikes are e-bikes provided by govt. to general public for free fortheir easy mode of transportation promoting greenuse and favoring the streets of Amsterdam.


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Timeline

2009All trams and metro lines use green energy.All public street lights use green energy.Two thirds of City of Amsterdam offices, including the City Hall, use green energy.Anyone with an electric car, moped or scooter can park and charge their vehicles for free atcharging points on the network.

Incentives for Amsterdam businesses to buy electric vehicles from January 2010.Most shared car spaces in the world.Short term2009-2010: 200 charging stations, 200 electric vehicles.Mid term2010-2012: 2,000 additional charging stations.

Long term2015: 10,000 vehicles (or 5% of kilometres driven in the city emission free).2020: 40,000 vehicles (or 20% of kilometres driven in the city emission free).2040: 200,000 vehicles (or 100% of kilometres driven in the city emission free.


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GREEN BUILT


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A d B i 2310 k d h l


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Amsterdams Bos is a 2310 acre park and the largesturban park created during the twentieth centuryanywhere in the world .

It was conceived as a green wedge of recreationalopen space for the people of Amsterdam, directlylinked to the green heart of Randstad. Like mostgreat urban parks it is not located in the city center.Instead its entrance is about 6 kilometers fromAmsterdam Central Station.This woodland park is the largest recreationalarea in Amsterdam. Lying about 4 meters below sealevel and laid out in 1930s in a project to reduceunemployment. Today, the marshy areas aroundNieuwe Meer are nature reserves. A stretch of water

called the Bosbaan flows through the park, and is thevenue for rowing competitions in the season. At thewest end of water is the Bos Museum which exhibitson natural and social history of the park, there arealso temporary exhibitions. The Amsterdamse Bos is a

home to about 150 variants of foreign and nativetrees and colorful collection of birds.


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The Museumpleinis an important open space withinAmsterdam that consists of aconcentration of museums in apark-like setting. Similar to the Mallin Washington D.C., monumentalbuildings are all situated around asymmetrical central lawn. Thisspace is great because it combinesthe worlds of art and nature; twosubjects that go hand in hand.

G


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Green rootsAs far back as 1610, trees were being systematically planted along the entire length ofAmsterdams canals - making it the only city in Europe to do so at the time. In an age in whichEurope was dominated by authoritarian monarchies that built princely palaces, Amsterdam

was, and is still today, primarily a city of ordinary townspeople. The members of the Citycouncil came from the merchant classes which resulted in a city with an unusually pleasantclimate in which to live and work. Every time a canal was dug, numerous lime and elm treeswere planted along its banks. The German city chronicler Philipp von Zeses wrote in 1664: "Wegaze on these canals in astonishment. It seems as if we have arrived in an earthly paradise".There is no record of the background leading up to the decision to plant trees, but itwas undoubtedly based on the golden rule for urban planning of combining usefulness withpleasure. Besides creating shade and boosting the quality of fresh air and public health, the trees also provided a scenic contrast to the brick buildings and the water ofthe canals.


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Garden spaceAmsterdam City Council also decided that only half of the residential blocks could be built upon- the remaining space of the building plots had to be used as garden space. This enhanced theappeal of the new district enormously and gave the stone city its green lungs. The doubleintervention of trees and garden space gave the canal ring the impression of a leafy suburb. Thecanal ring is still a hive of activity and four centuries on, it remains a desirable place to live andto work.


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BUILDING CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES AND LANDCONDITIONS AFFECTING CITY PLANNING

The land problem is created by the fact that Amsterdam is situated below the sea level, so theproper existence of land, before buildings, depends on a technical intervention. By means ofdrainage, polders and finally dykes (dams), land can be obtained . dykes need to be watchedover for at least five years before the construction of buildings and then checked by themunicipality periodically to guarantee the safety.In Amsterdam, due to this kind of interventions, the canals create a very clear urban structure,

allowing an economical and logical distribution of the space . The traditional building typologyused until the beginning of the 20th century is also simple, with the use of local materials,bricks and wood . The famous narrow houses which characterize the city have this widthbecause they are perfectly as long as the span of a timber beam, and they are divided onefrom the other by 10m long bearing walls made of mud and sand, with piled foundations .


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Waste Dispos-al ????


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AEB AmsterdamAEB Amsterdam is a waste to energy company, owned by the City of Amsterdam. Our mission isto be the world leader in the sustainable conversion of waste into energy and valuable, re-usable raw materials. We provide a solid solution for the disposal of your household andcommercial waste. Which is more durable for the environment and more cost-effective thanlandfilling. For municipalities we can propose an offer including production of RDF and transportto AmsterdamWe can recycle up to 99% of your waste. This has earned us a R1-status when itcomes to high energy recovery. This helps you to reduce your CO2 footprint. AEB is flexible inarranging the treatment and logistical chain from any proposed transfer station(s) to the AEBfacility in Amsterdam. Nearly 99% of the total tonnes of waste treated is reused. AEB has anState of the art EfW PowerStation with an energy efficiency of 30%. AEB produces energy andcity heat and has one of the highest efficiency of all Dutch EfW facilities. After the wastetreatment metals (Ferro and non-Ferro) are extracted and recycled

Amsterdam Has a Deal for Alcoholics: Work Paid in Beer


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Amsterdam Has a Deal for Alcoholics: Work Paid in Beer

The workday begins unfailingly at 9 a.m. with twocans of beer, a down payment on a salary paid mostly inalcohol. People get two more cans at lunch and thenanother can or, if all goes smoothly, two to round off aproductive day. The basic idea is to extend to alcoholicsan approach first developed to help heroin addicts, whohave for years been provided with free methadone, aless dangerous substitute, in a controlled environmentthat provides access to health workers and counselors.

A group of alcoholics in Amsterdam are given beerduring breaks from their street-cleaning job.


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Being such an old town who has its deepest socialconnections the aware public of Amstel has raisedfunds for public who can not afford food!

There is a restaurant run by group of youngentrepreneurs who with the help of their socialcontacts get waste food from all around the city..This food is not waste or dumped exactly but this isthe food which is no longer required by the foodoutlets or other restaurants. They cook this food on

their own and serve the people at their outlets forfree at one day of the week. Rest days therestaurants place is open for social ceremonies andthus funds collected by doing so are used forcooking etc.Also there is a separate day kept in a month when

all of them host a food party in which almost wholeof Amsterdam is participating and dose funds raisedare used to feed people who cant afford food everyday..This way they not only prevent food wastage butalso serve the needy..


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I AM STERDAM PRESENT SCENARIO


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HERE PINK PATCHREFERS TO THE AREA OF

RIVER AMSTEL WHICHHAS BEEN PAVED NOWALONG THE CANALSINGEL

THE RED CIRCLE MARKSTHE DAM PALACE ANDDAM SQUARE,RESIDENCE OF KINGAND QUEEN

The pre-1600 inner city today.


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The first extension of the canal


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The first extension of the canalring (from Brouwersgracht inthe west to Leidsegracht) was ahuge relief to the city, releasingthe pressure on its land. It was

filled up quickly with some ofthe richest Europeans migratingto one of the classy canals. Thesecond extension (completingthe concentric half to the east)was finished by the time the

citys immense prosperity hadalready started to decrease. Ittook almost two centuries (untilaround 1900) before all plotslaid out were built on. DeJordaan was also part of thefirst canal ring extension. It wasa planned segregation, with thethree canals built for the rich(especially Heren- andKeizersgracht), and the Jordaanarea built for the poorerworkers and industries De Jordaan today (it is located on the very right of the 1658 map above


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The canal ring today (take a look at how green it actually is).

THE SINGEL CANALKEIZERSGRACHT CANALHERENGRACHT CANALPRINSENGRACHTAMSTEL

The citys economy only


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really started growingagain in the second halfof the 19th century.That is when plans forexpansion were madeagain. The firstresidential bit outsideof the canal 17thcentury extension wasbuilt in 1870 (as part of

an 1866 plan thannever was executedexcept for this part,because it turned out tobe too expensive). Thiswas the northern part

of the current De Pijparea. The city expandedconcentrically in theseyears after, according tothe 1876

PLAN-KALFF


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First 19th century expansion of De Pijp Staatsliedenbuurt, part of the 1876 Plan-Kalff


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The next largeexpansions wereundertaken

between 1920 and1940, consisting of

Plan Zuid(South), designedby Berlage, and

Plan West .Thesedevelopmentsincluded a lot ofAmsterdam Schoolarchitecture.

Plan Zuid. Plan Zuid Today.


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Plan West with therespective architectsof the buildingblocks.

Plan West today.


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The functionalist Slotermeer , a result of the General Extension Plan.


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IJburg (a few years ago)


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Lately, Amsterdamturned to the water,with THE KNSM-ISLAND (1990S), JAVA-ISLAND AND IJBURG(BOTH 2000S) beingthe largest expansions.Currently, the secondpart of IJburg is beingbuilt. In the nearfuture, Amsterdamwants to house theincreasing populationmostly by densifyingthe existing city

Java- and KNSM-Islands


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Photo Album

Viewing city INSIDE


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A m s t e r d a m

, 2 0 4 0


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amsterdam-town planning report_bhanu khanna

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