Designing sustainable and beautiful urban solutions, all together, is at the core of the Time2Adapt project. That makes it a truly New European Bauhaus project! Its most striking example? Four artistic installations which will be built in three areas of Lille and Loos.
Why the New European Bauhaus?
Time2Adapt uses time-based urbanism as a lever to address the need for cool places when urban temperatures reach uncomfortable and life-threatening highs. It is part of part of the first call of the European Urban Initiative (EUI) programme under the theme of New European Bauhaus. Continue reading →
Your house is sinking into the soil. It seems unstable on the floor. Cracklings appear on the external walls. Your indoor walls are full of mold and fungus. And now, heavy rain makes you walk in water in your garden, all around your house, in your neighbourhood. The trees don’t stay put and fall. Your health is seriously affected.
You’re not in an episode of ‘Extrapolations’. This is the reality of the 17 000 inhabitants of Tuindorp Oostzaan, in Amsterdam.
Once an ideal garden city neighbourhood in the Northen part of Amsterdam and designed according to the concepts of community spirit, greenery, village-like atmosphere, it faces nowadays increasing challenges related to houses and neighbourhood structural issues, worsening with years and climate change.
Most of the underlying issues, such as groundwater management are not to be seen by untrained eyes. Yet, they will be the key focus of the two main renovation activities of the EUI Ground for Well-Being (GfW) project: the redesign and transformation of the Plejadenplein – a main square in the centre of the neighbourhood – and the redesign of the main mobility axis of the area, Meteorenweg.
GfW seeks to tackle both the physical problems caused by the difficult soil and the social challenges in the neighbourhood in an integrated manner. Seven key components form the core of the project, before climate change worsens even more the situation.
Garden cities are generally known to be utopian urban planning projects striving to create better communities and better lives. Based on socialist ideas, they emerged as ecosystems enabling their residents to benefit from improved living conditions while being connected to each other and to nature. Nowadays, in many cities around the world, the garden cites have become on the one hand a refuge for middle class people seeking to reconnect to each other and nature in a charming environment, on the other, areas prawn to many urban planning challenges (from bad insulation, to flooding to safety and security issues) – especially affecting those lower income households still living there.
From a garden cities utopian concept to nowadays’ challenges and striving solutions – this article sketches the way the EUI Ground for Wellbeing project led by the City of Amsterdam, in the district of Tuindorp Oostzaan, is anchored in its social and cultural heritage while seeking to address initial planning issues leading to current increasing soil subsidence and impermeability.
How artists co-design with users of public space the design of artistic installations inviting to freshness
Papers and pens. Pictures and drawings. Meudon white on the windows. Reed pens. Walnut ink. Artists involved in Time2Adapt have used craft and local products to raise the creativity of users of public spaces to co-design the artistic installations that will shed light to some of the cool islands of the cities of Lille and Loos, inviting locals to make the most out of them.
What do you do when you are hot? Where do you go to? What and where would you like to go to? Can you tell us more about the area in which you live? These are some of the questions which have guided 4 artists in co-designing Time2Adapt artistic installations with users of public space through their concertation residences during the month of March 2025.
Greenhouse of Jardin des Plantes by Julien Kieffer (c) Marcelline Bonneau
This summer 2024, Lille Metropole (MEL) launched the first experimentations of its time-based approach to offer more cool places within the EUI project Time2Adapt. Let’s have a look at what happened and the next steps to make Lille Metropole cooler in Summer.
