MANOE RUHE

urban designer & researcher

An alternative history of the Dutch city.

Four years long a multidisciplinary team of anthropologists, urban designers and architects of the university of technology Eindhoven researched the position of children and ethnic entrepreneurs in 3 Dutch cities. Transvaal and the Schilderswijk form one of the cases. I contributed to the anthropological research of this location with a spatial analysis. That means mapping the spatial development throughout the history of planning, whereby it became clear how a vacant space in between Transvaal and the Schilderswijk developed itself and flourished into a lively area.

In a sequence of maps the development of the morphology in the research area is presented in the context of the city the Hague. The next sequence of maps reaches the level of the districts. Next to these developments the relation between the rigid regime of planning and the residents, who became constantly more outspoken in the sixties, has been researched as well. Over years the former vacant space in between the neighborhoods has become a functional place. Therefore the municipality tries to get grip on this spot during the urban renewal in the eighties. After designing a couple of plans, whereby the municipality appropriated pieces of the 'vacant' space, they decided to design a complete new master plan in 2010, specifically for the former vacant space.