Dear Proto City reader, if you happen to be around Amsterdam this summer, there is this one place you really need to visit: De Ceuvel.
About a year ago, the Proto City team attended a presentation in which the plan for this creative space was presented. It seemed almost surreal: A heavily polluted piece of land in the north of Amsterdam, which would clean itself over the course of ten years. In the meantime, this land would be used as a creative incubator. Doesn’t that sound like the creative and sustainable dream of every modern city? It is therefore not surprising that the project won an area development challenge and was given the green light by the local authorities. The initiators of the project can use this piece of land for free for a period of ten years, clean the soil, and then leave the lot again.
Learn more about de Ceuvel
Participatory urban decision-making
This plan is quite unique, not only because of its sustainable technology, but also beacause it is a great example of participatory urban planning. Since 2009, the policy paradigm in Amsterdam is said to be more attentive to civil participation, in which the decision-making becomes more susceptible for bottom-up initiatives. Unfortunately, this ideal does not always seems to be respected, as Donya Ahmadi explained recently on the Proto City concerning the eviction of a different creative freespace in Amsterdam, de Valreep. However, the idea and setup of de Ceuvel has been much less anarchistic and more collaborative from the beginning. So will this be an example of participatory urban planning going right?
We clean the city
The recently published book We own the City teaches us, that many conventional actors find themselves ill-equipped to effectively implement collaborative approaches that link ‘bottom-up’ with the ‘top-down’ in development practices. De Ceuvel, however, is until now a succesful collaboration between a plethora of organisations and individual actors. For bottom up initiatives to succeed it is important that all parties involved effectively collaborate with one another.
What is quite obvious here, is that de Ceuvel is favouring the local government of Amsterdam a lot, in a social sense but, probably more important in times of crisis, in a financial way as well. In times of crisis the municipal government can delay the development of this area until the initiators of de Ceuvel have cleaned the ground for them in ten years. Usually, the quality of soil worsens trough usage. But in this case, the initiators will leave the lot in a better ecological, economical and social state. Basically, this is urban improvement for a low budget: ‘A lot of people are involved, without even getting paid for it. They just want to know if they can make this happen.’ Which is a great thing to do and probably a rewarding experience, but we sure hope that the collaboration between the parties will be strong enough to let the effects of these efforts last longer than these ten years.
So far, de Ceuvel looks promising in becoming a succesful collaboration of parties in which bottom-up, collective ownership will be respected, at least for a period of ten years. Let’s hope that tomorrow’s policymakers will respect and sustain the physical and social environment that will be built by the current inhabitants of this wonderful, inspiring, polluted piece of land. Until then, we strongly encourage you to go and take a look.
Read more on the Ceuvel’s website or visit: Korte papaverweg 2, Noord 4, Amsterdam
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