Werken in het buitenland

En dan wordt het een heel leuk echter op een geval. En dan wordt het heel leuk. Hoe wel we in Nederland zo trots zijn op onze taditie van ruimteleke ouderning zijn er andere plekken in Europa en daar buiten, waar de combinatie van wonen en werken een paar slappen verder is. Zo laat bijvoorbeeld België een aantal innovatieve mogelijkheden zien voor het stapelen van verschillende werkfuncties of het creëren van gemengden wijken. Ook deze plekken hebben te maken met hun eigen uitdagingen en daar kunnen wij ook wat van leren. In deze daadste aflevering van deze podcast serie spreekt in Nina Rababor, Bart Verbackel en Adrian Hill over succesvolle combinaties van wonen en werken in internationale context. Welke mogelijkheden zien we in deze buitenlandse voorbilden? Mijn naam is Annie Vorinsum en dit is de werken de woontijk. We wil switch to English now. We wil discuss different examples all over the world. Next to me is Eric Freiters, Director of Fabrications, hoe I will ask later to reflect on the input of the guests today. Welkom bij vandaag guest Nina Rababor, Bart Verbackel en Adrian Hill. Our guest of today embodiediverse approaches to mixed use coming from research, design and strategic perspectives. Nina, you are an architectural critic and urbanist, publication director at Yale School of Architecture and founder of the think thank vertical urban factory based in the US. We do not see a lot in the Netherlands as a combination of housing and manufacturing in the same building. You have specialized in the vertical urban factory in which housing can have a place. What makes living successful in a vertical urban factory? The idea of mixing uses as housing and manufacturing is something that really hasn't been tried very much in the US or North America. We're starting to see it. But when it does happen and it's actually been a bit controversial just lately in discussions about Long Island City, one of the most important things is that industry has to be mandated. Some kind of light manufacturing can be in the buildings now with residential. When there is a clean and green use when it's more fabrication, not heavy polluting, so those kinds of uses can be included with residential. But the big issue in a city like New York is that residential always wins out. So those of us who have started to advocate for mixing uses now have to make sure that city agencies really pay attention to providing affordable manufacturing space and affordable housing in this mix. There's one incredible project right now that's almost finished completion in Brownsville, New York. That's a combination of the Greenpoint Manufacturing Design Center, which is a mixed use manufacturing space and a nonprofit group called the bridge that provides affordable housing for people with needs. And they can do this because of the amazing package of financial support grants and tax incentives that they could get. This has not yet opened. So we're waiting anxiously to see how it will evolve. But also in Vancouver, there is a project now three years old where they mix light manufacturing on the ground floor and residential above. I also see this possibility in places like Midtown Manhattan where we're trying to figure out what to do with the empty office spaces. Wouldn't it be incredible if we could have light manufacturing in some of these spaces with residential and office space included? So it's a real challenge as many of the participants here today also realize. But I think it is worth pursuing, especially in these cities that are densifying and where in America we need thousands and thousands more units of housing in all of our cities. He also mentioned that it has been a controversial topic as well. Yeah, just recently in Long Island City there's a new zoning plan. And one idea is to potentially densify the area by having mixed use in the industrial area. And we're very concerned that if they do this again that residential will win out because it's much more lucrative. The developers get a lot more money for it. So in that case that's where I think manufacturing needs to be mandatory. We have something in New York called mandatory inclusionary housing which is requiring affordable housing units in any new construction. And the same could almost be achieved with requiring industrial space in new buildings that are mixed use. But many local residents and people are concerned again that industry isn't what we call in America the highest and best use of the land. And that's where residential wins out. So we need incentives for manufacturers and developers to keep these industrial zones in cities. I think it's different in cities like Detroit or Cleveland or Cincinnati where they're still growing and real estate is not quite as expensive. But major cities like London, New York, San Francisco have this real estate issue that's very tough without policies in place. So when you look at the history of mixing manufacturing with living, can you give one historical example of where this idea was already applied? Well, we see it since the beginning of making things, right? Cottage industries in the 18th century in England and Holland too. The shop house in cities like Bangkok where the shop were manufacturing space or even little tinkers were downstairs and upstairs they're living. And this continues today. And so we see this where like small workshops are on the ground floors and upstairs people live. And this doesn't mean that the people who are living there are also working in the same space. It could be that other people are living there and they just happen to have their workspace downstairs. But these older traditional workplaces and cities are those that where we see this and where it's been successful. Thank you very much. Vart, you are an architects and urban planner at plus office and a PhD candidate at Kaulauwe, Basin Belgym. Why is it difficult to realize a concept like a vertical urban form? Since the modernist times we have this idea that we should pull out certain functions. And because of certain nuisance there was a good idea. And we see that there is also the essence of the city is really about the mix city, the exchange to being exposed to certain things. This is really the definition of what makes a city as opposed to what makes the country side. And so this mixing we've unlearned it. So we haven't been very good in doing that. And so of course there's no sense as to control. We need to be cleaners, more silent, more mixable with other functions. And when that's the case, it really makes sense to investigate this. And we as a practice have been both in the teaching that I do at Columbia University, but now at the University of Lurva, as well as a practice place of this. We will be looking at what this mixing look like. So what is the physical form of that? How can architecture play a role in this? What does it look like or what can it look like? Good question. We have quite a few ideas about this. And so I think one of the highlights of this was 2016 when we had a big exposition in both Biennale Rotterdam and in both our Brussels and it was titled Good City as Industry. And there we proposed several models. One was the Tinker Tower, which is a stacked manufacturing tower that sits at the K of industrial concession area of the Brussels port, where there's lots of big waste treatment companies in steel and concrete production and reuse of all different kind of building materials. But they were diversifying into smaller activities such as e-waste recycling and we set rather than slicing up big concession areas along the case. Let's stack these smaller units into things that are stackable and develop another kind of high-rise, it's mid-rise to be almost icon of the productive city. voor de exemplen was. the docking station, which is something we refer to. So it starts with the smallest unit of a business is probably the van, the communettes, we say in Brussels Dutch. And this is a very nice way of looking at the company because they deliver services, essentially economy. They often have a small box, garage box where they put their stuff and they park in front. This is probably an event figure that we can develop better. So what would a more resilient or a better or a more sustainable communettes with garage box system look like? And can this be a building program? And so we developed this docking station where certain facilities are offered such as the food waste or other waste treatment facilities cooling, like certain logistic functions you may be sharing or as others are very individuals. Another one is what we call the productive neighborhood house. So we have a tradition in Brussels to invest in neighborhoods in terms of their redevelopment with providing amenities such as neighborhood infrastructure for coming together. However, that was never related to giving people employment. So maybe we need to add spaces of work to this idea if you can control a neighborhood with these kind of interventions. And we had quite a few other, the working palace and many of them were still there. And now we see that some of them are being tested in real life, not all of them. So for example, we're renovating a former industrial building into a stacked SME light manufacturing unit tower of four stories with a great elevator and some loading case. That is really a huge step in the real estate logic of industrial real estate. And so there, we're doing a first test. And economically nobody wants to build it from scratch because the land value in Belgium is not pushing us towards that approach. And this is a difference from bigger cities such as New York or London, I would say. So different neighborhoods or different cities in Belgium are successful examples. And what makes it successful for these kinds of concepts? I think the productive city concept in Belgium is starting to find grounds and has been for quite a while, I would say. Let's say for more or less 10 years, is started with explorations and more academic discourse and maybe some design research. But the interesting thing is that in Brussels, very quickly, there was a policy decision. I think it was 2014 where certain zones of the city with development potential were labeled as zones of enterprise in mixed urban contexts. And so this kind of high with condition was already giving the requirement to have 90% of industrial space on the ground floor of every development. There are quite some exception rules which I'll not get into because you could kind of escape the productive nature by changing into office or maybe just commerce. But nevertheless, the intention was there. And this has produced quite a few examples where housing development is the driving motor of building new economical program as well. And so some of them are reaching completion and there's one in Brussels Nova City that's in use. It's from the Brussels Development Organization. There's other ones around the beast of broke such as our making living project, those of our colleagues that are being built right now. And so there we see very much the idea of living on top of these industrial plints. Andrew took a different direction. In Andrew, they made a decision to mix but not at a side scale and not at a vertical scale, but at the neighborhood scale. So they designated certain areas for certain functions. So they keep a bit of a horizontal planning approach. But they do look at how to mix them closely. And so for certain functions, they approach in the horizontal direction. Brussels of course really went for living on top of the industrial plints. And so you get your track different kind of enterprises. So I think that's a very big difference. - And what are the important things that we need to take into account to really make these mixed zones enjoyable areas to live in? - Well, I would say first, it should be enjoyable areas to work at. Because I think this is a perspective that very often we forget. And somehow our field has evolved into very separate sectors. There are developers, architects and policymakers that know what is a good live city. There's other people that know what could be probably a good economical area. But people that know to do both is very, very tough. And so developers also see economical real estate as a risk if that's not their field of expertise. And so there we see a first problem. The second thing is that we tend to design spaces for productive work in terms of the process and the logistics of machinery, but not in terms of how humans inhabit these places. I think this is really so basic and so simple, but really fundamental to accept that. I think it's not good enough to put a shed next to a metal box and say this is a lunch space. Somewhere in between, like in this side strip of, but might be a grass in the best of cases and probably is asphalt. I think this is not an attractive workspace. And you do need to understand that in a scarcity of means, but also in a scarcity of people wanting to do these jobs, we do need to do better. And I think so the second thing is that's designed these spaces for humans. And that changes the point of view. Thirdly, I think it's also about this metabolism. So putting these things together, whether that's different types of businesses and that we kind of understand. And we have examples of incubators or development or we are in these spaces where the idea of having multiple players in a similar field is what we are after. But to see that that's also possible in terms of the metabolism of living districts where people have certain needs that businesses could provide. So just talk about parking. Parking needs during the day are different for a company than they offer housing compounds. So this is a very easy, double use. But it also can be said about energy, about heat, about knowledge as well as so be developed one idea about this cooperative, which includes private residences and businesses. Because it's one of the hardest things to do is to make a decision with multiple owners in a building. If you live in a housing compound like I do, it's really a challenge at the social level how to make a decision together. Companies have the knowledge and the ability to make these kind of processes go easier. And so rather than looking at building up or even to managers, we could actually look at companies to help us there. And then suddenly things can be shared and things can happen. And so they know how to make applications and know how governments work. So there's a whole set of knowledge that could benefit also just the residential level. And I think we see that happening, for example, in the energy cooperatives where people can become a cooperator in the production of wind or solar energy. And somehow we understand that we can also be part of companies. And then I think these hybrids are a very good place to start with. What if we can say we have in our city 20,000 square meter that we as a neighborhood control for which we have small businesses that service our community? That concept, not so hard to imagine, we're just not doing it often. I think this is another thing to overcome. And then of course, we have some tests that we're doing where you cover the productive or the logistical yard with a roof in order to control so of the new senses. When people live above, this is very physical, simple, but important thing to look at is the separation of flows of people and flows of trucks. There's all these typical things to look at. And this is just a matter of having the right references in your mind as a designer, I would say. Adrian, you are the director and project manager at Osmos Network, Basin Belgium. Your view on mixed areas is rather pragmatic. So you also look at if these concepts are financially and legally feasible, for example. So are they and how do we overcome challenges in this respect? I was involved in a research project which ended a few years ago, looking at economic sprawl across Europe and the economic sprawl being related to the productive sector. Now production is a bit different, rather, it's a bit like a cactus and a succulent. The all a cactus succulents, but not all succulents a cactus. Now manufacturing sits within production and production includes many other things like construction, maintenance of energy services, there's logistics which could fit into the food related to production and then all the manufacturing story as well. So there's a number of different types of sectors which fit into the production kind of story. And it's interesting. So we did a study on Brussels a few years ago, a project called Cities and Making. Brussels was up until the nine other terms. of the 20th century was the third largest industrial city in Europe, surprisingly, and now it has less than 3% of the workforce, in fact approaching 2%, which is related somehow to production, and that's by pure historical fortune that we have two large factories which remain in the city, a car factory and a plane factory, and for the rest it's very small scale. So from an economic perspective, productive sector might seem like it's not very active, but actually if you look at the numbers, the remains are considerable layer of production which remains in cities which is stuck to cities because cities have to be able to have to be maintained, they have to be fed, and so even cities like Brussels we found have a layer of production and an example of Vienna which is a very similar story to Brussels has 10% of its workforce is related to production. So from an economic perspective, it's a story and it's a story that is often overlooked and cannot be overlooked because it's absolutely an essential part of how cities all cities work. So that's one story on the economics. If we look then at how manufacturing works in Europe, our study found that 50% of all manufacturing was somehow glued attached to metropolitan areas. So metropolitan areas of course much bigger than cities, but the manufacturing even though I'd move out of the city center where it was before, where like Nina mentioned that before we might have lived on top or under or beside a factory we don't necessarily do that anymore, but these kind of activities shifted a bit further out. So we don't necessarily see them because they're not in front of us, but they they still within what they call the functional urban area of city or metropolitan area. So 50% roughly of production happens within metropolitan areas in Europe. So you'd say well maybe there's 50% of other kinds of activities which happen not metropolitan areas, yeah they still are connected to to urban areas but there's smaller urban areas which are not less significant. So from an economic perspective production remains really critical. However from a financial perspective as Ward was saying it's a totally different story and that's where it becomes really interesting because in cities what we notice is that production has somehow clung to real estate that has in one way or another been protected. So you could say well you have in cities we have parks which we understand and everyone appreciates, we have social housing which most people appreciate. We have schools, we have hospitals and all sorts of other kinds of activities in cities where the real estate, one or another is being controlled by the needs of an urban area. And we also have industrial areas and in many cases the industrial real estate is cost significantly less than residential or office. So in a way because of zoning we have price differentials which allow for certain activities to occur and that also means that you have very different kinds of typologies, urban typologies. The difference of course is when these start to be overlapped as Ward was explaining where you might have one kind of activity on top of another where the value of that real estate starts to change, starts to really be impacted where that productive real estate is starting to be impacted by the value of the housing real estate on top of it which makes it very hard for what a company which may have traditionally operated in those kind of locations to be out and then pay what the developer is prepared to charge for that real estate. So this is a long introduction to the difference between economics and finance but just to say that there are conditions which have been created not natural conditions in cities and I would say that we have to accept that and probably also embrace that because cities also one way or another completely depend on this productive story. Yeah and if we wouldn't overlook the economic story you were talking about what would happen. You can look at any large city Nina I think can give first hand anic dirt or experience of what happens when you change your zoning. In fact real estate right now industrial real estate is has become a very interesting sector for investors and why because even though it doesn't return as much as housing and offices the two sectors which are really interesting in the way there's a bit of movement housing it's hard to get into it's quite it's complex offices there's a much less demand as we might have remembered something happened four years ago and that has changed the way that the value of office typologists as Nina mentioned a second ago about New York. So there's a lot of investment from from private investment going into buying up industrial real estate because that's a safe long term bet because a lot of developers also see that as an opportunity in long term to maybe gentrify those areas and there's also there's a small there's a smaller return in investment but it's a very safe sector so that's extremely valuable right so yeah it's it's a it's definitely an interesting quandary I'd say that a lot of cities fit into and what can be strategies to keep manufacturing in the city yeah that's where the story becomes really interesting because we have a range of different types of strategies from very spatial strategies as as Ward was mentioning that you could have the intensification in different kinds of ways you can have in industrial intensification such as stacking you can have industrial co-location where you have the the industrial activity and the housing on top you can have ownership of the land so then you can have long term lease to a company so in Brussels we have 30 year leases to companies that can can purchase this 30 year lease and then they can do whatever they like on that site but it's put on by the public sector in the longer term it's a very interesting model yeah and there's a vast range of other models such as cooperatives as Ward mentioned so there that's where it's very interesting to see how not only the the business model but also the governance model of how these these kind of spaces can be can be managed I wanted to ask Nina first if you want to add on to Adrian's story yes I actually it's I'm working right now with the city of Trenton New Jersey which is what's one of the foremost industrial cities in America they produce not only robling steel for the Brooklyn Bridge but also all the pottery for America taking off from England and it's a wasteland most of it right now and what we're trying to do is create incentives for companies to move in either financial so I would say the other thing to add to Adrian's would be tax breaks and direct grants to companies you know why is it that developers always get grants for housing why can industries also get grants and of course now in America we're seeing that because we're competing with China for you know Silicon chips and so the US government is giving tons of money and we have all these chips factories being developed but they're being developed out in this in suburbia you know they're not being developed even in the metropolitan ring and so for me I would love to see you know incentives created to develop some of these in the metropolitan ring in in the in the hinterland so I do think that I think what happens and I don't know if Adrian and War degree is that you know we let the housing market kind of takes care of itself because there's such a demand and we see that just kind of fluidly but the the kind of small medium size enterprises they need help and they need they need ways to to have incentives to stay and and and and they're so important because they provide jobs so for me now like VAR talking about you know it's it's the humans who inhabit and work in the factories I'm I've been doing a film series called a workers lunch box and interviewing factory workers and and these are the most important people and they need jobs and if they don't have enough money to pay rent then you pays for the housing. So it becomes this kind of vicious economic circle that we need the companies, we need the low cost affordable housing and we need the affordable spaces for light manufacturing at least in the middle of our cities. Erik do you want to respond? It's not the lack of imagination that we are not working, learning and living on the same spot in cities. I think there are many examples of designers and proposals that already have been put on the table and they look inspiring. I think the next generation of problems behind this is holding us back a little bit. But it helps when we can show people that there are already urban technologies that give us an insight in how this future would possibly look. I think two of them are in Brussels. For me, those are starting examples of introducing larger urban manufacturing places mixed with people living on top. One of it is Nova City designed by Bogdan van de Broeken and the other one is city campus in Underlacht. In which quite some substantial amount of houses, like about 400 studios, 70 houses, a lot of parking places and also a fixed amount of production space is mixed in the middle of a living neighborhood. I think that is the first step in urban design and architectural design and really integrating these functions in cities. Maybe it's interesting to evaluate them. They're quite new. The repress is recently taken off. But still, maybe it's enough to have a look at those and maybe our flame-ish guests have an opinion about these projects. They maybe can describe these projects a little bit better. We were working with Tio Vienna to look at the outskirts of Vienna and how their productive city program is being given form and taking shape. We stumbled upon this area which is ironically enough called the industry street, where you find in a bit of a wetland zone, a few big industrial companies, bread and manufacturing of boxes and that kind of stuff. But also the Gartenverein, this idea of the cooperative small individual plots for summer houses. However, I think 20 or 15 years ago, they've gotten the right to fully live there. So now we see this suburbanization happening of these small houses next to these huge factories and so tensions are rising, real estate tensions are rising. But also the idea of the cooperative structure of what it came from is changing. However, this was really a productive territory where people were having summer houses and their own food production and small-scale economics that were going to other markets at the higher level as well. So I think that's a beautiful example of how it's individually living and specific productions do interweave and we might learn from this fabric as well. To me, it was a very new model that I want to explore and see what it means in terms of how we can apply it in our practice. For the projects of Brussels and I think the examples you're giving, I record the right ones. So one is the Nova City model where the Brussels Development Corporation City Dev had decided to build SME units of 152 500 square meters plus housing. If you go see how it's done, I think, as the urban scheme is quite impressive. At subsidy scheme, it's also quite impressive because it's highly subsidized in a way and wondering what kind of businesses or coming there and will remain there. So that's a very intriguing thing to see. And the other thing is that if you look at how the housing is giving the actual spaces, it is also quite a rough environment. So I think we still need to think about what does it mean to deliver and how can you integrate that? If you go to the Bistubru area where there's quite a few projects and many of them have, so there's the whole Citidocs project which is the one you were referring to where one is, Xavi and the Hietters office is building, but there's other architects as well and we have also one project there. There is tens and tens and tens of thousands of housing square meters being built on top of let's say 50,000 square meter of industrial program. I think this is really exceptional. It's full on in construction so we don't know how it will become, we don't know how it will work, but I'm very excited about what I see happening there in Brussels. Yeah, an interesting example, what was saying about some of the real estate being offering a lot of opportunity. The Citidocs is an interesting one where we're starting to see some of the potential grey zone between, is this going to work out or not with the stacking of different kinds of activities together. I saw a very interesting ad online for some real estate in one of these industrial zones under apartments which was advertised for a photographer, not for a cabinet maker or something. In practice, the space has got beautiful high ceilings and some of the built projects, but it's the question of how the facilitation of the right businesses in the right place has happened where there is a chance that things could maybe not turn out as they are planned. There's a couple of very interesting examples of perhaps more improvised planning such as what you might know. I have something to say about the Greenbiz B here, through the Lentroport which runs perpendicular to the port and that's where there's perhaps less housing on a vertical level, but it's more on a horizontal level, but the network model, what I mentioned, and that's quite interesting because it's a range of different kinds of production or production sympathetic kinds of activities. You have Greenbiz where, as Ward was saying, you have these laneways perpendicular to the street where little vans can come in and there are spaces around 100 to 100 square meters where businesses, such as breweries, such as a cabinet maker, some repair businesses, can comfortably install and then they can use these shared laneways spaces as a kind of a spill out for their production. Then next to that, we have a space called Behear which is an old warehouse where there's a brewery, there's a couple of food related shops and then there's a big open space where people can come along, you can see a covered area which in Brussels it rains a lot, it's much much appreciated for the local community. So a lot of people are attracted by the area because they have these big spaces but also because it's very interesting. Next to that, you also have a big logistic space at the Sant Retieu and at the very end of the street there's a new building which is called Magazard Gathe. It's a recording studio and you would think, well, recording studio does that go with production logistics, it actually does because yeah, it's noise but it's also activity at a different hour of the day, this is what what what we're saying, which is very complimentary with the other kinds of more production or into activities. So even though this space wasn't perhaps really planned as such, it actually really works quite nicely and and so what you find is that the big big trucks and logistics happen just on this street and the parallel streets which are very residential, you don't get that kind of conflict. So it's a very interesting, I would say improvised example of how the this this kind of tensions between different activities kind of have come together nicely. Nina, I see that you raise your hand. Yeah, I just really wanted, I love all these examples and Brussels and the city is a great model, you know, all the work that like Christian Borat and and Vard and everyone else is is doing, but my exhibition, Vertical Urban Factory, was in Brussels and that's where I learned so much that was in 2022, but last year my exhibition was in Rotterdam at the Kyle pad with the Kylie Collective and that to me is an incredible example of this mix, it's not residential, but they are an incredible organic kind of improv collective in a former factory warehouse where we have the the nonprofit organizations, there's a furniture fabricator, there's a community kitchen, there's an exhibition space and they are and architects offices and so this mix while it's no housing, it is this really interesting ecosystem of of people working in different ways that create this collective. There's a community garden and unfortunately, they were next to the building that exploded in fire. Where again, all these local curbenders, craftspeople were working in these collectives. And what's interesting there is that the area now, coined M4H, where the city wants to turn it into residential because it's on the waterfront, they're fighting very hard to keep this mix. And I think that we, that those kinds of projects don't promote themselves. We don't really hear about them because they're working so hard just to make it happen. And I think we do need to pay attention to these improv organic mixes that happen because of the people who are there coming together. Trust, I think it's so important because we need to find ways that we can trust that things can also be tested. And one of the ways to do that, I think, is also to think about mixing, but maybe mixing in terms of not housing with industry but other programs with industry. And so we are testing one in Hilim, where we do a mixed business park in an existing site where we add different recreational uses that extend the lifespan also, or the day the user between, so there's a company who does food distribution to homes with these food packages, so they start at five in the morning, but we also have the recreational sports clubs and other event spaces that bring it to the late hours that night. And so we're starting to use the same spaces with much more than we normally would in terms of the normal business hours. And I think this is a lot of mixing, also mixing between office warehouses, production spaces, recreational spaces, that I think is a very nice place to start building trust where we can convince investors and operators that this is doable, and actually it's also good to do it because we're building on this identity that Eric is mentioning. And I think there, lots of mindsets needs to develop. Another example is the Autorburg Project in Hens, where in between a very non-interesting, very standard warehouse district for more logistical and slightly larger companies. One hall, which is a personal friend of mine who's entrepreneur in renewable energy, decided to put his business there, but expand also into research and aquaponics. And then invited a whole bunch of small other companies to set up shop in his mixed warehouse. So part of it is still experimental lab, but other parts are more looking like co-working, as we know it. And also they build a side yard, which is then all focused on having places for people to meet and hang out, have to work. I think this is such a great model that talks also about mixing without already bringing in the danger of NIMB behavior of people that are going to live there and only can gain advocacy against the production. I think this is, so there are other models than the full mixing of the full city as well. Adrian. I have perhaps controversial observation, you might say, is that the mix of production and the housing is happening often where a real estate owner has a kind of a guaranteed supply of occupants. And the two sectors where that does happen is social housing and students, and that's where you see them. That's, I wouldn't say it's necessarily an encouraging model, but it's just, it is a model which you do see repeated. And there of course needed in many cases in Brussels there's a demand for social housing and student housing and also spaces for production or rather there was a space for production and so they seem like an obvious mix. But yeah, we can have a longer debate whether that is fair and that's reasonable, but that is a model which you do see repeated in many cases. - What do you wanna bring in? - I was wondering how do people look at this? What is the, why should we want this? I believe in it, but maybe there should be, there's more evidence of available that is actually showing that this is a good idea. At this moment we work in the south of the Netherlands in Eindhoven or better Felthoven. On an enormous project, more than 300,000 square meters of which 100,000 square meters, a little bit more even, is working with a new neighborhood on top of this. There we work together with municipalities, with developers, with housing corporations, with a school to do the research, to bring in the right knowledge. So that's why that's the other reason that I really believe this is possible and that's a great idea. And I see these projects that I just mentioned and that we're added on as just as parts of the puzzle. There we find, look in Eindhoven city, it is possible to work on top of this huge manufacturing space. Well, in those cases, they are quite small, but of course you can imagine that these could be much larger. Look, you can make livable streets, and it shows the campus model in On the Left. There are attractive, there are meant for humans, there are car-free, and in which the logistic operation is settled inside. So I look at all these projects as building blocks for this larger idea in which the scale of this kind of production could be really increased and incorporated in the middle of neighborhoods without hurting anybody. But what I think is the biggest question is to, can we have a debate or are there already debates starting? Is this living in the minds of people? Is there a call for the return of work to cities instead of that we jump in trains and cars to get to work every day? So is there an uprising already uphand somewhere where people demand not only work, but accessible work, work in their neighborhoods? Because that would really create an urgency that is now, I think, needed to make sure that the financial risks are smaller than the urge of needing this. - Who wants to respond? - Yeah, I could just say that for me, one of the reasons that my team also is so focused on the vertical and urban factories, that idea of being able to work near where one lives because it reduces your carbon footprint. You don't have to commute, you save so much time. And I think even post-COVID, when we see the younger generation, they don't want to commute. The young people living in Brooklyn would much rather work in Brooklyn or at home. So I think this idea of bringing work closer to home is a good one. I think people like it and also things like daycare and being able to take care of your children nearby so that you can drop off your kid and go to work. I was just talking to a young father and he loves doing that. He doesn't have to go very far. So I think whether it's in the neighborhood or in the same building can be adjusted and debated. But this idea that we can live near where we work and vice versa, I think has become even more important for this hybrid city. I mean, cities are always hybrid, but to make them hybrid inclusive of workplace, I think is the way forward still. - Thank you, Lord. Maybe to hand. Business owners are people too. So it's quite important to understand they also sometimes have the idea that the best place for them to be is in the city because what they do, they are where they like to be, the people they like to hire, they want to cooperate or to contribute to society. And many people are learning that we do not like to be in business parks and we've been building them in the last to let's say 40 years. These are very unattractive inhumane spaces. And in a context where people have learned that many things can be automated, unfortunately, or maybe I'm not sure what to think about that, but also you can do some things at a distance. But for many people that don't have that luxury, that do need to work with their hands on things, they sometimes have to go very long to places where there's very little bus service, for example. So this pushes people into unsustainable mobility behavior and they're very dependent on things. And so suddenly this could be, this spatial choice can be also mechanism of exclusion. And I think we can make the difference by choosing not to do that in that way. And this is why, for example, this welding workshop on the case in Basel, within Zurich, Zurich I think, right? It's such a good example. It was for 10 years, it's been our flagship of what we think that needs to happen, where people can see that this is a skill and an activity and a production, which happens and is there and I can pass by it. And this is what animates urban life. I think it's such a powerful way of influencing people. And I see in my alumni, the students that we teach that some people with university degrees in architecture choose to become people that do things with their hands and they become another kind of entrepreneur. So there's also a very new generation coming at us and I think our spaces are not able to cater to that if we don't change the way we produce these mixed urban contexts. Thank you very much, Adrian, and then some closing words by Iri. One of the biggest challenges for the 20th century, I think, will be about community. We are a group of species. But in practice, we're not super good at cooperation when it comes down to doing things meaningful, kind of observatives. It is-- we see that as increasingly a challenge. And there's a lot of value for production, as what we're saying, it's providing accessibility to range at different skills, which the 20th century may-- the 20th century, which is very service, is focused sitting down, doing a lot with your head and your-- and sitting behind screens. That production is-- provides diversity, provides meaning for cities. And it's also very accessible if we look beyond the value of, say, parks and hospitals and schools. Spaces for production might also become seen when we look into the kind of value that it offers as very accessible community-oriented kinds of activities, especially when you see that services are extremely private, often very hidden behind closed doors, very inaccessible, whereas making can be very accessible. So that's really interesting, I'd say. Something also not to forget for cities is that we also need a diversity of different types of spaces available throughout the city. We see examples across Europe where cities are focused on, whether it's the startup making spaces very accessible for startups, but then not providing the space for them to grow. And so businesses end up failing because they can't end up growing and mature. Others where they have really big spaces, but it's a real struggle to get into the startup phase and then grow. And so there's going to be a challenge to not only offer these very accessible small spaces at accessible prices, but then also to offer a wide range of different spaces so that a city can function more like an ecosystem. And it's going to be a very-- it's going to be a real challenge to make that work financially because we know that there is-- from a financial sense, it's a real challenge to make the figures stack up, especially with high real estate prices. So it's a quandary, but I think if cities are more concerned with value than the money, then these kind of activities will have a much stronger place in the future. The summary for me is that yes, maybe financial challenging, but economically necessary. I think innovation is one of the things that belongs to people. Hopefully AI will not take that over as well. Until it's that far, we have to do that. And I believe that this mixed environment connected to a community scale that makes people happy, that you will change lines as well. I imagine all these people traveling all day, spending time on the wrong things, I would say. It's better to choose where you spend your time. And I think this compact, smaller clusters in cities that are mixed help us living the lives we actually want to live is an important change. But it has requirements and responsibilities for us as the designers of cities. Architecture trains, architects that are mainly focusing on public buildings and housing. We practice very little with working spaces in the many diversities there are. There is also not really an architectural theoretical framework focusing on places of production, places of work. So we need to help this. We need to start learning and growing the community that is studying the needs for this new mix in cities on an urban level and on an architectural level as well, I would say. And maybe even regional strategies should be connected to this because it will also revise our ideas on mobility and logistics, which belong to these production processes and other kinds of work. So maybe that's my take on this as well. On one point, I think people want it. There are small challenges. And I think there is a very new perspective for us here to open a new chapter that is designing this challenging, new mixed world and which we can help put attention to. So to tell the story, to share it, and also like what does to teach new generations that this is a possible future. And they will probably act on that. So that's what I'm hoping at least. I learn a lot today, so that's also nice. Thank you for this great conversation from my part at least. Yeah, I want to thank you very much. To pleasure, thank you for this invitation. Thank you very much. It was very engaging. Thank you. This was on the last of the opening of the podcast series, The Work in the Womewijk. For more information about the Work in the Womewijk and Smart Urban Mix, visit the website of Fabrications. This opening is made by Fabrications and now a cooperation with Bono Sibelink. Thank you for the interview.