The City of the Future. A new paradigm, a new vocabulary
Authors:   Urban designer MSc and director of SVP, Vlaswinkel Esther ,   The Netherlands
Published: August 2021

To design the city of the future, we have to stop extrapolating the problems of today. This is why team Stadsvrijheid developed a new conceptual framework, a new paradigm for the future. On the basis of this paradigm, the team argues back to the here and now. This approach requires different ordering principles and new design tools, in short: the development of a completely new vocabulary. Current ordering principles such as density and functions will no longer be applicable in the future, which will centre on length of residence, production potential and the intricacy of the urban fabric. Combinations of these factors determine the DNA of an area. The team’s conceptual framework for the future sketches a new world in which everything is connected to everything; people as well as things. Technology plays an important role in this. In the resulting circular economy, everything is productive. The test site for this new paradigm was Utrecht’s eastern fringe. This promising location allows the interweaving of landscape and city in the context of today’s urbanization pressure. It is precisely in the monofunctional and fragmented urban fringes that a new type of urban character can emerge by connecting new developments in the field of mobility and technology. Anyone who wants the city to be liveable and healthy has to move towards a city in which walking is the norm and therefore away from ‘radial thinking’ of the traditional city. The outskirts of Utrecht will become gateways to the city or even the Randstad, with the Sciencepark as the global attractor and the Lunetten hub as the global connector. The team translated the contours of the conceptual framework into ordering principles and balanced these using a ‘mixing console’. Important principles are: the intricacy of the urban fabric (everything is connected), travel time (everything is proximate), length of residence (everything takes its own time) and varied production (everything is productive). The mixing console allows an alternative method of organizing areas according to functions or density. A specific mix determines the DNA of a region. The team devised new design tools to create the city of the future. The 'armature’, for example, is a tool that can be used to redefine the current road infrastructure. Development along the Z axis, for example, is based on the principles of urban stratigraphy and builds on the strata of the existing city. This allows densification and the current physical barriers such as the motorways will transform into layered landscapes that will act as hubs connecting future centres. In 2040, city dwellers travel by foot and motorized transport between cities will be connected collectively or individually. The resulting city is a continuous city for pedestrians that not only allows more density, but in which there is more room for greenery as well. Functions such as roads and housing are layered, stackable, connectable entities linked to new energy and transport networks. They create a productive and endlessly connected urban landscape. In this layered city everything, including waste, produces something. Everything is designed to last a certain period of time, for example based on length of residence. In this city, the cost of space is the driving force behind change. This comes with new investment models in which the relationship between interest and involvement play a part.