CITIES | T-FACTOR

/cities

place, people and time

In T-Factor, we gather a rich picture of culture and heritage-led regeneration initiatives - all diverse in scale, scope, positioning, interpretation of culture and creativity, impacts, actors and stakeholders, approaches to meanwhile spaces, and more. Their diversity is T-Factor’s core strength.

amsterdam

science park

Crédit: Waag (CC-BY-NC-SA)

barcelona

[email protected]

bilbao

zorrotzaurre

dortmund

dortmunder u

Crédit: Adolf Winkelmann

florence

manifattura tabacchi

Credit: Giovanni Savi

kaunas

aleksotas

Crédit: Kaunas City Council

lisbon metro area

almada

lodz

ec1

london

euston

london

knowledge quarter king's cross

marseille

la friche belle de mai

milan

mind

NEW YORK

INdustry city

Crédit: Pat at Juno (CC-BY)

SHANGHAI

Red town

T-Factor has received funding under
Horizon 2020 research & innovation programme
with grant agreement n° 868887.

amsterdam

The Amsterdam Science Park (ASP) is part of the Watergraafsmeer polder reclaimed from the sea in 1629. While the wider area was inhabited by wealthy summer residencies in the 17th and 18th century, the site at the seafront was used for agriculture. Since 1921, the Watergraafsmeer is part of the eastern district of the city of Amsterdam. Although historical local communities live well- connected with the place, newcomers live and work alienated from their natural and social surroundings. The main development of the area was done by the University of Amsterdam, the Dutch National Research Organisation (NWO) and the municipality of Amsterdam, setting up the science campus.
Around these core facilities, science and tech-related businesses and start-ups set their premises. Several apartments were built for student housing. Science Park is not in the regular traffic zone for city inhabitants and is bordered by train-tracks on the southwest-side and is further encapsulated by water on the southeast- and north-side. It is an area that you need to visit on purpose. The ASP masterplan was formulated in 2003 and was updated into a ‘Development vision’ (‘Ontwikkelvisie’) in 2018. Throughout the urban transformation of the ASP the area has always maintained to conserve the historical polder characteristics. The current phase of development is planned for the coming decade, starting from the centre moving outwards.
The Amsterdam pilot is focused on Amsterdam Science Park (ASP) and has a thematic focus on urban ecology. Over the past 20 years, ASP has grown into one of Europe’s largest clusters of fundamental science, science-based education and valorisation. Its surrounding area has evolved from an erstwhile agricultural function at the outskirts of the city to an urban centre, increasingly drawing ASP into the urban core of the Dutch capital. In the ASP urban ecology pilot Waag will research the concept of a city putting living systems at the core of urban planning and design. The hypothesis is that this would lead to a world without cities as they are traditionally understood. The thematic focus of the pilot actively engages with the new goals articulated in the ‘Development vision’ by enhancing ‘the ecosystem for innovation’ with ‘human interaction’ and ‘integration into the urban fabric’, as well as contributing to the ‘interaction environment’ as part of ‘diversifying functions’ (‘verkleuren’) in the area. The pilot focuses on the wellbeing of inhabitants in the area, as well as providing the facilities for the development of societal and ecological innovations.
The municipality of Amsterdam has provided permits to build temporary buildings as part of the area development, that can potentially be transformed into permanent functions. An example is the Startup Village where start-ups as well as refugees have temporarily moved into containerbuildings. Here Waag already collaborates with the ASP via the ‘planet B’ program, that responds to the growing need for an interdisciplinary and inclusive approach to our future. The outpost offers scientists, artists and citizens an open and collaborative space to explore new ways of life.

Milan

MIND-Milan Innovation District is the 1 million sqm area where the EXPO15 was organised, located at the north-west periphery of Milan.
MIND has been conceived as a flagship project for the nation to compete on the global innovation space. It is a 99 year-long Public-Private Partnership between the public sector, Arexpo – publicly owned company whose shareholders are the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Lombardy Region, Municipality of Milan, Milan Fair Foundation, Città Metropolitana of Milan, and the Municipality of Rho – and, the private sector, Lendlease – Australian developer specialised in urban regeneration and infrastructure projects operating in North America, Europe, South East Asia and Australia.

MIND is located at the convergence of two typologies of suburban spaces: small size urban sprawls such as the municipalities of Baranzate, Bollate, Arese, Rho, Roserio, Pero and Mazzo; and a formerly industrialised area, which has undergone a process of de-industrialisation and is now looking for a new identity.

MIND aspires to become a lively city district fostering collaborative innovation and the experimentation of ahead-of-the-times lifestyles, to create social, cultural and economic growth and to serve people's well-being, locally and globally.
The regeneration project foresees the development of 480,000 sqm of public uses and 480,000 sqm of private uses. Public uses will include students' accommodation, social housing and leisure, sports and cultural activities, while 205,000 sqm will host the 3 Public Anchors headquarters. The IRCSS Galeazzi research hospital will be completed by 2021 and will host around 9,000 staff, mainly dedicated to orthopaedics and cardiology. The Human Technopole, created as a legacy of Expo2015, is a national research centre on the future of health using genomics, big data analysis, new diagnostics and innovative therapies, connecting universities, international research institutes and hospitals. It will be completed in 2024 and will host 1,000 researchers and 500 administrative and technical staff. Finally, the University of Milan Statale's scientific campus will be completed in 2026 and will host around 18,000 students and 2,000 staff.
The Masterplan includes commercial services and offices, residential, retail, light industry and hospitality, labs, culture, and sport-related uses concerning private use.

The rationale behind the industrial/innovation agenda exploits MIND's current anchors' capabilities in terms of R&D, to generate economic and social value at scale by creating a sustainable ecosystem of research institutions, start-ups, corporate and financial sector. Besides the Life Science specialisation, the innovation strategy has a second main focus: the city of the future standing for smart city solutions
MIND partners are developing the new district with a view of turning it into a testbed where to test and scale disruptive innovations, new technologies, products, services, processes and projects aimed at improving human wellbeing and sustainable practices. As part of this effort, the Masterplan includes MINDLab a 110.550 sqm living-lab and creative open space facilitating and showcasing the interaction of the different types of users within MIND's ecosystem.

/cities

place, people and time

In T-Factor, we gather a rich picture of culture and heritage-led regeneration initiatives - all diverse in scale, scope, positioning, interpretation of culture and creativity, impacts, actors and stakeholders, approaches to meanwhile spaces, and more. Their diversity is T-Factor’s core strength.

T-Factor has received funding underHorizon 2020 research & innovation programme with grant agreement n° 868887.

amsterdam

barcelona

bilbao

Dortmund

florence

Kaunas

Lisbon

Lodz

Euston

King's cross

Marseille

Milan

New York

Shanghai

Subscribe to our newsletter

/JOIN THE CONVERSATION

T-Factor has received funding under
Horizon 2020 research & innovation programme
with grant agreement n° 868887.