The Generational Thinkers: Dirk van Peijpe

We meet Dirk in a bit of a storm. Just before the next wind picks him up, we can intercept him. It seems characteristic of an architect, running through life to design objects that stand still. Time rarely stands still, and when the wind blows, you have to act quickly: it is something with a stalled permit in Flanders this time, and it is a Friday afternoon – so there is undoubtedly a need for haste. After a solution is set in play, we speak in a transparent meeting room in ‘Keilepand’, Rotterdam, which is home to a stronghold of architectural firms and creatives, including Dirk van Peijpe, founder of ‘De Urbanisten’, The Urbanists.

The constant race against time in which a forward-thinking urban planner like Dirk finds himself almost feels contradictory to the substantive and creative side of the agency, which, in our view, is also about taking time, learning and adapting. The Urbanisten represent an incredibly rich portfolio of urban climate adaptation. For many years now, The Urbanisten have been redesigning the urban area in line with the climate change that awaits us at the front door. Extreme rain that cannot drain, droughts that cause water scarcity, heat stress in urban areas, our fresh and saltwater system, and our coastal protection.

Some of the urban development plans are so futuristic that they need alteration to fit today’s reality – design for the year 2100 requires a support system today. Fortunately, the wide range of the plans of The Urbanists shows that it is actually possible: urban development for the long term, in the here and now.

Closer to home, around the corner from the office, work has been going on for years on the world’s first sponge garden, a garden in which experiments are being done with all kinds of different substrates to make it easier to store and release water, even in times of drought. The sponge effect is central as an underlying vision for the desired operation of the city’s water system; The Urbanists established it a long time ago and still help to maintain the garden themselves to this very day.

Not much further, in the harbour mouth as an extension of the street, a tidal park is currently being built. The park consists of several terraces where birds, fish, and even people can alternately live or stay depending on the tide. Dirk has often said how special it is to not only apply the principles of urban design for people who live above the surface of the river but also to use the power of design for a tangle of life mirrored beneath the water’s surface.

The heart of the office is an urban planner who does not operate without respecting the findings of landscape architects and biologists. The complex research required to find out which plant species in which conditions attract the best possible animal species, such as the fish and the Sturgeon, which in turn creates rich biotopes and harbour dependent species. In this way you continually create crucial small tipping points in the city to be able to live among nature again, as we used to do better.

But Dirk does not think in terms of going back to the past, not in ‘thinking differently’, not flip-thinking’. Dirk thinks-of, he says. Thinking of something instead of a void of something-else. Time and time again, you see it in the work of The Urbanists: a deep-rooted vision, a large-scale plan, expressed in the ultimate here and now. Today’s practicality. For example, learning to live with a rising sea level becomes a lively tidal park; a complex vision such as the ‘city as a sponge’ can produce a sponge garden that serves the community; and the water storage of heavy rain can become part of the urban context in the form of a playground.

Genius loci

“A park makes no distinction whatsoever between its people, in a park everyone and everything can be who they are, poor, rich, prudish, addicted with rough edges, the doors are open to everyone. In essence, a park is one of the most inclusive parts of the city, in essence it is an open democratic refuge, where people and other beings bond with a place, and humans specifically with a story, an identity.” Rotterdam, Amsterdam, New York.

Central Park, ‘Vondelpark’, ‘Kralingse Plas’. Van Peijpe designs places as parks where the biological biotope can take centre stage, but is developed in such a way ‘that people are certainly also welcome.’

According to Dirk, this is only possible by first looking for the sincere spirit of the specific place. The soul. The story behind it. Its history. Through identity: the Genius Loci. We need those stories. We humans are storytellers. We need to be able to tell our friends and colleagues. And every good story starts with a sketch of the context: the soil, the water, the seasons, the physical and social environment. Once the foundation has been laid out, we need to know where we want to go, what we actually want to achieve, the tension: the premise. “To search for the answers to that premise, every story needs a hero.” In the case of The Urbanists, these are: the rain, the sponge, the Sturgeon, or the hedgehog.

For example, the hedgehog in the Hofbogen Park walks up a special staircase and the street lighting is turned off after dusk to give the animal nightlife a fair chance. This all takes place in the longest park at altitude: a two-kilometer-long park built on the foundations of a 100-year-old abandoned tram line. Without even knowing it, the hedgehog played a crucial role in the realisation of the Hofbogen Park and has led people in its footsteps – because, partly thanks to offering passage and accommodation, other rich or poor unspiked Rotterdammers will soon be able to come and visit a green park on the shoulders of the city centre.

Soup

“Although we are thinking ahead, we are far from futurologists. The choice is always made to present a tangible, achievable dream. We might have to go back to certain things from the past, but we can only move forward,” says Dirk. “Mix onion, potato, carrot, garlic and curry in a blender, and it becomes soup, but it can never become a carrot again; the second law of thermodynamics.” The entropy or imbalance in the fluid increases until a new balance, or equilibrium, is established. Dirk does that, too, continuing to build a new high-quality equilibrium. “If people no longer go to nature, we will bring nature to people.” He states that we can do this in conventional and unconventional ways. For example, we used to live along the natural riverbeds, and we made smart use of them. Smart water storage has been around for centuries and has been used in many different ways in many different cultures. Romans had open roofs and a special courtyard with filter sand: an ‘Impluvium’. We must learn to apply these principles again in our modern times. It is a time when Dirk still sees many such opportunities, with a new and exciting focal point we fully support: the principle of the city as a nature reserve.