Living with commons

Abstract

In the interest of the ‘new heritage’, the project explores the greater potential of the existing public spaces in an 80s residential neighborhood, Bijlmerplein. The design speculates how an adaptive reuse of an under-designed shopping mall from the 1980s can stimulate a fair healthy living environment within a broader neighborhood. A series of interventions, which were informed by the stakeholders, aim to improve the quality of public spaces and hence strengthen the heritage value of the site, while providing a vision to create a healthy sustainable public life for the post covid future. The project 1) remodels the existing shopping plinth and the surrounding urban structure to create more healthy and accessible public spaces, 2) integrates a cultural venue within the plinth to bring in more enjoyment and stronger identity of the neighborhood. It proposes a reciprocal activation between a spatial reform of an 80s shopping plinth, and the functional reinforcement of its local cultural activities. Ultimately, the design suggests an alternative viability of those deteriorating privatized shopping malls as a better public venue to strengthen the lifespan of the post-modern architecture.