B(l)ooming Tourism

Evoking New Meaningful Connections in the Touristic City of Amsterdam

Master thesis (2021)

Authors

C.Y. Oosterwoud Architecture and the Built Environment

Contributors

S. Milinović Teachers of Practice / U - Architecture and the Built Environment (mentor)
A. Sioli Situated Architecture - Architecture and the Built Environment (mentor)
F.J. Speksnijder Teachers of Practice / AE+T - Architecture and the Built Environment (mentor)
H.J. Visscher Housing Quality and Process Innovation - Architecture and the Built Environment (graduation committee member)
Faculty
Architecture and the Built Environment, Architecture and the Built Environment
Copyright: © 2021 Chloë Oosterwoud
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

05-11-2021

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

Architecture and the Built Environment

Abstract

In recent years, overtourism has become a big problem for many European cities. In Amsterdam, tourism is changing the experience of place of its city centre, which negatively affects resident’s quality of life by causing feelings of alienation. As a result, more and more residents seem to retreat or move away from Amsterdam’s city centre, jeopardizing the livability and residential function of the city.

The aim of this research is to add architectural interventions in the city centre of Amsterdam, which will evoke new connections with the places overwhelmed by tourists, by mitigating feelings of alienation between residents and tourists. These connections must both be social, as well as to place, in order to introduce a new, more social, sustainable and liveable way of tourism.

In this research, the embodied experiences of Amsterdam's overwelming places such as the Jordaan, the Canal Belt, the Oudezijdse Burgwallen and the Lastage have been studied by means of narratives. These narratives were created from both the resident’s and the tourist’s perspective, in order to find out which (spacial) qualities of place evoke a sense of identification, belonging or connection among the residents and tourists. Ultimately, from the collection of narratives the users, activity, experience of place, structure and architectural atmosphere of the overwelmed places are defined, and together form a concept for the architectural interventions that will mitigate the feelings of alienation.