Een houdbare toekomst. De ontdekking van het landelijk gebied.

Het afgelopen voorjaar organiseerde de leerstoel Stedebouw van de faculteit Bouwkunde aan de Technische Universiteit Eindhoven een symposium over de bijdrage van stedebouwkundige ontwerpers aan de ruimtelijke ontwikkeling van Oost-Brabant. De aanleiding voor dit symposium werd enerzijds gevonden in de problematische situatie van het landelijk gebied in deze regio en anderzijds in de doorgaans middelmatige prestaties van architecten en stedebouwkundigen bij bouwopgaven in het landelijk gebied

The need for future users to participate in design and maintenance as a condition of making and maintaining a sustainable space

It is possible to structure our thoughts on 'extreme sustainability' on the basis of the role of the user and designer in the life-cycle of the building. This paper also uses this structure and will concentrate on the role and function of both in the process of reaching sustainability. Five viewpoints on the functional qualities of buildings were given in the parallel session on the functional quality of buildings at 'Beyond Sustainability, In all the viewpoints, the central question is about the role of the designer. He should be more open to expected and unexpected aspects and unknown users. This is an absolute requirement to reach an extremely sustainable result. In this paper, several specific aspects of each viewpoint will be described in relation to the position of the 'user' and the 'designer'. The message of this paper is that future users are quite capable of participating in the design process of a sustainable environment. Their contribution should even be extended to cooperation in maintaining the built environment. Accordingly, designers should realize that in the design phase, they are not the only creative geniuses that determine the architectural and urban concepts. They should be receptive to the ideas of others and incorporate these results in their work