Heritage-based design

This book addresses the question of how to design in a historical context. How to get a grip on a site? How can a designer incorporate actual qualities of the heritage in the design? In three chapters, it is described how the conservation of heritage has increasingly become an issue of planning and intervention, with the specific cultural heritage qualities of a site as the starting point for transformation. There are several different approaches to embed the design in the site: focussing on the designed past, the designed presence and the non-designed presence. The better the essences of the meaning of the cultural heritage (substance, structure and narrative) are exposed, the better the design can focus on these. However accurately the different process steps are adhered to – in the end the quality of the design will determine the degree of success: it’s a thin line between a disaster and a brilliant intervention. The design challenge is to give a site new vitality while at the same time preserving its value. Over the past decade, my office has dealt with all kinds of interventions and new developments. In teams of designers and historians, we have analysed buildings, areas and landscapes to discover their visible and invisible qualities. How did they become what they are today? What were the ideas and ideals at the time of their realisation? To what extent has a site withstood the test of time, and how can the concepts, structures and stories from the past be deployed in current challenges? We gradually try to get to the core: the legacy for the future and the exact nature of the assignment – viewed from the perspective of the cultural heritage value. Defining that value is a design on its own, just like history itself is. It is a creative process, in which the views and opinions of others carry considerable weight, but where you as the specialist will have to make the final assessment to arrive at decisions and legitimation. This will create a heritage base for the design to respond to and build upon. There is no lack of good intentions to integrate heritage in a design. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that heritage values are safe in the hands of an architect. Far too often one gets the impression that the designer makes light of the job, by haphazardly including a couple of ancient relics or some monumental fragments (cherry picking), or by forcing a format or a blueprint onto a special site. Designers also frequently limit the cultural heritage aspect to their own visual perception and display an almost hostile attitude towards the views and interpretations of the heritage sector. The underlying reasons for such an attitude are to be found in the history of modern architecture, where for a century or more the past has been regarded as an impediment for the designer. With such a background, it is difficult to relate to cultural heritage with an open mind. Fortunately, this is a rearguard action. These days, a diversity of designers all illustrate in their own way what can be won by architecture when it is nourished by the heritage. By leaving space in the design for what is already there, by getting inspiration from the stories of others, and making use of what is available, the circumstances will be created for the heritage to survive an intervention and, moreover, to derive new meaning and values from it. A good example of responding to a site is designer Piet Hein Eek’s factory in Eindhoven. With a high degree of open-mindedness, he lets the existing quality speak for itself, at the same time linking it to his own universe and the Piet Hein Eek brand. This serves to refresh the site and to make it attractive for new target groups. Robert Winkel (Mei Architects) takes a different approach: he uses the cultural heritage framework to explore the boundaries of a possible intervention. While doing the utmost justice to the cultural heritage value, he carries out radical interventions such as the creation of large openings (Jobsveem, Rotterdam) or enormous superstructures (Fenixloodsen (warehouses), Rotterdam). These are extreme interventions, with the presence of the heritage remaining the dominant factor; it becomes as it were a free-rider on the renovation to provide it with new significance, prominence and visibility in the city. This respectful attitude towards the cultural heritage value, without running away from renewal, can also be seen in the many transformations carried out by diederendirrix architects. It is not a coincidence that all these architects operate in Rotterdam and Eindhoven: modern cities in the midst of transformation, where the architectural image is not yet fully solidified but where history is visible, with a decisive influence on the quality and the potential of the city. The challenge is to also give the poetry of the site an effective voice in the design. At the stations of the Dutch Railways, the heritage cannot possibly be regarded as something static. By virtue of their function, they are dynamic sites, with growing numbers of travellers and major changes in programming. In De Collectie (The Collection), the railway sector has established a number of outstanding stations, with the aim of including the heritage values in the transition processes which are inherent to stations. Thanks to De Collectie, the uniformity of interventions is broken and network demands (speed, capacity, safety, commerce) are increasingly better and more obviously aligned with the existing quality and the spatial logic of each separate outstanding station ensemble. On less dynamic sites, where the architectural image is much more fixed, the design brief shifts to the interior (churches), technology (upgrading of offices) or to combining different functions in an often far from the obvious way. The design on or around heritage is all about open-mindedness, doing justice to the cultural heritage value, daring to opt for a radical intervention if necessary, making history visible in the innovative city, and responding to the poetry of the site – and all this in appropriate measures. The architectural style (modern or traditional, contrast or symbiosis) does not really matter all that much, as long as the attitude is to design on the basis of the existing qualities and to carefully develop the detailed design

Grootschalig bouwen in een historische context: De lange weg naar nieuwbouw voor de Tweede Kamer

The new, enlarged premises for the Tweede Kamer (Lower House) took shape between 1970 and 1992. The key issue was how to integrate this huge complex with the historic Binnenhof. This article describes the design process, the underlying ideas, and the outcome. In 1975 an open architectural competition was organized for the building’s design. The task was to house the Tweede Kamer in accordance with a detailed brief and to insert the resulting complex with utmost sensitivity into the Binnenhof heritage site. The jury concluded that none of the submitted designs met these requirements. OMA’s design did, however, spark debate. It broke open the buildings around the Binnenhof and placed the new-build next to the thirteenth-century Ridderzaal (Knights’ Hall). The sheer radicality of the intervention appalled the jury. In the wake of the failed competition, three architects were invited to submit designs. Once again, the designs were deemed unsatisfactory, and the parameters were revised. The panel of judges felt Pi de Bruijn had best understood the nature of the task. In 1980 he was appointed architect. Crucial to the eventual outcome was a recommendation from the Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg (Government Department for the Preservation of Historic Buildings) to the effect that the urban design structure should be meticulously preserved. The newbuild shouldonly be visible on Het Plein and on the Hofplaats-Lange Poten corner. A major consideration was how to conjure a coherent parliament building out of the mix of old and new. De Bruijn strove for clarity and legibility. He conceived the new section as both a central hall in the Tweede Kamer and a public passagewayin the city: a public route as an expression of the transparency and proximity of the parliament vis-á-vis citizens. Architecturally he aimed for an impression of calm and a clearly laid-out hall that would radiate unity and coherence. In the materialization this was achieved through the use of granite for the floors and the internal and external elevations. Even before the opening, the Chairman of the Parliament had decided against making the building publicly accessible; the central hall became part of the interior. The ambition to make the Tweede Kamer open and accessible came to naught and from the outside the complex looked like an impenetrable fortress. The question of what constituted a dignified centre of government and what architectural expression that entailed was never posed. Instead, the focus was on functionality, integration with the heritage context, connecting old and new, rendering the business of politics visible and striving for simplicity and calm. This manifested as a taut new-build volume slotted in between the existing buildings. Against the simplicity of the grand gesture, there is the disorderly connection with which the new building lands on the anything but simple and unambiguous converse of the surrounding historical buildings.Tussen 1970 en 1992 kreeg de nieuwbouw van de Tweede Kamer gestalte. Daarbij was de vraag hoe dit grote complex zich in het historische Binnenhof moest voegen. Dit artikel beschrijft het ontwerpproces, de achterliggende ideeën en het resultaat. Voor de nieuwbouw werd in 1975 een architectenprijsvraag uitgeschreven. De opgave was de Tweede Kamer te huisvesten volgens een gedetailleerd programma van eisen en het complex zorgvuldig in te passen in het beschermde stadsgezicht van het Binnenhof. Volgens de jury voldeed geen enkele inzending hieraan. Het ontwerp van OMA leidde tot discussie. Het brak de bebouwing rondom het Binnenhof open en plaatste de nieuwbouw naast de Ridderzaal. De radicaliteit van de ingreep stuitte de jury tegen de borst. Na de mislukte prijsvraag werden drie architecten uitgenodigd voor een meervoudige opdracht. Andermaal voldeden de ontwerpen niet en de randvoorwaarden werden bijgesteld. Architect Pi de Bruijn voelde volgens de beoordelingscommissie de opgave het beste aan. Hij werd in 1980 aangesteld als architect. Bepalend voor het vervolg was een advies van de Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg, waarmee de stedenbouwkundige structuur nauwkeurig werd bewaard. Nieuwbouw kon zich alleen tonen aan het Plein en op hoek Hofplaats-Lange Poten. Een belangrijke vraag was hoe uit de mix van oude en nieuwe gebouwen een helder parlementsgebouw kon ontstaan. De Bruijn streefde naar helderheid en afleesbaarheid. Hij zag de nieuwbouw als centrale hal van de Tweede Kamer en publieke passage in de stad; een openbare route als uiting van de transparantie en nabijheid van het parlement voor de burgers. Architectonisch zocht hij naar een rustig beeld en een overzichtelijke hal, die eenheid en samenhang zouden uitstralen. In de materialisatie werd dit bereikt door een uitvoering van vloeren en binnen- en buitengevels in graniet. Nog voor de opening besloot de Kamervoorzitter het gebouw niet openbaar toegankelijk te maken; de centrale hal werd een deel van het interieur. De ambitie om de Tweede Kamer open en toegankelijk te maken mislukte en het complex manifesteert zich naar buiten als een gesloten vesting. De vraag wat een waardig regeringscentrum is en welke architectonische uitdrukking daarbij hoort werd nooit gesteld. In plaats daarvan ging het om functionaliteit, inpassing in het stadsgezicht, het verbinden van oud en nieuw, het zichtbaar maken van het politieke bedrijf en het streven van eenvoud en rust. Dit vertaalde zich in een strak nieuwbouwvolume dat tussen de bestaande gebouwen is geschoven. Tegenover de eenvoud van het grote gebaar, staat de wanordelijke aansluiting waarmee de nieuwbouw landt op de allesbehalve eenvoudige en eenduidige contramal van de omringende historische gebouwen.

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam:

This monumental monograph is the ultimate reference work on the history, restoration and renovation of the most famous museum in the Netherlands. Extensive research and detailed documentation show how the restoration of architect Pierre Cuypers’ nineteenth-century masterpiece was reconciled with the requirements of a leading twenty-first-century museum

Event-related potentials reveal preserved attention allocation but impaired emotion regulation in patients with epilepsy and comorbid negative affect

Patients with epilepsy have a high prevalence of comorbid mood disorders. This study aims to evaluate whether negative affect in epilepsy is associated with dysfunction of emotion regulation. Event-related potentials (ERPs) are used in order to unravel the exact electrophysiological time course and investigate whether a possible dysfunction arises during early (attention) and/or late (regulation) stages of emotion control. Fifty epileptic patients with (n = 25) versus without (n = 25) comorbid negative affect plus twenty-five matched controls were recruited. ERPs were recorded while subjects performed a face- or house-matching task in which fearful, sad or neutral faces were presented either at attended or unattended spatial locations. Two ERP components were analyzed: the early vertex positive potential (VPP) which is normally enhanced for faces, and the late positive potential (LPP) that is typically larger for emotional stimuli. All participants had larger amplitude of the early face-sensitive VPP for attended faces compared to houses, regardless of their emotional content. By contrast, in patients with negative affect only, the amplitude of the LPP was significantly increased for unattended negative emotional expressions. These VPP results indicate that epilepsy with or without negative affect does not interfere with the early structural encoding and attention selection of faces. However, the LPP results suggest abnormal regulation processes during the processing of unattended emotional faces in patients with epilepsy and comorbid negative affect. In conclusion, this ERP study reveals that early object-based attention processes are not compromised by epilepsy, but instead, when combined with negative affect, this neurological disease is associated with dysfunction during the later stages of emotion regulation. As such, these new neurophysiological findings shed light on the complex interplay of epilepsy with negative affect during the processing of emotional visual stimuli and in turn might help to better understand the etiology and maintenance of mood disorders in epilepsy

Vijftig Jaar Zaanse Schans. Een monumentenreservaat dat geen openluchtmuseum mocht worden

The ‘Zaanse Schans’ (Zaandam Sconce) is a ‘reservation’ of transferred monuments and windmills from the Zaan region, which lies just north of Amsterdam. A comparison with open-air museums, however, doesn’t stand up. The site is freely admissible and there are residential areas. The article at hand explores the founding and realisation of the Zaanse Schans. What was unique for the Netherlands was that fifty years ago, moving these monuments was seen as the only option to preserve them. At the time, the typical wooden structures of the Zaan region were rapidly being displaced by industry. In response to the demolition several civil initiatives devoted themselves to preserving the regional architecture.The actual initiative to create the Zaanse Schans started during the Second World War when volunteers began to document old buildings and the first buildings to be demolished were put in storage. The municipality of Zaandam made a location available at the western side of the Kalverpolder, where a village on the banks of the Zaan River could be built from scratch. The idea was to realise an authentic ensemble. In the eyes of the pioneers ‘authenticity’ was considered A) a consistent urban development design on an appropriate location in the landscape (credible structure), B) a complete transfer and exact reconstruction of monuments (faithful in form), and C) having people live in the transferred houses (continuity of function). From the opening in 1965, the Zaanse Schans attracted many visitors, but not much thought had been given to what the experience offered to tourists might be exactly and what sort of facilities were required. Chaos ensued and visitors left in disappointment.A visit by a local councillor to Colonial Williamsburg (USA) became a turning point: the Zaanse Schans would henceforth focus on tourism. New facilities were built in such a way that they more or less fitted within the historical narrative. Since the mid-1970s, the Zaanse Schans has remained essentially unchanged. The municipality guarded and managed the protected village view, but the development of the site as a tourist attraction was left to entrepreneurs and they created the ‘brand’ Zaanse Schans according to their own views. For instance, they created free museums about wooden shoes and cheese that were mainly aimed at selling merchandise. As the commercial exploitation was completely separate from the management of the monuments and the site, the budget was never balanced and the municipality always had to make up the deficit.Now that subsidies are dwindling, the Zaanse Schans is compelled to expand its operation, with the goal of strengthening tourism and persuade visitors to stay longer. The ambition still is, as it was fifty years ago, to create the idea of a village ‘as it could have been in 1850’. The additions are built in the traditional local style of wood construction: new buildings based on regional typologies, materials, colours and details. A problem with this is that each party involved has its own ideas about what the Zaanse Schans essentially is. In the absence of a central controlling agency the quality of the site as a museum (authenticity and integrity of materials) is suffering. The idea from the founding years to make it a normal residential area has led to fragmented ownership and clashing interests, among other things. Unfortunately, it has now become almost impossible to preserve, let alone further develop the site’s exceptional value.The ‘Zaanse Schans’ (Zaandam Sconce) is a ‘reservation’ of transferred monuments and windmills from the Zaan region, which lies just north of Amsterdam. A comparison with open-air museums, however, doesn’t stand up. The site is freely admissible and there are residential areas. The article at hand explores the founding and realisation of the Zaanse Schans. What was unique for the Netherlands was that fifty years ago, moving these monuments was seen as the only option to preserve them. At the time, the typical wooden structures of the Zaan region were rapidly being displaced by industry. In response to the demolition several civil initiatives devoted themselves to preserving the regional architecture.The actual initiative to create the Zaanse Schans started during the Second World War when volunteers began to document old buildings and the first buildings to be demolished were put in storage. The municipality of Zaandam made a location available at the western side of the Kalverpolder, where a village on the banks of the Zaan River could be built from scratch. The idea was to realise an authentic ensemble. In the eyes of the pioneers ‘authenticity’ was considered A) a consistent urban development design on an appropriate location in the landscape (credible structure), B) a complete transfer and exact reconstruction of monuments (faithful in form), and C) having people live in the transferred houses (continuity of function). From the opening in 1965, the Zaanse Schans attracted many visitors, but not much thought had been given to what the experience offered to tourists might be exactly and what sort of facilities were required. Chaos ensued and visitors left in disappointment.A visit by a local councillor to Colonial Williamsburg (USA) became a turning point: the Zaanse Schans would henceforth focus on tourism. New facilities were built in such a way that they more or less fitted within the historical narrative. Since the mid-1970s, the Zaanse Schans has remained essentially unchanged. The municipality guarded and managed the protected village view, but the development of the site as a tourist attraction was left to entrepreneurs and they created the ‘brand’ Zaanse Schans according to their own views. For instance, they created free museums about wooden shoes and cheese that were mainly aimed at selling merchandise. As the commercial exploitation was completely separate from the management of the monuments and the site, the budget was never balanced and the municipality always had to make up the deficit.Now that subsidies are dwindling, the Zaanse Schans is compelled to expand its operation, with the goal of strengthening tourism and persuade visitors to stay longer. The ambition still is, as it was fifty years ago, to create the idea of a village ‘as it could have been in 1850’. The additions are built in the traditional local style of wood construction: new buildings based on regional typologies, materials, colours and details. A problem with this is that each party involved has its own ideas about what the Zaanse Schans essentially is. In the absence of a central controlling agency the quality of the site as a museum (authenticity and integrity of materials) is suffering. The idea from the founding years to make it a normal residential area has led to fragmented ownership and clashing interests, among other things. Unfortunately, it has now become almost impossible to preserve, let alone further develop the site’s exceptional value

De clubgedachte

A little over a century ago, São Paulo was still an insignificant provincial town in an unimportant state of the Brazilian Republic. Thanks to the cultivation of coffee and later to the strong growth of Brazilian industry, São Paulo was able to transform itself over the course of the twentieth century into the country’s economic and cultural centre – and one of the largest cities in the world. Nowadays, one out of ten Brazilians lives in the metropolis, and 20 per cent of Brazil’s GNP is generated there. The city has the greatest concentration of wealth in the country, but also harrowing poverty, social segregation and inequality. From the nineteenth century onward, São Paulo developed so quickly that the expansion of infrastructure could not keep up with the growth of the city. Around the central zone, there arose a belt of poor districts that remained bereft of good infrastructure and facilities such as schools, healthcare, police and public greenery. Until the 1970s, São Paulo’s wealth was out of sheer necessity contained within a vigorous central area where the facilities were in good order.Iets meer dan een eeuw geleden was São Paulo nog een nietig provinciestadje in een onbelangrijke deelstaat van Brazilië. Dankzij de verbouw van koffie en later de sterke groei van de Braziliaanse industrie kon São Paulo zich in de 20e eeuw transformeren tot het economische en culturele centrum van het land – en een van de grootste steden van de wereld. Tegenwoordig woont een op de tien Brazilianen in deze metropool en wordt er 20% van het BNP gerealiseerd. De stad heeft de grootste concentratie rijkdom van het land, maar kent ook een schrijnende armoede, sociale segregatie en ongelijkheid. Vanaf het eind van de 19e eeuw ontwikkelde São Paulo zich zo snel, dat de uitbouw van de infrastructuur geen gelijke tred kon houden met de groei van de stad. Rondom de centrale zone ontstond een gordel van armoedige buitenwijken, die verstoken bleef van een goede infrastructuur en voorzieningen als scholen, gezondheidszorg, justitie en groen. De welvaart van São Paulo zat tot in de jaren zeventig noodgedwongen samengebald in een fors centrumgebied, waar de voorzieningen wel op orde waren

Neurophysiological investigations of drug resistant epilepsy patients treated with vagus nerve stimulation to differentiate responders from non-responders

Background and purpose In patients treated with vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) for drug resistant epilepsy (DRE), up to a third of patients will eventually not respond to the therapy. As VNS therapy requires surgery for device implantation, prediction of response prior to surgery is desirable. It is hypothesized that neurophysiological investigations related to the mechanisms of action of VNS may help to differentiate VNS responders from non-responders prior to the initiation of therapy. Methods In a prospective series of DRE patients, polysomnography, heart rate variability (HRV) and cognitive event related potentials were recorded. Polysomnography and HRV were repeated after 1 year of treatment with VNS. Polysomnography, HRV and cognitive event related potentials were compared between VNS responders (>= 50% reduction in seizure frequency) and non-responders. Results Fifteen out of 30 patients became VNS responders after 1 year of VNS treatment. Prior to treatment with VNS, the amount of deep sleep (NREM 3), the HRV high frequency (HF) power and the P3b amplitude were significantly different in responders compared to non-responders (P = 0.007; P = 0.001; P = 0.03). Conclusion Three neurophysiological parameters, NREM 3, HRV HF and P3b amplitude, were found to be significantly different in DRE patients who became responders to VNS treatment prior to initiation of their treatment with VNS. These non-invasive recordings may be used as characteristics for response in future studies and help avoid unsuccessful implantations. Mechanistically these findings may be related to changes in brain regions involved in the so-called vagal afferent network

Statistics and characteristics of MgII absorbers along GRB lines of sight observed with VLT-UVES

We analyse the properties of MgII absorption systems detected along the sightlines toward GRBs using a sample of 10 GRB afterglow spectra obtained with VLT-UVES over the past six years. The S/N ratio is sufficiently high that we can extend previous studies to smaller equivalent widths (typically Wr>0.3A). Over a pathlength of Delta(z)~14 the number of weak absorbers detected is similar along GRB and QSO lines of sight, while the number of strong systems is larger along GRB lines of sight with a 2-sigma significance. Using intermediate and low resolution observations reported in the literature, we increase the absorption length for strong systems to Delta(z)=31.5 (about twice the path length of previous studies) and find that the number density of strong MgII systems is a factor of 2.1+/-0.6 higher (about 3-sigma significance) toward GRBs as compared to QSOs, about twice smaller however than previously reported. We divide the sample in three redshift bins and we find that the number density of strong MgII is larger in the low redshift bins. We investigate in detail the properties of strong MgII systems observed with UVES. Both the estimated dust extinction in strong GRB MgII systems and the equivalent width distribution are consistent with what is observed for standard QSO systems. We find also that the number density of (sub)-DLAs per unit redshift in the UVES sample is probably twice larger than what is expected from QSO sightlines which confirms the peculiarity of GRB lines of sight. These results indicate that neither a dust extinction bias nor different beam sizes of the sources are viable explanations for the excess. It is still possible that the current sample of GRB lines of sight is biased by a subtle gravitational lensing effect. More data and larger samples are needed to test this hypothesis. (abridged)Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures; accepted for publication in A&A (12 June 2009

EEG source connectivity to localize the seizure onset zone in patients with drug resistant epilepsy

Visual inspection of the EEG to determine the seizure onset zone (SOZ) in the context of the presurgical evaluation in epilepsy is time-consuming and often challenging or impossible. We offer an approach that uses EEG source imaging (ESI) in combination with functional connectivity analysis (FC) to localize the SOZ from ictal EEG. Ictal low-density-scalp EEG from 111 seizures in 27 patients who were rendered-seizure free after surgery was analyzed. For every seizure, ESI (LORETA) was applied on an artifact-free epoch selected around the seizure onset. Additionally, FC was applied on the reconstructed sources. We estimated the SOZ in two ways: (i)the source with highest power after ESI and (ii)the source with the most outgoing connections after ESI and FC. For both approaches, the distance between the estimated SOZ and the resected zone (RZ) of the patient were calculated. Using ESI alone, the SOZ was estimated inside the RZ in 31% of the seizures and within 10mm from the border of the RZ in 42%. For 18.5% of the patients, all seizures were estimated within 10mm of the RZ. Using ESI and FC, 72% of the seizures were estimated inside the RZ, and 94% within 10mm. For 85% of the patients, all seizures were estimated within 10mm of the RZ. FC provided a significant added value to ESI alone (p<0.001). ESI combined with subsequent FC is able to localize the SOZ in a non-invasive way with high accuracy. Therefore it could be a valuable tool in the presurgical evaluation of epilepsy

High-gamma oscillations precede visual steady-state responses : a human electrocorticography study

The robust steady-state cortical activation elicited by flickering visual stimulation has been exploited by a wide range of scientific studies. As the fundamental neural response inherits the spectral properties of the gazed flickering, the paradigm has been used to chart cortical characteristics and their relation to pathologies. However, despite its widespread adoption, the underlying neural mechanisms are not well understood. Here, we show that the fundamental response is preceded by high-gamma (55-125 Hz) oscillations which are also synchronised to the gazed frequency. Using a subdural recording of the primary and associative visual cortices of one human subject, we demonstrate that the latencies of the high-gamma and fundamental components are highly correlated on a single-trial basis albeit that the latter is consistently delayed by approximately 55 ms. These results corroborate previous reports that top-down feedback projections are involved in the generation of the fundamental response, but, in addition, we show that trial-to-trial variability in fundamental latency is paralleled by a highly similar variability in high-gamma latency. Pathology- or paradigm-induced alterations in steady-state responses could thus originate either from deviating visual gamma responses or from aberrations in the neural feedback mechanism. Experiments designed to tease apart the two processes are expected to provide deeper insights into the studied paradigm