Running Amsterdam Designing a runner friendly city Mart Reiling & Thijs Dolders MSc thesis Landscape Architecture Wageningen University 2015 Designing a runner friendly city Running Amsterdam Designing a runner friendly city Mart Reiling & Thijs Dolders MSc Thesis Wageningen, December 2015 Wageningen University and Research Centre Master Landscape Architecture & Spatial Planning Mart Reiling Registration number: 901228684070 [email protected] Thijs Dolders Registration number: 901122187030 [email protected] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of either the authors or Wageningen university LAR chairgroup. This publication is written as a final master thesis report landscape architecture by order of the chairgroup of landscape architecture at Wageningen University. Chairgroup landscape architecture Phone: +31317484056 Fax: +31317482166 Email: [email protected] www.lar.wur.nl Postal address Postbus 47 6700 BP, Wageningen The Netherlands Published by Wageningen University, Wageningen Printed by Propress, The Netherlands In fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science degree in Landscape Architecture at the Wageningen University, Landscape Architecture Group Supervisor: Dr. Ir. Marlies Brinkhuijsen Subdivision: Landscape architecture .................................................................................................... Supervisor: Dr. Ir. Ron van Lammeren Subdivision: Geo-information science and remote sensing .................................................................................................... Examiner: Prof. Dr. Ir. Adri van den Brink Chair Landscape Architecture Wageningen University .................................................................................................... Ir. R. Rudi van Etteger MA Subdivision: Landscape architecture .................................................................................................... Start! This master thesis focusses on a problem that is strongly related to what is changing our attitude and requirements of public space. We believe it you are probably doing right now: sitting, being physically inactive. You are is time for landscape architects to put forward a serious contribution to not alone as more and more people spend an increasing amount of time designing healthier cities. And ironically, we think it is possible for the same being still, behind a computer or television. technology that created the problem, to also be part of the solution. There is also an increasing chance that you will try to compensate this We would like to thank all the people who helped us with this research, the by exercising. You are likely to do this whenever you have free time: people we interviewed, colleague students, researchers at the congress unorganised, in public space, likely through the activity of jogging. Like for “Running and landscape” in Malmö (especially Simon Cook) and many, you track yourself through GPS on your smartphone, because you Sophie Entwisle. A special thanks to Nelleke Penninx as a support from the are interested in your performances. Municipality of Amsterdam. Finally we want to thank our supervisors Ron en Marlies for their important contribution. This summarises the basis of this thesis by Thijs Dolders and Mart Reiling: Running, public space and technology. The lifestyle as sketched above currently has large effects on public life and public health, and it Summary This landscape architectural study aims to develop design principles that In these regions, results were compared to a series of surveys in which improve the spatial conditions of (sub) urban public space for running, thus runners were questioned in order to understand what spatial experiences contributing to designing healthy cities. were required to determine their preferred running route. The surveys also gave explanation of negative spatial experiences at the two ‘problem- In order to be able to design for this specific active group, it has been locations’. essential to gain knowledge of two factors: the spatial behaviour of runners Through designing, possibilities to integrate these spatial requirements into and the preferred spatial experiences/ spatial requirements that determine the two problem areas were explored and visualized. this behaviour. The possibilities to make Amsterdam a more runner friendly city frequently By analysing data from mobile running apps, crowd sourced based data, related to creating convincing slow traffic networks: well recognizable which is a newly available source of data, knowledge on running behaviour (belonging to a recognizable spatial entity), uninterrupted, fine-grained, with was generated on a level that has not yet been possible before. In this clear start/stop locations and integer/certain distances. In addition, finding a study data was analysed from more than 110.000 running activities in balance between tranquillity and vibrancy, directly relating to (lack of) safety Amsterdam, collected from the mobile running applications Runkeeper and or an (overload of) nuisance, were important design themes. Strava. This data includes where and when people have been running. Differences in running locations are studied between: long and short distance runners, during different times of the day (light hours and dark hours), during different times of the week, during different seasons and during different outdoor temperatures. Based on this data, two locations in Amsterdam South-West have been chosen that showed concerning data- patterns. Table of contents Chapter 1: Introduction 8 1.1 Topic 9 1.2 Design objective 11 Chapter 2: Theory and research strategy 12 2.1 Introduction 13 2.2 Theoretical lens 13 2.3 Knowledge gap 16 2.4 Research questions 16 2.5 Definitions 17 Chapter 3: Methodology 18 3.1 Introduction 19 3.2 Approach 20 3.3 Case: Amsterdam 24 Chapter 4: Spatial structure of Amsterdam 26 4.1 Introduction 27 4.2 Amsterdam on eye level 28 4.3 Spatial analysis 30 Chapter 5: Running behaviour in Amsterdam 34 5.1 Introduction 35 5.2 The Dutch runner: a profile 36 5.3 Temporal dimension 40 5.4 Spatial dimension 42 5.5 Two cases 58 Chapter 6: Running experiences 62 6.1 Introduction 63 6.2 Spatial aspects 64 6.3 Survey 68 6.4 Geotagging exercise experience 69 6.5 Usage + experience = design requirements 71 Chapter 7: Rembrandtpark By Mart Reiling 72 7.1 Introduction 73 7.2 Context 74 7.3 Spatial analysis 77 7.4 Strategy 83 7.5 Design 84 7.6 Assesment 92 7.7 Outcome 93 Chapter 8: Schinkel promenade By Thijs Dolders 94 8.1 Introduction 95 8.2 Context 96 8.3 Spatial analysis 100 8.4 Strategy 104 8.5 New profile 106 8.6 Design 108 8.7 Detail Schinkelhaven 113 Chapter 9: Finish 114 9.1 Principles 115 9.2 Conclusion 116 9.3 Limitations & discussion 117 9.4 Recommendations 118 References & 120 List of figures Appendix: 124 Table of content 125 Content of the DVD 126 Additional maps spatial dimension 127 Survey 130 Seminar Malmö/Copenhagen 134 Chapter 1 Introduction