ALMERE

Social Safety

The Dutch New Town Almere is experienced in many places as unsafe by many residents and visitors. This design research looked at solutions to make Almere an attractive and socially safe city. In the theoretical part, we looked through a sociological lens from which it became clear that social safety is determined by several factors that can be partly influenced by urban planning interventions. A toolbox has been drawn up for this (see image below) where spots can be assessed to get an idea of the defects. In the second part of this project, we therefore looked at the urban planning interventions that are missing according to the toolbox. This has led to two scenarios based on two different ideals; the socially healthy street and the climate-proof street. The basis of these scenarios consists of the twelve criteria formulated by Jan Gehl in his book: “The City at eye level”.

The wishes and ideals of the residents and users of the built environment are constantly changing. The role of a municipality or designer is therefore to deal flexibly with this in order to monitor the liveability of a city or district. In this research, we searched for a way to solve part of the quality of life - and, according to the figures, a major problem in Almere - by means of urban planning interventions. A study has been carried out into a model for the interventions that are almost certain to have a positive effect on social safety. In the second part of the research, the design part, this model is applied at a location in Almere.

This project is a fictitious project based on current trends. No external parties were involved in this project