Hybrid strategies in the densification of the new city center

Project developed as a 1st phase submission within the Architecture Diploma UAUIM. According to the United Nations, the working population is projected to increase by 70% by the year 2050, a factor that intensifies a major global trend, the intensive urbanization of peri-urban areas. In the case of Amsterdam, the population is increasingly targeting areas outside the metropolis that benefit from increased mobility and bring economic benefits. According to the Structural Plan 2040 - Amsterdam, two-thirds of new homes will be built in the peripheral areas of the city. Cities tend to develop outward, creating new neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city. Zaanstad has done the same with neighborhoods like Kogerveld, Hoornsevel, Poelenburf, and later on Westerwatering and Rooswijk. Nowadays, the city has reached its limits, enclosed between the natural landscape protection area to the west and highways to the east. Although it cannot expand territorially, it is anticipated that the city will densify within the current administrative boundaries in the future. The ways to accommodate this growth involve the intensive use of limited space to manage the social and physical density. The study aims to provide an integrated architectural response that develops a transforming area into the new spatial center of the city, as defined by the Inverdan plan, marking the third stage of post-industrial development and prosperity of the city. The proposed location is situated in the vicinity of the train station and the new city hall of Zaandam. The densification of urban nodes along the railway results from increased mobility within and outside the city. The train station is seen as the gateway into and out of the city, a point of cohesion of posterior knowledge with specific information about the city. The work methodology involves exploring the intangible potential of the place in relation to the built environment to address future challenges of urban environments. The intangible qualities of architecture create new typologies in the occupation of public space, introducing emptiness, void, pause, movement, and spatial perception as points of work with the program. The city administration has not always been an institutional structure. Throughout history, major events that have changed the mentality and development directions of the city have been part of the social and pragmatic sphere. Within the intervention, the project proposes accommodating a series of events that collaborate in defining the informal administration of the city, aiming to develop and improve it both physically and for the people who inhabit it. Thus, the project incorporates a cycle of learning, creating and exhibiting, within a library, a co-working space and an exhibition route, associated with the public space.