How do you turn a gribus square into a place where people feel safe? This is possible by hanging cameras. Or put a fence with barbed wire around it and check everyone who wants to go inside. Only then it will not be nicer. It can also be done differently, says Manuel López of the Hogeschool Inholland in Rotterdam. You can also set up the square in such a way that it is nice to be there. Then people not only feel safer, but also more pleasant.
As a researcher of the Safe Design and Management research group, Manuel López has been involved in the question of how you can better organize streets, squares and neighborhoods. You can increase the quality of life by ‘baking’ safety in the public space and the buildings, he says. If you do that smartly, then desired behavior becomes more obvious and unwanted behavior is less obvious. Vandalism and crime are therefore decreasing.
How you do that differs from place to place. If you know what to look out for, then the adjustments that make a place safer, more inclusive and more livable are relatively simple and usually not very expensive. With large construction projects, the researcher is increasingly asked for advice in advance. But he and his team also advise on the approach in existing places.
At its own request, the municipality of Rotterdam is talking about the Korte Lijnbaan, a stony shopping street in Rotterdam that, as every Rotterdammer knows, turns into a paradise for peripheral figures with not always good intentions after closing time. The municipality of Rotterdam, says López, wants to make the street more attractive. With Vogelget jump, the sound of running water or with classical music, was in an article in a Rotterdam-on-door magazine. That is far too short because of the bend, says Lopez. “An integral approach is needed for a serious effect. Only sound is never enough.”
Woman on Korte Lijnbaan in Rotterdam.
Photo Joost Rutten
Atmospheric light
What would that look like, that approach? Now López is becoming enthusiastic. He talks about the Korte Lijnbaan from the past, built in the 1950s. It was a chic, green street, there were even cages with exotic birds. “It was a street where decent ladies liked to come.”
López and his team wanted to return that atmosphere. They thought they wanted to turn the street into a green corridor with plants and trees, so that it feels like you are walking through a piece of nature. Sound of bird -to -jump and splashing water can enhance the feeling of nature. Lighting is also important, says López. “Because darkness increases the feeling of insecurity. A light expert can cause dark corners to be highlighted atmospheric.”
Could we not, thought López with his group, could show the history of the place with cinematic projections? You can think artistic films that depict the former Lijnbaan, but also from Rotterdam during the reconstruction. “For example, De Korte Lijnbaan could become a tourist attraction, a special place where people want to go. You then get a wide mix of visitors. Rand figures do not feel at home in such a place.”
You can go even further as a municipality, says López, and try to get more diversity in the retail and catering offer. So not only fast food like now, but also a cafe with special beers or a wine bar, a more expensive restaurant, a clothing store aimed at older people. “That attracts a different audience and with that you immediately create a different atmosphere.”
The municipality of Rotterdam is open to the recommendations of López and his team. The city is not alone in that. In the last roughly ten years, the attention for the safe and inclusive design of public space has increased enormously. It is more pleasant and cheaper than cameras and boas. So Manuel López gives lectures for halls full of officials and aldermen from all over the country, and from abroad. They listen neatly, but only sit up straight when he comes with examples.
Manuel López from Hogeschool Inholland.
Photo Robert Lagendijk
Soundscaping
One of those examples is the Transvaalpark in The Hague, where the elderly with Turkish roots can suddenly hear the bird sounds from their youth when they sit on a bench. The use of reassuring sound is also used in a bicycle tunnel in Amsterdam and in a parking garage in Nijmegen. That is called soundscaping. Sound, says López, you can also use the other way around: with pleasant sounds you can mask unwanted sound. “For example, splashing water can push the sound of a factory or a busy road to the background.”
What doesn’t work is what López cherry-picking mentions. He told a group of aldermen how a more pleasant place was made of a square in a diverse neighborhood in Amsterdam. Part of the improvement was a mural of ‘ladies in colorful dresses’. Neighborhood resident could recognize themselves in it. An alderman took home as a message that murdering murals makes a neighborhood safer. “He also wanted to do it in his city. And he still knew a graffiti artist from the neighborhood who could make something fun. That is not how it works. Just as just as just put on a sound band with music or water makes a place safer.”
Lopez argues for, for example, also adding a café with special beers, or a wine bar or a more expensive restaurant.
Photo Joost Rutten
What works best differs from place to place. Experts in the field of safe design and management do extensive research. They analyze the public space and also involve local residents. They know the best what they like and don’t like, says López. And it is important that the hanging youngsters and the strange Snuiters who are hanging around is asked to their opinion, he believes. “The public space is also from their.”