Kefei Yan
Design of the Urban Fabric
Toward City of Enjoyment: Design an Intense City Model in De Wallen, Amsterdam
De Wallen is a precious area for celebrating bodies, carnal desire and enjoyment while the world keeps creating spectacle and homogeneous cities with atomized privacy. After years of overtourism and discipline , the over-concentrated prostitution has caused social and environmental pressure in a small neighbourhood. The project aims to reconcile the conflicts between prostitutes, tourists and residents through an experimental intense city model. The approach generated prototypes from theories, followed by a city-scale toolbox to densify the potential maze into a layered system: a field of rooms on the ground floor celebrating serendipities and sensory pleasure, three collective plazas accommodating gathering and transitions, along with the passage system for individual living on top. Within the system, an architecture toolbox guides interactions between groups to alleviate the previous contradictions and realize various means of enjoyment. This project indicates the reflection on body authenticity and informality in cities and the relationship between public and private!