No Public Realm
Julian Lewis (East Architecture)

The first phase of De Fluyt en de Hoi will turn Rib inside out with the renovation of the ground floor by architect and urban planner Julian Lewis, co-founder of East Architecture in London. In the material language of a Rotterdam street, the outside will be brought into Rib’s space as a physical and symbolic act initiating the programme’s intention to reach outwards to Charlois’ social environment. Lewis will offer a talk, discussing his participation at Rib in the context of his own practice.

He will discuss the way in which public aspects of the city are essentially uneven, place-specific, and open when successful, despite being often conceived in generic ways around pre-determined genres and outcomes. Previous projects and his participation in De Fluyt en de Hoi will illustrate these ideas.

Lumps of concrete resist car wheels bumping against pedestrian territory; a drain signals the municipality’s role servicing underground; flexibly laid concrete flags are sized to be lifted and laid by a single person easily, are textured against slipping, placed in a pattern partly defined by the geometry of the unit and partly defined by a notion of the extending city territory; fallen yellowed leaves indicate trees nearby and dramatically highlight the seasonal life of maintenance at the gutter, where all unwanted material is directed by the camber of the carriageway; the diagonally laid clay setts are sized smaller to resist cracking under heavy moving vehicles, while allowing drainage through the cracks to keep water in the subbase for longer.

This scene takes place on a Charlois street and is remarkably beautiful in its representation of change. All of it offers benefits as well. It does not, however, add up to constitute a public realm, which requires other conditions to invite public social access and promote social vitality, including the agency of ideas.