ANDY FERGUS Through your research and work, you meticulously analyse patterns and phenomena in the existing urban fabric to inform new design strategies. This often plays out in design frameworks that seek to find a balance between control and flexibility. How did this come to influence your work?
KEES CHRISTIAANSE I was a student of Rem Koolhaas when he wrote (1978), and I was highly fascinated by pieces like Leslie Martin’s (1972). I started looking at how overarching public spaces and street patterns were a kind of generator for certain urban developments, on the basis of plot division and of the locally developed typologies. Then you discover that you could devise and design street patterns with a certain urban block typology that would be very flexible and that could be manipulated according to the requirements for density. Overlaid with certain regulations that were derived from typological studies, there was a possibility to produce new typologies and forms at an urban scale.
