'We wanted to hold this kick-off at the construction site of the future Sluisbuurt', explains Karel Koch, lab leader at the SLUISlab. The site is being readied for construction Amsterdam municipal engineering office and the construction company Dura Vermeer. Over the next ten years, these two partners will bear joint responsibility for the development of this new neighbourhood. 'Currently, we are hard at work preparing for the infrastructure', Karel says. 'While the site itself is not yet safe enough, we did manage to get permission to organise our kick-off week right next door at ‘Keet Zeeburgereiland.'

Nautilus
'The plan was to move our SLUISlab into a temporary location in the Sluisbuurt starting in September 2020', Karel continues. 'The idea was to have a temporary café as well, but the city has put those plans on hold for the time being. We did, however, find a place in a building in the adjacent neighbourhood, the Sportheldenbuurt: Nautilus. From now on, the SLUISlab researchers will be there every Thursday, together with CGI learning coordinator Esther Bouw and her students.'

Esther Bouw adds: 'Community surveys and trying out new things are important to the CGI students, and with an eye to doing those things right, we were very eager to visit the site itself!' Over the next twenty weeks, Esther will supervise an equal number of students as they explore multidisciplinary issues in connection with ‘placemaking’ for the Sluisbuurt. This involves experiential concepts of a temporary nature, aimed at making the public space attractive, in cooperation with neighbourhood residents. CGI students are enrolled in a wide range of study programmes at different Inholland locations. This group comes from the Leisure & Events Management, Nursing, Facility Management, Tourism Management (Dutch and English-taught) and Creative Business (Dutch and English) programmes.

‘Placemaking Picnic’
Over the course of the kick-off week, and under the supervision of artist Rob Voerman and industrial designer Davy Wouda, the students designed and built a podium and festival furniture. This offered a great way to get to know one another and to get started working together in teams straight away. Cris van Dijk, a Nursing student, had this to say about the experience: 'Just dive right in, that's what I learned during the week. We turned out to be better at working with our hands than we thought! When you combine your strengths, you can create something amazing from humble means.

The start signal for the CGI semester came Friday during the ‘Placemaking Picnic’ programme, in a presentation led by Karel Koch and Noor Mohamed, a Leisure & Events Management student.

Tour of the construction site
The programme also included a new construction quiz and a tour of the construction site. Merel de Boer and Myrthe Dortants from the Inholland team, who were tasked with preparations for the new construction in Amsterdam, ran a game to teach the students fun facts, such as that the silhouette of the Sluisbuurt was inspired by the Canadian city of Vancouver.

During the tour, Roelof Veen (environmental manager) and Roy Belmer (construction manager) from the City of Amsterdam explained that sand had been trucked in and spread over the site, creating a layer up to 5 metres deep in some places. This layer of sand ensures that, over time, the underlying soil will settle under the weight, becoming more compact and creating a stable underground that can support the infrastructure. To accommodate the building's foundation and other aspects, a portion of the deposited sand had to be excavated. This provided a sneak peek of the contour of the Inholland building – which is already clearly visible!

Visible in the community
Kim Hagenaar, coordinator of the SLUISlab, looks back at the event with satisfaction: 'The great thing is that here, through the SLUISlab, we're bringing together not only the new construction team of the Inholland Service Organisation, the CGI students and lecturers and colleagues from the Creative Business research group, but employees of the City of Amsterdam as well. By doing so, we're uniting placemaking, new construction and innovation with regard to learning and research. In Nautilus, we will also be working together with students, researchers, residents and partners from professional practice. This will make us quite literally visible in the community and make it easier for us to explore the possibilities for our students. Luckily, I'm seeing a great deal of flexibility and trust from all parties: we're diving right in!'

Amsterdam is grappling with the repercussions of mass tourism. In fact, the city is suffering from a 'tourism surplus', with large numbers of tourists causing annoyance to local residents. Inholland University of Applied Sciences, the North Amsterdam Tourism Industry Platform (TOP) and Pakhuis de Zwijger decided it was high time to exchange knowledge. The partners joined forces to organise the Fair Tourism Urban Conference during the WeMakeThe.City (WMTC) festival in Amsterdam.

Sustainable co-creation innovations from cities throughout Europe will be presented at the Fair Tourism conference in the afternoon of Tuesday 18 June. The event will explore Amsterdam – and, more specifically, Amsterdam-Noord – from an international perspective. Amsterdam will need all its stakeholders to take responsibility and develop more inclusive and sustainable forms of tourism. How can local businesses, local government agencies and residents work together to change the way tourists spend their time and money in the city?

Digital nomadism
The day's first keynote speaker Claudio Milano, lecturer and researcher at the Ostelea School of Tourism & Hospitality in Barcelona, sees the boundaries between tourists and local residents blurring: we are seeing the rise of digital nomadism, whereby new, temporary residents flow into our cities and countries.

Charles Landry, an author and international advisor on the future of cities, also makes reference to a nomadic world: a growing number of people are travelling the globe. Businesspeople, refugees, students, tourists. Our notions of space, location and time are in flux. For example, public spaces are increasingly multifunctional and can no longer be pigeon-holed in terms of design or image. As a case in point, he mentions a Berlin bank designed to look like a meditation centre. These days, we also tend to spend more time in the virtual world than the physical one.

Meaningful encounters
Rather than focusing on the obvious problems of mass tourism, Landry takes a broader view: "How do we create meaningful encounters and relationships in a transforming world? What do we take from our environment, and what do we have to give in return?' Cities that currently hold less appeal to ambitious modern-day nomads can take fate into their own hands. 'Find your unique niches!' This will help ensure a more even distribution of travellers and residents. The two men both envisage a key role for governance. 'The political field isn't keeping pace with the changes around us", Landry explains.

The keynote speeches will be followed by contributions from Fairbnb and www.untouristguide.com, two initiatives that benefit the city and local economy. Ewout Versloot of Rotterdam and Partners will share his experiences with Rotterdam's new tourism policy, which is primarily focused around the city's needs and tourists' potential contribution to these goals. Various special projects have been established as a part of this strategy.

A home for creators
Everyone head for Amsterdam-Noord! Eva de Klerk of TOP Amsterdam-Noord explains: "We are a home to creators and many community-based initiatives. These ideas tend to attract various subcultures once they start to take shape." While she would also like to see new tourism policies, she feels these should be co-designed by the community. "We want a seat at the table in order to develop policies with municipal authorities, businesses and other stakeholders."

TOP assigned Inholland Tourism students to develop a profile of visitors to Amsterdam-Noord. As student Coen van der Meer explains, their research showed that visitors generally don't read up on Amsterdam-Noord before visiting. They basically come to see the IAMSTERDAM letters, A'DAM Tower and Eye museum, and have no idea about the other sights and activities. The students advised TOP to create a hotspot next to the Eye film museum, with features such as a large playground, fountain or arts centre.

IJamaze
Another group of students developed ‘IJamaze’, a platform that allows tourists and local residents to take part in joint activities. "Tourists get to experience an authentic part of Amsterdam-Noord, while local residents have a sense of ownership over the activities", explains student Kathleen Umbdenstov.

The conference ended with a panel debate on potential solutions to Amsterdam's tourist surplus: should we simply restrict tourism in certain areas? Perhaps we should make more efforts to involve residents in local activities? The issues prove difficult to resolve: plenty of room for further debate, in other words.