Our trip to Netherlands was spent exploring the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The two cities gave exciting insights into the Dutch culture and inspiring architecture which is situated there. As cities there was significant difference between them. Amsterdam holds an exciting atmosphere, with the beautiful canal houses and the historical canals contrubuting to that. Rotterdam on the other hand is very much a contrast. It could be described as 'dead' as the density of people was low. This however could be due to the height of the buildings and the width of the streets. The buildings in the centre are high, consituting an American city feel, with wide pavements and roads which are sparsely accomadated. In some regards Rotterdam reminded me more of Hulme. Hulme as place ca feel empty with limited amounts of people using the space. The ward is designed on a height of building to width of street ratio. Although this works slightly better in Hulme as its a smaller scale, the sense of smaller streets is felt when wandering around. Without any 'exciting' spaces or focual points in both Hulme and Rotterdam I believe there is lack of character. 

 

There were many aspects of specific architecture design and observation which we explored whilst in the Netherlands. Exploring the social housing projects of Amsterdam such a Silodam left me amazed at the creativity of social design. We also discovered the cutting edge 3D printed canal house design by DUS architects. Below are projects which were undertaken in the Netherlands, the moment and exchange drawings, an observation in Rotterdam of a project and photographs of the trip.