Cities worldwide are growing at unprecedented rates, compromising their surrounding landscapes, and consuming many scarce resources. As a consequence, this will increase the compactness of cities and will also decrease the availability of urban green space. In recent years, many Dutch municipalities …

Stormwater runoff can contain high amounts of Potential Toxic Elements (PTE) as heavy metals. PTE can have negative and direct impact on the quality of surface waters and groundwater. The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) demands enhanced protection of the aquatic environment. As a consequence, …

Social robots have been introduced in different fields such as retail, health care and education. Primary education in the Netherlands (and elsewhere) recently faced new challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and quarantines including students falling behind and teachers burdened with …

The current Covid-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of urban public spaces in achieving health and social well-being (Dobson, 2021; Poortinga et al., 2021), prompting policymakers and urban planners to rethink their approach to the design of these spaces. They now propagate adapting urban public …

In the Netherlands municipalities are searching for guidelines for a heat resilient design of the urban space. One of the guidelines which has recently been picked up is that each house should be within a 300 meter of an attractive cool spot outside. The reason is that houses might get too hot during …

Social robots have been introduced in different fields such as retail, health care and education. Primary education in the Netherlands (and elsewhere) recently faced new challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and quarantines including students falling behind and teachers burdened with …

Every year, an average Dutch household produces 1165 kilogram of waste. For high-quality recycling of this waste, we need to separate the waste properly, as placing something in the wrong container may jeopardize the whole recycling process. Municipalities are keen to increase the amount of waste that …

Global climate agreements call for action and an integrated perspective on mobility, energy and overall consumption. Municipalities in dense, urban areas are challenged with facilitating this transition with limited space and energy resources, and with future uncertainties. One important aspect of the …

This document aims to capture some of the ongoing trends and everyday life challenges in public space observed in Dutch cities since the Covid-19 pandemic hit. We interviewed professionals from municipalities, research organizations, NGOs and design and architecture agencies in the Netherlands, each …

Due to Covid-19 the way of working changed rapidly. Also the change of the work environment accelerated. A ‘new normal’ emerges because organisations and employees have discovered the advantages of working from home. This influences the use of the offices and thereby the corresponding facilities. Dutch …