Uploaded on 2017-03-12 by Joeri Bijster

This photo is taken in The Hague, the third largest city of the Netherlands with well over half a million inhabitants and located on the North Sea. A cross section over this spacious street (Spui) profile shows - from left to right - a plaza (Spuiplein), a paved street shared by taxis and bicycles, two lanes for trams and buses, a sidewalk that’s more of a barrier because of the poles, a one-way road for cars and bicycles and another sidewalk. The two sides of the public transport lanes are flanked by trees and can be lit at night cantilevering street lights. These modern-shaped lampposts are also used for the suspension of overhead wires used to transmit electrical energy to the trams. The pavement used as a barrier has room for parking your bike. The area to park your bike is marked by a rectangular white stripe and a painted bicycle symbol. Why only a relative small area is designated as a bike parking is not very clear. Further down the road somebody has parked his/her bike in the same area but not in the designated area. Very non-Dutch. If we look closely we can also see small gutter lines and gully covers revealing that there is a proper drainage system in place. The dominant material in the street is paving stone. When you look at the functions of the buildings it is possible to point out a theatre, hotel and cinema. There aren’t many people and vehicles in this street, as it is Sunday morning with most of the amenities still closed and a less frequent schedule for busses and trams. There isn’t too much signage visible in this picture and the remaining objects worth mentioning are a printed hoarding, some coloured statue and a couple of flags one of which showing the European Union symbol. This is probably because The Hague boasts many international organisations and governmental institutions. Now I will give two examples of information not visible in the photo. When looking at Google Maps, I found out that the picture is actually taken on the border of a large area of interest in The Hague (shaded in brown by Google). Since last year, Google has introduced areas of interest which are defined as ‘places where there are a lot of activities and things to do’. Apparently, people who are not interested in the cinema or the theatre can better turn around to explore other parts of the cities. It is true there is not much of interest if you continue down this road, which could be sensed from the photo by the declining offer of amenities and lack of activity. Secondly, the hoarding on the left hand side indicates the likeliness of a construction site, but information about the building project is not provided (other than an artist impression). Passers-by are confronted with a fenced of construction site for maybe 2 or 3 years. They will wonder what the building’s function will be, when it will be completed, if it will overshadow the plaza, what the construction costs are, whether the municipality is co-funding the project or not, if the current parking space is sufficient to accommodate the additional visitors, etc. As a citizen who is interested in architecture and urbanism I do know they are going to build a (controversial) theatre, but more information on this new development is clearly invisible. The invisible information about the future building could become knowledge in many ways. There is obvious information like the function of the building and its future size, shape and materialisation. Knowledgeable urban planners will already use this information, but there are many more layers of knowledge that could also be employed to realise a more liveable urban space. For instance, urban planners could visualize the peak-moments for the future concerts to be held in the building, and analyse if the current infrastructure and parking space can accommodate the expected visitor numbers. Maybe these peak-moments could lively up the plaza if the plaza itself is also redesigned with more water, green, new bars and restaurants, extending even Google’s area of interest. It would be even more interesting if all future construction, refurbishment and development projects in a city are made visible so that urban planners, entrepreneurs and citizens are more equipped to anticipate on these projects to make a better city.