Knoop XL

Knoop XL is the area around Eindhoven central station. Currently, around two hundred people live here. In the coming years, this will grow to 15,000 people. Knoop XL has to become a place to live, work, meet and stay. A huge challenge. How do you tackle that?
 
In the past, we developed an area from the perspective of various silos: mobility, living, working and green environment. This ensured optimised decision-making from a mobility perspective. The result? Livability and green space were more quickly compromised.

We don’t do that anymore. A breakthrough, because developing an area now involves the domains of urbanisation, green environment and mobility. So we can understand the impact of a decision in urbanisation, for instance, on the green and mobility domains. This makes the connection and consequences of specific choices easier to understand. A big step in the right direction, right?
 
But are we now not making the same mistake we have been making for decades? Are we not putting the system and efficiency at the centre again? Integral urban planning as a starting point? The Embassy of Urban Mobility thinks things can, and should, be different. What if we design mobility tasks starting from happiness?

If we use happiness as a starting point when designing Knoop XL, what would mobility look like?