Pinal Desai

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” ― Henry Ford   People most often do not know what they want. However, they know what the driving factor that is needed is, Henry Ford knew speed is the requirement and he found the Ford Motor company. This is also comparable to sustainability, most often the common people do not know what can be the new generation…

This week’s task: find solutions to the following questions: How to bring a change? What change really matters? Whom to keep happy, the old or the young? How to prove to people that you are the one with a great idea that can make Texel a better place? How to retain the identity? (Well the list is long and so are the discussions on them). But i guess the love story of Lucas and Sophie says it all.

Interviews Texel Tuesday 13 January 2015 On the afternoon of the 13th of January, we interviewed several inhabitants of Texel in the village of De Koog. The village was quite quiet, especially compared with the crowded streets during summertime. Most bars and shops were closed and despite of the relative good weather, not much people were walking down the streets. The interview questions were…

5.   Proposal The main propose of this project s to promote a new way of public space within the island by fostering the identity of Texel and its seven villages and promoting the interchange of products and knowledge. The idea is to promote the interchange of knowledge and products within specific nodes through iconic elements that promote the identity of the island. As a consequence, it is…

Public space: in relation to other sub-systems: Our proposal is to generate a platform of awareness will reach out to many sub-systems in a positive way. Our proposal of reduce- reuse – compensate, on the other hand, generates also more people on less square meters compared to current system. This may have positive and negative impacts that we have to be aware of: Leisure and Knowledge and Public…

Public Space The sub-system public space is one out of eight sub-systems that are analyzed in order to perform a sustainable transition of the Dutch island of Texel. The other seven sub-systems have the same goal of transforming Texel into a sustainable island. Besides, each of these sub-systems is - to some extent - related to each other.   Texel is the biggest island out of 5 Wadden islands and…

                      It is a known fact that children are the best students; they learn way faster than adults. Where a child can take only few months to master speaking a language, the same person as an adult can take months even years. The same is also true for the language of sustainability and environment. As a child we love animals, trees, birds, flowers, lakes and seas and all sorts of…

So, we know sustainability is important. We know we are depleting the resources and something needs to be done, and we have already begun on our path. We know we should reduce- reuse- recycle as much as possible. But how do we measure one policy is better than the other?  Recently, I was watching random TED Talk by one Catherine Mohr. In her talk [1] she gives a very simple- but effective

We live in a world where we want everything. All fashion in wardrobe, all appliances in kitchen and the list goes on. Recently I was in a talk with some Dutch friends and each of them had a workshop shed at their parents place. Almost all of them wanted one such for themselves. I was utterly surprised, as in my own country (India), to own even few tools is a big deal, let alone a full-fledged…

  Oudeschild: The fishing harbor   Oudeschild is a village of the municipality of Texel within the Dutch province of North Holland. It is the fishing harbour of the island, and it is situated at the Wadden Sea dyke. Next to the harbour, the windmill Traanroeier marks the site of the Maritime and Beachcombers Museum, which shows collection of objects found on the beaches of Texel. Regarding public…

Oosterend: The fisherman village   Oosterend is a village of the municipality of Texel within the Dutch province of North Holland. Actually, Oosterend is the second largest village on the island. One important thing about Oosterend is that although it's situated further from the sea than Oudeschild, it's the hometown of most fishermen on Texel. What is more, Oosterend is built around a church…

  Texel as an (Eco) system In order to develop a sustainable island, Texel needs to be considered as a system, where the social, economic and cultural systems are close related between each other and they can not avoid the rules of abiotic and biotic elements of the nature.   Regarding all these factors, Jón Kristinsson, within this book named Integrated Sustainable Design, shows, for instance

Questions for Texelaar Where do you come from (which village)? Den Burg How do you feel about that village? (gezellig/jaren '70/dorps/community/etc) Den Burg heeft alle eigenschappen van dorpsheid. Eén winkelstraat die rondom de kerk en het park loopt. De uitspraak “even een rondje dorp gaan” komt hier dan ook vandaan. Toen mijn ouders er kwamen wonen was er nog uitgestrekt weiland achter hen.

MEETING ONE - NOV 12. 2014 Texel sustainable island Tatiana Armijos Moya, Pinal Desai, Truke Zeinstra   The first meeting of Engineering for a Sustainable Development was held on Wednesday, November 12 th from 13:45 to 17:30 on TPM building, room C. During the introduction we met our course coordinators Bertien Broekhans (course manager), Eefje Cuppen, Caroline Nevejan, Lucas Florez Atehortua and…

Regarding rules and regulation for public space, currently, local and international governments and policies have included many regulations that attempt to improve nature management, however it is important to include some inclusive regulations within these existing policies that allow protecting nature and at the same time generating recreation, education and income for the locality. Thus

'Nature for people, people for nature'.   As it was mentioned before, more and more initiatives between public and private parties are coming off the ground and benefiting local economies. That is why the Dutch Government set out a plan to realize a national ecological network made up of large, interlinked nature areas. The aim is the network comprises 750,000 hectares, or roughly 18% of the…

Public space. Education. Recreation. Nature  Duinen van Texel On 1st of May 2002, Duinen van Texel (4,300 ha) was established as a national park.Each year, five million people visit the island of Texel and the National Park. The island is also a popular destination for school trips. Walking and cycling are popular activities, and there are wheelchair trails for the disabled.   Dutch nature policy…

Development: The rise and decline of an ideal By Wolfgang Sachs Reviewed by Pinal Desai and Tatiana Armijos Moya In this literature, the writer highlights in great detail the definitions of the terms developed and underdeveloped. He defines how the definition of development changed from a process of maturation in history to the actions proposed by planners and engineers: those who set out to…

Towards understanding governance for sustainable urban water management Paper by S.J. van de Meene,*, R.R. Brown , M.A. Farrelly Reviewed by Pinal Desai This literature aims at the governmental level policies that should be incorporated to make urban water management more sustainable. The research focuses the current systems and trends and proposed theories in the Australian urban sectors. The…

  Tatiana Armijos Moya, Pinal Desai, Truke Zeinstra Relation : the texelaars vary in age groups. The relation to one another, in respect to public space is mainly familial, friendly and in rare extended cases, professional. It is thus a place where family friends and sometimes colleagues meet for a hang out or a good time together. The role they play, as a family person or a friend, defines their…

Tatiana Armijos Moya, Pinal Desai, Truke Zeinstra Events Many popular events are held on Texel during the year, famous for their friendly atmosphere. Too many to mention here.  Here is a selection we have made specially for you: Struûn Texel : 21-23 November 2014; cultural festival in Den Burg and Oosterend. Christmas market : 20 December 2014 in Oosterend 2015 New Years dive : 1January 2015.

YUTPA ANALYSIS - TOURIST Tatiana Armijos Moya, Pinal Desai, Truke Zeinstra The YUTPA framework, acronym for being with You in unity of Time, Place and Action, sheds light on specific presence configurations in which a person performs presence with YOU, in the NOW, being HERE, with a specific potential to DO certain things. (Nevejan 2014) In this analysis, we understand the value of design in…

Luxury and sustainability... Two words that are seemingly opposite. It is a fact that when we use luxurious transport options like an airplane, it is less sustainable as against a train. But luxury also implies to brands and good they offer for also our day to day usage. It is a fact that more there is an increase in the number of people wanting prada bags, super cars, luxury bathrooms and the…

MEETING ONE - NOV 12. 2014 Texel sustainable island Tatiana Armijos Moya, Pinal Desai, Truke Zeinstra   The first meeting of Engineering for a Sustainable Development was held on Wednesday, November 12 th from 13:45 to 17:30 on TPM building, room C. During the introduction we met our course coordinators Bertien Broekhans (course manager), Eefje Cuppen, Caroline Nevejan, Lucas Florez Atehortua and…