Context

The research that has been explained will be clarified and implemented in a design. The site for this design will be in or around the Brettenzone area in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In this case the site lies within the Teleport area, an office district which intersects the green Brettenzone area.

The Teleport area around Amsterdam Sloterdijk train station is a very monofunctional office district. Besides offices and premises there are a hotel and a few educational facilities. Because of the lack of housing, shopping and cultural facilities, the area is only lively on very specific moments of the day. Except for rush hours and, to a lesser extent, lunchtime, the area is mainly abandoned. Also during weekends the streets are empty.

Aerial view of the Teleport area towards Haarlem from the book ‘Tussen Haarlemmerpoort en Halfweg’ (Abrahamse, Kosian, & Schmitz, 2010)

Being located around the Amsterdam Sloterdijk train station, the area could be very interesting for businesses. This train station is the ninth busiest in the Netherlands when it comes to the amount of travellers with 50,000 people passing every day. There are good connections to Amsterdam Central station (5 minutes) and Schiphol (10 minutes) as well as regular trains to Haarlem (10 minutes), Leiden (30 minutes), the Hague (45 minutes) and Rotterdam (1h05). The area is also well connected to the ring (A10 highway) around Amsterdam. Schiphol is close by as mentioned before and the Westpoort harbour area lies just north of the Teleport area. So all modes of transport, both public and private, on land and water as well as in the air are well represented.

The result of this abundance of transport connections as well as the proximity of the harbour is a rather bad air quality, especially around the major highway. The background concentration of particulate matter (PM10) in the area is on average 27-31 μg/m3 with peak concentrations around the highways exceeding 35 μg/m3. Research done by Ragas, Oldenkamp, Preeker, Wernicke, and Schlink (2011) shows the mean concentrations of PM10, benzene, toluene, naphthalene and nonane in a fictitious city (Urbania) for both outdoors as well as office environments as shown on the next page. Comparing the values of PM10 from this study and from the situation in the Teleport shows that the location has slightly higher concentrations in general and is very polluted around the highways, where the annual average is higher than the EU threshold of 28 μg/m3, which is 70 per cent of the limit value (EU directive 2008/50/EG).

Concentration of particulate matter in the air, darker is higher concentration

 

For nitrogen dioxide (NO2) the background concentration in the area is 30-38 μg/m3 with concentrations higher than 45 μg/m3 close to the highways. These concentrations exceed the annual threshold for the protection of human health of 32 μg/m3, which is 80 per cent of the limit value according to EU legislation (EU directive 2008/50/EG).

Concentration of nitrogen dioxide in the air, darker is higher concentration

Benzene concentrations outdoors are even lower than the lower threshold of EU regulations of 2 μg/m3, which is 40 per cent of the annual limit value (EU directive 2008/50/EG). In offices however, the median is a lot higher than the upper threshold of 3,5 μg/m3 and even higher than the limit value of 5 μg/m3 (EU directive 2008/50/EG). (Ragas et al., 2011)

Concentrations of VOCs and PM10 in the air (Ragas et al., 2011)

CO2 concentrations are about 700 ppm in cities, compared to the earth’s average of 400 ppm. In offices these concentrations are often even higher, between 800 and 1000 ppm, due to bad ventilation. When concentrations exceed 1200 ppm it is necessary to have your system checked (Raue, 2010). Although CO2 concentrations as high as 5000 and even 8000 ppm do not produce stress on the human body (Schaefer, 1961), they are being used as indicator for indoor air quality and therefore they should not exceed the 1200 ppm mark. However, as the CO2 concentration is an indicator of ‘freshness’ of the air, it is not really a good indicator for concentrations of for example volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particulate matter, germs or allergens (Bergs, 2004).

Besides being a rather polluted area, the Teleport also cuts right through an important piece of the main green infrastructure (Hoofdgroenstructuur) as depicted by the municipality of Amsterdam. This part of the green infrastructure is called the Brettenzone and is an interesting mix of different types of green, from ‘wild’ nature (ruigtegebied/struinnatuur) to city parks to sports fields to allotment gardens. Within this patchwork of green infrastructure, the Teleport area is a barren land that could play an important role in connecting the different green areas. Interestingly, because of the building crisis, there are some wastelands in the core of the area that will not be developed in the near future (Wageningen, ?). This offers opportunities for the realization of a stepping stone kind of structure on the neighbourhood scale. 

Natural value according to municipality, darker is higher value

To get an idea what the amount of wastewater is that is being produced in the Teleport area, an assumption has been made using information of the municipality for the gross floor area of the buildings in the Teleport area, combined with average drinking water consumption data of offices as published at milieubarometer.nl/kantoor (last checked January 14th 2013) and of child daycare (used for the schools) published at milieubarometer.nl/kinderdagverblijf (last checked January 14th 2013). For the hotel, the amount of rooms is multiplied by the average amount of water a Dutch person used per day in 2010, based on information in the Drinkwaterstatistieken 2012 (Drinking water statistics 2012) (Geudens, 2012). This information shows that the total daily use of water by the offices alone is about 460 m3; together with the schools and hotel this grows to about 570 m3 of drinking water. The premises are left out because it differs a lot per industry what amount and kind of wastewater they produce. The assumption is made that the input of drinking water is more or less equal to the output of wastewater, as the water is mainly used for toilet flushing and drinking.

In the same way as described for the water use, the need for ventilation air is calculated. Data of the municipality for gross floor area were combined with data of the amount of users per square meter. The amount of users is then combined with the legal ventilation air rate according to NEN 8088:1+C1 (2012); which is 6,5 dm3/s per person for offices, 8,5 dm3/s per person for education and 12 dm3/s per person for accommodation functions (logiesfunctie). These data show that all the offices together need 376442 m3/h of ventilation air; together with the schools and the hotel this amount increases to 470725 m3/h.

List of references
Bergs, J. A. (2004). Planten in gebouwen: luchtverbeteraars en stresskillers Praktijkboek Duurzaam Bouwen.
Geudens, P. J. J. G. (2012). Drinkwaterstatistieken 2012. Rijswijk, the Netherlands: VEWIN.
Ragas, A. M. J., Oldenkamp, R., Preeker, N. L., Wernicke, J., & Schlink, U. (2011). Cumulative risk assessment of chemical exposures in urban environments. Environment International, 37(5).

Raue, A. (2010, March 2010). Frisse lucht, gezond kantoor. Arbo Magazine, 20-21.
Schaefer, K. E. (1961). A concept of triple tolerance limits based on chronic carbon dioxide toxicity studies. Aerospace Medicine, 32, 197-204.
Wageningen, D. v. (?). De vrije velden van Amsterdam Teleport. Amsterdam: Ontwikkelingsbedrijf Amsterdam.