Apresentação Pessoal

Daniel Casas Valle (Utrecht, 1973) is an urban planner, designer and researcher. Both his academic and professional experience are based in the Netherlands. He graduated on urban planning (Ruimtelijke Ordening en Planologie, Utrecht, 1997) and on urban design (Stedebouw, Amsterdam, 2002). Since 1997 he worked as an urban designer and planner at several organizations as the Municipality of Amsterdam, Must urbanism and the Architekten Cie. In parallel, he was always involved with education activities at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam, as teacher, member of exam committees and coordinator of the semester program 2008.

His actual Ph.D. research at the FAUP focus on the relation between fast roads and urbanization, often a strong and a difficult relationship. Fast roads have in urban areas a strong capacity of organization. It creates areas with a good accessibility, which attracts new programs directly around mobility nodes. Indirectly it influences both the underlying mobility and urban network. However, fast roads also create fractures on the level of the local urban and spatial environment.

The research focus on the relation between the planning and design of fast roads and the urban impact of these roads, planned or not planned. The main question of the research is: What is the spatial impact of a fast road system to urbanization, at a level of the region and the urban structure? And what is the role of urban design and planning in this? Two case areas are being researched: The Metropolitan area of Porto (P) and the Randstad (NL).

Keywords: urban fast roads, streets, roads & highways, urbanization, urban structure

dcv@cityeu.eu