ROOTING ROUTES
weaving Schiphol-airport within its local fabric by the means of transit tourism
by prof. Elizabeth Sikiaridi and prof. Frans Vogelaar, 2003

the friction between a global airport and its local surroundings
The localities surrounding Schiphol are not really participating in the “global condition” of the airport. They experience themselves just as the “backyards” of the airport, having to endure all nuisance from the airport without really profiting from its high performance within the global spatial hierarchies.

“transit-time” not as wasted lifetime but as quality time
A significant part of the Schiphol-airport users are transit passengers, having to kill some time between two flights. They sleep, shop, go to the movies… but still this waiting time is experienced as a burden.

Why not offer “quality time” experiences to transit passengers and “short-time-stayers”, as for example corporate travelers and city hoppers scheduling their international meetings at Schiphol?

Why not offer as an addition to the experience of the facilities of the airport itself also a unique experience of the local surroundings of Schiphol-airport, by giving the global space of the airport a local embedment?

ROOTING ROUTES
A series of routes for cyclists and tourist mini-busses, tourist-boats and water-taxis could weave the airport into its local surroundings. Schiphol passengers could in their transit time visit and experience the surroundings of the airport.

There could be sportive routes, nature routes, but also educative routes as “water management” or historical-routes; there could be a “route dégustation” and some shopping marathons and last but not least a “Randstad periphery experience”-route.

These routes could be guided, monitored and controlled by electronic means.

This would strengthen the experience and the image of Schiphol-airport as a “place”, giving it extra potential as a global transit node.

It would also strengthen smaller scale economic activities as shops and gastronomy in the surroundings of the airport. It would contribute to upgrading the public and green spaces of the region. It would also work as an impulse in the development of tourist economy in the outskirts of Amsterdam, releasing the tourist pressure in the inner city.

This would be one of the means to weave Schiphol-airport within its local fabric, strengthening the role of the airport as an interface between the global spaces of mobility and its local regional surroundings.

“There is a desperate need, [ ], to imagine ways of weaving secessionary and glocal network spaces into the finer-grained fabric of the urban spaces and times that surround them. We must speculate as to how airports, malls, theme parks and the like ‘may weave themselves into the local fabric to create social interaction and acceptance as opposed to continually reinforcing barriers.’” Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin: “splintering urbanism – networked infrastructures, technological mobilities and the urban condition”, London 2001.

© Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Frans Vogelaar, 2003.