About Architags
Architags is being run by Mike van Staten. Mike is an urban culture-, community urbanist & skateboarder. It is his mission to design the city, its places and new tools from the perspective of it’s users. He is active in urban development projects and initiatives in relation to urban- culture and sports.
Mike has worked for several urban design & architecture agencies and most recently worked for the Municipality of Amsterdam. In November 2024 he graduated at the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture, now holding a Master’s Degree in Urbanism. Before working and studying urbanism, he gained experience in citizen participation, communication, marketing and as a user experience (UX) designer.
The name Architags is derived from:
Architecture - being a systemic, structured and planned discipline focusing on creating spaces and places, resulting in our concrete build environment.
In combination with:
Graffiti tags - being an urban, unstructured and unplanned phenomenon in the city. Which represents the spontaneity of urban life and the lived experience by users, (informal) use of spaces and identities.
Mission: Planning the urban
Urban planning as a discipline is often much more connected to the 'systemic world' of professionals and too far removed from the ‘urban world' of residents. Thus resulting in developments based mainly on the architect’s vision, theories and city regulations. Not on existing local qualities. In general, city planners agreed upon the fact that we should densify existing neighborhoods rather than expanding outside the city its limits. This asks for a different approach working with local stakeholders and existing qualities.
Within the discipline of urban planning, we need to start translating the word ‘urban’ in a different way. Besides being our concrete build environment, this also includes the lived experience by users, (informal) use of spaces and identities within cities. So, urban planning should be concerned more about planning the soft, social side of our cities. Architags believes that this is what makes cities interesting, lively and livable. It gives cities, neighborhoods and places their own unique character. But how do we plan the ‘urban’?
Approach: Curbanism
This is where Curbanism comes in. Curbanism is a ‘user-centered’ research and design approach to give the ‘urban world’ of residents a bigger importance. The identity and current use of places there are central to this approach. The area is investigated to map out the qualities and opportunities of a district, neighborhood or specific space. This is done locally and actively in the area, by observing and capturing insights through street photography. The visual material and insights serves as input for a rich discussion with both professionals and residents about the lived experience. In the further development, this approach ensures that we’re building on what’s already there. Enabling us to create more ownership and cooperation among users and residents. The impact of top-down policy can be weighed up more consciously against local desires.
The approach is inspired on the skateboarder’s perspective on cities.
The 'systemic world' of planners is too far removed from the ‘urban world' of residents.
This is where the Curbanism approach comes in.
Resulting in designers not focussing only on spatial conditions, but also on people, their cultures, use of space and identity.