Welcome to Buikslotermeerplein in Amsterdam-Noord, a city square that will be completely renewed in the coming years. Would you like to help to transform it into a lively, attractive and safe space? If so, come to the Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab Amsterdam. Here, you can use your creativity to design solutions with leisure and tourism that show how we can contribute to a future-proof city. 

What is the Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab Amsterdam? 
The Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab Amsterdam is located in the Modestraat building, a breeding place in the heart of Amsterdam-Noord. In the lab, you will explore how to connect people with each other and with their environment. How can Amsterdam-Noord be made more attractive to visitors and entrepreneurs, while at the same time becoming even more liveable for its residents.  

With the Gemeente Amsterdam, the shopping centre Boven 't IJ, cultural and civil society organisations and other city users, you will seek out possible answers to this question. Our aim is to design innovative, inclusive and regenerative spaces.  

We work with open-ended and complex issues. You will be tackling these issues with our partners, experts, researchers, coaches and fellow students. Design Thinking will form your guiding principle. Placemaking will also play a role, as you will be shaping an environment together with the residents. You will be provided with various tools and models for experimenting, designing and testing. Unleash your creativity! 

At the same time, in the context of local value creation, we ask that you contribute to local initiatives. Each student commits once to a local initiative. You decide what you want to contribute to. 

The Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab Amsterdam also gives you a great deal of freedom to work on your personal development. For example, students taken a course in 3D animation, organised a food festival for fellow students, learned to play a musical instrument, and explored life goals in a joint meditation session.   

You will be working on challenging issues with a context in leisure and tourism. Students can take part regardless of their academic discipline. As a result, the lab will see you working with both Dutch and international students from a wide range of degree programmes.  

Together, you will come up with creative solutions - from alternative light festivals and food events to tourist routes. Join us on a trip to an inspiring city at home or abroad with a similar issue that you will work on in our lab track (costs approximately 500 euros).

Would you like to find out more?
Consult the website of the Urban Leisure and Tourism Lab Amsterdam or look at the glimmer of light in the darkness that students developed together. They worked with a creative lighting artist to design fairy-tale lighting installations that help to create a safe and atmospheric Buikslotermeerplein. 

We work with three overarching learning outcomes or competences. These are:

Experimenting
You design and create creative solutions for complex issues from the metropolitan agglomeration on the basis of analysis and through various iterations and development loops. You do this in collaboration with partners from the professional field and other disciplines from the creative domain.

Interdisciplinary collaboration
You bring in your own (professional) expertise and value and use the perspectives of others for jointly solving problems. You play an active role in teamwork and work together constructively and in a solutionoriented way.

Professionalization
You (proactively) direct his professional development by making substantiated choices, formulating personal learning questions and learning goals, using feedback and reflecting on your professional actions.

• You are at least a third-year bachelor student (propaedeutic year has been completed).
• You are enthusiastic, creative, innovative and can work autonomously.
• You can handle uncertainty and see this as a chance to learn.
• You are passionate to tackle complex challenges together with stakeholders and peer groups.
• Your development is self-directed supported by setting your own educational goals.
• You choose your own educational path supported by a teachers’ coaching and within the opportunities of your team.
• You are open for new and pioneering forms of education and assessments (portfolio development, feedback and reflection).

You are in the lab three days a week on average.

Group Project and individual portfolio

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