arcam

This Barcam explores the relationship between children, freedom, and the city. By looking at how children move through urban space, we examine the tension between their need for independence and adults’ desire to protect them. What makes a neighbourhood truly inviting for a child? Where does productive risk end and real danger begin? A conversation about mobility, spatial design, and the ingredients that make a city truly navigable for children.

• Mira and Rosha are members of the Amsterdam Children’s Council. Through their work representing children in the city, they draw attention to how the youngest generation uses, experiences, and shares public space. In the panel, they will share their own experiences of moving around Amsterdam—where they feel free, where they feel restricted, and how adults can better understand children’s everyday spatial needs.
• Gerben Helleman is an urban geographer and senior researcher at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. His research focuses on the relationship between the built environment and its users, with a particular interest in how children experience, value, and shape public space as a place to play. Using creative methods, he has spoken with children in Amsterdam, The Hague, Delft, and other cities to learn how they experience public space. In his spare time, he writes for various media outlets and on his blog Stadslente about the relationship between the planned and the lived city: between “the city as it is designed and conceived by professionals” and “the city as it is experienced, perceived, and shaped by its users.”
• Klára Mitlenerová is a participation advisor with a background in urban design. Together with Stichting Archiklas, she teaches lessons and workshops both in the classroom and as after-school programs, covering themes such as architecture, the city, nature, and climate. Children learn how to create a design and how to build for others or for a specific environment. Klára also engages in conversations with adults about how we can involve children in the development of their city and why we actually do this so rarely.

Date: Thursday October 1 2026
Time: Doors open at 6pm, panel discussion starts at 7pm
Location: Arcam, Prins Hendrikkade 600, 1011 VX Amsterdam
RSVP: not required
Language: the panel discussion will be held in English

Holy Moly Pizza
For Barcam, Holy Moly Pizza brings their pizza truck to Arcam every month, serving fresh, made-to-order pizzas right outside the venue.

Accessible & affordable
Admission is free, and drinks and snacks are kept at affordable prices. Barcam is all about accessibility and diversity.

Beer €3,-
Beer 0.0% €3,-
Wine €4,-
Soft drinks €2,-

Barcam is organised by Jakob Achenrainer (Allard Architecture), Ammar Alhoushi (Ammodo Architecture), Robin Beers (INBO), Leonoor Hogerheijde (Sweco), Jaap van den Hoogen en Juliette Zegers (de Architekten Cie.), Marije Ruigrok (AM), Dario Sposini (KAAN Architecten), Sjaan van der Tol (Arcam), Bogdan Vlădescu (Rijnboutt), Fallon Walton (LEVS architecten) en Robert Younger (NEW ENVIRONMENTS).