in cooperation with the landscape architects Karres en Brands, Hilversum and KCAP, Rotterdam

This project explores zoning by topography. Heerhugowaard is located in North Holland and as everywhere in the Netherlands water plays a major role. Approximately 3000 houses should be built by this project. The question is how to spread them. Depending on height areas consist of drained soil, marsh or lake-like waterfields. We developed three kinds of typologies for each of these conditions as a first differentiation in zones. The three major typologies have several sub-typologies as topography also changes gradually. Karres en Brands fixed certain zones of varying soil conditions and the houses spread accordingly. Areas where building is prohibited displace all housing. So one by one all interests of any housing typology are fulfilled and subsystems as infrastructure, green areas and so on get integrated. The whole plan is admittedly not developed at once; it is rather done in phases, but as we always simulate the generation of the whole area, we are able to monitor the overall balance and statistics at any time and therefor we can evaluate changes in each phase for the whole project.

Partner:

KCAP, NL

(Kees Christiaanse Architects and Planners)

Karres en Brands, Hilversum, NL

Team:

Markus Braach, Oliver Fritz,

Frank Werner (KCAP)

Scale: Urban Design

Quantities:

1657 Flats on 670 Plotsin a total area of  677684 sqm