KNOPEN DRECHTSTEDEN

DRECHTSTEDEN - ZWIJNDRECHT, 2011

Drechtsteden (a large agglomeration of towns to the south of Rotterdam) are looking to improve their public face by transforming the areas surrounding its highway exits, developing strategic interventions based on existing qualities, and by designing the transformation of the landscape.

Following a principle of 'Growing in stead of Building', Maxwan and OKRA propose a new future for the area by designing a sustainable landscape providing its own food and energy and creating opportunities for growth. The proposal brings back the historical identity of the site, which is locally known as ‘the kitchen garden’. The landscape is reorganized into a small scale patchwork of urban agriculture with farmers markets, greenhouses, orchards and a ‘slow food’ zone; with health care facilities – physical therapy nature tracks and medicinal gardens; with mixed sport facilities - football, biking, fishing, and canoeing; and with biogas stations using the green waste as a fuel for cars and home. The highway, as the main connector between the towns, is treated as an essential part of the landscape design, with the highway junction (where all individual interventions will take a start) functioning as the entrance to the urban landscape.

'Growing in stead of Building' examines how the landscape can be extended up to the edge of the road, so that the junction starts to be recognizable as part of the landscape of the Drechtsteden.

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