'Land of layers' presents a multi-scalar vision on the way the Netherlands will look in 2030. A prominent feature of this vision is accessibility as a primary condition for developments on the urban front. The unshakable belief in accessibility has produced a finely-meshed traffic infrastructure that links each place with every other. Steadily however a horrifying picture is emerging, one that is the same everywhere in the Netherlands. We have differentiated the network of links by giving it a new infill. Our intentions are made clear in a tempographic chart for 2030 registering the time needed to get from one place to another. The time spent travelling between the major cities is halved, so that the Randstad is experienced as a single entity: the Dutch metropolis as a fact, without it being a geographically continuous area. There is deceleration as well as acceleration in the model we developed. Lack of accessibility is remedied by unhitching certain of the layers.

Stations are nodes where all such layers meet. Which is why we chose these intersections of fast and slow as new urban concentration points. Stations have the potential to shape the centre for urban life in and around the city. Areas that function as a smooth-running transfer machine and, like the city, possess a high informal activity rating besides. Our case study of The Hague Central Station fleshes out the strategy of generating a habitat that meets the needs of both foot-sloggers and go-getters.

The building houses two types of function. The rapid or dynamic programme feeds off the home-work traffic, with a supermarket, fast-food restaurants, run shopping, ticket sales, information services and a cycle shed meeting the needs of the tens of thousands of commuters. The slow or static programme is intended for those who treat the building as journey's end. The most important components of this programme are houses, sports facilities, a cinema and entertainment. The use forms in the building are part of the public realm, which extends up to the topmost layers of the interior. A public route throughout the building that begins and ends in the hall, can be construed as a ring road. Just as the presence of certain modes of transport determine the degree of accessibility on a national scale, so too the presence of escalators or lifts makes certain places in the building more or less easily accessible. So for example the 'living-street' lifted 33 metres into space is difficult for visitors to get at, whereas the hotel lobby at 61 metres can be reached directly from the ground floor.

Place of education: TU Delft
Specialization: architectuur/architecture
Tutors: Carel Weeber, Willem Hermans & Arjan van Timmeren