This scenario for Zuidplaspolder seeks to give this former lake west of Gouda an overall spatial coherence. The polder, which was reclaimed in the mid 19th century, needs added advantages as much for itself as for the Randstad and the region. Randstad Holland has a number of international facilities that place it among the major European cities. Yet its image is not making much headway internationally. Unlike centrally oriented metropolises such as London and Paris, the Randstad is a multipolis. A multipolis is a collection of larger and smaller cores alternating with voids and focal points, each of which has its own significance for the city as a whole. The most important quality of multipolises is a strong and varied relationship between city and landscape. This landscape is no longer primarily agricultural but acts as a green live-work-leisure area for city-dwellers. It is not enough to plan a multipolis from one core alone. New urban masterplans should concentrate more on the wishes and needs of the users of cities and then consider what these may mean spatially for the city as a whole. The development of Zuidplaspolder can figure prominently in the multipolis concept. One condition is that the various local governments, planners, water managers, transport companies, transportation managers, farming pressure groups and nature conservationists join forces in new consortia. Zuidplaspolder is the deepest polder in the Netherlands. Under the current water management system, the western Netherlands including Zuidplaspolder is being pumped increasingly lower. To make things worse, the polder is under tremendous pressure to urbanize. Businesses, glass nursery houses, dwellings, farms, nature and water are all jostling for a place, the result being that the polder is unfurling as a fragmented landscape with few advantages. From the multipolitan perspective, developing the polders along the edge of the former peat landscape as wetland could act as a watery buffer for the brittle peat. At the same time, it could burgeon into a fantastic wetland live-work-leisure landscape, providing the eastern rim of the Rotterdam-Hague region with a rural identity comparable with that of the Dutch coast and the great river lowlands.

Place of education: AvB Rotterdam
Specialization: urban design
Tutors: Ron van Genderen, Els Bet, Enno Zuidema & San Verschuren