Watering the Garden City combines two key tasks of Dutch spatial planning: restructuring the post-war districts and adapting the water management to the changing climate. These two components join forces in Hoogvliet, a satellite town to the south-west of Rotterdam. As the largest restructuring area in the Netherlands, it is ideal for the purpose. Hoogvliet was mainly built according to garden city principles, yet 40 years on it gives a less flourishing impression that the garden city tag suggests. Its public space is monotonous and down at heel, like many of the buildings. Restructuring Hoogvliet is a unique opportunity to provide its public open space with a sustainable system of clean water. My design seeks to revive the former glitter and glory of the post-war district in a present-day form.

My thesis divides into two parts. The first consists of a design for a sustainable water system for Hoogvliet. Our changing climate calls for a more resilient urban water system; circulating, buffering and purifying the surface water will prepare Hoogvliet for the 21st century. The organizing principles of this system can only reinforce the logical structure of Hoogvliet. My design adheres to the district-by district approach to restructuring: each district can lay on its own subsystem which can then function independently of those of the other districts. The residents then bear responsibility for the water in their own area; it also means that the clean water system can be installed partially or in phases. Due consideration has been given to the size and placement of water filters to ensure that the water system is not restrictive to residents.

Part two treats the Hoogvliet district of Meeuwenplaat as a pilot project. Here the water system has been fully worked into a design founded upon the restructuring programme of demolish and rebuild. Schools, shops and new gallery-access flats are concentrated along the watercourses to generate new spatial (and social) median lines in the district. These lines are given over to collectively financed gardens - here cost-sharing literally gives grounds for pleasure. The new-build in the north of the district gets more detailed treatment in a spatial structure based on the separation of water qualities.

Place of education: LU Wageningen
Specialization: landscape architecture
Tutors: Frank de Josselin de Jong, Sake van der Schaaf