In the struggle to counter the rising water, the Dutch river landscape is being remodelled. The recent reinforcement of river embankments is guaranteed to prevent flooding, though often at the expense of rural values. At the same time the relationship between the river and the inhabited areas is suffering due to floodplains being dug and diked in. Waterwork seeks to repair this breach and give new shape to the landscape. I have taken the water meadows at Gennep in the north of Limburg province to work up this idea in greater detail, designing an urban retreat as a link between town, route and river.

I have configured the tongue of land beyond the dike between the Maas and Niers rivers as a park. This has been done by projecting over the area a grid containing a number of dams and excavations so that such water processes as flooding, erosion and sedimentation can take place there. The contrast between the geometry of the grid and the organic forms of the water accentuates the characteristics of the river landscape. Changing constantly with the changes in water levels, the park expresses the dynamic of this landscape.

One of the dams has been developed into a ceramics museum, using the typology of the pier. It links the Maas terrace with a former fort which becomes partly inundated because of the dam. With the dam as its basis, the plan contains three routes at different heights so that the museum and the fort can be visited even at high water. The museum programme is accommodated in a number of pavilions along the routes. It reinstates the fort's cultural function as Gennep's urban retreat and interprets it as a special component of the river landscape. The pavilions form the link between the scales of landscape and man. They stand out from the openness of the river landscape through their introverted character, framing the view so that the surrounding landscape can be experienced in different ways. By hitching the pavilions to the route, the landscape's scale is also present inside the building and exterior routes spill over into the interior. Furniture accompanies the routes and marks a number of places in the building. The whole adds up to an internal landscape from where the external landscape can be observed and explored.

Place of education: TU Delft
Specialization: architecture
Tutors: Peter Lüthi, Clemens Steenbergen, Jan van de Voort