In the midst of Parkstad Limburg, a 'green city' of eight municipalities in that province, a phalanx of fences and grassy banks conceals a string of quarries that once mined quartz sand, known locally as 'zilverzand'. This weird and wonderful landscape of bright blue quarry lakes, rugged sand formations and a slag heap overgrown with birches is typical of the fractured green and urban areas in Parkstad Limburg.

This project proposes using this amazing landscape to develop a unique area of natural beauty right up against the city, as the missing link between brook meadow and heathland. According to the current scenario, the quartz sand quarries will soon be levelled off one by one and turned into a holiday park or residential area. Plans for water-dwellings straight out of the catalogue are already in place. This short-sighted and piecemeal approach makes a mockery of all the potential this area has to offer. More than that, it is a recipe for a repeat performance of the 'Berlin Syndrome', when the powers that be promptly erase all potentially negative associations (as in mining) only to try in vain to retrieve them years later when they prove indispensable for illustrating the city's history.

By making clever use of the digging work on site and tackling the quarries in phases, the right conditions can be created for transforming the area. The quarries are incredibly diverse in terms of soil type, topography, hydrological conditions, scale and orientation. The natural contours, supplemented by additional sand, rise in tiers on the north sides of the quarries. This 'tribune' or grandstand presents panoramic views of the city as well as of the lower-lying quarries, the main viewing feature on site. The landscape this creates has an upper and a lower world and is assembled from a wealth of ecotopes. As time goes by, this will evolve into a varied landscape ranging from dry brush to marshland. This zilverzand landscape is anchored in the surrounding city by exploiting elements from past times, such as the mine railway, the avenues through the reclaimed moorland and the brook meadow. By reclaiming these witnesses of a time gone by from the landscape and giving them a new lease of life, we can increase our understanding of how Parkstad Limburg came about.

Place of education: Wageningen University
Specialization: landscape architecture
Tutors: Harro de Jong, Klaas Kerkstra