Boerengoed! (literally, 'real estate for farmers!') transforms the latest land reclamation schemes of Noordoost Twente, the easternmost part of Overijssel province, into a new enduring landscape. The area in question covers 10,000 hectares, a quarter of Noordoost Twente, with the farmer as developer. An attractive financial construct is to challenge farmers to abandon farming and help develop the new landscape. There is no need to buy land so that the cost price is kept low and the new landscape can be constructed for a wide range of target groups.

Designed landscapes are the spatial counterpart of the smaller-scale older reclamation schemes. Contrasts in the landscape are made bigger. The new landscape consists of woods, moorlands and flower-rich meadows - all in all a tranquil, uncomplicated and easily manageable landscape as a backdrop for existing and yet-to-be-developed properties. But also a backdrop for activities and use by residents and leisure-seekers. There are eight subareas all of which will have their own identity. New land reclamation patterns fortify the landscape, the intention on each occasion being to reduce the large scale and long sight lines in Noordoost Twente.

The design is a target vision, the eventual outcome depending on the input by farmers and non-farmers alike. In fact a 'compromised target vision' as can be seen in the growth models gives the most exhilarating landscape image. The growth models step off from the assumption that the smaller plots and more distant fields will be the first to be used for landscape development. Larger plots attached to the farm will be kept on longer for cattle-breeding or arable farming. There is a deliberate choice for large enduring forms and entities, so that an attractive new landscape emerges when 50 to 80 per cent of the project is in place.

At present Noordoost Twente is a landscape valued for its pretty villages, farms, patches of woodland, wooded banks, 'essen' (small arable fields that were once village property), scarps and rolling countryside. These are the hallmarks of a landscape used for mixed tenure for generations. This type of farming is no longer cost-effective in the face of scaling-up and specialization. The danger in designating Noordoost Twente a National Landscape is that soon only a pattern, an empty shell, will be of value there. Noordoost Twente may end up a subsidized landscape on life-support, for which provisions of all kinds are made to keep the pattern alive but with little space for innovation. This final year project argues that a National Landscape should not be preserved for its existing visual qualities. A flourishing landscape is an evolving landscape where there is room for change, enterprise and new landscape patterns.

Place of education: Amsterdam Academy of Architecture
Specialization: landscape architecture
Tutors: Berno Strootman, Ton Schaap, Marieke Timmermans