Six hundred kilometres of old and new dykes define the contours of the shoreline of IJsselmeer. This is anything but a rich and varied coastal landscape. Worse still, the dykes contribute to the ongoing depletion of the water ecosystem of the IJsselmeer area. To compound matters further, in 2005 almost the entire 'dyke shore' of IJsselmeer was officially denounced as being below par.

The ecological decline is most apparent in Markermeer. Here, too, the pressure from urban development and recreation is immense. So I chose this site on which to deploy a new coastal defence structure that enables the design of new and richly varied coastal landscapes. This new approach holds out more comprehensive opportunities to develop the area than if the dykes were to be raised.

The project's conceptual intervention is to introduce a multiple coastline, an operation in accordance with the prevailing ideas of the national water authority. Incorporating the entire coastal defence structure, the intervention is not conceived as a monolithic design gesture but is broken down into sections, drawing on the surrounding landscapes and their characteristics. This led me to define three distinct coastal landscapes.

This project runs counter to the Dutch landscape architectural tradition of straight lines and bold statements. We Dutch are so used to the rational, technical spatiality of our landscape that we have come to regard intuition and imagination as questionable. I have sought to hitch rational arguments to an intuitive, romantic visual form.

One of the coastal landscapes I have distinguished, Waterfront Park, has been worked up in detail. It is intended to show what the technology at the macro scale can mean at the micro scale. Waterfront Park is an urban park of water and sand sculptures left to the devices of those using it; an informal, unallocated coastal landscape free of restrictive trappings and obtrusive design. Here it's all about gradients of sand.

Place of education: AvB Amsterdam | Specialization: landscape architecture | Tutors: Marieke Timmermans, Bart Brands, Joost van Hezewijk