The final plan for Markermeer
Marker Park is my attempt to solve a double interdisciplinary research problem. On the one hand, urban planning is steadily breaking out of the periphery due to the dramatic changes in land use as a result of the new economy and transformations in the landscape to meet climate change. On the other, an ecological disaster is unfolding in the isolated waters of Markermeer. The natural environment is dying at the very place in the Netherlands where the opportunities for nature development are greatest. Paradoxically, this is the outcome of nature preservation tactics in the 1980s.

I engaged in dialogues about the past, present and future of Markermeer with some twenty specialists, which led me to several concrete aspirations for Markermeer that together form what I call an 'Atlas of Utopia'. The Atlas then served as a stepping-off point for the planning process. Here the lakes of Markermeer, IJsselmeer and IJmeer are regarded as a single geopolitical unit and brought to the same water level. First, the ecology of Markermeer needs reinstating and the planning taboo of the past thirty years broken. The stalemate round Markermeer is all the more astonishing as it is so very easy to get the lake up and running ecologically. By deepening it and lengthening its shores, gradients emerge in the surrounding nature and the sludge sinks to the bottom. This deepening process yields sand which can be sold for building. The residual products of 'depoldering' can be turned into islands given over to coastal protection, nature, housing, energy and recreation - an Atoll in Markermeer. By assigning these islands to the municipalities round Markermeer, the Atoll becomes a Ring of Archipelagos, with each municipality developing its own chain of islands independently. The Marker Reef looks like a wind turbine park but is more than that. With turbines 180 metres tall, it is to provide the new enlarged Almere with green electricity. The extreme topography makes the Marker Reef a very special nature reserve. Alongside the lakes of Oostvaarderplassen lie the Westvaarder Islands. Reachable by canoe or electroboat, here you will see Flevoland's beavers and their remarkable dams and lodges. Lelystad Bay is to be the new water recreation attraction on the east side of Markermeer, making Lelystad a modern green city on the shores of what was once the Zuider Zee. In the crook of the Houtrib Dam, now made permeable, is Enkhuizerzand. Two long dam-like land masses placed opposite each other turn the rough water to calm in the space between them. Working as a kidney and as an incubator for the park, this is where city-dwellers in their weekend cottage or tent celebrate a permanent holiday as the seal on the new-found polder prosperity.

As the park begins, we celebrate a thousand years of polder construction in the delta with an icon of euphoria. The 'holy ground' of dredge spoil and other products of the depoldering process is assembled between Blocq van Kuffeler pumping station and the Marker lighthouse into the highest peak in the Netherlands; a 400 metre tall mountain as a monument to hydraulic engineering, with a visitor centre to explain to all those Japanese, Americans and Chinese how the Dutch go about building their landscape.

Place of education: AvB Rotterdam | Specialization: urban design | Tutors: Nanne de Ru, Marinke Steenhuis