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Away with the eco-rhetoric

What Dirk Sijmons thinks about living in the landscape and about area planning, jumps out of all 232 pages of the book =LANDSCAPE that he put together and was published last year. A selection of the table of contents speaks for itself: 'Green heart? Green metropolis!', 'Rotterdam vacation land' and 'Netherlands is artwork again'.
According to Sijmons nature and culture are a continuation of each other in our country. 'We must stop the eco-rhetoric from the environmental lobby that preaches that being human you can only cause damage. Here, we are not used to anything other than that we create landscapes to live and to work. Why be so tense about it? Sub-urbanisation interwoven with the landscape is still very well possible. All you need is a good plan.'

The bureau H+N+S in Utrecht makes those plans, which he established with two others in 1990 after years of service at Staatsbosbeheer (Forestry Commission). Sijmons and H+N+S are rising stars in the area planning of the Netherlands. The present day- pragmatic views, in which they manage to combine market mechanisms and durability in large scale planning projects, impress the professional world and the government. That is partly thanks to Sijmons himself, who preaches his convictions with great passion and enthusiasm in the opinion pages of newspapers and on numerous symposia.

Sijmons 'does not feel like easily crying along with the choir of Vinex criticcasters'. Of course Vinex leaves a lot untouched. Both pure urban projects and the possibility to live in low densities. But instead of complaining he prefers to come up with new strategies. 'The government has to lecture less and must start to plan in a different way. Complete deregulation is impossible in the Netherlands. Water management and the infrastructure require some controlled planning. However, if you solve those matters well, you can offer many freedoms around it'.

Now the discussion about area planning usually starts with the question where new homes, office areas and agricultural areas must come. Wrong!, according to landscape architect Sijmons. In the Netherlands you begin with water management. 'In the last century our water management system has become overloaded. The proportion between land and water is starting to be unbalanced. Therefor every action must be seen in perspective to problems such as the rising sea level, the setting of the bottom and the drainage of water that is brought in via the rivers.'
The coming century, he foresees, changes in the water management will lead to large changes in the Dutch landscape. Water will become even more visible and will receive a much more dominant structuring roll. 'For example the Randstad. The past century and a half the urban surface area increased to 300 times its original size, while the water management system has not been adapted. That can not go on, but it does not have to. If we combine this problem with the fact that the region Amsterdam has a large need for high quality housing locations, we will hit two birds with one stone: Western Netherlands will receive a new system of inner waters, in which the much wanted new sunbelt can arise.'
This way new, functional landscape will be financed with private money. In everyone's best interest, argues Sijmons. Moreover, many profit from the recreation possibilities that will be created this way.
At Slochteren H+N+S proposed something similar. Elaborating on the existing culture landscape the bureau wanted to construct nine oblong shaped forests of 250 by 2500 meters and open these up for several types of homes. Next to the desired housing forms a part of the Ecological Main Structure, the related network of nature areas that the Netherlands has planned, can be created this way.

VROM still does not know how to deal with these kinds of plans; being in favour of them means acknowledging that their policy is outdated. However, the ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries is enthusiastic, Sijmon says, as well as the consumer. Even when there is less space to deal out. As appeared at Haverley, an expansion plan for the surroundings of Den Bosch by H+N+S and architect Sjoerd Soeters. In this plan, the homes are not separate on individual lots, but they are clustered to some sort of castellums. The plots of land that are normally meant for front- and backyards, were joined together to a large green area, 'the estate surrounding the castellum', in Sijmons words.
'Initially nobody believed that this would be possible, but many people were interested in it. It seems that not everyone is aiming for those desolate double-home deserts. Designers such as Erna van Sambeek and Adolfo Natalini are elaborating the plans for the castellums. The success of a plan such as this one shows that one is starting to realise that the Netherlands is a totally disrupted market. Right now agricultural lands are still sacred, and building grounds are very expensive. However, we are now in a transitional phase. Designers, developers and governors, but also the prices of land are looking for their new role.'

Ineke Schwartz

( this article was previously published in Elsevier 'Wonen-special' April/May 1999)