The new interministerial Ministerie van Maak (Ministry of Manufacturing) has called on a hundred designers and experts to use their collective knowledge and imagination to come up with new designs for the Netherlands. With this, the Ministerie van Maak wants to contribute to the radical renovation of the Netherlands and offer concrete solutions for the housing shortage, the energy transition and the consequences of climate change. Moreover, the Ministerie van Maak encourages reflection on the way in which the existing government structures deal with this.

The entirety of spatial solutions was brought together into the largest Dutch scale model ever during the 10th edition of the Architecture Biennale Rotterdam. The collective of spatial solutions was on display from October 14th until November 13th 2022 in the Ferro, an old natural gas holder in Rotterdam. Here the Ministerie van Maak showed as a collective how we can - and will - literally 'make' the Netherlands again. (2022, Ministerie van Maak)

el KANTOOR was invited to find a solution for 10.000 new houses on the edge of Leerdam, a town located below sea level in the province of Utrecht.

With the developed proposal we want to set a boundary to human colonization of land and nature. Expansion is strictly possible on top op existing buildings and infrastructure. Integration of buildings with with dykes, rails, roads and water creates a high density and efficiency of human activity next to vast natural grounds. The existing large scale monoculture agriculture will transition to wilderness leaving small scale food and wood production for local use. In existing neighbourhoods the soil will be deprivatized for food production and restoring the relation between human and nature.

Year:
2022
Location:
Leerdam, the Netherlands
Client:
Ministerie van Maak, International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam
Program:
Housing
Size:
1 km²
Status:
Exhibited at International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) 2022
Team:
Andrés López, Isabel Driessen, Rosalie Driessen, Emma Driessen

Publications:

The project was part of the exhibition 'Ministerie van Maak' at the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam.

Project video: