A RECHARGED ‘HART’
Synergizing the Housing Pressure in the Depleted Landscape on the Fringe of the ‘Groene Hart’
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Abstract
Our current time, the Anthropocene, defined by crises, colours the Randstad and its accompanying Fringes in the ‘Groene Hart’ in the Netherlands, as a depleted landscape filled with economic, ecological, and socially misaligned housing developments, under constant pressure of further terrestrial urbanisation. The thesis seeks to research an alternative perspective to the prevailing market-driven, human-centric spatial zeitgeist that antagonised this misbalance, which is eroding the boundary between society and nature to being a Fringe of fluid hinterland within a depleted landscape. Contributing to housing shortages, environmental degradation, and societal polarization and segregation. Henceforth, the current form is no longer sustainable, and asking for a reiteration of the relationship between the urban and non- urban.
By adopting an ecocentric approach to housing the thesis seeks to foster synergies among, social, economic, and environmental interests by nurturing non-exploitative design. Subsequently, it contributes to the limited body of knowledge in contemporary Dutch urbanism, particularly regarding Fringes and housing developments within production landscapes.
Through the methodology of cycles of research for design and research by design, including literature and cartographic reviews, as well as digital and design interpolation, the thesis develops
a design language as a bridging design tool to explore ways to synergise conflicting systems within the peri-urban landscapes. Fostering an overall regional ecocentric strategy.
Concluding with the advocation of a transformative nature- inclusive Fringe of dynamic transitional mosaics of blue-green agroecological parklands with housing developments, advocating a revitalised relationship with the landscape and its natural operation, through the implementation of the Fringe National Parkland. Advocating a strategy of developing from the territory’s existing conditions to sustain functions by leveraging its inherent network capacity.
Emphasising the regenerative potential of enabling synergetic Fringes, the thesis paints an alternative promising perspective for the future region. It serves as a visual embodiment of how synergies can revive formerly depleted landscapes while addressing housing needs, offering a reflective outlook in the ongoing debate surrounding terrestrial development.