Dutch Lowlands

Closer to home, this problematique is enlarged by the specific geographic and cultural context of Dutch situation. The challenges for the planning and design of Dutch environments centre around urbanization (or de-urbanization) and sustainability within the context of a highly specific man-made landscape. One of the most pressing problems facing landscape at present is the problem of fragmentation and desintegration and the question how to modernize the water system of Delta regions in such a way as to permit durable functional and spatial features to be integrated into the new urban and rural landscapes of the future. There is also a demand for new forms of integrated rural living, sustainable agriculture and nature areas. Developing planning and design instruments to deal with these problems requires a detailed understanding of a landscape, its origins, attributes and potentials. The Dutch lowlands are a crucial piece of this landscape, being both the principal location for the playing out of these issues and a mine of instruments in their own right to deal with them. These considerations, and the scarcity of landscape architectural research on the subject locally or internationally have lead to the choice of a specific focus on Dutch lowlands in the programme.