CONQUERING A VOID: Interview with

Marcel van der Meijs

Posted on December 14, 2013 by atlantis24
MARCEL VAN DER MEIJS
Urban designer, Palmbout Urban Landscapes
Presently, a 2,3 km cleft runs through Delft. As part of a massive transformation of the city,
the railtracks are brought underground, opening up a significant amount of land for new
development. The spoorzone lies at the heart of the city, but is a tabula rasa after this
transformation. How does one design, given this post-infrastructural situation? Students in
the spoorzone-workshop used routes, phasing and structural elements as possible solutions.
How are those implemented in the actual context? To answer these questions, Atlantis
interviewed Marcel van der Meijs of Palmbout Urban Landscapes who is currently working
on the urban masterplan for Spoorzone Delft.

The spoorzone is a really specific kind of

assignment. The site, the context, it is all defined by infrastructure, but this is no longer
visible. What are the characteristics of this situation?
The railtracks always have defined the area. Now, the tracks are placed underground, so it has
completely disappeared, leaving a void in the city which you try to fill like it was never there.
It is quite special to have such a large area in the city center devoid of space and function.
Around the station, houses had to be demolished, but mostly it was a lot of empty land,
because rail tracks require so much land. This gives you space to reintegrate the city.
Are there other characteristics?
Orientation. Delft has always placed its backside to the railway strip. Now the city wants to
direct itself to it. No longer is it a sound-nuisance, so it can start to fulfill a real urban
function, perhaps comparable to the market. This transformation, from backside to frontside,
can happen in more places: The Voorhof, for example. Also, the urban fabric has always
been very limited by the railway tracks,especially in the southern part. The northern part was
elevated by a viaduct, so a high degree of permeability was achieved. This was one of our
reasons to use [east-west] routes as a starting point to expand the urban fabric and to weave it
together, to get to a situation which is brought closer together.

Your answer to the situation suggests giving the space more of a city-feel, right?
Yes, it needs to become a part of the city by attaching it to adjoining city districts. Not only
do you use the urban fabric, but also with the buildings and the inhabitants who will want to
live there. It is designing the context, using the context to bring the city together.

Aiming to reintegrate the city, many student proposals use connections and routes.
How does Palmbouts plan uses them?
The informal is really important: not focusing on cars, but giving cyclists and pedestrians
more opportunities. The building blocks have breakthroughs, so people traversing the area are
offered many different routes, which are not there now. They can follow the canal or go
through the park. They go in the direction of the station or of the Schie. There is a rich variety
of routes, especially routes for cyclists and pedestrians.
Phasing also came up in the students plans. This is a large-scale project many risks of
failure. How you deal with this in the spoorzone?
We want to make a plan that is robust and can react to many changes in society and the
market. Therefore, the blocks are highly adjustable, and this gives you the means to be very
flexible in phasing. The different demands are given different opportunities in the phasing.

Secondly, the question is when areas are free to be built, because work on the tunnel will
continue for a long time. And then, which areas do you want to build? The area close to the
Voorhof will be available soon, but it is the furthest most point from the city center. You
want a smart way of building your plan to make the right ambiance. You want to get the
feeling that if you start at the station, you want to conquer the area from there and make a
new vision of Delft.
You talked about the phasing of the final plan. But what do you think about the
temporary use of the spoorzone?
Currently, there are many initiatives. Temporariness, which we are talking about, should be
designed because initiatives will last for a couple of years, and they should be fitting for the
location. So at the station area, which needs to be developed at a later stage, you can organize
something relatively long lasting with a high degree of urbanity.

What significance does temporary use have in the plan?

Temporary use can set an ambiance, we are making a city. We do not know what specific
kind of use, but there are many initiatives: urban agriculture, city greenhouses, viewing
towers or festival areas. Those should be used to set the groundwork for the area,to make the
area part of the city. Thus phasing and temporary use are heavily interconnected.
Do you have a strategy to deal with the initiatives?
We do not program it, but we are part of a long term conversation. I think that the
municipality of Delft should take up the main responsibility for this. As a design office, we
can put this on the agenda though. Phasing mostly deals with buildings, but is also about the
public space.
The final tool used in the student proposals is cornerstone elements, or, interventions
that influence the complete area. What are some examples of these in the Palmbout
plan?
The water structure and the park [are our cornerstone elements], forming two long lines. The
Nieuwe Delft starts at the station like a gracht and turns greener with softer edges. And like
the water in the city center, it goes everywhere, connecting everything. And the park-the park
itself is actually not that big, about 30 meters wide,ut it is a long space, and it is giving Delft
something new.

The plan itself calls for

provoking elements. How does this work?
Well, you offer possibilities to realize a certain program. On the one side you draw an
attractive cityscape, on the other side you make someone feel fitting in an area. So we make
collages, showing what kind of city this can be. People then can meet this challenge, actually
realizing it, but in their own way, within certain boundaries. The provoking itself it based on
making an area attractive to live,.and showing the many possibilities of how people can work
and live there.
In working on the plan for the spoorzone, what were your methods?
We draw a lot. You try to find the lines which fit logically in the area. You try, starting in the
public space, to draw a way in which it all comes together. You do this again and again, until

it fits nicely.
While drawing you try to imagine the public space. Should it be part of the city center, finely
grained? Or more modernistic? And while you draw, you get closer and closer to the image in
your mind. For example, if you make a gracht, the distance to the water determines how
you experience it. So this had consequences for the way the height levels interact.
As a closing question, how do you define infrastructure?
The first images springing to mind are large scale constructs like roads. But it is actually so
much more. It is above and below the surface, it is between people and how they live
together. It is a broad definition, perhaps, having more to do with connecting.
And in the spoorzone, what is the defining infrastructure?
The structures below grounds: there lies the most important railway in the Netherlands. But
in our design, the Nieuwe Delft, Not so much the road but the water and its edges, is the
binding element. It should be more than just a road, but also a popular public space that
people really use. Because it ties everything together, everything is attached to it. It binds the
outer borders with the city center. It is the axis of the area.