‘t LaarTilburg, The Netherlands (2006–2008)

Tilburg currently has to deal with an in-creasingly heavy volume of traffic on the western access route to the city. The municipality asked four market parties to produce a comprehensive vision for improving Tilburg’s accessibility, and at the same time to give a new impulse to its identity with new office and residential con-struction. A ‘fluent’ junction between two important traffic arteries divides ’t Laar into four quadrants, each with its own distinctive character and programme: offices, a park, industrial premises and residential housing. The public space gives identity, is recogniz-able and Tilburg-specific: a synthesis of the three most prominent landscape types in Tilburg’s surroundings: the Loonse and Drunense Dunes, with heathland, conifer-ous woodland, deciduous woodland and grasslands. The landscape is the connect-ing element, making ’t Laar recognizable as a unity from the motorway.The existing

park retains its natural character, while the landscape around the different office concentrations can be summed up as repre-sentative and somewhere between natural and cultural. The residential area and the care complex appear the most cultivated in terms of planting, furniture and lighting. Paths go through the landscape, which, like the seven villages from which Tilburg origi-nally grew, come together to form so-called Franconian triangles: originally gathering places for livestock. In the design, these spots are assigned importance as special meeting places, with play facilities, seating elements, exotic trees or special plantings. The great rotunda in the middle of the plan area has a depression in the middle: a re-flecting pool that changes colour in accord-ance with traffic volume and forms a strong, recognizable element in the landscape – a landmark for motorists either entering or leaving Tilburg.

Type:Urban Plan, Utilitarian Green, Infrastructure

Designteam:Bureau B+B stedebouw en landschapsarchitectuurin collaboration withSauerbruch Hutton Architekten

Program:71,500 m2 housing, 31,000 m2 offices, 8,600 m2 of commercial functions, 2,030 parking spaces, parkland

Surface:178 acre

Budget:-

Client:AM/BAMVastgoed

from natural to artifical triangulars shaped pathways and squares

dunes with grasses

laneways and parking

heatherforest

febuary march april may

july august september october

planting calender

Scilla siberica

Vinca major

Allium sphaerocephalon

Hydrangea macrophylla

Echinacea purpurea

Amelanchier lamarckii

Elymus arenarius

Molinia arundianaces

Stipa tenuissima

Calamagrostis acutiflora

Deschampsia cespitosa

Festuca amethystina

Crocus vernus

Campanula portenschlagiana

Cornus alba Sibirica

I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII

a variety of plants colour the different areas in a monthly changing pattern