Haveneiland, IJburg, Amsterdam

The urban development plan for Haveneiland (Harbour Island) stands for sustainable flexibility. The basis of the plan is a neutral raster, the urban ‘grid’. The grid does not impose a certain look but establishes conditions for achieving a balance between order and chaos, cohesion and variation. One of the few rules that the architecture within the fields of the grid has to satisfy concerns the uninterrupted street elevations. A system of waterways and open spaces transects the orthogonal pattern of streets and blocks. The width of these waterways varies considerably: broad channels water with ‘soft’ banks bordered by reed beds alternate with narrow waterways through densely built blocks.