How we will radically green the city of Apeldoorn
In 2019, the Municipality of Apeldoorn established the vision developed by SITE for the city center of Apeldoorn. The vision forms the basis for a long-term investment agenda and acts as an open invitation to market parties, investors and other authorities to work together on a green, distinctive city center.
The challenge
The municipality of Apeldoorn is currently struggling with a city center that does not honor the Apeldoorn identity. A large part of Apeldoorn’s attractions are located on the green outer edge of the city, which is in sharp contrast to the mostly gray city center. That is why SITE stated last year: turn the city center into a large city park.
That is why we are going to move the green lushness of the Veluwe environment into the city, in both a figurative and literal sense.
Approach
But how do you make use of these ambitions? How do you shape the collaboration between public and private stakeholders? What connects everyone’s interests? In order to answer these questions, we organized two exploratory sessions together with SITE, in which the Municipality of Apeldoorn, Rijksvastgoed Bedrijf, Dura Vermeer, DELVA and Certitudo jointly discussed the future of the city center. From these sessions we came to three points that lend themselves to a follow-up approach:
1. Mobility as a positive force
2. A programming that fits in with the new economy and leads to a unique interior design
3. New organizational, governance, exploitation models and new roles
Collaborate with local heroes
In order to give decisive shape to the follow-up approach, we formed a program organization together with the aforementioned parties. The follow-up approach has two objectives: drawing up a joint area vision and starting up projects that immediately activate that vision. To arrive at concrete projects, we work according to the principles of “Design Thinking”. Based on the needs of the (potential) user, we define projects and measures that we convert into prototypes to test and validate as quickly as possible — and thus learn from practical experience.
At the end of this process, there is a joint area vision that inspires, connects, activates and can be anchored in the Apeldoorn Master Plan. In addition, several innovative projects have been realized by the program organization that strengthen the area vision and make the city center more attractive to all the residents of Apeldoorn and its visitors.
We do this with about ten interactive, online sessions with inspiring speakers. You are very welcome to tune in! Subscribe to our newsletter for this. This can be done via this link!
