To Hans Ibelings, the burnt down and rebuilt Roombeek district in Enschede has been the most important urban planning project of the last years as here an aim was accomplished that is hardly ever realized: to bring together different classes of population in one place.

On May 13th, 2000 there had been an explosion in a pyrotechnics’ warehouse in Roombeek. During this catastrophe, 23 persons lost their lives, more than 900 people were injured, and more than half (43 out of 62 hectares) of the neighbourhood was destroyed. In Dutch urban planning, the redevelopment of this district occupies an important place. Out of the ruins caused by the catastrophe the new Roombeek has arisen– in close communication with the local residents who had survived the disaster though many of them had lost all their belongings. Pi de Bruijn of de Architekten Cie., based in Amsterdam, had devised the master plan for the rebuilding of Roombeek.

The new Roombeek is an extraordinary project – not only with respect to the devastating disaster. This rebuilding project was a special and exemplary one because of the tabula rasa situation within a densely populated urban area and also because of the unique involvement of the residents with the rebuilding process. In the Netherlands, most housing projects do either aim at expanding the city towards the periphery or a concerned with the densification of the inner cities and their surroundings. With Roombeek, all was different.

The greatest difference in comparison to other housing plans is the relaxed nature of the plan on which this rebuilding project had been based. With respect to town planning and the particular building projects much less strict stipulations were drafted than usual. Originally, the district consisted of estates of terraced houses backed by large agricultural areas parts of which had later been as industrial sites - Grolsch e. g. had its brewery here for a long time.

The structure of Roombeek that had existed before the fire disaster and consisted of diverse residential areas and spheres of life has been the point of departure for the rebuilding. In the Netherlands where there is always a tendency towards establishing full control the overall urban plan of Roombeek was quite unusual as the principle to fix in advance all details and figures in concrete terms was deliberately abandoned.

Some important projects of the rebuilding plan – the wedge-shaped park in the middle, the regional museum (cf Bauwelt 23.2008) and the cultural and social service facilities surrounding the park – were designed with a considerable amount of attention while in contrast to these, the further implementation of the plan was executed with much more latitude. The arrangement of the open spaces was, for example, was left to private clients. In a word, Roombeek was explicitly not planned in the way that the overall plan should exclusively inform all the constituent parts. Instead, the small, individual parts were given freedom to influence the whole ensemble. The crucial point in this project were the particular wishes of the residents who were given the opportunity to express their views and ideals in numerous meetings that demonstrated the residents’ close attachment to their neighbourhood. In the rebuilding plan, to priciples were paramount: While on the one hand the social cohesion should be re-established on the other the coexistence of different social groups should also be encouraged. Apart from low budget housing, more costly apartments were also built, and private individuals were also given the opportunity of building individual houses if only townhouses rather than freestanding ones. With a mix of two thirds of residential areas and one third devoted to commercial and public facilities, the new Roombeek features a higher programmatic diversity than before. As in his project management of the Arena Boulevard, the area surrounding the Ajax Amsterdam football stadium in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, Pi de Bruijn in Roombeek successfully implemented a plan that is so self-evident and suitable for everyday use that it goes almost unnoticed. No attempt at ostentatious designing has been made. in the meantime, the latitudes in planning the rebuilding of Roombeek can be received -  in contrast to the sterility of the usual Dutch plans, a strategy has been adopted that allows more spontaneity, dissonances, and contrasts while upholding a sense of coherence. In Roombeek, commonplace houses taken from prefab catalogues stand side by side with outstanding architecture like the houses by Yushi Uehara, 2012 Architecten and Cino Zucchi, the residential units by Claus en Kaan Architecten, or the cultural centre designed by SeARCH. Having achieved this balance between the commonplace and the innovative is the quintessence of Roombeek’s exceptional quality.

Fakten
Architekten Planer Pi de Bruijn, de Architekten Cie., Amsterdam

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aus Bauwelt 43.2010
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