High-speed Railway as Landscape Bonanza

High-speed Railway as Landscape Bonanza: TU-Delft Alternative Lelyline: A case study from Zwolle to Groningen

Bai, Fazhong (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment)

Geuze, A. (mentor)
Ersoy, A. (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences

Innovative infrastructure implementation

2023-07-04

Long-term, large-scale empirical studies on the simultaneous development of transport infrastructure and the built environment are scarce. This thesis provides a future high-speed railway infrastructure implementation alternative based on the Dutch cultural landscape from Zwolle to Groningen. Our design goal is to better connect Amsterdam and provinces in the north of the Netherlands including Overijssel, Drenthe, Groningen by using a faster, more efficient and sustainable high-speed railway solution to replace the Lelyline solution proposed by the Dutch government based on traditional trains.

The author has systematically evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of various railway routing options, and based on this, proposed an optimal alignment. Then, the landscape typologies alongside the optimal alignment are concluded and the sustainable landscape interventions with the high-speed railway viaducts on those landscape typologies are elaborated into a catalogue, which will be not only meaningful for Zwolle-Groningen, but also will provide inspiration and guideline for future high-speed rail design projects in similar landscape context worldwide.
Afterwards, following the principles of sustainable development and theory of infrastructure as landscape, five unique sites along the optimal alignment are chosen to showcase the landscape architecture interventions in relationship with the rich Dutch cultural landscape. The outcome is a design proposal of the high-speed railway itinerary and landscape mitigation measures to its surroundings including both built and natural environment.

landscape architecture
high-speed railway
infrastructure implementation
Dutch cultural landscape
national park
Zwolle
Groningen
Norg

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a9881bc4-78a2-4070-b23e-17765a8989e2

53.21940, 6.56650

Student theses

master thesis

© 2023 Fazhong Bai