The commons
A community where living and landscape dissolve into one another
A.L.W. Niemeijer (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
O. Klijn – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
R.S. Guis – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
This graduation project proposes a new form of community living within the rewetting peat landscape of the Vlietlanden, Midden-Delfland — a territory undergoing fundamental ecological transformation under the ZUS, SWECO, & FLUX Landscape Architecture masterplan for 2122 (2022). As conventional agriculture becomes untenable and water levels rise, the project asks : what comes next, and who lives there ?
The project develops a woonlandschap — a living productive landscape — for approximately 55 dwellings and 150 inhabitants, organised around three dimensions of productivity : ecological, material, and social. The landscape is treated not as a backdrop but as the generative foundation of every spatial decision. Water and soil gradients dictate land use, which dictates the position and form of the settlement.
Three new social actors inhabit this landscape : the new farmer as landscape guardian and educator, the seasonal worker as full community member, and the hybrid resident seeking an active relationship with nature. Together they form a mixed community organised around shared productive infrastructure — workshop, community kitchen, educational space, and restaurant — at the heart of a circular ring of dwellings.
The architectural typology combines hexagonal CLT dwelling units with a rectangular greenhouse envelope. The hexagon responds to the organic, non-orthogonal conditions of the rewetting soil, breaks the rigid geometry of the polder grid, and opens six sightlines onto the productive landscape. The greenhouse provides a spatial and environmental threshold between interior and landscape — generating three new biotopes, producing energy through BIPV panels, and filtering water through rooftop helophyte systems. The settlement is energy positive, materially circular, and ecologically generative.
The project demonstrates that architecture in a fragile, transitional landscape don’t need to choose between human comfort and ecological integrity. When the ground leads, both become possible.