TWIN VILLAGES Settlement development that is in harmony with the agricultural reclaimed landscape in the Rhenish Mining Area Amarens Lock MSc Thesis Landscape Architecture December 2019 Wageningen University & Research TWIN VILLAGES Settlement development that is in harmony with the agricultural reclaimed landscape in the Rhenish Mining Area Amarens Lock MSc Thesis Landscape Architecture December 2019 Wageningen University & Research COLOPHON © Wageningen University December 2019 Landscape Architecture Chair Group Contact information: Postbus 47 6700 AA Wageningen The Netherlands Phone: +31 317 484 056 E-mail: [email protected] Author © Amarens Daphne Lock Student nr.: 960907524070 E-mail: [email protected] First supervisor Prof. ir. Adriaan Geuze External Supervisor Dr.-Ing. Timo Matti Wirth (RWTH Aachen University) All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of either the author or the Wageningen University Landscape Architecture Chair group. PREFACE The interest in creating and fantasying about the future has brought me five years ago to the study Landscape Architecture. I was glad to learn to play with the ‘building blocks’ of landscape architecture: water, soil, and vegetation. This project is the last step toward landscape architecture maturity and the crowning achievement of my studies. The development of new land in the Rhenish Mining Area made my Dutch heart beat faster and I enjoyed to design future living environments. I hope this project will convince the reader of the importance of speculating about how we want to inhabit our landscapes. I would like to thank my supervisor Adriaan Geuze for sharing his opinion and sharp arguments. He gave me new insights into the design process and helped with exploring new design ideas. Moreover, thanks to Matti Wirth, for sharing his knowledge about the region and discussing potential futures, as an external supervisor. It was indispensable for making the work relevant to the region. Also, I would like to thank Volker Mielchen and Gero Vinzelberg and their colleagues, for their willingness of providing information and sharing their perspective on the region. And, a special thank you for my family and friends - for brainstorming with me, listening, providing the Peugeot 207, and many other things. Thanks to you all, I developed a project I am truly proud of. A thesis submitted for the requirements for the Master of Science degree in Landscape Architecture at the Wageningen University, Landscape Architecture Chair Group. Supervisor and Examiner: Prof. ir. A (Adriaan) Geuze Professor Landscape Architecture Wageningen University .................................................................................... Second Examiner: Dr. ir. R (Rudi) van Etteger MA Assistant Professor Landscape Architecture Wageningen University .................................................................................... ABSTRACT Extensive suburbanisation is taking place around Cologne in the agricultural landscape of the Rhenish Mining Area. An area that, at the same time, deals with unsustainable agricultural practices and large-scale reclamation efforts after a period of open-pit lignite mining. The design research presents a design of agricultural urbanism, which enables alternative settlement development in the Rhenish Mining Area and that contributes to sustainable forms of agriculture and the development of the reclaimed landscape. Five settlement development strategies are evaluated and the advantages of the best models are merged into one final model: ‘Twin Villages’. With the concept of the Twin Villages, the reclaimed, post-mining landscape of the Rhenish Mining Area is enhanced and further developed. The model aims to keep the presence of the urban-rural dichotomy intact. It includes villages that are dispersed over the landscape, but all have a compact concentric form and contribute to a revival of the rural reclaimed landscape, as a rural answer to the exploding urban areas. The design implementation of Twin Village ‘Kantweiler’ shows that, when contributing to the landscape qualities, the threat of settlement development to the agricultural sector can be reversed into an opportunity. The design shows an alternative for the unlimited settlement development, which is threatening the agricultural landscape of the Rhenish Mining Area. TABLE OF CONTENTS COLOPHON 2 PREFACE 3 ABSTRACT 5 INTRODUCTION problem context 9 problem statement 10 knowledge gap 10 thesis statement 10 conceptual framework 11 research strategy & methods 11 relevance 12 structure of the report 12 I THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK urban / rural 15 agricultural urbanism 16 intermezzo - parc du vexin français 17 reclamation of mining landscape 18 intermezzo - garden cities of to-morrow 19 II RECLAIMED LANDSCAPE DEVELOPMENT geological history of the lower rhine bay 21 agricultural land-use 22 lignite mining landscape 23 reclaimed post-mining landscape 28 timeline 34 III MODELS swot-analysis 37 parameters 42 models 43 development of the preferred model 50 IV DESIGN EXPLORATIONS location 53 twin villages 55 life in jackerath 58 the new village 60 interaction twin villages 66 connectivity surroundings 72 design of kantweiler 78 agricultural strategy 80 die kante 82 life in kantweiler 90 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 93 REFERENCES 96 APPENDIX I 101 APPENDIX II 102 APPENDIX III 104 introduction INTRODUCTION Urbanisation has completely changed the link between and based on an on-going growth model, resulted urban and rural. Continuous urban expansion at rates in large-scale monotonous landscapes. The highly much higher than population growth led to an enormous efficient businesses that emerged have a relatively increase of the urban footprint in Europe (European low contribution to the biodiversity and landscape Environment Agency, 2017). Cities spread out over the appearance. The agricultural business may be landscape and have become less compact (Wandl, profitable for individual farmers on a short-term level. 2012). However, there is an obligation to society to re-think the agricultural sector, since they are setting the scene of The process of rapid spreading urbanisation has led the landscape and are defining the quality of the rural to the loss of agricultural landscape. Agricultural areas landscape as a public good. Agricultural practices and nearby cities are subjected to development pressure their belonging landscapes can contribute to either a and rural landscapes are at risk to be seen solely positive or negative effect on regional development. as expansion areas for cities’ new neighbourhoods Also, a sustainable agricultural landscape is less (Santangelo, 2019; Vidal & Fleury, 2008). The vulnerable to the pressures on space when the relationship between rural and urban should be re- population continues to grow in the coming years thought and cities have to be contextualized within the (Roggema, 2016). larger landscape and its dynamics. Lastly, the agricultural landscape of the Region PROBLEM CONTEXT Cologne/Bonn is influenced by extensive open-pit This process can be also recognized in the metropolitan lignite mining, as part of the Rhenish Mining Area. At area Region Cologne/Bonn, which is situated within the the beginning of 2019, Germany decided to end its use larger Rhine-Ruhr Region and forms a counterbalance to of coal power by 2038, which is faster than originally the Ruhr Region. The enormous demand for residential planned (Kommission ‘Wachstum, Strukturwandel und area in Cologne put pressure on the existing settlement Beschäftigung’, 2019). Therefore, the area is at the structures and landscape qualities. Land-consuming start of a comprehensive transformation process and forms of living and extensive commercial areas already long-term challenges for economical, technical, social led to a loss of agricultural land, especially west of and ecological development. Extensive compensation Cologne, where the land prices are cheaper compared measures are provided by the federal government to the east. The suburban areas, also called urbanised to cope with structural change (Wirth, 2019). Last landscape or city agglomerations, took up large areas decades, discussions around the lignite mining and became a seedbed of privatization, segregation, industry have given the Rhenish Mining Area a negative congestion, monotony and car dependency. The prognosis is that the next decade the population in the region will continue to increase, whereby demographic growth and shrinkage will occur geographically close together in the region (Region Köln/Bonn e.V., 2017). As land is limited, the pressure on the agricultural area increases and conflicts between settlement development, agriculture and open space protection grow (Kötter, 2018). Berthold Rothe, the head of the planning department in Rhein-Erft-Kreis, states that an on-going practice of settlement development of Cologne will lead to continuing urban diffusion (Kötter, 2018). A second issue in the region concerns the industrializing and intensification of the agricultural sector which led to unsustainable farming practices. The agricultural Figure 1: spreading urbanization into the agricultural landscape (Region Köln/ businesses, which are steered by the global market Bonn e.V.) 9 introduction reputation. Nevertheless, the lignite industry is rooted in Cologne in the agricultural landscape