The building factory - 2010/2014

Is there room for urban planning for many small-scale initiatives? Step by step? Without a well-defined urban development plan or wealth? Actually, the way our cities used to grow. The Bouwfabriek - a studio in the middle of the district - experimented with this. Visitors tried out their ideas in a work model. Everyone was allowed to participate: contractors, architects, housing corporations, developers, private individuals, social organisations. The Bouwfabriek allows for growth without any programmatic or architectural requirements.

A 1.5-kilometre stretch offers space for 'city palaces', stately villas along a main road. In practice, the strip was filled with smaller and medium-sized houses for the first-time buyers in the housing market: starter's palaces.

For the Bouwfabriek, Willem Jan Neutelings sets out the building principles: the flat, corner flat, mansion, corner mansion, terraced house, corner townhouse, and free house. The construction rules of these types are laid down in lot passports with which one can work freely. In the map below, these basic principles have been applied in the block K, L, M and N applied in Almere Poort. The aim is to apply this form of urbanism on a larger scale elsewhere in the municipality.