Bossche Stadsdelta 's-Hertogenbosch

Forever young

‘s-Hertogenbosch is a water city. The Bossche Stadsdelta is the place where the Dommel, Aa, Binnendieze and Zuid-Willemsvaart flow together…

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Amstelstation Amsterdam

Waiting space becomes waiting place

WeLoveTheCity has untangled the maze of infrastructure around Amstel Station. Pedestrians walk across the green and car-free station square to…

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Spoorzone Almelo

Almelo Centraal

The municipality of Almelo has adopted the Almelo Central Development Vision and established the Municipalities Preferential Rights Act (WVG). This…

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Rwanda, Ghana, South Africa

Inclusive densification

Affordable housing is a universal fundamental right. But why is it still a global problem? More and more working Dutch…

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Cultural Estates Hilversum

Serenity in the Randstad

City dwellers crave for peace, space and nature, but unfortunately it cannot cost a penny. Many estates have therefore the…

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Cromhoff, Twekkelerveld, Rigtersbleek and Het Volkspark Enschede

Talent for Twente

After Amsterdam, Enschede is home to the largest and most diverse range of educational and knowledge institutions. The city is…

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Hamburg, London, Rome

Smarticipate

WeLoveTheCity is also engaged in the development of tools for better cities. Smarticipate is a striking example of this. The…

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Harbour Quarter Deventer

The Flemish Approach

Everyone knows: if you pass the old silos by the sluice, you are really in Deventer. Here, WeLoveTheCity introduced The…

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Paasbos Nijkerk

Co-creation for doers

WeLoveTheCity ordered 100 empty ‘Paasboxes’. Residents of Paasbos in Nijkerk drew, taped and wrote their wishes and ideas for the…

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Kolenkitbuurt Amsterdam

Reclaiming the street

Amsterdam West holds a special place in our hearts. It began with Mercatorplaza on the A10 West ring road. Together…

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Downtown Rotterdam

Club Cool

Rotterdam doesn’t have much space but it does need a lot of housing. That means densification. In the middle of…

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Watertorenpark Hengelo

A Vondelpark in miniature

It was an epic battle but it worked: Watertower Park Hengelo is complete! “Over the cycle highway F35 towards the…

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Waalsprong Nijmegen

Plant Your Flag

WeLoveTheCity believes that the energy transition will proceed more quickly if you give residents and entrepreneurs the space to implement…

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Urban Land Swap Winterswijk

The best city centre

In 1998, Andries Geerse drew up the structural plan for the historic centre of Woerden, which was proclaimed the best…

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The Village Arnhem

Smart & Slow

Since Dutch TV presentator Mies Bouwman’s crowd funding action in 1962, Het Dorp represents the emancipation of people with disabilities.…

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Overview

Talent for Twente

Talent for Twente

After Amsterdam, Enschede is home to the largest and most diverse range of educational and knowledge institutions. The city is also young in the sense of resilience, creativity and entrepreneurship. Here, more than anywhere else in the Netherlands, theoretical knowledge is converted into practical solutions. The harvest is overwhelming; more than 600 spin-off companies have their roots here. Moreover, the Council for Culture recently recommended allocating extra money to young and accessible art initiatives such as GOGBOT, Tetem and Theater Sonnevanck, the best score outside the capital.

WeLoveTheCity helps the municipality, housing corporations and developers in Enschede to score on the aspect of living. This is necessary: ‘Enschede is lagging behind as a residential city. The city must not only keep talent, but also attract and bring it back. This means not only focusing on recent graduates, but also on students who are starting their careers and older talent, with or without children, who are further along in their professional and residential path’ (BPD Research, 2019).

Just outside the Enschede Singelring that spans the inner city are Cromhoff and Twekkelerveld located, two areas with their own character that have the potential to keep, attract and bring back talent.

Cromhoff is a wild nature reserve in the middle of the city containing a number of abandoned industrial units.

“In the past, a developer would have said: ‘We’ll cut down the forest and build houses’. We deliberately chose not to, because of the groundwater that seeps to the surface here. And a forest, of course, also offers unique opportunities.”

Dennis Laing, Bouwfonds Property Development

What Twente is in the big picture, Cromhoff will become in a nutshell: a welcoming community around cultural history, nature and more balance in your life by thinking and acting differently. We do this on the basis of five development principles: (I) Heritage as a driving force, (II) Living with water and nature, (III) Embedding in the city, (IV) En-countering, dis-charging and re-charging and (V) Everyone on a bike.

Twekkelerveld is a former working-class neighbourhood situated between the city centre and the Knowledge Park. It is sometimes called a problem neighbourhood but nothing could be further from the truth. WeLoveTheCity has awarded 15 stars, which are social, economic and spatial highlights that are more than worth a visit.

The Twekkeler Stars form the basis for a hyper-varied living environment where students, recent graduates and starting entrepreneurs nestle among the original inhabitants from Twekkelerveld. The traditionally exuberant club life with its own carnival acts as a social binding agent to give newcomers in the neighbourhood a sense of belonging.

The purchase of the Roberineterrein in Rigtersbleek has freed up one of these Twekkeler stars for redevelopment. This historic treasure trove of the city’s textile history offers an opportunity to develop a mixed urban working and living environment. A place that revolves around entrepreneurship, innovation and education. The place where craftsmen and craftswomen want to live and develop against the backdrop of sturdy factories.

Rigtersbleek fabriekscomplex (1971)

Just south lies Het Volkspark, the beautifully designed English landscape styled park that Hendrik Jan van Heek donated to the workers and their families of his factories. That the park was appreciated is shown by the turnover figures of the café. In the first eight months of 1874, thirty thousand litres of Beyers beer were tapped and visitors puffed away eight thousand cigars.

Now, 150 years after its existence, we set to work on making Het Volkspark a jewel of the city again, inspired by the original design but also looking ahead to the next 150 years.

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