Kattenbroek, Amersfoort, Netherlands

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Amersfoort is a municipality and the second largest city of the province of Utrecht in central Netherlands. The city is growing quickly but has a well-preserved and protected medieval centre. Amersfoort is one of the largest railway junctions in the country, because of its location on two of the Netherlands’ main east-west and north-south rail lines. The city celebrated its 750th birthday in 2009.

This image is of a suburb called Kattenbroek. Here’s what the architecture website Mimoa.com says about it: Kattenbroek has taken a stand against the tedium and meaninglessness of urban development districts in The Netherlands. Here choices were made in the interests of the residents and simultaneously for trend-setting urban planning with a high social, cultural and political ambition.

Hence Kattenbroek has become a classic example of a good urban development district in The Netherlands. Ashok Bhalotras’ urban plan for Kattenbroek is derived from metaphors and images, which create zones with differentiated and identity-forming atmospheres. He was given the opportunity to realise what he wanted: a new section of Amersfoort with an own identity, an organic coherent housing suburb where the trend was set by the use and perception of the residents. Architect Bhalotra’s starting point was the existing landscape with its canals, rows of trees, farms and adjacent suburbs.

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