A City Centre Made to MeasureDeventer, The Netherlands (1998-2003)

For the Municipality of Deventer, Bureau B+B created an integral vision for the city centre. The plan was all-encompassing: from an urban design vision of the city centre’s future to an elaboration at the detail level. The vision had the task of helping to strengthen the competitive position of the former Hansa city in respect to living, work, culture, food services and tourism, this through the creation of a striking visual quality that would be unique to Deventer. This meant not only brightening-up the city centre’s worn out shopping district, but clarifying its important structural elements as well. The city’s waterside location was, according to the firm, a key aspect. Connec-tions between the city centre and the water-front were restored, resulting in improved routing for the nuclear shopping apparatus. To strengthen orientation and the charac-teristic urban structure, B+B unified the fragmented old church district in the middle of the city centre, yielding a large space

with its own unique character. The public space, with its special pavement, lighting, street furniture, greenery and advertising policy, constitutes the connecting factor.The vision took as its starting point the strengthening of the city centre’s four differ-ent identities: the mediaeval city, the nine-teenth-century city, the Singel promenade and the IJsselkade quay. Each ambiance has its own special concept. In the shop-ping district, the attractive historic façades form the basis for the public-space concept. A head-to-toe approach to the façades, taking full account of the street, determines the approach to the design of shop fronts, the placement of advertisement and signs, public/special lighting and displays. B+B gives highest priority to the quality of each building individually, underscoring this by means of the paving, for centuries an essen-tial element in the appearance of Deventer’s streets, but now almost entirely gone. The ‘made-to-measure’ paving that is added –

Type:City Centre, Public Space, Architecture

Designteam:Bureau B+B stedebouw en landschapsarchitectuur

Program:Shopping streets, facades, advertising and display policy

Surface:19.000 m2 (vision 40.000 m2)

Budget:€ 7.000.000,-

Client:Municipality of Deventer

each shopkeeper can choose from different types and shapes of natural stone – underscores the difference between the street and building levels, and even serves as extra display space. The street design can be charac-terized as chic and reserved: a carpet of clinkers, set off with Corten steel strips for drainage. The clinkers used are a mix specially developed for Deventer, featuring subtle differences in colour and hardness, such that the modern, dimensionally consistent ones also seem authentic in this context. The city’s name is perforated in

the drain covers in a traditional typeface, a reference to both the steel industry and the art of printing, both being directly associated with this city. The facelift had effect: shopkeepers were motivated to improve the appear-ance of their shops and signs. The new concept was also a commercial success: beginning entrepreneurs set up business in streets that previously had been less popular, resulting in a greater choice of shops and food services.

four different identities: compact medieval city, varied 19th century belt, green belt and river with quays and wetlands

enhancing the four identities

two building typologies:small scale buildings in medieval citybig scale buildings in the 19th century belt

enhancing of the typologies

city centre is introvert, the relation to the surrounding is bad and the layout of the edge is emphasizes the isolated situation

the ring becomes a connecting element to the greater surrounding and becomes part of a new series of public space

current walkingroutes don’t correspond to the urban structure of the city centre, they don’t form a loop.

new walking routes connect the different urban functions and enhance the the strutucture of the city centre

public space consists of nice streets (yellow), streets with little quality (mainly shoppingstreets, brown) and our of undefined area’s (blue)

the public space consists of streets with quality (yellow) streets with extra quality (purple) and out of of renewed formal devout areas

courtyards and undefined spaces

clear public space with specific character

structure public space is unclear and noisy

edge zone will be a binding element to the surroundings and becomes part of a series of new public spaces