Network of Green Public Spaces for the City Centre | Martijn Al landscape architect + Natascha van den Ban landscape architect + Bart Bordes urbanism

Winner of the Editors’ Award in the 2025 WLA Awards

Designing a resilient and legible town

Capelle aan den IJssel is a new town built in the 1960s and 1970s. At the heart of this originally car-oriented town is a mostly covered shopping centre. Although the centre attracts many visitors, it needed an upgrade, as did the largely paved, dreary and run-down open space.

The town centre is now undergoing a total metamorphosis. The shopping centre has been extended and renovated, a multi-storey car park has been built and the metro station and town square are being renovated. In addition, a network of green public spaces has been designed, each with its own character and functionality. Together with the town centre they form a logically interconnected whole.

In this time of great change, a town with a clear identity where people feel at home is more important than ever – a town with a healthy urban fabric which offers attractive connections with the surrounding area and promotes the wellbeing of its residents, and which provides solutions to the rising number of challenges for urban development. Heat stress, biodiversity loss and deteriorating air quality, water deficits and raising groundwater levels all require adaptations to buildings and open spaces. When these existing and new challenges are coupled with increasing the legibility of the urban fabric, a vital ecosystem can be created and ad hoc planting and greenwashing avoided.

In addition to its contributions to climate adaptation, nature inclusivity and biodiversity, the radical greening of the public spaces has been used to enhance their identity. The use of materials in the town centre differentiates them from the rest of the town and each space is an individual expression of the underlying landscape and cultural history. The planting is richly diverse with varying layers, enhancing the connection residents feel with the spaces and cultivating a sense of being ‘at home’.

A distinctive ring around the shopping centre links the public spaces together

A clear succession of typologies has been used to create a distinctive town centre and a pleasant living environment for people, urban wildlife, birds and insects. A central ring road links the various public spaces together: two parks, the town square, the town hall garden and the metro station forecourt.

The central ring road has been redesigned with the same profile and paving throughout. A framework of tree planting and plant beds around the town centre strengthens its singular identity. The planting plan was inspired by the underlying peat subsoil and the original fen meadows, which is characterised by a predominance of yellows, purples and whites and a wide variety of flowers and grasses with simple, tall and slender inflorescences. Because of the length of the central ring, the planting consists of three repeating blocks. The organic alternation of groups gives the impression of a natural distribution of plants.

Along the central ring road the paved platform in front of the town hall has been replaced by an inviting urban garden. The town hall garden has a carpet of groundcover plants with highlights of flowering herbaceous plants. Evergreen ‘cushions’ of Taxus and multi-stemmed trees add height, perspective and dynamism. The paved roadway at the front of the metro station has been transformed into a green and inviting forecourt.

The two parks have their own identity. A ring of ornamental cherries forms the backbone of Lijsterpark. The Amandelpark is connected to the town centre by a pedestrian axis. The planting design shapes and divides the park into spaces with different ambiances for recreation and education.

Unwavering adherence to the design vision

Almost ten years on, most of the network of green public spaces has been completed or is being implemented in line with the original design vision. This is down to a clear vision that builds on the wishes of residents, ongoing resident participation in various forms and a consistent project team who form the memory of the project. But most important of all was that despite the many changes in the political and economic landscape, the municipality held firm to the vision, from start to finish.

Network of Green Public Spaces for the City Centre

Designer: Martijn Al landscape architect + Natascha van den Ban landscape architect + Bart Bordes urbanism

Client: Municipality Capelle aan den IJssel

Collaborators: Municipality Capelle aan den IJssel, Rod‘or Advies, Agel, Beindorff, Arcadis, Goudappel Coffeng, Keuzeweg, Maters & De Koning, Bomenwacht, Faunus, Ebben.

Photographer Credits: Ferry Streng