21st Century (2000–present)

The Hague Binckhorst Transformation

2016– · Netherlands · Western & Central Europe · Transit-oriented urbanism and corridor planning · Planned by Gemeente Den Haag
Industrial Binckhorst district, The Hague, undergoing transformation into a mixed-use urban area.
Industrial Binckhorst district, The Hague, undergoing transformation into a mixed-use urban area. · CC BY-SA 2.0

Core idea

Industrial estate to mixed-use urban district

Why it matters

Station-oriented inner-ring intensification

Description

The Binckhorst transformation is the Gemeente Den Haag's programme to convert a large inner-city industrial estate southeast of The Hague's centre into a dense mixed-use urban district. Planned from the mid-2010s through a flexible, invitation-based framework rather than a fixed blueprint, and used as a national pilot for the new Dutch Environment and Planning Act, it channels thousands of homes into an area close to the city's main stations while retaining space for productive urban industry.

Significance

Binckhorst is significant in Dutch planning as a prominent experiment with 'organic' area development and the omgevingsplan instrument, moving away from end-state masterplanning towards rule-based, developer-responsive transformation. It also figures in the European debate about retaining manufacturing and messy productive uses within intensifying inner cities. As station-oriented inner-ring densification, it typifies the Randstad strategy of absorbing housing demand without greenfield expansion.

What shaped it

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.