Designing Waterland: Strategies for a Contested Arcadia

This paper discusses the case of Waterland, an area of Arcadian lowlands in the Western part of the Netherlands, the future of which is currently object of vehement debate. In the course of the elaboration of the prevailing Regional Planning Act different views have been put forward on the future of Waterland, a number which depart from design and designerly investigation of spatial dynamics and inherent landscape figures. Starting, however, from this common thematic focus, their differing assessments of institutional capacity have led them to develop radically different design approaches, typically resulting in rather contesting outcomes. Drawing on an institutional planning framework, the paper investigates how regional development processes may benefit from design’s faculty to generate spatial concepts as motifs for mediating co-production.