LOLA Landscape / The Mosaic Metropolis of Brabant

BrabantStad, an alliance between the cities of Eindhoven, Den Bosch, Breda, Tilburg, Helmond and the province North Brabant, is in essence a dispersed city, an urban landscape. It is an extensive and flexible mosaic, with different land use both in high and low densities: a “carpet metropolis”.
What would joining forces bring these cities more than what they cannot accomplish on their own? What would make BrabantStad a cohesive urban metabolism, and how exactly are agendas, ambitions and actors interconnected?
The International Architecture Biennal Rotterdam (IABR)–Project Atelier BrabantStad searches for the strengths that lay hidden in this urban tapestry. It explores city-landscape relations and asks which level of dispersion is most favorable for ecological and economic sustainability. The brief of the Project Atelier is to deliver a number of tools, which are to be put to good use in between the cracks of existing policy and governance structures.

The IABR–Project Atelier BrabantStad is a collaboration between the IABR, the province North Brabant, the municipalities of Den Bosch, Eindhoven, Tilburg, Breda and Helmond and the water boards of North Brabant. The design research is carried out by Architecture Workroom Brussels, Floris Alkemade Architect and LOLA Landscape Architects.

The film was commissioned by Architectuur Lokaal, in the context of IABR–2014–URBAN BY NATURE–, and produced by iabr/UP.