Klingelbeek - Urban Plan for a Park to Share

The development centres on a historic villa overlooking the Rhine, which over the centuries has served many different purposes. Its simple enfilade of rooms and clear formal language have proved remarkably resilient over time, a quality that set the principle for the new buildings. A composition of apartment buildings, townhouses, a villa, restaurant and outdoor swimming pool form a lively new neighbourhood. Without boundaries the park serves as the communal core, while each building defines distinct private outdoor spaces that mediate the transition between the private and shared garden.

The main challenge was to introduce new housing to the site without dividing the park into smaller plots of land and removing the inherent beauty of the existing garden. Working in collaboration with the client, landscape architect and an historian we studied the site’s layered history as it has been transformed from a large manor house to hotel and a monastery. The strategy of the masterplan preserves the estate’s openness through the placement of three dense clusters that echo its historic organisation. Like houses in a village, each building is designed individually to create variation in character and scale. Parking for cars and bicycles is integrated within the landscape, placed in the two squares or underneath building one which opens up to the landscape. Subtle landscape shifts, walls, and planting define thresholds instead of fences, maintaining visual continuity and shared ownership of the park.

Seven new buildings were realised in phases, each expressing its own structural logic while sharing a coherent material palette. Robust, low-maintenance systems—concrete frames, monolithic brick, and cross-laminated timber—were chosen for their clarity, durability, and adaptability. Facades of brick, glass and timber harmonise with the park’s textures and light. Construction prioritised standard details and local sourcing to balance quality and cost. A central biomass boiler using locally produced wood pellets provides renewable heat across the site, while natural ventilation and thermal mass moderate the interior climate. The buildings are conceived as resilient frameworks: easily maintained, adaptable over time, and deeply integrated with their landscape.