This project is a research by design study to the former gas fields in Groningen, The Netherlands. This project is ongoing from August 2025 untill November 2025 and therefore under construction at the moment. Please come back later for more information.
Groningen’s challenge lies in its historic reliance on single sectors. Agriculture and natural gas once fueled prosperity, but their decline has left the region without a clear identity. A thriving region needs multiple pillars that strengthen each other, with one theme defining its character. Groningen has strong assets in energy, agriculture, housing, and nature but they remain fragmented. Synergy and hierarchy between these themes are essential.
Which will ultimately shape Groningen’s identity must emerge from design-driven research, but cohesion and direction are key to becoming a truly thriving place.
Imagine the dikes breaking tomorrow. Not as a disaster scenario, but as a catalyst for a necessary transformation much like past natural events have triggered societal shifts. It outlines a nation that can no longer continue on autopilot, but must rethink where and how we live.
Groningen, shaped for centuries by soil, energy and harbours, returns to the forefront. The flood exposes four national themes that converge precisely here: agriculture, energy, nature and social structures. Together, they reveal both the problem and the potential.
Where the sea reclaims land in the west, nature can be given back its space. This echoes the deep history of the Netherlands as a wetland country. Groningen’s wetlands and coastal ecosystems could become a cornerstone for ecological restoration and biodiversity recovery.
As the country looks eastward, this represents a return to earlier times, when Groningen played a central role in the nation’s political and cultural landscape. Depopulation in rural areas may turn into new opportunities for selective regrowth and urban consolidation in the north.
Hydrogen is central to the energy transition, and Groningen’s location, university, and infrastructure make it a natural hub. With production, storage, and distribution, it could anchor a national hydrogen network. Energy and pioneering lie in Groningen’s DNA.
Under pressure to become sustainable and circular, Dutch agriculture can find renewal in Groningen’s fertile clay soils and farming tradition. By clustering and innovating, the province could secure the nation’s food supply and reinforce its historic identity as a food capital.
The open clay landscapes make Groningen one of the most productive of Europe, especially in potatoes, sugar beets & grains. Large-scale farming defines the spatial character and cultural identity of the province.
Groningen has been shaped by water. This orientation extends to energy: the province is a pioneer in renewable sources such as hydrogen, wind, and solar, while also dealing with the legacy of natural gas extraction.
Groningen faces demographic decline and economic challenges, particularly in rural areas. Outmigration and an aging population put pressure on villages, services, and the regional labor market,
Intensified land use and large-scale farming have led to biodiversity loss and pressure on natural systems. Yet Groningen also carries unique ecological treasures like the Wadden Sea, peat landscapes, and wetlands.
New residential environments emerge directly from the landscape. Wierden and historic structures serve as guiding frameworks; living is no longer an enclave but part of a continuous ecological and cultural fabric. Living here is embedded in the landscape: a gentle transition between people and their environment.
A new wierden landscape forms Delfzijl’s edge: raised neighbourhoods built on solidarity and shared stewardship. Each mound acts as a small commons with collective energy, water and green management. Set in a sponge-like mosaic of wetland and saline soils, the wierden reconnect the settlement to the Dollard while supporting a salty–fresh agricultural patchwork. This zone restores both landscape and community by returning to the region’s core principles of height, cooperation and land.
An old branch of the Ems is restored. The water creates space for nature, forms a gentle threshold between working and living environments, and brings cultural history back into daily experience.
By restoring a lost branch of the Eems, this intervention reconnects Groningen with its hydrological and cultural roots. The renewed river becomes a living spine that binds heritage, nature and new housing into one coherent landscape. As the urban grain shifts from intimate residential streets to the larger scale of the business district, workspace is woven naturally into the neighbourhood. This creates a gradual, harmonious transition where living and working coexist, guided by the presence of water as structuring force.
An industrial site transforms into a mixed urban district where city, sea, and nature converge. The sea is no longer treated as a productive edge but embraced as both a cultural and ecological partner.
Here, living and making merge along the North Sea. “Harbor Courts” cluster homes around workshops, reviving a culture of collective ownership. Water shapes the district: tidal parks, brackish ecologies and adaptive streets link Delfzijl back to the Wadden Sea. Marine energy systems and short food chains bind housing, production and agriculture. This is the civic turning point where the community reclaims its future.
