Stadsblokken Meinerswijk
Hardly any Dutch city is so well-located as Arnhem, in-between the high and forested Veluwe and the river Rhine. Nonetheless the relationship with its river landscape is rather poor. Two abandoned industrial sites block a good relationship between city-centre and the partly renatured riverplains.
By turning these two remote places into two higher, lively and natural islands in the riverbed, Arnhem turns towards, and even jumps in the river Rhine.
The two harbours of one of the islands, Stadsblokken, opposite the city centre, will turn into lively inhabited harbours, with restaurants and remains of the former shipyards. They will appear as two robust, urban enclaves in the continuous Riverpark. A new river dune landscape next to the famous John Frost-Bridge (the ‘Bridge Too Far’) will continue to host festivals in a year-round sportive city-beach landscape.
The other Island will arise by digging a new river branch that gives more room to the river on one side and separate the inhabited islands from the more extensive nature area on the other. On the island wooden houses will be sprinkled in-between the trees. A piece of Scandinavia in the river Rhine.
For the first time since 1980 a plan for this area starts to become reality, after the city voted in favour of our plans in a referendum in 2016. The 300 ha riverplain area will turn into one, continuous Riverpark, in the geographic centre of the city of Arnhem.
