Future Cities
NL
The city

From a lively heart to green edges

The city is concentric but organically grown: denser and taller in the middle, more open and greener towards the edge, with water winding through every ring like a river.

Aerial view of the city: green rings around water with a dense centre
The layout

Four layers, from heart to horizon

No compass circles, but a shape that looks grown, as if the city expanded over time. Each layer has its own density, its own life, its own place in the whole.

  • The centre
    Dense, lively and clearly taller than the rest: 8 to 15 storeys. The things a city needs only once: hospital, culture, nightlife, the transport hub. Car-free.
  • The middle ring
    Residential districts within cycling distance, with all daily amenities close by. This is where most people live.
  • The outer shell
    An archipelago of small hamlets with private gardens and their own social heart. Space and community, neither at the other's expense.
  • The greenbelt
    Farms, greenhouses and nature that feed the city and separate it from its neighbour.
Illustrated map of the city in four organic rings: tall heart, middle ring, hamlets and greenbelt
Water

A city that lives with water

Narrow canal with reed banks and a wooden footbridge

Water is the city's signature. Canals with wharves and terraces on the water, in the spirit of Utrecht, but as a second layer of life rather than decoration. Rain is caught in canals, swales and ponds that are nature, cooling and storm buffer at the same time.

And it goes further. The water treatment feeds the plants in the nurseries, turning water into one cycle that ties drinking, cooling, food and identity together. It is the city's bloodstream, not an ornament.

Character

Every district its own face

Deliberately not uniform. One district is warm timber and greenery, another is old concrete slowly being taken over by plants. That diversity solves the biggest problem of planned cities: that they feel sterile and soulless. And it gives you choice, because just as people gravitate to a hamlet that fits their life, they pick a district that fits their taste. Below ground sit the technology, the parking and the logistics. Above ground only people and greenery, with no home more than a stone's throw from real green.

Two districts with very different character side by side: timber and green next to overgrown concrete
The heart

The crown: arriving in the city's living room

Two green towers with a large glass hall between them, where the transit line rides into the building

At the core of the centre stands one building that brings everything together: the crown. The transit line runs straight through it, so you step off the pod or the intercity line and stand right in the great central hall. Not a station beside the city, but arriving in the middle of life itself.

That hall is a covered town square: a green winter garden full of plants, with water woven through it where boats can even moor. Concerts, markets, fairs, and simply the daily flow. Shops and businesses below, homes and offices in the towers above.

The great hall from inside: the line rides through a green winter garden with a market, canal and cafés

Around the crown stands a family of specialised venues that complement rather than compete: a concert hall, theatre, museum, sports hall, science and maker hall, and a swimming pool. Together they form the cultural heart, and every city in the network gets its own interpretation of it.

That is the city in physical form.

And this is how it keeps itself running: with its own energy, water and food.

To Self-sufficiency