Losser-Oldenzaal outskirts

The area between Losser and Oldenzaal is a beautiful landscape with many qualities. A rolling, small-scale landscape with corridors of trees contains a variety of woods, avenues, meadows, farms, estates and brooks. The landscape is typical of this part of Twente, where people enjoy living, working and recreation. It is also an area that continues to develop, particularly around the A1 motorway. The local authorities of Losser and Oldenzaal invited Strootman to explore the insertion in the landscape of a number of specific developments in which both of them have a stake: improving the traffic structure between Oldenzaal and Losser, and inserting a business park to be jointly developed in the planning area.

In the exploration, the qualities have been charted and design research has been conducted to see how the planned functions for the area can be approached integrally from the landscape. The exploration can also be an important cornerstone in the formulation of an integral assignment for the planning zone.

The first step in the insertion of the road and business park is to make a robust green and blue framework. A number of green chambers are distinguished in the landscape between Losser and Oldenzaal. These are large open spaces with rolling meadows, scattered buildings and roads, surrounded by woodland. The planning zone forms part of one of these large green chambers. Robust plots of woodland are added to the existing woods and estates to create a small, clearly delimited area. To show the potential offered by the green and blue framework, two possible designs for the business park have been made: a landscape and a compact variant.