Botanical City

Leiden Singelpark, NE

Following an international competition, the Municipality of Leiden commissioned Studio Karst and Dutch Landscape Architects LOLA to work together on a quality plan and design guidelines for the Singelpark.

The medieval Old Town of Leiden, home of Europe‘s oldest botanical garden, is ringed by a fortified canal called the Singel. Building on a bottom-up initiative of Friends of the Singelpark the Municipality of Leiden aims in time to connect the fragmented green spaces along the Singel to a coherent linear Park with a strong landscape identity built on Leiden‘s botanical heritage.

The old city plan of Leiden very much resembles the archetypal Eden that underpinned the layout of early Botanical Gardens. We used this coincidence to create a narrative for our competition entry. Reinterpreting the historic footprint of the Singelpark as the green boundary of a city-scale botanical garden, we suggested old Leiden be understood as an enclosed and cultivated place of gardening, study and recreation at the heart of the modern urban development of Greater Leiden. The idea resonated with the municipality because it gives renewed meaning to the original spatially defining function of the Singel as boundary and threshold of the Old Town. The idea of actively contributing to their own city-scale botanical garden resinated with supporters of the Singelpark initiative, many of whom are already active and inventive in greening their streets and facades despite the limited space available.

Working with LOLA, we translated our combined ideas for the Singelpark into a quality plan and practical guidelines for future development.

Client:

Municipality of Leiden, NE

Completion:

Quality Plan, completed 2014

Commission type:

Joint 1^st Prize with LOLA, Rotterdam

Team constellation (primary relationships):

Sophia Carstensen and Joachim Vogt, Studio Karst;
Peter Veenstra, LOLA;
Jeroen Maters, Initiator of the Singelpark;
Municipality of Leiden.