Theme Week Netherlands – Nijmegen, the oldest city in the Netherlands

24 May 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Market Square © Andreas Schmidt

Market Square © Andreas Schmidt

Nijmegen is a municipality and a city in the east of the Netherlands, near the German border. It is considered to be the oldest city in the Netherlands and celebrated its 2000th year of existence in 2005. The municipality is part of the “Stadsregio Arnhem-Nijmegen”, a metropolitan area with 736,107 inhabitants.   read more…

Floating prefab house settlement in the Netherlands

2 May 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Luuk Kramer

© Luuk Kramer

An amazing neighborhood of 75 modern floating homes has popped up in IJburg, Netherlands, paying tribute to close relationship that the Dutch have with water. Using docks as sidewalks and the IJ Lake as a backyard, the flotilla is a large-scale adaptive development in a country that will be disproportionately affected with rising seas due to climate change. The modular homes by Architectenbureau Marlies Rohmer feature a flexible design – wall panels can be swapped for windows to adjust each house to its site. On a hot day residents can jump off the porch for a dip, or in winter they can strap on a pair of ice skates to get around.   read more…

Ecolution – Sailing with only two crew members

9 April 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Environment Reading Time:  7 minutes

© www.ecolutions.nl

© www.ecolutions.nl

The sleek exterior design already hints at the vessel’s high-tech interior. Sailing yacht Ecolution, the work of former astronaut Wubbo Ockels, generates its own electricity and is constructed from sustainable materials. If Mr Ockels has his way, it will be the yacht of the future.   read more…

Brainport Eindhoven

23 March 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

PiazzaBlob Eindhoven © Curt Woyte

PiazzaBlob Eindhoven © Curt Woyte

Eindhoven is a municipality and a city located in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, originally at the confluence of the Dommel and Gender streams. The Gender was dammed off short of the city centre in the 1950s, but the Dommel still runs through the city. The city counts 213,809 inhabitants (1 January 2010), which makes it the fifth-largest city of the Netherlands and the biggest of North-Brabant.   read more…

Theme Week Netherlands – Rotterdam, Manhattan on the Maas

16 January 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, European Union, European Capital of Culture Reading Time:  11 minutes

Museumschip Zr Ms Buffel © Quistnix

Museumschip Zr Ms Buffel © Quistnix

Rotterdam is a city and municipality in the Dutch province of South Holland, situated in the west of the Netherlands. The municipality is the second largest in the country, with a population of 600,000. The greater Rotterdam area is often known as “Rotterdam-Rijnmond”/”Rijnmond region” (Rijnmond literally translates into “Rhine’s mouth”, referring to Rotterdam’s location at the end of the Rhine-delta and its economic position as Europe’s main port), yet other versions can be suggested for greater Rotterdam. Depending on what version is chosen, the area contains between 1.2 and 1.4 million people. When including The Hague, with whom Rotterdam now shares the Rotterdam The Hague Airport and city-lightrail RandstadRail, the enlarged region approaches 2.5 million inhabitants. It forms the southern part of the Randstad, the sixth-largest metropolitan area in Europe, with a population of 6.7 million.   read more…

Utrecht, the industrial and university city

24 November 2010 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Sustainability Reading Time:  6 minutes

Canals © Diliff

Canals © Diliff

When visitors arrive at the old city of Utrecht it’s inevitably to think “Why haven’t I actually studied here?”. The University, with its numerous internationally recognized faculties, is an invitation to do so. Utrecht is undoubtedly one of the poster-girls of the Dutch towns, which meets every cliché and every expectation that visitors might have in places in the Netherlands. Whether it’s wind mills, canals, green houses, coffee shops, crooked houses, narrow alleys, small weekly markets, romantic places and locations or a vital nightlife on the one hand, or on the other hand busy activities in the inner city, students from all over the world and international retail – here you can find it and everything is arranged around the cathedral, which is also a good reference point for the first visit. A very different picture emerges when you leave the old town area. Here Utrecht show its industrial face and also meets the expectations one has of those quarters.   read more…

Return to TopReturn to Top