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The Mathenesserweg alive!

How can the Mathenesserweg be designed to make it more tailored to the needs of inhabitants and store owners? This is the question Architecture students Anne Lien van der Linden and Jane Strotelder wanted to answer. The result is an inspiring vision for future and specific recommendations.

 Sketch Mathenesserweg

Commissioned by the Wijkonderneming Mathenesse, Veldacademie setup this research as a training in practice for students. These students opened a dialog with inhabitants, professionals and shop owners from the area in order to understand what the exact question is. Initially this assignment was aimed at counteracting vacancy of shop premises, but the scope of the command proved soon to be wider.

First the existing plans and visions were reviewed. This showed that a lot of solutions were already at hand but had not been put into practice yet. To prevent this from happening again, conclusions and recommendations were linked to specific parties who can put these into practice.

A location that was researched was the vacant shop premise of Mathenesserweg 12a. This premise is owned by the housing corporation Havensteder and - like many premises - is in such a poor state that it can’t directly be taken into use. Based on thorough cost-calculations new business cases were developed which showed that an immediate improvement is possible. These business cases were discusses with potential tenants.

As a final result of the research Anne Lien and Jane presented, in addition to practical solutions, also an integral vision that showed the coherence of the solutions. If durable improvement on the Mathenesserweg is to become reality, then merely counteracting vacancy is not enough, programming, design of the outdoor space and maintenance also play an important role.

The research was conducted in collaboration with ‘Stroop’, Roland van der Post, Henk van Schagen, Leo van Duijvendijk and VGG bouwkostenadviseurs.

Read the report here.