Student information

Country estate Tongeren

Country estate Tongeren is situated at the border of the Veluwe, west of the village Epe and has a size of over 500 hectares. Since 1763 the area of Tongeren is in the possession of one family. In 1907 the owners established a private company to guarantee the heritage for the coming generations.

Country estate Tongeren – Perspectives for an age-old inheritance
(Landgoed Tongeren – Perspectieven voor een eeuwenoud erfgoed)

Nowadays, the owners deal with the question how to preserve the historic landscape for the coming generations. But the owners also have to deal with uncertainties, like the future of agriculture, which is very important at the estate.

The goal of Rens Wijnakker (Landscape Architecture) and Arend Middelburg (Spatial Planning) is to contribute to a development strategy for the country estate for the coming decades; special attention is paid to cultural history. Methods and concepts of both disciplines, like the scenario method and the casco concept, were combined to meet the goal.

The area was analyzed in different ways, using tools aimed on functional issues and the experience of the landscape. The rich history of the estate was a fundamental motivation for the whole analysis.
With this analysis and a thematic exploration of the future, it was possible to generate different scenarios for Tongeren. Parallel to this, spatial recommendations about how to deal with uncertain future developments without losing the historic atmosphere were made. For this, the principles of the ‘casco concept’ were used.

The three scenarios are: a productive estate, attractive Tongeren and the contemporary estate. They represent the different possible futures for the estate, with respect for the current qualities as the present casco and the cultural history.


Report:
Download (PDF, 7,3 mb in Dutch)

Contact:

arend.middelburg@wur.nl; rens.wijnakker@wur.nl