Generating Dune Scapes
Prix de Rome 2006 (golden medal)
Generating Dune Scapes is a territorial land art operation that transforms the entire IJmond region into a unique urban dune landscape. Not the form of a specific artefact, but the transformative intervention itself is central. This ecological operation radically reverses the post-war industrialization and urbanization of the Kennemer Dunes by reactivating the many voids left behind—former marshalling yards, storage sites, abandoned parking lots, green strips, residual peninsulas, and derelict industrial grounds.
By systematically removing the nutrient-rich topsoil from these urban voids, the calcareous dune sand—“white gold”—is revealed. This enables the globally unique vegetation palette of the Kennemer Dunes to naturally recolonize over the coming decades, gradually penetrating deep into the urban fabric.
IJmond thus becomes a region where people, nature and landscape are once again directly connected: everyone comes to live by the dunes.
