Schots 1 + 2, The CiBoGa Terrain | Studio Woodroffe Papa

S333 was commissioned to work as consultants to the municipality of Groningen, assisting in the production of a new masterplan for the CiBoGa terrain, a 14ha post-industrial site
that lies close to the city centre. S333 organised workshops locally with key stakeholders
and interest groups, researched housing types to reflect contemporary live/work patterns, investigated options for sourcing excess energy from the adjacent hospital and consulted the city’s landscape architects and ecologists.

S333 concluded that the urbanisation of the CiBoGa-terrain had to be combined with a comparable ‘intensity’ of spatial openness, to enable the site to complete the final missing link in the city’s ecological plan, connecting the Noorderplantzoen city park to the  Oosterhamrikkanaal and the outskirts of the city.

The masterplan adopted by the city is based on four key organising principles – to establish a socio-economic and environmental impulse to regenerate the surrounding neighbourhood, to create a variety of residential units (for rent and for sale), to employ a broad range of sustainable planning strategies to address the site’s pollution and to maintain the site’s character, re-programming the industrial buildings with new activities.

The masterplan proposes 13 ‘schotsen’ - compact residential blocks, characterised by a variety of collective and commercial program - in a car-free urban landscape of city parks and
recreational areas. One parking space is provided for every two new dwellings. The polluted ground is capped with underground parking which serves the residents and the city centre. Residents are encouraged to walk, to cycle and to use pubic transport.

In 1998, S333 was commissioned to realise phase 1 of the project, Schots 1 + 2. Following its completion, Schots 1 + 2 was nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award 2003. The masterplan has since become a national pilot scheme and demonstration project for sustainable urban renewal in the Netherlands. The project was nominated for the DIFA-Awards
2004 ‘City Development Prize’.