Planning and Visibility Assessment of High Building Development in The Hague

Planning and Visibility Assessment of High Building Development in The Hague

Van der Hoeven, F.D.
Nijhuis, S.

Architecture

Urbanism

2012-12-31

A true skyline in the Dutch city of The Hague emerged in the spring of 2011 when the construction of four high buildings drew simultaneously to a close: the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (146 metres, 2012), the Ministry of Justice (146 metres, 2012), a residential project De Kroon (132 metres, 2011) and a new office tower New Babylon 1 (142 metres, 2011). Together with the Hoftoren (2003, 142 metres) and the Strijkijzer (132 metres, 2007) they constitute a new visual cluster that can be seen by the naked eye as far away as the edge of neighbouring Rotterdam, 16 kilometres away. The Hague’s skyline has been four decades in the making. The earliest discussions on buildings to a height of 140 metres date back to the 1960s. Public opinion, fearing the visual impact of such buildings on the city, impeded the planning of such high buildings, while a weak municipal policy was not able to break the stalemate. New instruments that analyse the development of the skyline through time by means of mapping, scatter plots and viewsheds carry the potential to make such public and political debates on high building development more objective, and perhaps less emotional. This chapter presents three such approaches that were developed by the authors: the use of a scatter plot to unravel the dynamics of high building development and height categories through time, the viewshed of the buildings that make up jointly a cluster by means of GISc, and the mapping the outline of the cluster as it appears in the (urban) landscape.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:8240176f-98fc-46fc-a057-8b4e4ab9fe6b

Techne Press

978-90-8594-049-4

High-rise and the Sustainable City

Institutional Repository

book chapter

(c) 2012 Van der Hoeven, F.D.
Nijhuis, S.