Neighborhood of Tanthof, Delft
The urban design for the neighborhood of Tanthof in Delft was a project undertaken as part of the examination for Master in Architecture at Delft University. Even though this plan was not realized, it was however part of a development that took place around the master plan that was realized by Jaap Bakema. This master plan was the starting point and with it the ideas of ecology that were developing at the time. In fact we consider this to be the beginning of ecology in urban planning.

Model of neighborhood
Model scaled 1 ; 1000 of the urban plan for a neighborhood of the Tanthof project.

 Center area
Detail of model with dwelling hills of the center.

Architectural and urban designing are communication processes in which large quantities of information are organized. They are also a process of decision-making and according to the Information Theory the information content will be larger if the choice was made out of a larger repertoire of options. If the information and the process of decision-making are well structured and the choices can be made consciously, then the esthetical qualities will increase.

This are some of the conclusions reached after a study of the Communication Sciences in particular Information Esthetics as part of the graduation as a master in engineering at the Architectural Department of the Technical University Delft. The thesis was then put into practice with an urban design. For this the research was awarded.

For the application of the esthetical theory a realistic situation was chosen. In the city of Delft the new town Tanthof was in the planning process. The choice was made for the alternative urban plan of the students Hiwe Groenewolt and Anneloes van den Berg.

We can say in retrospect that this plan was based on ecological principles and it was to become adapted by the planner responsible for the new town of Tanthof Prof. Jaap Bakema (famous as a leading figure of the international Team-Ten). One could say this marked the beginning of ecology in urban planning. Based on those “new” ideas we realized for instance that the Dutch landscape is not just flat as we generally think, but reflects its historical development. Subtle ridges mark the former creeks, where the tide moved in and out before dyke building. These ridges, it was now realized, didn’t have to be covered with sand as is normally done with new urban developments. It is customary to cover the former landscape with a thick layer of sand destroying any existing features. These natural areas and other elements of the landscape, such as ditches, could be maintained in the future and become part of the park developments.

This urban structure, based on the plan of Groenewolt/ van den Berg and elaborated by the municipal team under leadership of Jaap Bakema, was the starting point for the design of a neighborhood. In this plan the designing process was based on the esthetical theory as an application. This means in practical terms to look for optional choices and to organize the decision making process. In this way the underlying structure of the plan reflects the decision making process. Such choices may make up housing patterns and relations:
A house has a front- and backside. Each side faces one of the following categories:
1. Road,
2. Square,
3. Pedestrian path, or
4. Green zone (with or without water).
That gives 2 x 16 choices of what to have in the front or back. By eliminating the doubles we have 24 optional choices for how the urban situation will be. Added to that are the dwelling hills as a more compact form of dwelling with a variety of house-types. 
The reason for creating this pattern language is to create the possibility of choice for the future inhabitants, to communicate this in any way, and allow for the wishes of the inhabitants. 		House group
Small neighborhood with some row houses as typical for the measure of variation it allows.
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