Team Orange Architects, MVRDV en LOLA Landscape Architects, with developer AM Gebiedsontwikkeling, win the competition for the WärtZ innovation district in Zwolle!

With our sustainable and ambitious competition entry, the entire team is fully committed to putting Zwolle on the map as the country’s fourth economic region. We look forward to continue!

Over the coming years the industrial zone beside Zwolle railway station will be transformed into a vibrant innovation district, called WärtZ. The total plan consists of approximately 850 homes for all ages and 26,500 m2 of non-residential programs, including hospitality, education, cultural institutions, neighborhood facilities, and spaces for creative makers. With innovation driving the urban and regional economy, WärtZ provides the perfect setting to achieve Zwolles’s goal to become the country’s fourth urban region. In addition, WärtZ boosts the ambitions of the NS as a landowner to create space for urban growth around Dutch railway stations.

Besides an economic and cultural hotspot, this development offers Zwolle a new inner-city residential environment, with space for special housing concepts such as care dwellings, co-living student studios and so-called ‘homes for friends’. Around thirty per cent of the homes are planned as subsidized rental units. A satellite of Museum de Fundatie will soon form a cultural attraction, helping to turn WärtZ into an appealing, green, urban hotspot for Zwolle’s residents and visitors alike.

Read more about the project >