Planning Ateliers: Collaboration between BA Spatial Planning & governmental partners
The 'Planning Ateliers' form an ambitious 10-week course during which second and third-year Spatial Planning students form their own temporary consultancy firms to work on real-world planning and design problems and advise governmental partners on how to solve them. At the end of the course, an expert jury decides on the quality of all the different plans the teams created. The winning student consultancy firm wins a prize awarded by the governmental partner at an official award ceremony.
The Planning Ateliers were first organised in the mid-1990s and have since then developed a longstanding tradition of collaboration with many governmental organizations in the Netherlands. For instance, in 2018-2019, second-year students helped the Province of Utrecht develop its Environment and Planning Law (Omgevingswet) ambitions for 2050 and third-years students tackled several important area redevelopment plans relating to i.e. the city of Utrecht, the A12 highway zone and rural areas in the region. In 2019-2020, students worked on various planning challenges provided by the Municipality of Apeldoorn. in 2020-2021 the Planning Ateliers celebrate their 25th anniversary and students will likely be invited by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Kingdom Relations to contribute to the development of the National Environmental Vision of the Netherlands.
If you would like to have more information about the Planning Ateliers or collaborate in a future course, please contact Dr. Patrick Witte.