Wide green avenues draw straight lines through the former Holterhoek polder. On the other side of the A20 motorway, Vlaardingen movens forward in the 60s of the last century with large blocks and solid infrastructure. Half a century later, almost 25,000 people live here, which is 1/3 of all Vlaardingen residents.
Half a century later, the residents are also older, socio-economic indicators show that the neighbourhood is lagging behind and the pressure on healthcare is increasing.
There are a large number of care buildings in Holy Southwest. For a large part along the Holysingel, the central boulevard. Another part is located on the Dillenburgsingel, close to the highway. For the rest, Holy Southwest is a variety of neighbourhoods like so many in the Netherlands. Neat streets with houses often grouped by type and price range.
What is particularly striking is that the neighbourhood is a child of its time. Building blocks that stand apart in a sea of greenery, care institutions that are surrounded by parking spaces and tufts of greenery.
Several housing and care organizations and the municipality of Vlaardingen have found each other, and are thinking together about shaping housing, care and welfare in Holy Southwest. There is a desire to look for more cohesion, more self-reliance and co-reliance, in short, the desire to be more together. The collaborating parties see opportunities and possibilities for the development of the Caring Neighbourhood Holy Southwest in which housing and care are more closely connected. Even more than is currently the case, a residential care environment can be created where different residents form a community together.
In addition to the current residents and students, Holy Zuidwest is a district for starters, young elderly people and new care recipients. The dream is a mixed living and care environment where you can live all your life. People look out for each other and feel involved in their environment. With an approach for a caring neighbourhood, the quality of the public space will be central. With places to meet, with nice routes through the neighbourhood and outside, with more facilities that are also more visible and accessible from the street.
Meeting places and low-threshold facilities, collective outdoor spaces, such as courtyards and yards. It is not the car that is dominant, but the pedestrian is number one. The caring neighbourhood is like a village. There is not only inviting greenery in the neighbourhood, but also adjacent to the Vlaardingervaart and Broekpolder. For residents who live within care complexes and/or adjacent residential facilities, adjoining outdoor spaces, small-scale neighbourhood facilities and places for meeting are an important plus.
In the Caring Neighbourhood, the residents are central. They often don’t want something complicated, but something very ordinary. A place called home where you are safe and feel at free. And all that not alone, but in the proximity of others.
