The Playground for Radical Concepts: Learning from the Tussengebied

The rise in the issue of the metropolitan dimension in the last decades has sparked new needs to conceptualize vast urbanized territories and develop a structured reflection on the various forms of urban–rural relationships. Urban planning in general and metropolitan planning in particular have shown difficulties in properly conceiving and interpreting these needs, which have often led urban discourse toward the use of spatial concepts. The aim of this article is thus to explore the use of spatial concepts as design instruments in the definition of urban–rural relationships in metropolitan areas. Starting from the case study of the Tussengebied (literally area-in-between) in The Netherlands and its reinterpretation developed by three eminent urbanists, the article intends to investigate, through the application of a methodology based on learning-from-expert-knowledge, how spatial concepts can support urban planning governing the urban–rural relationship by proposing a precise form of territory as well as presupposing the rules, modes of operation, and instruments of transformation.