The municipality of Eindhoven just announced the appointment of Winy Maas as Supervisor of the city. Maas will advise on all urban plans for the in the inner city and coherence between these integrated future plans that will centre on architecture, urbanism and public space. With this appointment, it is intended that Eindhoven takes the next step in becoming a high quality international city with pleasant areas and an allure.

Over the last few years, the high tech and Technical University of Eindhoven (Tue) campuses were developed into attractive areas to live, work and learn. These major developments just like the old Philips factory grounds Strijp-S in comparison contributed to the major economic growth of the area whilst leaving the city centre behind.

For the citizens of Eindhoven, the city centre it is not prominent in spite of its renowned visibility as an international high-tech hub.

The Municipality of Eindhoven have ambitions for transforming the centre into one that is able to compete with other attractive global city centres with its own distinct identity. A way to achieve this vision is to densify the city with high rise, transformations and creating greener public spaces thus making it more pleasant for people who live there and visitors alike.

The supervisory role assigned to Winy Maas is to enable a cohesive future urban plan and developing projects that will lead to this. The challenge here is to involve everyone in the city at every stage of the process as the city centre belongs to all. The process will begin during the Dutch Design Week.

Wilbert Seuren, Spatial Planning and Finance counsellor says: “We are proud that Winy Maas, with his international experience, is willing to fulfil this role of Supervisor. We think that he is the right person to develop ideas how to make our city centre as attractive and functional as possible”.

Winy Maas, on the other hand, sees his role as an attractive challenge: “The centre of Eindhoven seems to belong to no one, and while Eindhoven has a very strong profile when it comes to high tech and design. In other cities, the city centre usually determines the identity of it. I want to investigate how we can bring this back in Eindhoven as well. There is space!”

More information to follow soon.