On the occasion of him leaving his practical chair of Spatial Planning & Strategy, Prof. Ir. Joost Schrijnen gave a lecture titled ‘The Impossible Design of the Randstad”. Despite this pessimistic title, the lecture turned out to be a plaidoyer for regional design. Reviewing the way how spatial structures have been perceived in recent decades and evaluating his own extensive, practical experience in the management of regional spatial development, he concluded: it is not impossible! There are spatial structures that reflect the identity of regions; thus it is possible to design them. He demonstrated this by suggesting a set of structural interventions in the Randstad. Guests, all of them engaged in regional planning in the Netherlands, were intrigued by his demonstration. Joost Schrijnen will summarise his reflections on regional design in one of the chapters of an upcoming publication on the Randstad, edited by, among others, Vincent Nadin.
