Reninge cemetery master plan

Commissioned by the municipality of Lo-Reninge, design visions were drawn for the redevelopment of the cemeteries in Lo and Reninge.

The cemetery of Reninge, located around St Rictrudis church, was thoroughly renovated. The most special intervention was the realisation of a new wall around the cemetery and the entrance to the church. My design of the new wall constantly responds to the existing levels of the churchyard in relation to the surrounding footpaths. The choice of yellow brick fits very well into the context of the architecture of the village and the church. Inspired by old photographs, a design was also drawn for the main entrance to the church. In addition, superfluous paving was replaced by grass so that we can once again speak of a real ‘garden’ of the church.

Holistic approach – Vision for village centre redevelopment

‘Gray, dear friend, is all theory. And green the golden tree of life’- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

As a landscape architect, I always consider projects in the context of their wider surroundings with the aim of striving for a harmonious whole. When I learned at the start of the study that there were also plans to redevelop the surrounding village centre, I tried to convince the municipality to link a vision for the redevelopment of the village centre to the churchyard. Unfortunately, consultations with the engineering firm already appointed to design the village centre yielded no results.

Just like my initiative to work out a design for the village centre of nearby Noordschote, our intern student at the office was also commissioned to work out my vision for Reninge. The result of the design exercise shows how the village centre of Reninge could have looked different.

Very important in this design is the proposal not to immediately connect the paved footpaths to the cemetery wall. Placing the churchyard wall completely in the grass on the inside and on the outside creates a strong interweaving between stone and greenery. The anchoring transition ensures that the churchyard flows seamlessly into the village centre. On the large stone plain in front of the cemetery, a small park with the function of a small ‘Village Green’ was designed. A place where residents can meet and tourists can stop for a while. The edging with seating walls should be executed in the same yellow brick as the cemetery wall. The pursuit of harmony is evident here.

The result is a much more humane village centre where people can meet in a beautiful and green setting and relax in the shade of the trees during hot summer days. If Reninge looked like this, it would no longer evoke the atmosphere of a stone desert but the atmosphere of a green oasis, in the middle of the vast open polder landscape.

The design of public space is simple as it turns out, if only as a designer one has enough empathy with people’s concerns and can recall their deep human needs.