Apeldoorn does it means to change the traditional Dutch ‘regulatory planning’ into a more inviting ‘participatory planning’. By doing so the traditional role of the government towards private initiatives changes form a formal role of guarding regulations into a more informal role of coaching and stimulating. This asks for a different approach of policy plans and more focus on ambition instead of regulations.

The project ‘Kookboek’ (‘cookbook’) for the thirteen villages in the municipality of Apeldoorn forms a new spatial quality policy that states the ambition of the municipality and invites all parties engaged to contribute their share. This ambition focuses around the concept of strengthening the specific rural character of each individual village. These characteristics are presented in recipes. Part of these recipes focus on more common rural aspects such as the sense of space or typical architectural aspects. These ‘basics’ are then elaborated into recipes for each village focusing on specific curiosities that are exclusively linked to one village only.

The ‘kookboek’ is a new type of tool for both designers, politicians and residents alike. This experimental aspect has lead to the fact that it will be commercially published (in Dutch) in the autumn of 2012 by publisher Blauwdruk.