Flanders is a landscape of villages. More than a thousand village centers together form a dense network of housing, employment, landscape, and mobility. This network is currently under pressure due to densification, an aging population, and new challenges related to accessibility, climate, housing, and public space.

The Village Development Toolbox starts from a simple observation: villages function differently from cities. They have their own scale, logic, and dynamics, but are still too often approached with urban development models primarily developed for the city.

In this book, Ward Verbakel, Karl Catteeuw, and Edith Wouters explore how changes can be spatially managed without losing the village's unique character. The book shows how streets, squares, slow roads, village edges, water structures, and open space can together form a readable and livable whole, and offers a language and frame of reference for everyone working on the future of the village.

240 Pages

Published by PUBLIC SPACE