Urban design for a residential district of approx. 600 houses on the edge of Groningen. The location is sited in the foothills of the sand ridge between Groningen and Eelde. A landscape accommodating a rich collection of loose fragments: rural estates, nature reserves, holiday cottages, farmsteads and conference resorts that have been strung on an old main road. The plan elaborates on this theme and has been organized as a patchwork of larger and smaller enclaves. A habitat of residential islands grouped around that one large enclave, the pond called Piccardthofplas. By isolating the pond spatially and hydrologically even further, the preservation of the unique natural quality of this brackish habitat has been guaranteed. As a result, one actually does not live by the pond but around it. The pond is the ‘genius loci’, animating the plan like a collective secret. The plan was commissioned by the municipalities of Groningen and Eelde.