The idea of “orgware,” a term borrowed from economics, is of major importance. It forms the basis of the strategy, or strategic ‘model’, for developing Leidsche Rijn. Orgware is a term that refers to factors of an administrative, political, or policy-related nature which precede the implementation of certain ideas and knowledge (software) and the deployment of physical elements (hardware).

About this model, the designers state, “Whereas urbanism once provided guarantees (of coherence, collectivity and form), it is now being called upon for its capacity to create opportunities. The shift of attention from collective to individual now requires an urbanism based on such generative concepts as contrast, temporal uncertainty, market conformity, image (in the general, cultural sense) and ambiguity.”

The model used for Leidsche Rijn could therefore be defined as open and process-oriented, as a model that is less focused on creating a fixed state of things. Related to this, it deals with solid form in another way (form as powder). For more information about the concept of “form as powder” click here.

The altered view on the relationship between urbanism and urbanization, in which the city is seen as a process, and urbanism a means of participating in that process, is shared by the designers, though they point out that: “Such an urbanism will only become operative if it can be easily interpreted as a specific response to a specific task for a specific site, and also as a logical component of what urbanism is and always has been.” The plan for Leidsche Rijn is related to developments in the avant-garde and international debate, “. . . but above all it seeks to place itself in the tradition of Dutch urbanism as a self-assured intervention in an artificial, historical landscape.” (Archis 8, 1995 p. 75)