Across the Netherlands, religious communities are becoming smaller, while the challenges of maintaining historic church buildings continue to grow. Many church councils struggle with rising maintenance costs, sustainability demands, and a decreasing number of volunteers and visitors. As a result, more and more churches are searching for a new future.
At the same time, churches remain deeply connected to their surroundings. They define skylines, shape villages and cities and carry stories about how communities lived, worked, gathered, and believed. These buildings often occupy central positions — spatially, historically, and emotionally.
The question is therefore not only how to preserve churches, but how to keep them meaningful.
Transformation, shared use, cultural programming, social functions or careful redevelopment can offer new perspectives. Every church, community and location asks for its own approach. This requires sensitivity towards heritage, an understanding of spatial and financial possibilities and attention to the people connected to these places.
Together with church communities, municipalities AND stakeholders, I work towards church visions. They explore how churches can remain meaningful in a society where religious use is changing. By combining spatial analysis, stakeholder engagement, heritage values, policy and future scenarios, I am involved in projects in Enschede, Haaksbergen, Wierden, Borne, Hof van Twente, Almelo, Meppel, Hoogeveen, and Hardenberg.
