After centuries of use as a military base, a 13-hectare (32 acre) land parcel in the historic center of Breda has been reborn as a public domain. Based on a plan created by architect Rem Koolhas (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), Chassé Park, a multiuse urban infill community has sprouted up where barracks once housed soldiers. It comprises 700 housing units, including 100 units of public housing; 30,000 square meters (322,917 sf) of office space; 2,000 square meters (21,528 sf) of retail space; 1,500 underground parking spaces; and eight hectares (20 ac) of public parkland.
If the physical archetype for traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) in the United States is colonial Charleston, Savannah, or Annapolis, the holistic prototype has always been Chautauqua. Founded in 1874 on Lake Chautauqua in southwestern New York state by two Methodist ministers as a summer retreat for Sunday-school teachers, it has grown to be ecumenical in its religious, cultural, educational, and recreational programs, and it has grown in size as well, from 129 acres (52 ha) at the beginning to 600 acres (243 ha) today. “Chautauqua,” a Seneca word meaning “one has taken the fish out there,” soon came to mean leisure time adult education with a somewhat evangelistic but nondenominational fervor, and today it means, more broadly, a retreat from daily life for reflection, discussion, and instruction in the company of like-minded people.
