In 2003 the Netherlands Architecture Fund received, as an outcome of the so called Belvedere policy, the commission of the Ministry to implement a series of prototypical projects on the cutting face of culture historical research and design. The aim was, by way of presenting new research methods, new multidisciplinary modes of operation and new presentation techniques, to offer researchers, designers and clients a broader and focussed insight in the cultural history of rural areas that are in transformation.
For one of these prototypical projects the Fund asked Koos Bosma to implement the project ’Designing with a biography of the Sandy City’. The Sandy City is an area in the Dutch region Noord-Brabant.
On the one hand the project should deepen and test the ideas about the biography concept, developed at the Vrije Universiteit, on the other hand education at universities could be more actively engaged in the Belvedere activities of the Fund.
The project consists of four parts:

• Research of the historical development of Sandy City, with special attention for seven so called transformation eras. These are periods in history that had crucial impact on the transformation of Sandy City. Each transformation moment offers the reseacher and designer historical information about nine topics: agriculture, industrialisation, urbanisation, rituals and habits, mapping, infrastructure, professions, architectuand landscape.
• Launching of an innovative and interactive website ‘www.zandstad.nl’. Graphic design office LUST has set up a database that contains, among others, images and maps visualising Sandy City. The website offers the user a great freedom to consult, combine and analyse the data in his own manner. The website contains a non-hierarchical presentation of images, maps and knowledge. The data can be structured in a spatial, historical and thematic manner. Aside from the more traditional culture historical knowledge the website comprises also data about sources of income, land use and popular culture. The structure of the website allows the filling of gaps in knowledge.
• Atelier Sandy City 06 (17 november 2006). In this workshop the composition and the content of the structure of the website was tested on the basis of an actual design commission by students of design schools and other universities.
• Third magazine in the series Geschiedenis en Ontwerp (History and Design) of the Netherlands Architecture Fund. This magazine, with the provisional title: ‘Expedition Zandstad – podcasting Cultural History’, focuses on the education programmes of universities. Aim is to stimulate in different specialisations the collection, constructing of databases of cultural history, to highlight the scientific background of this method and to explore the possibility of integrating this way of working in education and research programmes.