IJburg is a sand fill in the water between Amsterdam, Almere and the Gooi region. It is not the umpteenth urban expansion in social-democratic garb issuing from Amsterdam's General Expansion Plan of 1934. IJburg has a place of its own in the region, accessed as it is by city tram and motorway alike. The design for Haveneiland uses the grid as an instrument to 'describe' the sandbar, the way the colonists occupied in the New World. This intervention is deliberately restricted to giving sensitive and exact shape to the public realm. The street binds, renders equal. The grid enables much, and imposes little. The more investments - in all senses - an urban plan attracts, the greater its chances of enduring success. Quality is exacted by bringing the properties of the programme and the site fully into view. Armed with the above, the urban design for haveneiland generates objective spatial criteria that present a framework for lasting development. This process is kept moving by the initiatives of a great many individuals and parties, initiatives whose energy and optimism will determine the quality of Haveneiland and Rieteilanden in the long run