Based on garden village design principles, the planning of the area was started in 1913 using funds from the 1902 Housing Act.

The project was initiated by the Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij (Rotterdam Dry Dock Company), one of the largest shipbuilders in the country, to provide housing for skilled workers on a roughly 17 acre peninsular site between the Waalhaven and Heysehaven basins, across the River Maas from Rotterdam's centre.

Its planner, Herman Ambrosius Jan Baanders (1876-1953) provided space for 400 brick houses as well as a host of community facilities that were 'all within the context of the company's moralistic paternalism'.

A village square with a bronze fountain provided a civic focus and an archway spanning Vestastraat added an element familiar in Dutch villages, with bachelors' apartments located above and a restaurant next door.

Although its density of about seventeen houses per acre was more than twice that of 't Lansink, 'the underlying town-planning principles are essentially the same', as Rg.