In the center of the former mining town of Geleen, 30% of the shops are vacant for a long time. This has a direct impact on the quality of the public life,where the large parking lots,market squares and streets often look desolate.It has also a negative effect on Geleeners’ self-esteem.Right next to Geleen is the bustling campus of Chemelot Brightlands, also a descendant of the mining past, which attracts larger numbers of students, employees, and start-ups from all over the world every year.The vast majority of employees do not live in Geleen but further away in Maastricht or Heerlen, with all the associated drawbacks. This is not always a good option, especially for new talent and students.A more attractive Geleen offers enormous opportunities for more sustainable housing, where a revival of commerce and housing quality can go hand in hand. The diffused Palace, reconnects these two worlds by developing a new concept for housing spread throughout the city center of Geleen. Empty buildings are arranged and connected to each other in a wide variety of spaces and activities, where living and working and the connections with other aspects of daily life can be found scattered throughout the city center, dispersed rooms belonging to the same palace, linking the quality of the new interiors to the scale of the city. For example, a shared kitchen on a square can simultaneously be given a public function, a living room as a hotel lobby can also be a meeting place for lonely residents and a space for start-ups can also be a workplace for active elderly. Management of such functions creates new jobs for various levels of education with a strong social component (baristas, communication, support and care) while access to private spaces (the rooms and suites for the new residents) is controlled electronically with membership cards valid on Chemelot Campus and in the city centre. A palace is a private residence and a public building at the same time. A palace offers an attractive image to invite new residents. But above all, a palace is inclusive, in the sense that it can accommodate all walks of life. The open, shared spaces and facilities for the new residents are at the same time open to current Geleneers and give an impulse to public life in the city. There is shelter and employment for a whole range of crafts and services, the self-employed and families, all of whom have their own place and role within the society held together in the rooms of The diffused Palace.

The diffused Palace was the winner of an open call for ideas by the Municipality of Sittard-Geleen in 2021. Since then, the evocative concept of the palace has brought people together. The new interpretation of living and working dispersed in the city center has given city planners, entrepreneurs and Geleeners a renewed vision of Geleen, transforming it from the inside out. It proves that design can be used to inspire decision making for complex social and economic problems,flipping the conventional process. It aligns both with the old tradition of corporate city planning (Philips in Eindhoven or mining colonies in Limburg) and the contemporary trend of companies (Google, IKEA) to entice the best employees by actively engaging with their living environment. But it also links with the transformation of Diocletian's Palace into the center of Split. A living example that an empty palace without a king can be given a new, vibrant future by ordinary people if the gates are open to them.