Drawing on experiences from a project conducted in the "Drentsche Aa" area in the Netherlands, this article discusses the concept of the "rural atelier" as a form of problem-based learning. The rural atelier principle was used originally in rural development planning and described as such by Foorthuis (2005) and Elerie and koopman (2008). Here, we discuss it in the context of landscape education. Experiences from a case study project are presented. (Contains 4 figures, 3 tables and 5 notes.)