The (un)conditional garden: master’s project by Thijs de Zeeuw

The (un)conditional garden: Urban biodiverstiy in Artis

“About 60 percent of Dutch flora and fauna is present in urban or semi-urban areas. Yet still Dutch policy on nature is based on the contro­versy of the city versus nature, which divides both in to two separate worlds.”

“In the Artis, the Amsterdam zoo, nature conservation has been founded in 1905 with the establishment of Natuurmonumenten. More than hundred years later the time is there to take a new step in nature conservation The changed relation between man and its surround­ings demands for a new -or extended- vision on nature.

The main shift compared to the traditional nature idea is the disengagement of ecological value and its common landscape images. Surely for plants and animals it does not matter how the ecosystem exactly looks like. As long as the system answers their basic necessities of life. For instance, the common tern (Sterna hirundo) likes the vast pebbled rooftops of an industrial area just as much as the pebble beaches in the coastal areas.

The design for The (un)conditional garden searches for a new form to reveal the ecological wealth of the urban environment. On the exist­ing carpark of the zoo, a new parking garage will be build. The roof will be the base for the eventual design. The garden will be part of the urban ecological system and opposed to the other animals in Artis the inhabitants of the garden are free to migrate in and out of the zoo. For the visitor though the garden is an extension of the zoo and adds up to the Museum of Biodiversity the Artis is developing right now.

Parallel to the design work an experiment has been performed. On an urban wasteland basic soil conditions have been altered to monitor their ecological and visual potentials. After all the conditions are just a tool to compose an urban natural landscape with. Within a year the different plots showed characteristic differences, especially in image.

The findings have influenced the design process and have resulted in a design that reflects and exhibits the richness of urban ecology. A grid resulting from the architecture of the parking garage creates a landscape of containers in which a variety of conditions result in a wide range of niches (both outside and inside the garage). The grid does not just expresses the urban design aspect but also refers to the scien­tific monitoring standards in field biology.

A diverting walkway will lead the visitor through the garden, sometimes elevated, (even inside, high above the parked cars to approach the resting areas of the different bat species) sometimes lowered incised in the containers bringing the eye of the visitor to ground level.

The result is an educational garden that acknowledges the city as a valuable landscape and is thus an expression of a new nature optimism.”

Sink or Swim: Three projects on the future of Venice

“During the entire period of growth of the city of Venice, its uniqueness—in terms of being water- bound—was possibly the main reason for its success. The form of the city (a built form) responded expressly (functionally) to its commercial, logistic, defense and representative needs. Venice formed part of an archipelago and maintained a close relationship with the different islands in the lagoon. The lagoon system which guaranteed its success at the time of the Republic of Venice was regulated by functional zoning. Each island had a specific use in relation to its position and physical characteristics: the smaller islands supplied essential services—religious, medical, cultural and welfare—to the city, and larger islands like Murano, Burano and Sant’ Erasmo were spaces reserved for agriculture or industry. This was a city with isolated points in the midst of a wide open space and a particular communications network. Venice has always had a twin dimension, being a place for living in and a place of transition between terra firma and open sea.

The city’s commercial decline, due to new Atlantic routes and the industrial development of later centuries, meant that Venice would gradually lose its ability to represent itself through its territory and that it would cease to understand itself as a metropolitan system. The city attempted to become one with the only seemingly feasible model of development: the main island was linked to terra firma by a bridge and journeying through the lagoon, which was now revealed to be too slow, rendered its islands useless. The lagoon itself came to be seen as an enormous empty space available for the implantation of an industrial agglomeration.

Due to these conditions the site asks for a re-consideration in order to rehabilitate the urban idea of the lagoon as a complex network of communications and settlements, through a hypothetical re-colonization of the territory of the lagoon, the decentralization and atomization of a program of uses, and the rehabilitation of the idea of the lagoon as an urban constellation necessarily integrated in its natural environment.”

Project Teacher / Docent:  Silvia Lupini  (loopdesign.eu)

—

The Park of the Third Landscape in the Lagoon of Venice

by Simona Serafino

“The third landscape is made by all the places abandoned by man, parks and natural reserves, big uninhabited areas of the planet but also smaller and common, almost invisible spaces: former industrial areas, brambles and scrub, the grass in the middle of a traffic island. They are spaces different in shape, size and functions, which only share the absence of any human activity but which as a whole are essential to keep biological diversity.”

G. Clement, The Manifest of the Third Landscape, Paris 2004

—

SERENISSIMA

by Jacques Abelman

THE ETERNAL CITY?

Due to faster than expected sea level rise, scientists project that even the drastic intervention of the M.O.S.E. sea barrier project will only delay the permanent flooding of Venice by 100 to 200 years. In this future vision of drastically altered climate conditions, coastal cities such as Venice will have to physically and economically reinvent themselves in order to survive.

After the M.O.S.E. sea gates stop functioning, Venice will once again face imminent danger. Concurrently, sewage pollution will increase exponentially because the sea barrier will increasingly close the lagoon which will no longer be renewed by the tides. Venice has never maintained a main sewage system- for this reason, a large portion of the wastes generated in the historic center of Venice have always been discharge directly into its channels. Water quality, particularly near the city, is extremely poor.

AN EMERALD BELT: LONGTERM PROTECTION FROM CLIMATE CHANGE

The Serenissima plan proposes to augment the existing underwater topography of the lagoon with a readily available and sustainable material: sand from the floor of the Adriatic. The sand is gathered by large boats called Trailing Suction Hopper Dredgers. The sand is projected into the lagoon shallows, progressively forming a dune barrier with an inner zone of sand flats and tidal marshes. This process is similar to the coastal reinforcement and climate proofing strategies of Northern Europe, for example in The Netherlands.

A system of locks connects the dune sections, allowing ships into the city. Opening the locks allows fresh sea water into the heart of the city, flushing water outwards into the tidal marshlands on the edges of the dune zones. The large surface area of these wetlands, which contain a gradient of salt to brackish water, is sufficient to cleanse the water. Organic waste is turned into plant biomass, which also functions as a large-scale carbon sink, thus working against climate change.  Wetlands are considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems; they are biological engines that can be adapted to waste water treatment as well as agricultural purposes. They are vital to the large populations of migrating birds that visit the lagoon. This will in effect create an enormous nature reserve around the city and preserve the specificity of the lagoon environement.

The widest dune section functions as a water purification plant. Water is pumped through the dunes, the sand acts as a filter. Lightly brackish water can further be purified to provide fresh water and stored in reservoirs. Recreational paths, camping sites, wildlife zones, Mediterranean maquis shrubland and dune vegetation ecotopes are some of the essential elements that inform the program of the dune barrier.

This designed land will function as a hybrid territory of landscape identities and new urban growth. Residential and business zones set into the emerald necklace will create a thriving future city, with the jewel of old Venice at its heart. The edge of the city will extend to the dunes and beaches facing the New Adriatic. Finally impervious to the elements and transformed into a new island nation, Venice will once more be married to the sea.

—

Sposalizio della Terraferma

by Japer Hugtenburg

The lagoon, a way of living with nature

Venice and its lagoon have a long and strong tradition in coping with the forces of nature. The islands and marshlands of the lagoon has always provides safe and rich habitats. And when the harbours of Torcello silted up in the 14^th century, people moved to other islands that were created by that same natural process; sedimentation. From this point of view, the large-scale engineering of the Renaissance that diverted the rivers like the Brenta and the Piave around the lagoon were a crucial mistake in Venice’s history. These interventions deprived the lagoon from the sediment that is today so desperately needed to allow the islands and marshlands of the lagoon to keep up with the rising sea level.

River sediment as a fundament for sustainable development

Islands are made of sediment, so a steady supply of sediment is a first requirement for this strategy. In this delta area, the most reliable sources of sediment are the rivers that come down from the Alps. A first step is thus to redirect these rivers back into the lagoon.

This development will however take time, and people are notoriously impatient. This project therefore focuses on speeding up the process of sedimentation in order that the ‘Sposalizio della Terraferma’ (marriage of Venice to the mainland) can soon be celebrated!

Speeding up the development of islands

Sedimentation is speeded up by connecting the high sediment concentrations in the main river channel with the shallow areas that surround it. This is done by installing groynes; rows of poles that guide the sediment to the shallow areas where the velocity of the flow is low and the sediment is deposited.

A landscape park that connects Venice to Terraferma

In this proposal, the recreational perspectives for celebrating this new overland connection between Venice and Terraferma have been investigated and designed. The result is a wetland landscape park that extends La Giudecca to San Giorgio in Alga and Fusina. The park design is inspired by the Renaissance reclamation of the Veneto and especially the way that Andrea Palladio’s villas are situated in this rural landscape.

Building in the park

When sea level rise pushes through, and the lowest parts of Venice are permanently flooded, the axes of the park will be further developed to form the main streets of new residential areas. This demonstrates how the development of Venice can be sustained on new and higher islands. In the long run the islands of the lagoon will follow the rise of the sea level and chances for development will be available throughout the lagoon.

This city vision entry proposes a strategy based on natural processes to secure the sustainable development of Venice and its lagoon. Not by protecting the island of Venice as we know it today, but by promoting the development of new islands on which new and equally unique cities can be built.

Mount Athos Monastery, Greece / P3a 2011

Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in Macedonia, Greece. A World Heritage Site, it is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic state within the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic. The daily number of visitors entering Mount Athos is restricted and all are required to obtain a special entrance permit valid for a limited period. Only males are allowed entrance into Mount Athos. Only males over the age
of 18 who are members of the Eastern Orthodox Church are allowed to live on Athos, either as monks or as workers.

Spiritually, Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Today Greeks commonly refer to Mount Athos as the “Holy Mountain” Agion Oros/Hagion Oros). The peninsula, the easternmost “leg” of the larger Halkidiki peninsula, protrudes 50 kilometres into the Aegean Sea at a width of between 7 and 12 kilometres and covers an area of 335.637 square kilometres.

The actual Mount Athos has steep, densely forested slopes reaching up to 2,033 metres. The surrounding seas, especially at the end of the peninsula, can be dangerous. Though land-linked, Mount Athos is accessible only by a single boat, the St. Eshpigmenitis.

The subject of this studio was to design a botanical garden for the Holy Monastery Koutloumousiou on mount Athos;

A project instigated bij Rieks Bulthuis, Pilgrim of the Koutloumousiou monastery.

Twelve students work in groups on designing the garden for the Holy Monastery. At the beginning of the project students visited and studied the site and listened to the conditions and requirements, which formed the basis for the design. After eight weeks, all students delivered a design on
the gardens. After this first design period students worked further on the materialization of the plan, on planting and detailing of the conceptual ideas. After again eight weeks they presented their detailed plans. The plans were combined into a booklet and presented to the monastery.

What follows is a selection of ideas, sketches, and proposals from each group.

PROJECT 1

by Niek Heijboer, Matt Colby, Judith van der Poel

PROJECT 2

by Inge Vleemingh, Anna Sobiech, Gert-Jan Wisse

PROJECT 3

by Milda Jusaite, Joep Meijer, Katarina Tlachova

PROJECT 4

by Lissa Jeffrey and Donald Marskamp

Landscape Renewal in Twente, East Netherlands

De studenten van de afdeling landschapsarchitectuur van de Academie van Bouwkunst Amsterdam hebben in april en mei 2010 een 7-avonden project gedaan met als onderwerp de Natura 2000 opgave voor de Oldenzaalse stuwwal. De opdracht was om een commerciële drager te vinden voor de ontwikkeling van 400 hectare landschap met als hoofddoel het verhogen van de biodiversiteit. Het ging dus niet per definitie om nieuwe natuur, ook tuinen en specifieke agrarische landschappen kunnen de biodiversiteit verhogen.
Alle studenten hebben binnen de opgave hun eigen commerciële opzet bedacht. Er is gezocht naar commerciële dragers binnen de zorg, het wonen, het werken en het toerisme, maar ook binnen de agrarische sector zelf, of combinaties daarvan. Voor sommigen was daarbij de cultuurhistorie van het oude landschap vetrekpunt, terwijl anderen juist veel meer zijn gaan werken vanuit een mogelijk nieuw toekomstbeeld.
Doel van de opgave was dat studenten leren nadenken over grote vraagstukken als biodiversiteit en nieuwe economische dragers voor landschapsbeheer. Van belang was dat de studenten zelf een strategie bedachten voor de totstandkoming van de biodiversiteit en deze strategie vervolgens vertaalden naar een ruimtelijk model voor landschapsinrichting.  Bij allen is het inzicht in de complexiteit van landschapsontwikkeling en welke factoren daarbinnen allemaal een rol spelen enorm gegroeid. Met name omdat binnen de groep 7 verschillende invalshoeken zijn gekozen is dat effect maximaal geweest (hoe onwaarschijnlijk sommige strategieën in werkelijkheid ook zullen blijken te zijn).
Daarbij zitten een aantal benaderingen die wellicht interressante aanknopingspunten bevatten voor de actuele opgave voor de stuwwal, en wellicht ook een aantal benaderingen waarbij mensen de haren te berge rijzen…

Marieke Timmermans
Hoofd Landschapsarchitectuur
Academie van Bouwkunst Amsterdam

——-

Jacques Abelman – A Walk on the Wild Side

The essence of the “Wild Side” landscape vision is new farming methods that will transform the site into an official “High Nature Value” area. This designation describes certain types of agriculture that increase the biodiversity and ecological health of farmland. This plan has three layers.
First, a network of hedgerows is re-established on existing parcel boundaries. This network of native species creates a diversity of animal
habitats and connects nature areas. Hedgerows also yield biomass as well as a diversity of fruiting and medicinal plant species.

Secondly, agroforestry or forest farming is established. In conjunction with the hedgerow network, stands of trees are planted for fruit, wood, or biomass. Here we have taken the example of Acer saccharum common in North America. These natural stands of trees yield sugar. Orchards and nurseries are also part of the agroforestry strategy. Biodiversity in the hedgerow and agroforestry areas is augmented through a diversity of spatial conditions. Buffer zones, rhythms of closed and open spaces, and the corridor effect of the whole system will create and maintain much higher levels of indigenous biodiversity.

Thirdly, the economic possibilities of farmers are further expanded by tourism. New vacation cabins are located in the “chambers” formed by the agroforestry zones and hedgerow system. These weekend getaway residences
provide an intimate experience of tranquility and nature. Accessible only by small paths, the houses require very little new infrastructure
and are self-reliant for energy production and waste recycling, as well as providing a high level of additional income for the farmers.

The future of Twente can be shaped by a combination of these integrated elements: strengthened nature, renewed agriculture, and enlightened tourism.

——-

Leen Vanthuyne- The Land of MILK

“Where are those cows?”

Dairy farmers in the area of the Oldenzaalse Stuwwal are under a lot of pressure. In an age where production is in a state of rapid expansion,
the only choice available for farmers seems to be growing or quitting business. While other farms in the country are struggling to scale up,
Oldenzaal farmers find themselves completely stuck in the middle of their high nature-value surroundings.
“The land of MILK” project aims to integrate nature and dairy farming in an economically feasible way. An old, nearly extinct race of cows
is brought in to the system both for grazing and milking. Herbivory is re-introduced as an essential part of the ecosystem. The grazing landscape is a reflection of the cow’s daily menu.

Heathland is allowed to re-colonise parts of the area, while other pasture areas are sown in with herbs. The effects of a varied ration and
specific herbal combinations on the quality of milk will be carefully monitored. A medium sized herd (consisting of 28 cows) is grazed
nomadically, moving from heather to meadow to forest every two weeks. With the help of a mobile milking robot the land is protected from
trampling. Also the cows decide when they want to get their milking session. The proposal zooms in on one diverse-dairyfarm unit, being a role model for many other farms to follow. It explains how to convince the farmer into a fruitfull cooperation with the nature instances that currently own the surrounding land and how a normal farm can be transformed into a diverse-dairy-farm. Existing inhabitants will benefit from this enhanced environment while new recreational and catering facilities can find their place within the grazing landscape. In the long run, milk tasteries can be founded and this unique ‘Oldenzaal’ milk can be processed into a range of gastronomical new cheeses.

——-

Marijne Beenhakker- Verslingerd aan Twente

NATIONAAL LANDSCHAP/ NATURA 2000 GEBIED
Oost-Twente is nationaal landschap. Het wordt gewaardeerd om zijn kleinschalige afwisseling en coulissenwerking. De stuwwal van Oldenzaal is tevens Natura 2000-gebied: gebied met een bijzondere bijdrage aan de Europese biodiversiteit. Zijn status heeft Twente grotendeels te
danken aan houtwallen. Deze maken het landschap kleinschalig en vormen coulissen; daarnaast herbergen ze rijke natuurwaarden.

PASSÉ Houtwallen zijn de boer niet meer tot nut, dus onderhoudt hij ze niet. De houtwallen verdwijnen uit het landschap. Zonde! Ze romantiseren het landschap hebben een hoge mate van biodiversiteit. Er is een impuls nodig die de landschapselementen nieuw bestaansrecht geeft.

CONCEPT: SLINGERTUIN Een moderne interpretatie van houtwallen laat Twente weer bloeien. Slingertuinen bestaan niet langer bij de gratie van de boer. Het zijn geen erfafscheidingen: ze zíjn het erf. Slingertuinen bestaan uit een slingerwal, een karrenpad en een langgerekte privétuin. Aan de wallen zijn woningen gekoppeld. Bewoners zijn verantwoordelijk voor het onderhoud van de wal. Zo draagt deze nieuwe speler zorg voor het door hem geliefde landschap.

MENSELIJK GENOEGEN EN BIODIVERSITEIT De verschijningsvorm van de slingerwal wordt afgestemd op menselijk genoegen en biodiversiteit. De beplanting van de wal wordt uitgekozen op zintuiglijke kwaliteiten zoals geur, kleur en eetbaarheid.

VEGROTEN TOEGANKELIJKHEID De wallen liggen over de gehele lengte van een kavelgrens. Ze zijn verbonden met andere slingertuinen en bestaande infrastructuur. Door de karrenpaden bij de slingertuinen wordt de toegankelijkheid van het gebied vergroot.

——-

Marit Janse- Charged with Energy

Van oudsher heeft de energieproductie een zwaar stempel gedrukt op de wijze waarom wij onze ruimte inrichten en hoe ons landschap is vormgegeven. De Weerribben-Wieden is een oud energielandschap waar eeuwenlang turf werd gewonnen, Kinderdijk is een energiepark die zelfs benoemt is tot Werelderfgoed. Het oude energielandschap manifesteert zich vaak in verrassende schoonheid. Een schoonheid die we nog niet erkennen in de huidige energielandschappen zoals windmolenparken en hoogspanningslijnen. Biomassa is een alternatieve energievorm die zich juist ruimtelijk sterk vertaalt. Bossen, hakhout en energiegewassen als koolzaad, goudsbloem, hennep, vlas
hebben naast hun energetische waarde een esthetische en recreatieve waarde. Ecologisch zijn de verschillende gewassen een stuk aantrekkelijker dan intensief bewerkte akkers. Actuele problemen van wateroverlast en verdroging kan worden verandert door het grondgebruik aan te passen aan de natuurlijke omstandigheden in de infiltratie- en kwelgebieden. Deze gebieden zijn niet meer geschikt voor intensief landbouwgebruik terwijl grootschalige bebossing zeer geschikt is voor langdurige berging van water.

Voor de ruimtelijke en economische transformatie van het landschap bij Oldenzaal is een raamwerk ontworpen die de ruimtelijke contrasten van het landschap versterkt. Het verschil tussen de uitgestrekte woeste gronden en de intensief bewerkte akkertjes bij de dorpen, het verschil tussen nat en droog en het verschil in vruchtbaarheid van de grond is vervaagd. Deze ontwikkeling is veroorzaakt door de beheersing van het watersysteem, de uitvinding van het prikkeldraad en de toepassing van kunstmest. De inzet van biomassagewassen maakt de energieproductie zichtbaar en vormt tegelijkertijd een aantrekkelijk landschap. Boerenerven die minder bebouwing nodig zullen
hebben kunnen omgevormd worden tot recreatiewoningen. Juist daar waar het erf op de grens staat van twee landschapstypen kent een hoge mate van aantrekkelijkheid.
Het landschap van Oldenzaal is een door de eeuwen heen gevormd cultuurlandschap door de boer bewerkt. Het oude essenlandbouwsysteem en het latere Markestelsel hadden beiden gemeenschappelijke waarden in het gebruik van het landschap. In deze geschiedenis is een toekomstige groene energiecoöperatie denkbaar met bosboeren die de velden oogsten voor lokale energiecentrales.

—–

Marlies Rijken- Back to Nature

The assignment was to make nature at the east of Oldenzaal. So ‘What is nature’? In the Netherlands there is no real nature anymore,
everything is man-made. I want to use this in my design but in a more extreme matter. In the Netherlands there’s no place to retreat
in a large quiet area. On the other hand there a lot of people who live in the city and need a quiet place. By making one large nature resort where everything is possible, the way’s of using nature comes back again. People forget how basic skills are important is in our lives. When this park becomes a wilderness-resort I bring people back to nature.

The Park will be surrounded by a fence. Inside it’s possible to rent a tent and stay in a quiet area by yourself. You have to find the things
you need, for example wood to start a fire, edible plants and have a shower in the stream. It’s also possible to buy food at the “park-market”.
Here you can buy original products from the region.

——-

Nadine Schiller- The new Working Landscape

“The New Working Landscape” creates small office units on a natural estate and a new way of working in the landscape. At the entrances of the estate are two “Park and Cycle” areas where employees park their cars and take a bicycle to their working space. There is one new cycle route introduced to the estate on which office units, conference rooms, open air conference rooms, brainstorm units, a restaurant and sports café are connected. You can only get there by bike; cars are not allowed on the estate. In that way a calm and natural environment is created which is good for the employees and also for the development of natural areas.

The estate is divided in three zones. In the first zone, close to the river “De Dinkel,” is a large area of new marsh. The second zone is a little higher and is composed mostly of meadow and fields and has an open character. Here the office units are situated under the ground and are very long and narrow. This way all the employees can sit at their desks with a view on the landscape. The units in the third zone are situated in new forest areas, standing on high poles. In that way employees will be able to work in the tree tops. The brainstorm units and open air conference rooms on the estate are all different, and their design reacts to their landscape context.

——-

Ramon Postma – NOABERSCAPE

NoaberScape®: healthcare and collective commercial nature

The health insurer as a new player to create new nature. Healthcare is more and more about saving costs. The population is aging and makes
greater and longer use of healthcare. A huge amount of costs for insurance companies and societies. Frequently it is not necessary for a
patient to stay in a hospital to recover. To offer care and treatment, the concept NoaberScape ® is proposed.

Now the nature comes in.

Healthcare and maintaining landscape are nowadays both about costs. The health insurer is financially strong and can influence the
stressed land policy in a positive way. The insurer will pay the high price because the pastoral landscape is part of the healing process.
The health insurer invests in the landscape and is therefore allowed to realize the concept of NoaberScape® using farmland and farmsteads, the most characteristic aspects of the Twente landscape. The rooms are spread out over six Noaberhuzen®. This small scaled setting accelerates the healing by the feeling you’re on holiday in this pastoral landscape. Current agricultural landscape is too expensive to maintain. For the Noaberscape® landscape a phasing is proposed. In several steps pastures will be transformed into heather. Heather is
low in maintenance, contains more biodiversity and improves the spacial qualities of the landscape. Wood and heather are ingredients
for the new architecture healthfarms, so called Noaberhuzen®. A pure symbiosis of healthcare and renewed care for the landscape.

——-

Yuka Yoshida- Woodland Urban Living

How can we bring back stewardship through landscape?

The area between Oldenzaal and Dinkel used to be the important source of food for the people of Oldenzaal. Over the centuries, industrialization and large scale agriculture have changed the symbiosis relationship between city and surrounding agricultural
lands. Although the system of agriculture in the area has changed over time, the old pattern of the landscape remains in the area
and attract many visitors to the site. Because of its richness in nature, Natuur2000 assigned this area to increase biodiversity for the future
that is both economically and environmentally sustainable.

My approach is to create a community that is physically involved in the management of nature, food production process and be a place for urban dwellers to come and connected with nature. Although traditional small scale agriculture is slowly fading, there is increasing demand for local organic food production. Farmers can guide the process of natural farming, and inhabitants can provide the labor to maintain the farmland. Natural farming increases biodiversity of the soil, and by making multiple dwellings in the woodland, there will be new biodiversity relating to human activities, and more over, they provide financial stability to allow extensive farming. Woodland communities will not destroy the historical layered landscape pattern, also farmland living becomes more accessible for wider audience, and bring back the stewardship to the area with historical landscape.

Digging for Treasure / Schatgraven 03b

This publication is the result of two years of student work undertaken at the Amsterdam Academy by students in landscape architecture.

“Schatgraven” or digging for treasure is about fieldwork and analysis – and learning to look in new ways. Students were asked to find subjects of personal interest after site visits, ranging from different smells in the landscape  to gradations of  neglect and care in the environment.

The results are personal maps and analytical explorations of what was seen and perceived.  Through this personal map work students learn to graphically materialize their own thinking process with a combination of complete openness to place and cartographic precision.

Featuring the work of:

Inge Vleemingh, Leen Vantuyne, Marlies Rijken, Marijne Beenhakker, Donald Marskamp, Ramon Postma, Joep Meijer, Yuka Yoshida, Oinny Atahuichi Torrez, Gert-Jan Wisse, Marit Janse, Anna Sobiech, Milda Jusaite, Matt Colby, Judith van der Poel, Niek Heijboer, Chenxi Bu, and Jacques Abelman

Studio Leaders: Pepijn Godefroy and Joyce van den Burg

Book design: La4SALE

The entire book is available for download here:

——-

O3B Schatgraven web book

——-

“Swimming to Manhattan” Competition

All “Swimming to Manhattan” projects can be seen on the page on the left.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Winter term for the third year students of the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam is organized as a competition with twelve teams, a critical jury and an actual prize. In two intensive weeks, interdisciplinary (Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape Architecture) teams worked on intelligent and imaginative perspectives on New York’s Upper Bay. This bay, which is connected to the ocean, has been in the spotlight since hurricane Katrina. Various plans have been devised, among which the plan to supply the bay with a storm-surge barrier, and multiple plans have already been made for various parts of the coastal area surrounding the bay. In all of these design plans, protection against the rising water levels plays a key role. The assignment for the winter term revolved around the idea that the Upper Bay could become a second Central Park.

In designing this vision for the future, the following questions were to be answered: What will this new recreational area look like? How will the area be accessed? How will this new “water park” relate to all the existing developments? What will the intervention produce? In addition, the development of the new park could be linked to other current problems such as energy extraction, food production and coastal protection. The participating teams were supported by various consultants (all of whom are experts in the field) that may be seen during the course of the project. Luc Vrolijks,(Urban Progress) Thomas Oles (lector Living Landscape AvB), Lodewijk van Nieuwenhuijze (H+N+S), John Lonsdale (Achitect), Ronald Rietveld (landscape Architect) en Jeroen Aerts (VU Risk insurance and water managment). The jury was composed of Aart Oxenaar, Machiel Spaan, Marieke Timmermans, Rogier van de Berg and Cees van der Veeken (Lola Landscape Architects).

The winning entry was “Red Point Park,” by Egle Suminskaite, Jacques Abelman, Simona Serafino, Marit Janse, and Txell Blanco Diaz. According to the jury, “Red Point Park breaks with the tradition of  ‘form follows finance.’ The strategy focuses on clean and dynamic water itself rather than on the economic development of the waterfront. The plan shows a convincing development strategy for water and the harbor edges and does it in a striking way.”

All the entries are slated to be exhibited in the New York Architectural center this June 2011 in the context of a collaboration with ARCAM, the Amsterdam Architectural Center. Watch this space for further developments.