MVRDV shared with us the press release of “Floriade 2022”, it is well known that MVRDV is involved in a series of projects for the city of Almere and has engaged in vast research concerning urban farming, urban density and many aspects of modern agriculture. In 2000 MVRDV realised the Netherlands pavilion at the Hanover World Expo. Almere was one of four remaining candidate cities, Amsterdam, Groningen and Boskoop region. More about “Floriade 2022” comes from MVRDV after the jump.
© MVRDV
Today the Nederlandse Tuinbouwraad (NTR) announced the City of Almere, along with it’s MVRDV-designed proposal, as winner of the prestigious world horticultural expo, Floriade 2022. The event takes place once every ten years in the Netherlands and is currently ending in Venlo.
The MVRDV plan for Almere is not a temporary expo site but a lasting green Cité Idéale as an extension to the existing city centre. The waterfront site opposite the city centre will be developed as a vibrant new urban neighborhood and also a giant plant library which will remain beyond the expo.
The ambition is to create a 300% greener exhibition than currently standard, both literally green and sustainable: each program on the site will be combined with plants which will create programmatic surprises, innovation and ecology. At the same time the site will be with a va st program such as a university, hotel, marina, offices and homes more urban than any other Floriade has ever been before, it is an exemplary green city. Almere with MVRDV won the competition of Boskoop with OMA/Rem Koolhaas, Groningen with West 8 and Amsterdam Bijlmer with MTD Landscape Architect.
© MVRDV
Amsterdam metropolitan area stands at the verge of a large population growth. Within this development the city of Almere will realise the largest new developments with 60.000 new homes. Almere has the ambition to realise the urban growth with improved life quality for its citizens. MVRDV is already urban planner for Almere 2030 and the DIY urbanism plan for Almere Oosterwold and now proposes the extension of Almere city centre opposite the existing centre, transforming the lake into a central lake and connecting the various neighbourhoods of the Dutch new town. The plan foresees a dense exemplary an d green city centre extension which at the same time is for now very flexible: An invitation to the Floriade organiser NTR to develop the plan further with the city.
© MVRDV
Winy Maas discusses the plan: “We dream of making green cities. City that is literally green as well as ecological. A city that produces food and energy, cleans its own water, recycles waste and holds a great biodiversity. A city which might even be autarkic: A symbiotic world of people, plants and animals. Can this symbiosis between city and countryside offer essential argumentation to the global concerns regarding urbanization and consumption? Can we realize in the next ten years an exemplary ‘green’ city which realizes this synthesis? And could this city be the Floriade 2022?”
Almere with MVRDV won the competition over Boskoop with OMA/Rem Koolhaas, Groningen with West 8 and Amsterdam Bijlmer with MTD Landscape Architect.
© MVRDV
