• project: urban planning, housing
• client: competition NAi-Ymere
• design: Harmen van de Wal, with Smahan Amrach, Sonia Sousa and Cady Chintis
• program: 139 familyhouses, 11 tower apartments
• date: May 2007
• location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

In the Bijlmer, a post-war neighborhood in Amsterdam, history is being written. All historic elements previous to the building of this neighborhood has been removed thoroughly to be replaced for a modernist dream of apartment slabs in the green. The result is both impressive and meager. Being problem solvers of the first hour, the engineers treated the Bijlmer as a solution for mass housing and succeeded in that, but they failed in making it a proper environment for dwelling.
Dwellandscape Heesterveld aims for the same ambitions as the original Bijlmer master plan, creating dwellings in the green, only this time the housing will not be disconnected UFO’s in the park, but they will form a symbiotic relationship with it. A new landscape will be created with hills as artificial horizons, a new water structure of small ponds and canals will be made, trees will be planted. The housing, small in scale and footprint, will be equally distributed in this landscape. Instead of creating a public park, the land will be given in custody of the inhabitants. They will take care of the trees ponds and canals releaving the authorities from the maintenance costs, and in turn they can treat it as their own garden. A win win situation for both parties.

Tags: architecture, housing, sustainability