CASE STUDY ALMERE MASTERPLAN


In 2008, Rotterdam-based architects MVRDV was tasked with coming up with a vision for Almere, the Netherlands’ newest city, only reclaimed from the Ijselmeer sea between 1959-1968. The brief was to grow the current population of just over 200,000 by at least another 60,000 by 2030, and do so in a way that would boost not just housing and economic opportunity but also infuse each new neighbourhood with a distinctive social and ecological culture, to offer new qualities of life. All being well, by 2030, it will be the fifth-largest city in the Netherlands. Working closely with the


municipality, MVRDV proposed four distinct areas: Almere IJ-land, a new island off the coast in the IJ-lake; Almere Pampus, focused on the lake and open to experimental housing; Almere Centre, an extended city centre developed along the existing lake; and Almere Oosterworld, devoted to a new kind of rural and organic urbanism. The new neighbourhoods are on an infrastructural axis, which also connects to Amsterdam – the nearest major city, and one to which many Almere residents already commute, a mere 20-minute train ride away – while Almere Oosterworld in the east will also enjoy enhanced connections to Utrecht. The projects are all underway currently, with construction having started in 2011. Almere Oosterworld is one of the


most fascinating from the perspective of designing with nature to the fore. Residents have great freedom of individual choice in construction but have to follow MVRDV’s rule that in each neighbourhood plot, only 18% can be built on, 8% should be roads, 13% public greenery, 2% water and 59% urban agriculture. Residents have to work closely within their immediate communities to organise layout and infrastructure – as a reporter, who visited the project for the African Journal of Landscape Architecture, concluded: ‘You can build your fantastic dream (home) in Almere, but you have to build the road leading to it as well.’ The project is still being closely


monitored to see what lessons can be learned, but MVRDV director Winy Maas afirms that what they have created is not so much an experimental city, but ‘a city where experiments can happen’.


Client Municipality of Almere Masterplan MVRDV Start date 2011 Completion 2030


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