Blijmerpark
by Mecanoo architecten as Architects - Fri, 18 June 2010
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.jpg "Hotel & Guesthouse “De Roode Schuur”")
differentiation
The Bijlmermeer is the result of a large expansion during the 1960s and 1970s. The Utopian modernism that underpinned the plans for the neighbourhood envisaged a metro system, a road system free of crossings and uniform thirteen-storey housing blocks coupled with parking garages and extensive green spaces. In practice it delivered an unsafe neighbourhood with problems and an unforeseen multicultural population. Now re-branded Amsterdam Zuidoost, the neighbourhood has been urged to provide a differentiated housing stock and to improve its management of the public realm. Part of this strategy is the transformation of the Bijlmerpark into a new urban park with seven hundred homes and six hectares of sports facilities. Mecanoo’s response to this brief has three main elements: the integration of the housing within the landscape, clear boundaries and entrances to the park and an intensification of activities.
romantic
Undulating strips of individual houses and apartments define the edges of the park. The park’s successful management is reliant upon a fence whose expressive form gives the park a clear identity and distinguishes it from other urban parks. The entrances, opposite the streets and cycle lanes that lead to the park, have the generous dimensions of small piazzas. There are small entrances for the residents living alongside the park. The park’s central section is bordered by trees, through which a romantic path for pedestrians and cyclists meanders, linking the ‘cultural’ northern section of the park with the ‘ecological’ southern section.
communities Alongside the sports fields the park contains numerous other facilities including a natural stage for the Surinamese community’s annual Kwaku Summer Festival, a sport and recreation facility, magnolia valley, the vertical garden, board walks, and a sunning hill. In the southern, more naturalistic section, waterways and creeks have been created to support fauna and flora, including a pool surrounded by pollard willows.
The Bijlmermeer is the result of a large expansion during the 1960s and 1970s. The Utopian modernism that underpinned the plans for the neighbourhood envisaged a metro system, a road system free of crossings and uniform thirteen-storey housing blocks coupled with parking garages and extensive green spaces. In practice it delivered an unsafe neighbourhood with problems and an unforeseen multicultural population. Now re-branded Amsterdam Zuidoost, the neighbourhood has been urged to provide a differentiated housing stock and to improve its management of the public realm. Part of this strategy is the transformation of the Bijlmerpark into a new urban park with seven hundred homes and six hectares of sports facilities. Mecanoo’s response to this brief has three main elements: the integration of the housing within the landscape, clear boundaries and entrances to the park and an intensification of activities.
romantic
Undulating strips of individual houses and apartments define the edges of the park. The park’s successful management is reliant upon a fence whose expressive form gives the park a clear identity and distinguishes it from other urban parks. The entrances, opposite the streets and cycle lanes that lead to the park, have the generous dimensions of small piazzas. There are small entrances for the residents living alongside the park. The park’s central section is bordered by trees, through which a romantic path for pedestrians and cyclists meanders, linking the ‘cultural’ northern section of the park with the ‘ecological’ southern section.
communities Alongside the sports fields the park contains numerous other facilities including a natural stage for the Surinamese community’s annual Kwaku Summer Festival, a sport and recreation facility, magnolia valley, the vertical garden, board walks, and a sunning hill. In the southern, more naturalistic section, waterways and creeks have been created to support fauna and flora, including a pool surrounded by pollard willows.
