Images: © ARCAM – Simon Trel.
On Friday december the 13th, the Manifest of the Amsterdam wedges was presented to Marike van Doorninck, deputy mayor of Amsterdam councilor for Spatial Development, and Sustainability, in Arcam Architecture Centre of Amsterdam.
The initiative for this manifest came from landscape architects Philomene van der Vliet and Jan Maas (Boom Landscape) in the form of a Parliament of the Amsterdam wedges. Nature^Squared director Daan Groot was appointed one of the 15 members of parliament. Over the course of a year, this parliament has deliberated on the future of the Amsterdam wedges.
In addition, four design teams have worked on 8 fictions on what the future of the Amsterdam wedges could look like. All in all, it has been a fascinating year with a great result, but the real work has yet to begin. The wedges make Amsterdam unique (every resident of Amsterdam can be outside in a natural area within 10 minutes of biking) and this needs to be kept in place and strengthened. With a lot of rural pressure (75.000 houses to be build in the next years), this is not an obvious outcome. To get there, requires a new way of looking, thinking and acting.
More information can be found on www.deamsterdamsescheggen.nl.
The exposition at Arcam is open until May the 10th.
