All Cyclifiers

Van Bergen Kolpa Architecten propose taking over a polder landscape and transforming it into the farm of the future, which could serve the Randstand metropolitan region (consisting of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht). Around 4,000 acres of agrarian landscape would be turned into a super farm divided into 2.5-acre plots for small-scale farming and grocery shopping. Even though the traditional polder landscape is often inundated with rising tides, the farm would be built to work around the waters and even take advantage of them. Van Bergen Kolpa Architecten are now working on a 74-acre pilot project in the city of Nijmegen in collaboration with a farmer's cooperative and local residents.

Back in the day, a polder in the Netherlands was capable of providing all the necessary food for a nearby town. As the nation’s population has grown and diversified it relies less on locally produced food and more on regions known for their warm and sunny climates. The Netherlands isn’t endowed with a warm and sunny growing season, and with the influx of a diverse population from all over the world, the demand for foreign foods has dramatically increased. Park Supermarket is the answer to the dilemma of providing local and diverse foods.

The Park Supermarket balance has been set up around food and its Randstad consumers and is projected in the agrarian park landscape of the Randstad. On good accessible locations like Midden Delfland and based on underlying soil types (peat and clay), new climate zones (moderate, mediterranean and tropical) and raised water levels an entirely new landscape is introduced where the contents of a contemporary supermarket are cultivated and sold. Each department knows its characteristic growing conditions and product types such as Pandan-en Risotto rise on water terraces, Tilapia fish in basins and kiwi' s and avacodos along undulating fruit walls. The management of the climate of the outdoor supermarket is supported by old techniques such as warmth accumulating snake walls and more contemporary solutions as insulating water spray 'roofs' and floor heating on the basis of thermal warmth. Because of its set up in small plots of one hectare each Park Supermarket is able grow with the need for diversity of food of the consumer and the renewing insights in agrarian techniques. Randstad inhabitants will in this way be able to consume and recreate in a new Park landscape for the 21st century.

Client: Stroom Den Haag en Provincie Zuid Holland. Project: Foodprint 2009-2010 'Voedsel voor de Stad'. Location: Midden Delfland. Programme: 1600 hectares of Landscape Supermarket. Landscape and ecology advice: Alterra Wageningen UR, Vincent Kuypers. Model: Werkplaats Vincent de Rijk. Planning: research and design 2009.