ALMERE

Almere, situated in the Greater Amsterdam Area is a new town with more than 185,000 inhabitants. It was first planned around a smoky conference table in The Hague in 1958. The polder, in which Almere lies, was uncovered in 1968. In 1976, the first residents occupied their new homes in what was to become Almere-Haven. The designers of Almere drew their inspiration from the garden towns in England. At the start of the design process it was uncertain how people would choose to live in ten, twenty or thirty years. For this reason the designers laid out a city consisting of several cores, Almere-Haven, Almere-Stad, Almere-Buiten, Almere-Hout and Almere-Poort. These cores reflect the changing ideas concerning architecture and town planning of the last twenty-seven years.

The heart of the city centre designed by Rem Koolhaas of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) exists on upper and lower levels. A plateau slopes up 6 meters in altitude and then returns down towards the water. Shops and houses, pedestrian streets and squares are situated on this plateau. Vehicle parking and the bus terminal are underneath.

As part of the plan the Urban Entertainment Centre of William Alsop is completed. A hotel, music-hall and restaurants are part of it. Several buildings with shops and dwellings are designed by the French architect Christian de Portzamparc, the English David Chipperfield and the Swiss Gignon and Guyer. The Japanese Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA) draw the theatre and UN Studio realised the new office La Defense.

As the first city in the Netherlands, Almere has chosen for an underground waste transport system. With a velocity of 70 kilometre/hour the waste flies through a underground network of steel piping. At the end the pipes emerge from the ground just outside the city centre at the Vacuum Cleaner (after a design by OMA). Also the garbage bans are connected with the underground system, unique in the world. On the north site of the station offices are build. La Defense of UN Studio is completed. The facade is partly made of a foelie developed for perfume. The result is hallucinating.

Urban neighbourhoods built in the nineties were created with strong themes to give them coherence. In the Regenboogbuurt (Rainbow-area in Almere-Buiten) for example, the designers used colour to bring unity in the area. The urban designer of the Regenboogbuurt was born in Germany and the inspiration to use colours came from the Siedlung Onkel Toms Hutte of Bruno Taut in Berlin. The Rode Donders (Red Buildings) of Liesbeth van der Pol, Dok architects show the result. The Red Building is so special that it became the symbol for the whole neighbourhood.

In 2001 a open exposition of the houses was held in the Eilandenbuurt (also part of Almere-Buiten). The intention was to give future occupants as much freedom and flexibility as possible, while at the same time building in rational phases. The result is a neighbourhood of approximately 600 houses in which nearly every house is different.