After the visit to the Tendris factory we went to the city hall of Almere. Three presentations were held there. The first one was from the mayor of Almere, Annemarie Jorritsma. She told about the plans of Almere to become a more sustainable and green city, that really makes the people feel at ease. There are a lot of ethnic groups in the city with different cultures and interests, so the politics and the architecture of the city have the challenge to make all these different people have a good living quality in Almere.
Some projects were mentioned, like the art project of Studio Roosengaarde that consists of objects that glow in the dark and make a noise when people come close to it. Also a lot of street lights are being replaced by more efficient LED that can shine a specific color and set the mood of an area.
Above you can see a map that can be used to determine the direction of architecture and urban planning. Some people have wild plans for the future of our country’s youngest city, as we saw in the last presentation.
We were surprised when we saw a picture of ourselves in our own meeting with the people in Almere. The mayor was explaining that to determine your goal, you need to work together with the users of the city. In the end, it’s their living environment so as a politician, architect or urban designer you need to listen to their wishes and needs.
this complicated graphic shows all the factors that are important when talking about sustainability on planet earth. The conclusion is simple: we consume too much to keep on surviving in the future. Street light is an example of where you can begin to make our energy system more sustainable. How can we fight the light pollution that we currently have? Related to this, the second presentation was about a project in Cambodja were they wanted to make a light system for the villagers. They work together intensively with the people and they asked them what their routines are during the night time. By using this information they designed a lamp that they could hang around their neck with a chord. This way the villagers always carried their own personal light, and this way you don’t need to put street lights everywhere that also illuminate when not necessary. This is project avoids light pollution in a sustainable way.
The third presentation was from Jeroen Zuidgeest, an architect who really has a passion for sustainable and ecological green projects. He showed us some ideas in which architecture and nature melt together and become one. For example in this picture, that is a combination of gardens and an apartment building. Imagine what Almere could look like when the ‘Almere Floriade’ is realised: a not yet existing park that contains all kinds of gardens and buildings combined together. The pictures in the presentation contained a lot of inspiration for the public lighting concepts that are worked on in the Light Challenge.