A 1,400-acre urban forest is being rediscovered. Almeerderhout is growing along with the city, responding to changing needs of the modern city dweller and contributing to a green and healthy living environment.
Staatsbosbeheer and the Municipality of Almere together have the ambition to make the Almeerderhout the urban forest of the future. This ambition has taken shape in the Almeerderhout Development Plan (lola). To move to implementation and elaboration, Polyfern created the Atlas Almeerderhout. This describes the spatial structure and quality guidelines for the urban forest.
Three “forest atmospheres” have been identified for the redevelopment of Almeerderhout: pure forest, park forest, wild forest. Each of these has its own look and serves different audiences of visitors. For the Atlas, measures and spatial quality principles have been determined for each forest sphere. For example, for the path network, furniture, materialisation, tree species and entrances from the neighbourhoods.
The Forest Circuit is the main route through the forest for cyclists, hikers and athletes. The route measures over 18-kilometer and connects the various forest sections with each other and the surrounding neighbourhoods. The Forest Circuit and the surrounding forest interact strongly. In the wild forest the rugged nature comes close to the track, in the pure forest the forest structure is actually more open, in the park forest the profile is the most generous and the forest structure is open and diverse.
Currently, Polyfern is working on the designs for the first four subareas, the Forest Circuit and four forest icons. Implementation will begin in 2024.
Year: 2022
Type: vision, image quality, public space, landscape
Client: municipality of Almere and Staatsbosbeheer
Size: approximately 1400 hectares of city forest
Status: Atlas completed and adopted, elaboration and implementation in preparation
