June 24-28, 2024, Rhodes Island, Greece
Landscape collection. The Voorlinden experience. Wassenaar, South Holland, Netherlands. (Annunziata De Comite)
The territory of the Netherlands is strongly characterised by landscapes of outstanding natural value: areas of approximately 10 square kilometres that are distinct in terms of their characteristics and conformation, forming a system of national parks with four main objectives:
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the protection and development of nature and landscape
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outdoor recreation
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education
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research
The most important and extensive area is the Nationaal Park Hollandse Duinen.
The historic Voorlinden agricultural estate is located just next to the park, together with the Voorlinden Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by Studio Milani in 2016.
The thesis project, assisted by the landscape atelier Arscape, aimed to create a botanical collection capable of working in parallel with the park system and acting as a forerunner for the tangible development of its guidelines.
The opportunity of academic work allowed the development and experimentation of a design model capable of being innovative in the use of plants, while still starting from the character of that specific territory.
The project is conceived as something deeply connected to the place:
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tailored to its specific geomorphological characteristics
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rooted in its history
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attentive to its invisible traces
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and integrated within its current role as a museum and information centre
The project becomes a creative workshop, where plants from acclimatisation gardens and those grown inside greenhouses, reinterpreted in a contemporary way, populate the collective space.
Here coexist:
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autochthonous plants that have now disappeared
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new species adaptable to the current climatic conditions of the place
All of them take part in a continuous process of experimentation with migratory plant cells.
Their shape on the ground — an emanation of the imprint of the waves beyond the dunes — tells something about their proximity and their final purpose: responsible knowledge and creative re-population.
The dissemination of the history of the place, through both traditional museum systems and the form of the designed space itself, creates synapses between the place of production and the countries from which visitors come.
Visitors will bring with them “postcard seeds”, a small memory of the experience, meant to be repeated at home.
The challenge faced by contemporary designers — supported by researchers and experts in botany, climate science and engineering — is not to lose sight of the history, the form of territories and the communities that inhabit them.
This approach expands the concept of sustainability, transforming it into something broader:
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social sustainability
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economic sustainability
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constructive sustainability
Acting in this way allows designers not to distort territories through an undesirable globalisation of communities and places.