Every 10 years Floriade takes place in the Netherlands. On Thursday, April 14, International horticultural exhibition Floriade Expo 2022 Amsterdam – Almere opens its doors for six months.
King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands opened the site today, as final additions were being made to the pavilions and planting. For six months, the 60-hectare Floriade park on the Weerwater will showcase the latest horticultural developments from around the world. The Expo – and the city district which will occupy the site afterwards – derives its underlying character from MVRDV’s arboretum concept, with an alphabetical library of trees and plants arranged into lots in a strict grid. These lots also provide the layout for temporary pavilions and, later, homes; after the Expo, the park will be transformed into a new green residential area known as Hortus.
This edition of the Floriade Expo is not only about the plants; approximately 400 participants also show the latest innovations, from nature-inclusive agriculture to a sustainable pilot home made from 93 percent recycled plastic. With the theme “Growing Green Cities,” this year’s World Horticultural Exhibition promises to be greener, more productive, and more sustainable than ever.
The ambition was to enrich the 60-hectare site with plants, trees, and flowers, while at the same time exploiting its potential to become an energy- and food-producing city district. The masterplan is therefore not only the basis for the Expo, but also for the innovative, sustainable residential district Hortus, which is intended to become the green counterpart to Almere’s city centre on the other side of the Weerwater.
The arboretum, based on its refined grid of small streets, forms the basis of the masterplan. In these streets plant and tree species are listed in alphabetical order according to their Latin botanical name. In the northwest of the site are species beginning with the letter A, while those with a Z are found in the southeast. Landscape architects Niek Roozen, along with Christiaan Pfeiffer from the municipality of Almere, developed the technical aspects of the planting, placing a total of 40,000 shrubs, 200,000 perennials, and 1 million bulbs. Dutch tree growers donated 2,800 trees especially for this edition of the Expo.
The arboretum is bordered by a boulevard, which connects the two sides of the plan by wide green bridges. These bridges are the prelude to the “bridge campus”. On the initiative of the municipality of Almere and the province of Flevoland, two circular bridges were made, built from – among other things – cement-free concrete derived from Almere’s waste.
For the 43.5-meter-tall Flores Tower at the centre of the Floriade park, MVRDV designed the building’s colorful façade, creating an artwork named Sympoiesis in collaboration with Arttenders and the Flemish artist Alex Verhaest. All of the tree, plant, and flower species at the Expo are represented in a composition printed on the glass facade panels of the tower, and the names and locations of each can be found on the building’s plinth. The Flores Tower is the first permanent building in the new district and will be used during the Expo as a base for event organization and for radio and TV broadcasts.
