Integration with Nature: Amsterdam, Hoofddorp, and Haarlem

Amsterdam is really a city in balance with its environment.  We stayed on a houseboat (thanks Airbnb), and were able to really experience the feeling of living both nestled in the heart of a city surrounded by other people, and the feeling of being on the water, a thousand miles from civilization.  The city of Amsterdam seems to INVITE THE WATER IN.

That feeling comes often in special parts of this city.  Our own Boston is a city of water, and it will be important to bring that sense of HARMONY WITH PLACE to our project.  The city is all about balance.  These two shots below show the footbridge right near our houseboat.  Not only do artists and professional live right on the water on houseboats in the canals, but they bicycle to work and to play, and plant the roofs of their houseboats with plantings of succulents and grasses:
 

My friend Mark Sellew at Prides Corner Form in CT is bringing a form of this roof greening technology to the United States (that is Mark's hand and one of his green roofs below).  I hope someday soon to look down on cities from airplanes and see a sea of green, growing roofs, not the black tar-paper and aluminum air conditioner ducts we see today.

In Amsterdam, the bicycles are everywhere.  On every curb.  By every lamppost.  Leaning against every house.  By every cafe.  We even saw a multistory bicycle parking garage at the Amsterdam Central parking garage, which looked all the world like a large car garage, but was filled to bursting with two stories of bicycles.  No wonder the people look so healthy - even the eighty year olds were biking.  Now if only the bread had grains and there wasn't so much cheese and chocolate....

We had come to Amsterdam in search of 3 bridges over the Hoofdvaart in Hoofddorp, elegant little bridges created by Santiago Calatrava.  Due to adventures with $20/MB European roaming and a lack of Google Maps, we never found these bridges, but instead took inspiration and wonder in the original architecture of the inventive Dutch, a people who seem to have living in harmony with their environments down to a science. 

 

One extra surprise.  At home in the Boston suburbs, we have seen deer in our back yard, have a neighborhood fox, and often have squirrels come eat things from our garden and even off our deck.  I was still unprepared for the wild creature who swam up to the deck of our houseboat looking for something to munch on.  I shared my snack.  He and his companion loved bananas and hated watermelon.  Who knew.

 - Tod and Rachel