TIME (11/07/2024)
Fourth meeting of the Academic Soil Workshop series
In today's petrified city, heat stress, flooding, soil subsidence and loss of biodiversity all occur, and soil vitality is under great pressure. Climate change and energy transition are placing increasing demands on the urban subsurface. Slowly, awareness is beginning to sink in of what a healthy soil means for a city and country, and that it is precisely the other living species - Flora Fauna Funga (FFF) - that create, nourish and sustain life.
The current bottlenecks in the city are well known, but how do we tackle the major infrastructure challenges? By being innovative, integrated and interdisciplinary. By seeing the city as a metabolism, and improving and future-proofing the existing city and its urban systems with innovative design tools.
Promoting biodiversity requires working towards a healthy and robust infranature so that important cycles are restored and supported. This can be done by greening instead of petrifying and, above all, connecting city and country at the blue-green level. How do we do this? What role can time play? How much green and open soil is needed for a healthy balance? Whose turn is it? Who actually owns the landscape and soil?
The speakers are:
- Wouter van Eck: Lecturer and co-founder and farmer at Voedselbos Ketelbroek (the oldest food forest in the Netherlands) and founder of Stichting Voedselbosbouw Nederland
- Thijs van Spaandonk: co-founder of BRIGHT Collective
- Leo Pols :Until recently working at the PBL/Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and author of numerous articles such as Whose landscape is it? and co-author of publications on the (urban)landscape.
The meeting is on Thursday evening 11 July from 19.00 to 21.30 (walk-in 10 minutes before start) in the Oostzaal of the Groote Museum Artis, Amsterdam. Address is Plantage Middenlaan 41, but the museum entrance is on Artisplein, next to the Chilean flamingos.
The meeting is free to attend, but admission to the Groote Museum Artis requires an entry card or a museum annual pass required. This meeting will be filmed.
In addition, we would like to inform you that this fourth and final Academic Workshop on Soil is taking place in the context of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) and that the "Hope of Nature" exhibition will feature video artworks resulting from the four AWB meetings.