City Centre Almere

The heart of the city centre designed by Rem Koolhaas of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) exists on upper and lower levels. A plateau slopes up 6 meters in altitude and then returns down towards the water. Shops and houses, pedestrian streets and squares are situated on this plateau. Vehicle parking and the bus terminal are underneath. A hotel, music-hall and restaurants are part of it. Several buildings with shops and dwellings are designed by the French architect Christian de Portzamparc, the English David Chipperfield and the Swiss Gignon and Guyer. The Japanese Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA) draw the theatre and UN Studio realised the new office La Defense.

As the first city in the Netherlands, Almere has chosen for an underground waste transport system. With a velocity of 70 kilometre/hour the waste flies through a underground network of steel piping. At the end the pipes emerge from the ground just outside the city centre at the Vacuum Cleaner (after a design by OMA). Also the garbage bans are connected with the underground system, unique in the world. On the north site of the station offices are build. La Defense of UN Studio is completed. The facade is partly made of a foelie developed for perfume. The result is hallucinating.

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