AFC NIEUW PRINSENLAND

Landscaping of business and greenhouse area

The site of the Agro & Food Cluster (AFC) Nieuw Prinsenland, a large scale development of greenhouse cultivation and industry to the east of the village of Dinteloord, is approximately 600 hectares. This includes the existing terrain of the sugar factory. The project deals with the (visual) integration of this development into the surrounding landscape.

Inspired by the dikes and forts which are very common in the surrounding area, we introduce earthworks which surround the AFC creating a large green collar. The sugar factory supplies the ground which is necessary for the construction of the earthworks. It is a side product of the process of producing sugar, approximately 80.000 cubic meters a year. The green collar doesn’t attempt to hide the AFC, it rather tries to soften the often harsh border between the built environment (the greenhouses and industrial buildings) and the horizontal flat landscape. The collar forges the buildings into one visual entity.

The shape of the earthworks can be diverse and is mainly focussed on the visual experience from within the landscape and the villages as well as from the highway. Internally the AFC is organized through the logic of spatial optimization. A large part of the collar consists out of open water reservoirs which are used for irrigation. This results in the collar, besides being mere visual, to be functional as well. In essence we are dealing here with a challenging 12 kilometre long land-art piece!