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Horticulture is not widely reputed for its landscape-enhancing attributes. The ambition is to create greenhouse sites that people will admire as pearls in the landscape. This can be done by means of high-quality architecture surrounding such sites and smart landscaping (differences in height), so that greenhouses no longer impede views, but act as giant reflectors of the skyscapes overhead. Great strides forwards can be made with new green-house designs.
Venlo Greenhouse as a monument
Stand-alone greenhouses, intrusively situated in the middle of green countryside, will no longer exist in 2030. About a quarter of the greenhouse surface area will be located in a few large connected horticultural complexes outside urbanized areas. The greenhouses will be less visible, being surrounded by buildings with multiple urban functions: offices, homes, day care and schools.
Three quarters of the greenhouses will be fully integrated into the built-up area. Work, homes and recreational facilities will all be combined here. Government will allow more greenhouse construction in and around the urban area. These greenhouse complexes will be architect-designed pearls in the landscape and will rapidly become a cherished part of our cultural heritage. Greenhouses will enhance the quality of the urban space. As glitter-ing crystals, reflecting prisms or shining glass domes, they will stand out between, on or over the surrounding buildings. In the year 2020 greenhouses will no longer cause light pollution.
Architects will make grateful use of horticultural technology to design pleasing buildings, adding greenhouses as an integral element to buildings in order to create a congenial climate. Greenhouses with plants will provide heating or cooling, a pleasant humidity and clean air.
There will no longer be a single dominating type of greenhouse. The appearance of the greenhouses will depend on the creative design, specific demands of the crops or alterna-tive function (e.g. as glass roofing over factories). A few square kilometres of uniform Venlo greenhouses to the East of Aalsmeer will be preserved as a Protected Landscape because of its cultural-historical value.
A realistic scenario
Imagine a covered palm-lined boulevard running along the coast from Hoek van Holland to Kijkduin. This glass corridor not only provides itself with energy, but also several neighbourhoods in The Hague. The climate under the glass and between the plants is pleasant all year round. Recreational facilities abound, including plush casinos and well-ness centres and a luxury marina in the form of a tulip stretching into sea. All facilities are climate-neutral: horticulture supplies heating as well as cooling in the summer. A consortium of growers, hospitality providers and government conduct commercial activities in the corridor which attracts tourists from far and wide, particularly Asians, Russians and Arabs. Similar indoor recreational parks will spring up all over the Netherlands, giving people ample opportunity to relax and enjoy themselves, irrespective of the weather. The Wieringermeer, for instance, will be home to the largest butterfly greenhouse in the world where you can book a bungalow for a break or holiday.
Sounds good? Much of the technology is already available or will be soon!
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