FROM HERE

2021

A design proposal, a soundproof and emission reducing landscape next to the highway A67 and its near heath ‘Strabrechtse heide’ for the exhibition at the Landscape Triennial 2021 by Kunstloc Brabant Kunstloc Brabant.

FROM HERE is a noise barrier created from mainly wool. It aims to materialize (Nitrogen)emissions by transport and farming and it’s impact on the heath landscape by a participatory approach. It is a designed sculptural landscape of walls, water and windmills that connects two colliding worlds, simultaneously protects them from each other and makes them visible. They are walls of local harvest released from heather management. FROM HERE plays with the age-old system of diminishing and enriching that belongs to this cultural landscape. Depending on our collective behavior, FROM HERE grows, because more nitrogen emissions mean more intensive management, more local harvest and thus a larger sculpture, then needed to protect this Natura2000 area from the pollution and sounds of the high traffic road. For example wool comes from the sheep that graze the grass, which allows for other plants to grow, maintaining a biodiversity. However in the Netherlands because of this maintenance there is a huge wool-stock. Wool is waste, and has even a negative prize. The costs prize of trimming the sheep is higher then the wool prize itself. Each year 10 cubic meter of wool comes from the “Strabrechtse Heide’. Enough to build the noise barrier and keep it growing each year. In time the local harvest in the noise barrier could eventually turn into compost (a good replacement of artificial fertilizer.

The design proposal is developed with Marieke de Keijzer-landscape architect, Joost van Dijk- architect and Iris de Kievith-architect.

More here: Article on Architectenweb