Where in Zuidas
Now that the first of the scaffolding has been removed, Valley resembles a flower bud that is slowly unfurling. The natural stone that is gradually becoming visible is just the ‘tip of the iceberg’. In June, work began on the planting on and between the three towers of this new Zuidas icon. This vertical landscape was devised by none other than the world-famous landscape gardener Piet Oudolf. He was commissioned for this by EDGE Technologies and has worked in partnership with Deltavormgroep.
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‘Good for the plants’
Right on the very first day of meteorological summer, the heavens open. But Piet Oudolf isn’t concerned. ‘It’s good for the plants’, he tells us. A tour with Oudolf is like a kind of lesson for garden enthusiasts. The conversation is peppered with botanical Latin names and he casually gives some final instructions to the gardeners who are very carefully placing the young plants in their final positions.
Painstaking work
This is Oudolf’s first visit to Valley, and he has come to see the first plants go into one of the 370 spaces for plants that architect Winy Maas has created up and down the buildings, apparently at random. For the gardeners of Wencop from Barneveld, placing the 176 plant species in containers spread out over 26 floors is painstaking work. There will be 227 trees and shrubs of 63 different species, as well as 12,846 perennials of 155 different species, and not forgetting 391 climbing plants of 5 species. The six employees of the landscaping company had to undergo thorough training before they could work safely at these heights. Normally they would be down on their hands and knees in a garden, but today, tethered securely to a strong rope, they are clambering out of windows on the seventeenth floor of one of Valley’s three tower blocks to position the plants.
From tiny acorns…
Three different types of planters have been created on the building’s countless balconies. Large shrubs are being planted in the deeper areas. Just as in any garden, they are small when they are first planted. But the nutrient-rich substrate that the plants will take root in and the ingenious irrigation system that all the containers are connected to mean that they won’t stay small for long.
A vertical landscape
Valley is getting greener by the day. Once it is finished in October, the new residents will no longer have to worry about designing a garden for their balconies because all that will have been taken care of. And perhaps more importantly: Amsterdam will then be able to enjoy its first vertical landscape, one section of which between the three towers will be accessible to the public. Even for Oudolf, one of the world’s foremost garden designers who has created extraordinary gardens all around the world, Valley’s vertical landscape will be something completely new.
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