On October 16 Boris van der Moehlen presented his Master project on the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. For Mathias as a teacher this was the last commission meeting, preparing the student to be ready for the final presentation.
Boris’ final project proposes a landscape design for an economy of sludge, turning the Belgian polder of Doel into a new form of agriculture with benefits for the Antwerp harbour, it’s economy and river traffic as well as the ecology of this newly developed estuarium between the river Schelde and the Northsea. A strategic and design project taking into account a larger ecosystem and the interdependencies in this time of energy transition, biodiversity loss and climate change.
It was a privilege and great fun to inspire Boris as a teacher and commission member and see his Master projects finding a perfect balance between utopia and dystopia, while at the same time coming up with a realistic proposal, featuring a new form of land use that can be scaled up to other river delta areas around the globe. The team of co-commission members consists also of urbanist Herman Zonderland of Amsterdam Municipality and landscape architect Jan Maas of Boom.