The International Horticulture Exhibition Floriade is hosted every ten years and this year it is held in Almere, the Netherlands, until 9 October. While the event has gotten some bad press, some more deserved than others, for the (interior) architect, especially one interested in innovative material use, the event is definitely worthwhile. MaterialDistrict checked it out. Today, part 3 (for part 1, click here, for part 2, here).

Flora residential care centre
The Flora residential care centre was built for elderly dementia patients. With six floors with each 24 units, the building offers room for 130 residents and is already in use during Floriade. Designed by Borgerink Architecten in collaboration with Dura Vermeer Bouw Hengelo, the building is energy neutral for both heat generation and air conditioning. A large part of the façade consists of wood, which will slowly grey. The golden aluminium façade panels are made of recycled mountain bikes, amongst other things.

A winter garden offers a view of the surroundings of the Floriade, which is extended to the experience garden of the complex. This garden is framed by an arboretum.

Mycelium Park
At Mycelium Park, you can find The Growing Pavilion with a mycelium façade, which was also on display during Dutch Design Week 2019. Read more about this project here.

In addition, the park shows the mushroom-shaped Living Shelters, also made of mycelium, which combine modern techniques with natural materials and explores how we can use mycelium for construction.

Shadows of Nature
At this pavilion, hosted by Almeerse Wolunie (Almere wool union), shows how wool can be dyed using the power of the sun. Dying wool requires energy. The back wall of the pavilion consists of glass jars filled with water and vegetable dyes, which dyes little knitted woollen sheep in the sunlight. The same sun projects the colours onto the inner wall, felted from the wool of sheep, for a modern stained-glass effect. The plants used to dye the wool come from a local farm

The other façade of the pavilion forms an eye, made of folded and rolled up pieces of fabric.

Photos: Sigrid Lussenburg / MaterialDistrict