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Sausalito Inspiration for Netherlands "Sausalito Almere" Urban Design Protest
UPDATED: See below for a message the organizers sent to OurSausalito.com.
Almere is the European version of the Southern California city of Irvine: a completely new town (in this case built on land reclaimed from the sea) to give crowded local cities a brand new designed-from-scratch utopian suburb to relieve crowding.
Another side of Almere is that some people believe that the planning and approvals process is strangling creativity and originality in design. Amsterdam architectural firm DUS Architects decided to put their protests into action.
They see the diverse architectural styles and the houseboats of Sausalito as an inspiration, so when they built a "spontaneous neighborhood" they decided to name it "Sausalito Almere." An article about the project in English is here, and the photographs are interesting when you visit the protesters' site in Dutch here.
Just In: The organizers of Sausalito Almere in The Netherlands just sent us this summary in English of what they're doing:
Sausalito Almere is a brand new illegal summer village in The Netherlands. It’s a lovely little village that hasn’t been built from an architect’s vision and lots of plans but from human positive energy. The whole village exists of six little beach houses and was built for less then 2000 euros. And has had its “grand” opening on the 19th of June. The whole project can be removed and set up at another spot in less then 24 hours. There are no mortgages, no licenses, and no sponsor money, nothing of that all. Merely a few good ideas, collaboration of a group of people and inspiration and creativity off the designers was enough to build this lovely little village. And of course a great spot right on the beach off Almere, where we can take care of people and nature.
Almere is a 30 year old city that is working on image, real estate developments and solving (daily) city dillemas. It's located across the bay of Amsterdam, just like San Francisco is to your Sausalito. ‘Everything is possible in Almere’ is the city’s slogan. That why we’ve built this village. Just to see if everything is really possible over there. Almere is lost without these kinds of creative pioneers with “out of the box” ideas.
Sausalito Almere didn’t cost a lot of money and brought us a lot of fun, energy, a new way of thinking and lots of new friendships. We hope that our initiative Sausalito Almere is a start for more ideas and maybe more houses. For the time being we are located on a beautiful beach and love to stay there for a while.
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