STYLEPARK DOPPELMAYR/GARAVENTA
Ride into the future
Floriade Expo has been held in the Netherlands every ten years since 1960: The first venue was Rotterdam, and the last time the international horticulture exhibition Expo Floriade was held was in 2012 in Venlo, near the border. In 2022, it will be the turn of the city of Almere, located east of Amsterdam, which has attracted attention in the past for its experimental architecture and participatory settlement projects, among other things. Floriade Expo 2022, which will take place from April 14 to October 9, 2022, will be correspondingly future-oriented. The motto "Growing Green Cities" makes it clear that this is not just about horticulture, but also about sustainable urban concepts. The Dutch architecture firm MVRDV is responsible for the master plan, whose planners designed the 60-hectare exhibition site as a green extension of the city center – a checkerboard-like arboretum that spatially depicts the four sub-themes "Greening the City," "Feeding the City," "Energising the City" and "Healthying the City".
The international horticulture exhibition also serves as a catalyst for the development of Almere: for example, the new green district Hortus will be created in the Floriade Expo park. At the same time, the station area and various squares in the center of Almere will be greened. In addition, the new bicycle and pedestrian bridge "Weerwaterbrug" was built, which now leads over the Weerwater, an artificial lake in the city center. One of the highlights of the Floriade Expo is located on the exhibition site itself: a ropeway from Doppelmayr/Garaventa, which connects the northern and southern parts over a length of 850 meters, spanning the A6 highway and offering visitors an impressive panoramic view during the 5-minute ride.
The ropeway is not just a visitor attraction, however, but part of a green mobility concept in which Floriade Expo uses various sustainable mobility solutions: visitors can travel to Floriade in an electrically powered canal boat, for example, or they can float emission-free and silently in the OMEGA V cabins from Doppelmayr/Garaventa above the arboretum to view the trees, plants, shrubs, flower fields and exhibition pavilions from a height of 35 meters. In doing so, the ropeway demonstrates in an exemplary manner that its use detached from the ground prevents land sealing, which contributes in a very concrete way to a greener city. At the same time, it enables time-saving mobility. At the end of the Floriade Expo, it will be dismantled and parts of it will be reused for the Mannheim 2023 National Garden Show. "The cable car fits perfectly with the Growing Green Cities theme, as it is a sustainable means of transport and therefore a perfect complement to the variation of transport in modern green cities," says Hans Bakker, Managing Director of Floriade Expo 2022, about the transport concept.
Ropeways are not only considered one of the safest means of transport, but also offer accessibility for all: Both stations at the Floriade Expo, for example, are at ground level and easily accessible via various pedestrian and bicycle paths. The ropeway at the international horticulture exhibition also serves as a concrete case study in this respect, crossing the A6 freeway with minimal intervention, thus illustrating that ropeways are particularly suitable for overcoming obstacles in an urban context. With its implementation at Floriade Expo, the international horticulture exhibition demonstrates its potential for European metropolises, pointing a possible way forward for growing and green cities.
