Municipality of Alkmaar

Alkmaar chooses a visitor experience

How can we make spring more visible in the city

How do you ensure a park truly stands out in spring? In Alkmaar, together with Paul Weidema of Stadswerk072, we realised a bulb planting concept that temporarily transforms a public space into a place where people are encouraged to pause and take notice.

At the Kwerenbolwerk, normally a roadside layby, a striking bulb planting area was created that attracts visitors, invites them to take photographs and makes the spring season visible within the city.

With this project, we demonstrate what flower bulbs can achieve in a public space: not only adding colour, but creating a visitor experience.

▶ Watch the project in action 

A place that makes you look differently

During the flowering season, the atmosphere at the Kwerenbolwerk changes immediately.

Visitors stop, take photographs and experience the space in a different way compared to the rest of the year.

What was once a functional roadside layby temporarily becomes a place of attraction, colour and improves the visitor experience, this plays a part of how people perceive the city.

Flower bulbs can create an experience in public spaces

Flower bulbs do more than add colour.

They provide:

• a visible seasonal experience
• a stronger identity for a public space
• increase in visitor dwell time
• recognisable places within the city
• a moment of surprise and appreciation in everyday surroundings

It is precisely this temporary impact that makes it so powerful: a place changes, without the underlying structure being altered.

From ambition to realisation

For Alkmaar, we translated the ambition to make spring more visible into a substantial bulb planting concept.

Within the wider redevelopment of the Bolwerk and Victoriepark, Kwerenbolwerk is one of the locations where this ambition becomes directly visible in the city.

Collaboration

This project was realised in collaboration with:

• City of Alkmaar
• Stadswerk072
• De Hofdame Tuinstyling

Would you like to read more about this project? Please click on this link.

Do you want to create impact with flower bulbs as well?

Would you like to enhance a public space with a bulb planting concept that creates an experience, colour and identity?

We would be please to advise and work alongside you with a design that fits your location, budget and ambitions.