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Vincent Kuypers focuses on what green can do for a city.

He combines the knowledge and experience of scientists,

politicians, policymakers, project developers and others to

create innovative projects related to today’s most pressing

issues, such as climate and the credit crisis. He believes

Alterra is uniquely positioned to develop itself as a

knowledge innovator in urban issues.

by Martin Woestenburg

>‘The Junglebus was a decisive project for me. It was

during that project that I decided to resign from my

job as an urban ecologist with the municipality of

Rotterdam, and to become a researcher at Alterra.

‘I had been hired by the municipality of Rotterdam to

act as a catalyst, to get nature onto the urban agenda. I was

in a team with civil engineers, who were excited by the idea

of ecology but had never really considered it. We were wor-

king at the time on establishing an Urban Nature bureau

for ecology and spatial projects, whose aim would be to

make nature an important focal point for the spatial plan-

ning and urban renewal departments. Once that was

accomplished, my role as a catalyst was finished.

‘Then came the Junglebus. This was part of the

Architecture Biennial in the Netherlands Architecture

Institute (NAi) in Rotterdam, which had been given the

theme of motorway panoramas. The bus was kind of a stunt

‘The city is not yet a priority issue’

Vincent Kuypers, knowledge broker

to draw attention to the idea of incorporating nature in

cities. We had renovated a bus to function as a mobile

nature reserve, and organised excursions and discussions

with people active in this field, focussing on the role of spa-

tial planning in their work. We thus suddenly found oursel-

ves influencing urban architects and politicians.

‘For the opening of the Biennial we parked the

Junglebus at the entrance to the NAi. The Queen was sche-

duled to officially open the event, but there was nothing in

her protocol about a bus. So here she comes, approaching

the building together with the director of the Biennial,

Francine Houben, and the mayor of Rotterdam at the time,

Ivo Opstelten, and she sees the bus. She stopped and said:

‘I want to go in there’. You could see all the faces drop. She

listened intently to the whole story of the Junglebus told by

the driver of the RET, who was behind the wheel: that the

bus was the world's first mobile nature reserve and that we

would be attempting to earn a place in the Guinness Book

of Records as the fastest nature reserve in the world.

‘In this way, we suddenly drew lots of attention to the

idea that nature can actually be everywhere in the city. I

would never have been able to achieve this had I just conti-

nued working on my own as a bureaucrat in Rotterdam. The

special thing about the Junglebus was the team that car-

ried out the project. Artist and architect Ton Matton con-

ceived the project and put the bus together, Wim

26.05.05

The opening of the Architecture

Biennial Rotterdam took place on

7 May 2003. Made by Alterra, 2000-2010

Wageningen,Gaia12.11.200915:37:36 h

Rotterdam, Netherlands07.05.2003

50 51

Timmermans from Alterra organised, during excursions

with the bus, discussions with urban architects, politici-

ans, scientists and others involved with spatial planning.

And I joined in the debate about what a city has to look like

if you want to take advantage of the functions that nature

can fulfil in improving the living climate.

‘I enjoyed working together with people who were acti-

ve in the city, and nature in the city was my passion. The

only connection I had with Alterra at the time had to do

with the management of urban green spaces. But there was

a shift underway within Alterra towards focussing more on

the urban environment. For example, through the GIOS

programme (Green in and around the city), Timmermans

was studying practical options for increasing green space

in the 31 largest Dutch cities, not for nature’s sake, but as

a way to improve the living surroundings. My ambition is to

find ways to apply such experiences on a larger scale; and

this is why I took the leap. I am now involved in Future

Cities, a European project focused on adapting cities to cli-

mate change and more specifically making them resilient

to heat stress. The objective of Future Cities is to make

cities function more in harmony with natural processes.

This project is very challenging, and it brings me back to

Rotterdam once in a while.

‘Clearly a lot has changed in Alterra’s relation to the

urban environment, but not enough. The city is not yet a

priority issue. This would require a culture shift, which I

hope to see one day. Alterra has been in operation for ten

years now, but it needs to develop more as a knowledge

innovator with respect to the greening of cities.

‘The effective collaboration that characterised the

Junglebus project made me realise that you have to con-

stantly strive for this kind of teamwork if you want to get

anything off the ground. I see myself now as a knowledge

broker and Wageningen UR as an important knowledge

supermarket. The university holds an amazing amount of

fundamental knowledge; this knowledge changes, but so

does the context. You have to change with it; otherwise your

knowledge will become obsolete. This means that you have

to organise a network of people who work in the field, inclu-

ding people from the municipality, but also project develo-

pers for example.

‘This sometimes leads to strange situations. I was once

working with a project developer on a housing development

in the Bentwoud area, when I received a glossy brochure in

the mail. Someone called shortly afterwards to ask if I had

a specific offer in mind. Apparently, the developer had

assumed I was from the Altera real estate agents. This

taught me a lot about how project developers work. They

want to make money. If you want to discuss something with

a project developer, don’t be confrontational or give in too

easily: the most important thing is to listen very carefully.

‘In the role of knowledge broker, as the middleman

between implementation, policy and knowledge, you’re

always going to cause some friction. You’re not regarded as

a real scientist, but a consultant, so you’re definitely not

going to be easily accepted by the Wageningen resear-

chers. As a consultant you are able to give advice without

anyone’s help. But we know from experience that one party

– whether it is the government, a project developer or a

consultant – cannot be successful on their own. A knowled-

ge broker is always looking for ways to apply existing know-

ledge to situations for the benefit of various parties. Being

in that position allows you to turn knowledge into practical

expertise. If you are not in that position, you will not be able

to make the most of your knowledge.

‘Working in such a network exposes you to a constant

stream of new issues. For a long time, the emphasis in the

Netherlands was on compact cities and open rural areas.

As a result, no attention was paid to green space within the

cities, even though the residents were screaming for it.

This social stimulus led over the years to greater efforts to

create green space in and around the cities. Five or so years

ago, attention turned to the issue of particulate matter and

air quality, and now the focus is on climate change.

‘As a scientist you have to get a good understanding of

the stakeholders’ motivations related to urbanisation, and

you have to know how to apply the knowledge that you

Vincent Kuypers in the Junglebus.

The Junglebus (design: MattonOffice, 2003).

Vincent Kuypers, knowledge broker

Rotterdam, 07.05. 2003

shelf

emergency exit

thin layer of sand on floor, glued if necessary

cupboard

kitchen

table

52 53

and others from LEI, Applied Plant Research and

Wageningen UR Livestock Research on a strategy for urban

agriculture. We came up with the vision of the A4 motorway

as a green parkway with a park supermarket, a model of

which was displayed at the Architecture Biennial in Sao

Paolo, Brazil, in November 2009. That idea got a lot of

things moving. Actually, it can be traced back to the

Junglebus idea from 2003.

‘Opportunism is not the driving force behind my work: I

am not focused on the bottom line. It is more the other way

around. The driving force is a shared sense of urgency sur-

rounding a particular issue. The meaning and function

attributed to green space in cities keep shifting along the

way. Take the credit crisis, for example. We have been wor-

king for years in Haarlemmermeer with a project focused

on building and water. Initially the focus was on water sto-

rage, stemming from water problems experienced in the

nineties; later it was all about climate-proof construction,

and now with the credit crisis it’s about making the nor-

thern Randstad area attractive to new businesses and resi-

dents. In the coming five years the focus will be on shrinka-

ge – the decline in population and what impact this will

have on cities.’

have. This was already the case when I worked for the

municipality of Rotterdam on development of the

Nesselande neighbourhood. One part of the area consisted

of what we call katteklei, acid sulphate soil that creates

enormous problems when drained because of the release

of sulphuric acid. We hired Herbert Diemont from Alterra to

assess the soil. It was normal building procedure at the

time to put a layer of sand over soil containing about 4%

water. Herbert told us that he had worked in the Mekong

delta in Vietnam with about 15% water, and that they culti-

vated pineapple and banana on that soil. So we made a list

of what grows on katteklei. But at that moment the sug-

gestion of planting pineapples was not well received.

Recently, by the way, we presented, together with architect

Jago van Bergen, a concept for a park supermarket in the

heart of Delfland, which includes cultivation of subtropical

crops on this type of soil.

‘Working as a knowledge broker, you quickly come in

contact with Wageningen scientists from various research

groups. I recently worked, for example, with Fred Tonneijck

from Plant Research International on capturing particulate

matter with greenery. In one of my current projects, I am

working with Han Wiskerke, professor of rural sociology,

< It is a challenge in the already busy areaof Haarlemmermeer to combine housingdevelopment with water storage and naturedevelopment. In the project Building withWater, in the western flank of Haarlemmer -meer, Vincent Kuypers is developing, toge-ther with governments, businesses andresearch institutes, new concepts for‘water urban development’ in which waterrather than soil serves as the basis for inno-vative, climate-proof neighbourhoods (design: Oosterhuis Architects, 2009).

> In the plans for the park supermarket, thepolders of central Delfland, for example,are transformed into a park landscape withmoderate, Mediterranean and subtropicalclimate zones, within which various super-market products are cultivated. Eachsupermarket ‘department’ has its own characteristic structure and products: pandan and risotto rice on graduated terraces, tilapia fish in meandering basins,kiwis and avocados growing along undulating fruit walls (design: Van BergenKolpa Architects, 2009).