What does a future Amsterdam look like in which nature and people live together

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25 June 2024

The presentation The Symbiotic City can now be seen in ARTIS-Groote Museum. This presentation shows a future Amsterdam where nature and people live together in harmony. The project is an initiative of Remco Kort, microbiologist at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and ARTIS-Micropia professor.

The images and texts were created during the workshop The Symbiotic City, in which local policymakers, urban ecologists, academics, architects, students and artists released new insights into iconic places in Amsterdam. Thanks to Visual Methodologies Collective, these visions have been summarized in AI-generated images.

Royal Palace with lush green roofs
The participants worked together on the question: 'What does the city look like from different idealistic future scenarios?' A city without traffic or with only an eye for greenery? For example, the exhibition shows a Royal Palace of Amsterdam with lush green roofs, green corridors for birds, insects and mammals along the Herengracht, a protected area for migratory birds on the site of a large parking lot and Central Station as a green hub for all human and animal travelers.

Next steps
Remco Kort: 'The outcomes of the workshop clearly show how you can design a city of the future in a short time, with input from all kinds of different disciplines and with the help of AI, if you give your imagination and creativity free space. The next challenge is to investigate with the new network of architects, urban ecologists and local policy makers what can actually be achieved and what steps are needed to achieve this.'

The AI ​​presentations, together with the original texts and drawings, can now be viewed in ARTIS-Groote Museum.