According to a hawk, we are probably just a forest

Somewhere in Amsterdam there is a place where a hawk nests, a child builds a fort, an artist welds a theatre set, a volunteer organizes a festival, a neighbour grows tomatoes, and someone repairs a broken bicycle.
It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. It is Het Groene Veld.

According to the municipality, we are an Experimental Living and Working Community, to visitors, we are a free space and to some civil servants, we are a complicated planning file. And according to a hawk, we are probably just a forest.

For years we have tried to explain what this place is. Surprisingly, that turns out to be difficult. Not because it is complicated, but because our society increasingly lacks words for places that are many things at once.
A park is a park, a home a home, a nature reserve is a nature reserve and cultural institution is a cultural institution. But what happens when a place is all of those things at the same time? That is when administrative short-circuiting begins. And perhaps that is the heart of the problem.

The moment an experiment stops being a PowerPoint presentation and starts occupying actual space, things become more complicated. 

Amsterdam loves experimentation. At least, Amsterdam likes to say so. The city presents itself as innovative, creative, progressive and entrepreneurial. Conferences are organised on urban renewal. Policy papers are written about experimentation, participation and new ways of living together. There are grants for innovation and programmes for social transformation. 

We love that. Because we also believe in experimentation. The difference is that we do it. And that turns out to be an important distinction. Because the moment an experiment stops being a PowerPoint presentation and starts occupying actual space, things become more complicated. Maps appear, tables, surface calculations and consultants appear. And eventually someone appears whose task is to calculate exactly how many square metres of experimentation may remain. 

That is not a joke. Or rather, it is. Just not a very good one. Meanwhile, something remarkable has been happening at Het Groene Veld. For years people have been building something here that nobody quite knows how to describe.
People live here, work, make art and organise concerts, walks, lectures, dinners, festivals and neighbourhood events.
There is gardening, repairing, grieving, falling in love and there is arguing.
There is failing and starting again. In short: People are living. And that, it turns out, is difficult to fit into a zoning plan.

Over the years we have learned that the city has a category for almost everything.
Except for things that are alive. A rugby field fits neatly on a map, a district heating facility and a parking lot too. 
A community does not. Not because communities take up less space. Quite the opposite. It is because communities are constantly changing, they are never finished, never complete. They behave more like ecosystems than buildings.

Perhaps that is why discussions about Het Groene Veld often seem to be about space when they are actually about time.
The time needed to build trust, a festival to emerge, a tree to grow and to turn neighbours into a community. The time needed for a city to surprise itself.

Free space does not only produce art, or culture, or nature. Free space produces possibilities. 

Because that is ultimately what free space does. Free space does not only produce art, or culture, or nature. Free space produces possibilities. The possibility to start something without knowing in advance whether it will succeed.
That is true for artists, activists and for scientists.
In fact, it is true for almost every meaningful innovation that has ever taken place.

Nobody knew beforehand that it would work. That is precisely why it was called an experiment. Perhaps that is why places like Het Groene Veld, smaller or bigger, keep reappearing. Not only in Amsterdam, but everywhere. Because cities need places where not everything has been decided in advance.
Places where ideas can grow before they have a business model, where people can meet without a policy objective attached to the encounter and where the future gets a chance to rehearse itself.

Sometimes people ask what Het Groene Veld produces. It is a reasonable question. But perhaps it is not the right one. Perhaps we should instead ask: What happens to a city when places like this disappear and when it still has room for functions, but no longer has room for possibilities? What happens to a city that has a designated purpose for everything except the unexpected?
We do not know the answer exactly. After all, we are not researchers. We are simply a group of people who happen to live inside that experiment every day.

But there is one thing we do know. Once everything has been developed, once every square metre has been assigned a function, and every irregularity has been smoothed away, Amsterdam may well have become more efficient.
But it will also have lost something. Not merely a site. Not merely a community.
But a city's capacity to make room for what does not yet have a name.
Something that, according to a hawk, is probably just a forest.

As of October 1, 2027, a major redevelopment of Het Groene Veld is planned. The current zoning proposal seeks to accommodate three functions on the site: utilities, sports and Free Space (the Experimental Living and Working Community). Although the municipality presents the process as a balanced allocation of space, the fourth function of the area, nature, is largely absent from the discussions and has no formal seat at the table. Moreover, while the utility and sports functions are accommodated almost in full, the Free Space community is expected to relinquish approximately 70% of the area it currently uses. Many residents fear that this would fundamentally alter the social, cultural and ecological character/exposure of Het Groene Veld. A campaign is currently underway to advocate for a more equitable outcome. More information can be found at www.hetgroeneveld.amsterdam.