Tuesday morning May 24th, I walk through the Bijlmerpark. We have designed the park as an experience for the senses: you can smell the spring, you see colours fade through the seasons, you experience the diversity of trees, shrubs, plants and herbs, you can hear the birds sing. Elegant bridges and trails wind along past solitary trees, ponds, islands and rolling hills. The southern part is the most adventurous, here you can build tree houses and find out that nettles can sting. We go up to the lookout hill planted with butterfly bushes, which still need to fill out, but will flourish within a year or two. We enjoy this unique moment: for now the park is here only for us.
This part of the park will open this summer, and the entire park will be ready in late 2011. “Who is grumbling about Amsterdam projects?”  beams the project leader: on schedule, within budget! But, there is no project without a fight. We have been fighting for years for the so-called Bijlmer Trees border. The many trees in the old park that needed to be removed inspired the design. Trees are stripped of their bark, dried and stored for two years and treated with a wood preservative.  Then, they are set atop stainless steel legs to form not a traditional fence, but a natural edging for the park. You can sit on it, try to balance on it as you walk, or carve the name of your lover. The Bijlmer Trees border provides identity and harkens back to the history of the park.  However, now we get to the rules, the Maintenance Services protests that one can get a splinter, or clothes can tear, causing citizens to make damage claims. Green wood can split and would have to be treated. That’s maintenance!
I smile. We created a sensory park in the city for people and nature to get closer together. Killed trees are sawed and recycled. All this fits into a more natural education for urban children who do not know that milk comes from a cow and wood is from a tree.
Wednesday, May 25th, I am in England. I prepare myself: strict Health and Safety legislation dominates building projects and society. There are far fewer accidents in construction, but there are also regulations that have nothing to do with the health and safety of citizens and are only driven by fear of litigation. Result: school trips to the zoo, library or museum are no longer made in England.
Our fight was over the rule that we had to provide a toilet every 40 meters. Our Dutch experience shows that within a large public building, especially one on a public square, the toilets are used for many things that do not bear the light of day. We propose to group the toilets so as to focus on proper monitoring and to keep them as clean as possible. Health and Safety we thought. If we were to visit every recently built library in London, we would discover that handicapped toilets are locked for obvious reasons. Moreover, public buildings in England are not given a decent cleaning budget. Remarkably, cleaning is not part of the law! Everyone says we are right, but no one dares or can take responsibility. We lose our battle. Result: 144 toilets, with 28 handicapped toilets, are spread throughout the building. This compulsive Health and Safety legislation is also likely to happen in Europe. It is symbolic of a globally emerging American and British culture of litigation. This is not good for society.

Francine Houben
31 May 2010
Het Financieele Dagblad