The connection with nature has for centuries been viewed as positive for both your mental and physical wellbeing. In the Netherlands the phenomenon of the “Zorg boerderij” has gained growing popularity and numbers of visitors. Yet the people who visit those farms are just that, visitors. What if you could live more permanently as part of that mutual beneficial interaction and connection between nature and agriculture?

The connection with nature has for centuries been viewed as positive for both your mental and physical wellbeing. In the Netherlands the phenomenon of the “Zorg boerderij” has gained growing popularity and numbers of visitors. Yet the people who visit those farms are just that, visitors. What if you could live more permanently as part of that mutual beneficial interaction and connection between nature and agriculture?

This became the main ambition of this design: to create a place where people can live among crops, livestock, and nature. Close to their families and the right care were needed. The design of a mostly self-sufficient farming community centers around the connection between people and different easy levels of access to nature and agriculture. The houses of the residents are divided into smaller “woon erven”, making sure they can enjoy their own private space, are close to each other yet surrounded by the actual farmlands. There are high care groups, medium care groups and low care or no care groups divided across the landscape. All groups have everything they need in their homes with the landscape and farming at their doorstep to explore in various ways.

The farming community is divided into larges fields of crops managed by the farmer, smaller fields that can be managed by the residents of for example the medium or low care groups in combination with the farmer, and the courtyards and gardens the residents can use to grow crops on a small scale. Between those are rotating fields for the sheep, pigs and chickens. In-between the houses and agriculture nature wild flower-meadows or groups of trees are a haven for insects and other animals to find their home on the farm making for a thriving big eco system.