Bosk
Every year, Dutch Design Awards (DDA) honours the best Dutch designers and their most impressive and groundbreaking projects. Various disciplines, viewpoints and solutions are judged in light of the impact they have on our society. Dutch Design Awards thereby gives a boost to the profession as a whole. The best Dutch design, viewed in perspective and placed on a pedestal.
DDA Winner 2023 | Habitat
Bosk is a walking forest of more than a thousand trees, which took over the city centre of Leeuwarden for a hundred days in the summer of 2022. It began with an almost impossible plan, full of ambitious goals. From radical imagination to behavioural change, and from the mobilisation of social energy to strengthening the economic and creative climate in Fryslân. Residents and passers-by repeatedly moved the trees to their new location, resulting in Bosk covering a total distance of 3.5 kilometres. A successful cultural and educational programme emerged, for and by a whole range of people – including no less than 4,000 volunteers – and organisations. Bosk is part of cultural triennial Arcadia.
Expert jury
Bosk succeeds fantastically in influencing public space with all kinds of elements that have one thing in common: they are not buildings. It is also very well designed, by literally imagining how our world could look better on many levels. Bosk demonstrates what the power of participation can really be. Its temporary nature is what gets people involved: for a moment they can experience what it means to have trees in that slightly too warm square, or how a few trees can make dark corners feel cosy. When the forest moves on again, it is missed.
For more information about the nominees and the DDA Awards Show you can visit dutchdesignawards.nl.
Photography: Floris Leeuwenberg, Ruben van Vliet, Richard Winkelmeijer