Amersfoort, The Netherlands (1999)
This 17,500 square meter shopping center comprises two supermarkets, one discount store, 30 retail shops, and a large amount of covered parking places. In addition, although originally not foreseen, designing this shopping center as a green area permitted the developer to request and obtain a building variance that allows him to build 78 apartment units. This shopping center has been designed so that the ground level gently berms up to the roof continuing as a green grass covered blanket on the roof. In this way, this building gives back, in the form of accessible gardens, almost 100 percent of the ground the shopping center covers. It is because of this reason that the building variance was extended to allow for residential housing, thereby greatly increasing this sites rentability. Vathorst, a new 27,000 people town, next to Amersfoort, has been publicized as a green town. The only amount of green this town will actually enjoy will be on this shopping center when built as designed.
