The Wieringermeer Fish Circle has been nominated for the prestigious Dutch Design Awards. The fish cycle is a design by artist Pé Okx and ecologist Cor ten Haaf from Groet and the Haarlem agency Hosper. The ‘solidified ripple of the water’, as Okx calls it, lies along the Amstelmeer Canal and is intended as a spawning and breeding ground for fish. The nomination for the Dutch Design Award is a crowning achievement for the project, says Pé Okx: “It’s nice to make the world a little more beautiful in this way.”
The Wieringermeer Fish Cycle was constructed last year at the request of the Hollands Noorderkwartier Water Board, which had to develop spawning grounds for fish. “It’s funny that they went outside their box”, says artist Pé Okx, “especially for a water board where keeping dry feet is the most important thing and fantasy comes later. So you can do a lot more with fantasy in combination with water management. with ecological nature development.”
Ripple
Okx has been working on the project for years with ecologist Cor ten Haaf and the agency Hosper that specializes in landscape architecture. Okx: “It is often the case that something has to be done for water management and only as the last thing ‘that it also has to look a bit nice’. That is why Cor came to me. An enormous amount of time was invested in engineering work by the office To me it’s just a nice idea that you can put a ripple on the old seabed, a solidified ripple of water.”
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Fish cycle in Wieringermeer – NH Nieuws
Ecologist Cor ten Haaf is happy with the nomination, but it is first and foremost a nature project, he says: “And it has already been successful. All common fish species are already there. It is a beautiful stopping place for birds and where I am completely amazed of sta, is the gigantic amount of lace and water plants. Especially the spikenard is a sign of clean and nutrient-rich water. It all came up spontaneously.”
‘Country Art’
The fish cycle competes in the category ‘habitat’ of the Dutch Design Award. Ten Haaf: “With much ‘land art’, the natural value is often a coincidental incident. In our project, that is precisely the intention. That is also the reason for the nomination.” The results are on October 27. Artist Pé Okx finds it exciting: “We have great competition from the Boijmans van Beuningen Depot. I especially hope that new exciting things will emerge that we can perform.”
Below is a video that the Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier has had made about the construction of the fish cycle.
Last week the project Viskringloop Wieringermeer won the Arie Kepler Prize 2022 for best design in the ‘North Holland DNA’ category. The design is especially praised for the landscape integration and design of a habitat for fish, as ‘land art’ in the polder.
The site of the fish cycle is freely accessible. A lookout tower provides an overview of the entire area. Below you will find the location of the nature project.
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