Het Platform

Next to Utrecht Central Station sits a new community feature for the city. Het Platform is a mixed-use building designed as a MicroCity by VenhoevenCS which features a complex series of functional roofs. The roofs, designed by LANDLAB in collaboration with VenhoevenCS provide outdoor spaces for recreation while also stimulating biodiversity, buffering water, and improving the surrounding air quality.

The gardens offer a fantastic view over the station and historical city center of Utrecht and sit on one of the first nature-inclusive residential buildings in the Netherlands. The planting concept is derived from the vegetation in various landscapes within the Utrecht Province, with distinct vegetation on the different floors of the building: plants inspired by allotment gardens on the first floor, estate forest undergrowth on the third floor, orchard meadows on the sixth floor, and a hillside birch forest on the eighth floor. The diverse planting is specially selected to ensure optimum conditions for attracting pollinator insects. The goal, is that over time, birds will feel safe enough to stay and even reproduce here.