The rumble of jets on the Polder Runway offers a vast potential: 45,000,000 passengers move through Schiphol Airport each year, which means that the daily transient airport population exactly matches that of the 130,000-person Haarlemmermeer Municipality. Existing nearby highway and train infrastructures further increase this site’s permeable accessibility. The social, economic, and cultural possibilities of this convergence are staggering.

If the charge of this competition is to dampen sound, its loftier aim is to amplify life in the site’s surrounds.

Our project’s Phase1 sound barrier is comprised of three components: 15,800 acoustic/solar panels, a continuous inclined surface, and vertical walls. Each panel has three roles: acoustic buffer, solar collector, and landscape feature. Collectively, these panels operate as a deep acoustic barricade—a perforated, aggregate surface that is calibrated to reflect, absorb, and scatter the most problematic sound frequencies. The panels amass along the incline, producing additional depth as individual panels overlap one another.

Solar panels are mounted perpendicular to the acoustic panels. The combined unit creates a sound vortex—a deep pocket—that traps sound in the corner recess of its geometry. The top of each acoustic panel is curved to reflect sound downward and back toward the runway. The acoustic panels and the backside of the solar collectors are made of folded/perforated metal sheets that add another scale of acoustic frequency control. The perpendicular relationship of the acoustic and sound panels optimizes each face for its particular function.

An innovative 21 hectare sound park is overlaid onto the acoustic/solar landscape. Foot paths, bike paths, par courses, plane-watching plinths, cafes, stroopwafel shops, herring salons, cycle shops, and tulip patches dot the landscape. Explorers in a productive landscape, visitors will walk among the panels, gardens, and programs. A single large program area is included in Phase 1, a 5000m2 building housing an acoustics research facility, a visitor center, and a development agency for the planning of Phase 2.

The control of sound in Phase 1 is entirely integrated into a set of larger Phase 2 ambitions for this site. 200,000m2 of green-roofed buildings have been included to the west of the main acoustic control area (the inclined landscape of acoustic/solar panels). A three-level, 4,000 car parking structure weaves through the inclined landscape, discretely providing another layer of acoustic control as it satisfies the parking needs required by program development. Outdoor terraces, paths, roads, services, and landscaping further complement the Phase 1 development.