In 2012, the Hoge Veluwe National Park, the largest nature reserve in the Netherlands, launched a competition for the design of the park’s new visitor center. The brief contained a surprising stipulation: Architects were kindly advised not to submit structures clad in wood. To many this must have been strange, since a facade mirroring the eco-identity of the building’s context, possibly even sourcing timber from the immediate vicinity of the building site, seemed to make a lot of sense. Yet that very environment was the reason for the provision: Previous wooden structures had deteriorated quickly in the park’s humid forests and required a large amount of maintenance
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