UNStudio - Greenmile - Buzz - CopyrightPlomp kopie.jpeg

A livable Stadhouderskade for people, plants & animals

From the most polluted and unhealthy street to a sustainably green, beautiful, clean and inclusive street, that is The Green Mile.

It is super busy and polluted at the Stadhouderskade. This street mainly facilitates (parked) cars, trucks, scooters and cyclists to get from A to B as quickly as possible. It is not a nice place to be. What would it be like if this traffic artery transformed into a pleasant living environment for every resident of the city, including nature? A place to safely walk along the water, where urban nature can flourish and you can meet people. How do we want to realise this? By greening where possible, investigating air quality, heatstress, noise and more, organise activities and small events like clean-ups to create awareness and a sense of community.

What is The Green Mile

A positive movement

The Green Mile is a positive movement that aims to create a livable Stadhouderskade for humans, plants, and animals through co-creation with residents, organisations, businesses and the Amsterdam municipality. Together we are shaping this vision and creating a positive "movement" and ultimately a Green Mile. Because it is TOGETHER that we can make a real positive impact.

How it started

A group of six organisations on and around the Stadhouderskade shared the intrinsic desire to improve the daily environment in the public area and committed themselves to this cause. UNStudio, Blendingbricks, De Nederlandsche Bank, Rijksmuseum, Hogeschool van Amsterdam, and Heineken initiated and formulated the ambition for "The Green Mile": a sustainably livable, green, healthy, and future-proof street for humans, plants, and animals.

Unhealthy and polluted

The Stadhouderskade has been the most polluted and unhealthy street in Amsterdam for quite some time. Emissions, noise and danger are prevalent here.

Nevertheless, the Stadhouderskade has great potential to become a nicer area. If you look at the street itself, there is quite a good foundation to meet the ambition: many beautiful trees, situated along the water of the Singelgracht, it is very wide, connects many side streets to small parks, and hosts numerous beautiful organizations along the road and in the vicinity.