From factory to garden The Meelfabriek Garden by LOLA
AMP 2025 Best of the Best in Gardens, The Meelfabriek Garden by LOLA Landscape Architects in Rotterdam reimagines a post-industrial site in Leiden as a layered green landscape shaped by time, ecology, and public life.
Designed in collaboration with planting designer Piet Oudolf, the project transforms a former factory environment into a calm, seasonal garden defined by structure, planting rhythm, and framed spatial experience.
We gained insight from Lead Architect Peter Veenstra on the design thinking, ecological strategy, and long-term vision behind the garden.
Could you share some background about yourself or your practice?
Peter Veenstra: LOLA Landscape Architects was founded in 2006 by landscape architects Eric-Jan Pleijster, Cees van der Veeken and me (Peter Veenstra). With thoughtful ideas and targeted interventions, LOLA aims to design sublime places that are beautiful, surprising, and thriving. LOLA brings extensive experience in ecological systems, urban green infrastructure, and climate-responsive landscapes.
What was the brief for the award-winning The Meelfabriek Garden?
Peter Veenstra: The brief was to design an appealing post-industrial, mixed-use terrain, that is a valuable link in the linear urban park called Singelpark.
Please describe your design process and how you approached The Meelfabriek Garden.
Peter Veenstra: It has been a very slow process. It took years to develop, because the development of the architecture went much slower than expected. For us, that long time span worked in favor of the project. Not all great design ingredients survived in the end, but also a lot of mistakes were avoided, because there was time to rethink certain choices. The result is a very simple, powerful, and sustainable project.
What were the main challenges during the project, and how did you resolve them?
Peter Veenstra: It’s a very urban environment, on top of a parking garage, with quite some wind stress coming from the tall buildings, spatial claims of firemen and window cleaners, concerns about social safety. At the same time, there was the desire to make it as green and park-like as possible. By introducing framed nature as a centerpiece, and maximizing the size of the frame, we have managed to capture the attention on the visitor in, and to provide a positive green experience.
What do you consider the most distinctive or innovative aspect of the project?
Peter Veenstra: The most distinctive is the planting composition, designed by Piet Oudolf. Within the concrete frame, we managed to play a bit with the topography, keep the gravel paths very narrow, so the plants have enough space to create an immersive landscape. We created the stage for Piet Oudolf, and he delivered an amazing botanical show.
Which outcomes of the project are you most proud of, and why?
Peter Veenstra: The simplicity of the project. There are no fancy materials; normal bricks, concrete, gravel, plants and trees. But it just fits well in the space, it works, and people who visit the garden are very happy with it.
What inspires your work, and who or what has had the strongest influence on your approach within your discipline?
Peter Veenstra: We are a Dutch design company and we cannot escape from the influence that the Superdutch had, when it comes to form, innovation, and communication. Next to that, landscape itself is inspiring us, in all its diversity and local specificity. Two developments gradually started to influence our work. First of all, the information age keeps bringing forth new wonders that we welcome with great curiosity. We are so much more informed than 20 years ago; having access to endless data about soil, water, ecology, climate, mobility, local communities, and having the tools to process all this data into something useful. It makes our designs smarter and more relevant.
The second development is related to it: the growing proof and awareness that humanity is destroying the planet. It inspires us to see landscape design as the possibility to create small windows into a sustainable future, exploring new materials, different aesthetics, and new dynamics. Places of public affluence that promote private austerity, places where diversity and otherness is celebrated.
What does receiving the Architecture MasterPrize mean to you, and how do you see it influencing your future work or practice?
Peter Veenstra: It’s a great recognition! We always give our best energy to projects, but the project doesn’t always give the same energy back. In this case, it did. The client, the contractor, the architect, Piet Oudolf of course: everybody had an indispensable role in creating the final result. So, for us the award is mainly a recognition for a great collaboration.
We thank to Peter Veenstra of LOLA Landscape Architects for sharing the story behind The Meelfabriek Garden, Best of the Best in Gardens at Architecture MasterPrize 2025. The project transforms a former industrial site into a living landscape shaped by collaboration, ecology, and time, demonstrating how restrained design and planting strategy can create a lasting public experience.