We believe the best way for this project to live and grow is to make it adap-table, layered, playing around the boundaries of reality and fiction, carvable.
With different time scales and scopes to raise awareness about light pollution and the cultural heritage of the sky, the Dark Sky Reserve project is situated in between the design fiction and the reality of a park to be. Therefore the Dark Sky Reserve of the Van Gogh National Park is a layered proposal playing with short term reality and near future fiction aiming to value darkness. It is an area to defend, but also an area to reconsider, to explore and to extend.
The Dark Sky Reserve project therefore aims to stimulate debate, interest and action for the topic of light pollution within the design plans that are taking place now for the Van Gogh National Park.
The Dark Sky Reserve is an invitation for more awareness regarding light pollution and its plural impacts. It aims to be a place for leisure and stargazing as well as a place of resistance, darkness, rest and think
The Van Gogh National Park, as innovative as it wish to be, will be the first park to adopt this type of Dark Sky Reserve where intention and action are the key in a very light polluted landscape
Three scales can be planned:
short term: 3 km long area, already in the Neterselsche Heide Natural Park. Test zone with conclusion on the benefits and the local community involvement.
near future: all natural areas of the Van Gogh National Park such as De Loonse en Drunense Duinen National Park and Het Groene Woud could become dark sky reserves. This area should be accessible and provide good sightlines of the sky.
long term: going further and tackling the light pollution issue from the inside of the cities.
