From farm to science faculty: Science Park 904
Amsterdam Science Park has been the home of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science (FNWI) for 12 years. Although very familiar to today's students, it used to look quite different: It was largely a nature reserve with lots of water well into the seventeenth century.
Anyone walking around Science Park today would not realize that there was a lake here in the seventeenth century, the Watergraafs or Diemermeer lake. It was drained in the 1920s and lies about five meters below Normal Amsterdam Level. For a long time after that, the part of the polder where Science Park is located was agricultural land. This was the case until the early 1960s when the city bought the land from the Oostenrijk family, the owners of Anna's Hoeve. The family continued to occupy the property until 1994. Staff from the science faculty regularly visited there. Now the old cowshed of the farmhouse contains the Polder café-restaurant.
The National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics (NIKHEF) was one of the first scientific institutes to move into what was called the Science and Technology Center Watergraafsmeer in the 1970s. Beginning in the 1980s, several departments of the then-independent Faculty of Biology moved there. Other STEM faculties, including chemistry, mathematics, information, physics and astronomy, were then still largely scattered around the city and located, among other places, on the site of today's Roeterseiland campus.
Natterjack toad
The construction of Science Park came about with extreme difficulty, not least because of neighborly squabbles and environmental activism by UvA scientists. UvA geographer and city council member Saar Boerlage and her supporters managed to stall for years, in part because of the presence of a protected species of toad, the natterjack toad. It eventually lost out to the scientific progress being promoted by the UvA and the city. Science Park 904, with the UvA's joint science faculties, was completed in the mid-2000s. All programs, employees, institutes and students moved to the new building. Not only programs, but also 160 companies have offices in Science Park, from rented spaces for small and medium-sized companies in LAB42 to new initiatives in the Start-up Village.
Science Park tries to maintain the character of a nature-friendly polder. It has a green roof, although most people walking around Science Park would not readily notice this. Forty percent of the roof is covered with sedum or succulent plants that encourage biodiversity and absorb particles of air pollution. There are also more than a thousand solar panels on the roof that generate enough electricity annually for 92 households.
Walking around Science Park sometimes makes you feel like you're in a science museum. Scattered throughout the building are references to science, scientists and important discoveries over the years. Walking from Building B to D, you pass a display wall with UvA science heritage. Here you will find more information on notable UvA professors, such as Nobel Prize winner Johannes van der Waals. You can also see objects from all disciplines of the FNWI that were once used for teaching and research. Those who continue to F where the biologists' labs are located will find a collection of preserved animals, skeletons and other items of natural heritage.
Red and white blood cells
More subtle references to science are also to be found. These consist of details employed by the architects and building management that give the building a scientific touch without being immediately noticeable. This is mainly done in Building B, such as the light purple façade with black buttons representing bacterial colonies as seen under a microscope. The large round tables in front of the library in Building B are shaped like water molecules: two hydrogen atoms connected to an oxygen atom. Each table ensemble consists of one large table (oxygen) and two smaller ones connected to it (hydrogen). Then there are the white and red chairs in the cafeteria. The story goes that they chairs refer to the number of white and red human blood cells. Upon inquiry, however, this turns out to be a myth. The chairs were all white at first, but many quickly broke. As a result, numerous white chairs were replaced by the red ones that are there now. The next time you are at Science Park for a lecture or to study, look around carefully. Who knows what else you might notice.
