Veenweide Atelier

a nature lab for eco-social design

The Frisian peat meadow region is changing beneath our feet. Peat meadow areas across Europe face major challenges: greenhouse gas emissions, declining biodiversity, drought and subsidence. But this region also tells a different story: one of collaboration, imagination and rediscovery. The peat meadow region in Fryslân has always been in motion. Shaped over centuries by people and nature. Now it’s time for a new balance. How do we make sure this landscape is preserved? Now and in the future? In the Veenweide Atelier, designers work together with passionate farmers and land managers on new perspectives for the Fryske Feangreide (Frisian peat meadow) and peat meadow areas beyond the province’s borders.

Led by artist and eco-social designer Henriëtte Waal, the atelier explores how design, sustainable materials and new technologies can contribute to a renewed relationship between people, landscape and ecology. “The peat meadow is in crisis,” says Waal, “but that’s exactly what creates room to try something new.” Her ambition: a permanent lab where designers, together with residents, businesses and institutions, build a resilient future.

What if grass, cattail and bacteria were the building blocks of a new economy? How can we build and live in harmony with the peat soil beneath our feet? Over the past few years, designers and artists at the Veenweide Atelier have experimented with new materials, farming methods and design solutions for a changing landscape, led by eco-social designer Henriette Waal.

A powerful example is It Kathûs near Nes/Akkrum in Fryslân, an empty historic farmhouse on centuries-old peat and clay soil, bordering meadow bird areas. Here, in the heart of the peat meadow region, It Fryske Gea, together with the Veenweide Atelier, is transforming this farmhouse into a lively place for the future. Read more about It Kathûs and the other projects at the bottom of this page!

Exhibition

From 24 May to 26 October 2025, the exhibition Veenweide Atelier: designing for a sunken marsh shows how art and design contribute to the future of the Frisian lânskip (landscape). Installations, material experiments and visions of the future show what becomes possible when we dare to look, make and change together.

Feangreide Beraad

On 24 January 2024, Veenweide Atelier organised the first Feangreide Beraad, an in-depth programme with the designers and experts in water, soil, grass and area processes. This gathering marked the conclusion of a year of design research in the Frisian peat meadow region. You can read the report of the gathering below.

Read the report