Hoekenrodeplein is located directly next to the busy Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA station, between ArenA Boulevard and the Amsterdamse Poort shopping center. The square was meant to become the new heart of Amsterdam Zuidoost: redevelopment began in 2011, with a full renovation of the building around it, which now houses a hotel and hospitality venues with terraces.

Landscape architects karres+brands designed the square on behalf of stadsdeel Zuidoost, City of Amsterdam, across an area of 2.1 hectares. The design had to combine traffic, lingering, and events: natural stone seating edges bridge the level differences and guide pedestrian flows, and the square was given a dynamic lighting plan that responds to the number of people and the activity on the square. Between 2013 and 2015, Hoekenrodeplein received new paving, natural stone, lighting, and planting.

Van den Berk Boomkwekerijen supplied the planting: sixteen Metasequoia glyptostroboides (dawn redwood), with a trunk circumference of 150 centimeters and a height of about fifteen meters. The trees were delivered in early 2014, including three years of aftercare and warranty. Pius Floris Amsterdam handled the planting, under the guidance of our advisor Thieu Pije

Dawn redwood is one of the few conifers that loses its foliage in autumn, turning a striking rusty brown before leaf drop. Because of the size of the sixteen trees, the square already had a green presence at completion, rather than only after years of growth.