When Almere was foun­ded in 1977, func­tion­al­ist plan­ning still pre­vailed, res­ult­ing in a poly­nuc­lear urb­an lay­out. By now, how­ever, the city has turned into a liv­ing lab with a focus on innov­a­tion, sus­tain­ab­il­ity and bot­tom-up pro­cesses. The Oost­er­wold neigh­bour­hood takes exper­i­ment­a­tion to the next level. A few years ago, this was still a potato field. Now it is a labor­at­ory for urb­an­ist lais­sez-faire, destined to house 15,000 people. MVRDV developed the mas­ter­plan for Oost­er­wold and quite immod­estly called it a “revolu­tion in Dutch urb­an plan­ning”. The only organ­ising prin­ciple is the dis­tri­bu­tion of func­tions. Res­id­ents do not only build their own houses, but also have to real­ise their own infra­struc­ture and facil­it­ies in col­lab­or­a­tion with their neighbours.