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.