About

Alan, the ‘human engineer,’ merges efficiency with a love for people. Now joining Ca’ Paravento, he blends engineering with his passion for nature, embarking on an adventure that embodies the essence of being human.

Meet Alan, your host

My name is Alan, born in the south of the Netherlands in a small country village. Although there was always a passion for the outdoors, nature, farming, etc. I took a different direction.

My parents had an industrial waffle bakery where I found my fascination with engineering. So, I studied “mechatronics” a mix of mechanical and electronics. My goal with my studies was to make things better. I love to streamline production lines to improve efficiency, quality but above all else to make work easier for the people. People are for me the most valuable asset in my work.
My colleagues often called me therefore the human engineer.

I have an autodidactic mindset, everything what gets my interest I want to learn about, and I will teach myself. But I’m also an emotional driven person, meaning I trust my feelings and often follow my guts. This comes best to expression in my cooking. I love cooking, I learnt myself but making a dish twice the same is almost not possible for me, because the seasoning depends on my feeling of the moment. My friends are the most valuable asset in my life, and they know they always have my full support.
My friends often call me therefore the human, human.

During corona, normal life was disrupted. Things I valued abandon me; my comfort zones were gone. This was for me the moment to re-think my life direction and I developed a concept project of a slow farm, Yémayà, dea della fertilita. A place where it is about the essentials of life, balanced with yourself but also with earth and nature and of course a place of sharing. It is a place where the human engineer meets the human, human and goes back to the passion of the outdoors of my youth.
In the startup of this project, I found Ca’ Paravento.

Meeting Roberto & Alessia was wonderful, early on we noticed that we had a common drive. Roberto & Alessia buildup Ca’ Paravento from the ruins with love and in balance with the surroundings. But they were looking for a new adventure. For me Ca’ Paravento was the missing puzzle piece to start my adventure. Loving that finally the human engineer can be the human, human.

Discover this little paradise