Fragments In Flux

Daniele Valentino

IN FLUX in-between Binckhorst urban regeneration

Content.

Layer 0 Layer 1 Layer 2 Layer 3 Layer 4

Introduction - page 5 A factory of knowledge - page 17 (over) Planning in the Dutch context - page 25 The car industry and the Environment Plan - page 33 The Rotterdam-sebaan - page 41

Layer 5

Behind the walls of old and new companies - page 49

Layer 6

Laboratory 309 - page 57

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Conclusion - page 69

Note from the author.

The current way of designing and planning our cities often does not take into account that the amount of knowledge and ideas, needs and goals as well as technologies we have at the first stage of a new development are moving faster and changing before the projects are accomplished.

Long-term masterplan and mega-constructions represent fundamental steps towards innovation and modernisation. However, in many cases at their fully-formed stages they do not reflect and achieve the initial goals. Indeed the strong inflexibility and rigorous blow away the amount of opportunities of the time in-between their realisation.

This text aims to investigate Binckhorst, step-by-step around its streets and buildings, quays and bridges, alongside the time in-between in which Binckhorst is standing since a long time already. The structure, with its format similar to a diary, binds together little fragments either personal or analytical that reflect the synapsis between the users of this area, the spaces, and their activities.

The whole text looks at Binckhorst through the lens of transformation and metamorphosis that have affected many buildings and plots of lands, or are about to do so. Obsolete social housings, offices and working spaces have been demolished to make space for new more ‘attractive’ architectures. Buildings kept empty by speculation and de-industrialisation, by financial and economical crisis that could have offered an affordable access are now landmarks of production and capital. Binckhorst is shrinking.

Fences and barriers are boarding up properties across the whole district. There is less and less space for experimentations and interactions. On the other hand, efficiency and rigid designs are making as much circumstances as possible for gains and investments.

Due to Binckhorst’s endless transition, however,

the text cannot provide an exhaustive picture.

Therefore it remains as an overture that captures knowledge and ideas in the form of fragments.

The goal of this text is to build up a framework that has a critical gaze on what has been done and seeks to generate a more inclusive environment that works on a much more sensitive scale in which the generating ideals stick to social values and imaginations.

Daniele Valentino

Layer 0

Introduction.

10

11 My research deals with the process of transformation of the public realm, in particular how the current social and political agenda, through its various strategies and interventions, influences and modifies urban spaces and consequently people’s behaviours.

My investigation takes place in a district in the city of The Hague. The Binckhorst, which is in the focus of the urban storm, is a ‘space-in-transition’ representative of a larger-scale regenerative metamorphosis of today’s cities. The current urban development, with its own dynamics, has triggered a surreal scenario in which the urban regeneration has become a permanent status more than a temporary condition. The process of transformation with its modus operandi has, once again, all the eyes that tend to be fixed on the future, on what Binckhorst could become, instead of focusing of what is Binckhorst now, and how its qualities could being improved and not deteriorated in this endless time of transition. Our cities are constantly changing as well as our needs. A transformation often pursues a combination of social, economical and cultural improvements, and the time of its realisation represents a possibility of implementation, not a withdrawal in which nothing happens.

The void constituting ‘the now’, provides a breeding ground for experimentation and my project will deal with these debates and the current fragments that take place in there.

The project is about spatial transformations in the context of a specific district of the city I live in. It criticises the current strategic agenda and promotes a different approach in which the existing qualities and materials become the stepping stone for a new type of urban regeneration.

The district of Binckhorst is a breeding ground, a dynamic area that offers a wide palette of skilled craftsmen, tireless workers, talented artists

and designers, keen start-ups and motivated entrepreneurs. Binckhorst is also the place where the garbage is disposed of in such a matter to ensure that the rest of the city “ecosystem”1 remains clean. It is the place where the main industrials have their companies and from where, through the harbour, they export materials and products to further away destinations.

Binckhorst, used to be, and it is probably still known, as the paradise of car-garages and dealerships, scrap yards and DIY stores. Tons of metal, concrete and other materials have been settled down in the countless buildings and warehouses all over the district. Some of those depots are still working others, instead, have been affected by the tireless march of reorganisations of this area.

Pronk, “Wonen in Den Haag” with Erik Pasveer. http://www.dhnc.nl/wp-content/ uploads/Wonen-in-Den-Haag.pdf

1

Abandoned warehouse in Saturnusstraat.

Depot of construction materials on Binckhorstlaan.

In the last decade, probably half of the of buildings, which were inhabiting Binckhorst, have been demolished and retransformed. Once again2, demolition instead of preservation, transformation instead of reusing. Apparently, the call of the future needs to create itself through a crushing renovation, not an accurate and shrewd reorganisation.

Term used to emphasise the general trend in the urban context.

2

12 Den Haag.

“Gebiedsontwikkeling Binckhorst.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://www.denhaag.nl/ nl/in-de-stad/verkeer-envervoer/werkzaamhedenrotterdamsebaan.htm

3

Den Haag. “Werkzaamheden Rotterdamsebaan.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://www.denhaag.nl/ nl/in-de-stad/verkeer-envervoer/werkzaamhedenrotterdamsebaan.htm

4

Den Haag. “Actualisatie gebiedsaanpak Binckhorst.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://denhaag.raadsinformatie. nl/document/6274803/1/ RIS299319_bijlage_1KK__ DSO2017_1298_ Actualisatie_gebiedsaanpak_ Binckhorst_20180227

5

Google, “De Besturing.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. http://debesturing.nl/

6

13 In 2011, a new programme with its master plan3, approved by the municipal council, marked a drastic change for this area. As reported by the revised version of the same programme, published in 2018, “the municipal deployment now focused mainly on two points: strengthening urban and regional accessibility, through the construction of the Rotterdamsebaan4, and the improvement of the public space’s quality, as described by the memorandum - ‘Inzet op de drie havens’ (RIS 278681)5”. It goes on by aiming that: “Both have the same goal: make Binckhorst attractive to investors and private promoters.”

Recently, several buildings have been committed to spaces for young artists and designers.

However many of them existed even before 2011, and in order to obtain the right to stay they have been forced to own the buildings. De Besturing6, for instance, one of these collective spaces for young talents, after ten years of productive user-ship and accurate restoration, revitalised a building in a precarious and abandoned condition, which finally became their property in February 2017.

De Besturing in Saturnusstraat.

Because of this strategic agenda, Binckhorst has been charted through a rigid grid that does not allow other activities and practices than those planned for the future. Yet this clinical

and businesslike programme appears cold and impersonal. The local government together with entrepreneurs and private investors, see in Binckhorst a possible ground of profit and development. However, new typologies of hitech dwellings, businesses and companies are drastically changing the physical landscape and indeed the social atmosphere of an area that have been left behind for decades. Binckhorst has become a victim of globalisation7. An area, which has been rather messy with a large amount of empty buildings will be transformed into an orderly neighbourhood that will provide houses to be sold to the middle classes.

Nevertheless, the time of ‘the now’ still leaves room to a different strategy in which small-scale activities, initiatives and temporary interventions can fill this void. An inspiring example, on this respect, is the project ‘Hotel Transvaal’8 devised

by Sabrina Lindemann9 and the artistic platform OpTrek10 in collaboration with Iris Schutten11 and her architecture studio. It took place in a prewar district of The Hague that was undergoing largescale redevelopment. By setting it up as a proper hotel it provided a programme of events within the amount of empty buildings that has been transformed into hotel facilities, such as rooms, restaurants and shops. It was an experiment for testing temporary uses and became a catalyst for new ideas and proposals. About this project Iris Schutten wrote: “There are two ways of viewing areas undergoing transformation. One is to see them as troublesome, messy places, gaping wounds, forgotten patches of wasteland and/ or unmanageable zones, and the other is to see them as welcome pockets of relief, openings that create space, freedom and opportunities in the heavily build-up, over-regulated and overplanned city.”12

Cambridge Business English Dictionary, “Globalisation.”

Cambridge University Press 2019. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ dictionary/english/globalization

7

Hotel Transvaal, The Hague.

8 Hekking, Lindemann, and Meier, OpTrek in Transvaal, April 2010.

“Sabrina Lindemann has been project manager of Mobile project OpTrek since 2002. She has been living in The Hague since 1991 and has fourteen years of practical experience working in neighbourhoods and areas that are in transition.”

Google, “optrek.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. http://www.optrek.org/

9

10 Hekking, Lindemann, and Meier, OpTrek in Transvaal, 331.

11 “Iris Schutten (born in 1972) is an architect and focuses on the transformation of the build environment. She carries out cultural projects, transforming buildings and their surroundings for new uses, and interventions in the public space.”

Lindemann, and Schutten, Between Times, 263.

12 Lindemann, and Schutten, Between Times, 19.

14

13 Haraway, Situated Knowledges, 579.

“Golfstromen is an Amsterdambased urban design and communications agency that launched Pop-Up City in 2008, out of a fascination for the ways in which citizens, organizations, enterprises, and governments were coming up with creative and flexible solutions to deal with this new urban dynamic.”

Goggle, “Pop-up City.” Last modified on 20 February 2019 https://popupcity.net/ 14

15 Binckhorst has been in flux for decades. The quantity of vacant and unfinished building, construction sites and crumbling plots of land produce a tangible scenario in which my handson skills and “knowledges”13 can generate valuable designs and ‘pop-up’14 interventions.

This heterogeneous district seems to be a space of re-creation, a reservoir where the city regenerates itself. If a space changes constantly, as in the case of Binckhorst, people need to adapt themselves within a new context that causes re-adaptation of their movements and habits.

My actions and thoughts will generate critics to the current agenda. The new strategy will take into account all these aspects and find a precise focus for possible interventions.

My interest comes from the fact that beyond our cities change, there are, and there will always be people struggling for affordable houses or sufficient employments, and often those urban changes only aim to improve and implement a privilege group of people, rising the disparity between them and the underprivileged others.

The phenomena of re-generation and retransformation of our cities have changed the tread of our lives and the deeper sense of feeling part of a community.

With my project I want to understand if the fields of design and activism can coexist, and how they could help each other. More often in today’s society, the design practice only serves to enlarge richness and capitals and by doing so it positions itself far away from people. Being an activist means, in my case, reaching a deeper understanding of what I am doing and how the context, that I observe, answers to my questions and/or criticises my thoughts.

Binckhorst is a place where I can experiment this combination.

Concept that I have developed at the beginning of the year.

So far I visited Binckhorst several times and I got most fascinated by its discrepancy of being an open-air construction site and the place to be in the future. The promoting narrative used there is as strong as unreal and does not deal, at all, with the current condition.

A nice example is represented by two of the numerous advertising panels that stand in front of a new housing complex on the crossing between Regulusweg and Maanweg. They say: ‘Come to live and work in the centre of the universe’.

Advertising panels.

The meaning is crystal clear and there are no doubts on their reference with the centre of universe as a metaphor for its future reputation.

The advertising campaign probably has drawn by

16

15 Jero Papierwarenfabriek, Komeetweg 13-15, 2516 AV Den Haag, The Netherlands.

Bomas, Graaf, In de Tussentijd, no. 4.

16

Passage in Melkwegstraat.

(Next page).

Traffic jam in Binckhorstlaan.

(On the other page).

17 the names of the streets of Binckhorst, in fact, many of them re-invoke constellations, planets and stars. Such a brilliant publicity stunt, if it were not for the contradiction with the current status which is obviously everything except the centre of the universe.

I have been walking and cycling around it for a long time already. I got in contact with some of the artists that inhabit one of the collective spaces, De Besturing. I had the opportunity to meet Sandro Bruti, who is the third- generation owner of the Jero Papier15 factory. I experienced at the same time the noise of the asphalt factory and the silence of the harbour. I saw endless queues of cars, at the usual 8 a.m. traffic jam and counted innumerable trains passing on the neighbouring railway. I probably didn’t see anything but those little fragments still belong to my experience. Thus it is exactly from them that I want to start.

How should art, architecture and design, deal with this “pause landscape”16, which is full of boarded-up blocks of housing and portions of derelict land, a long period of vacancy and a crumbling social context? How could temporary architectural and artistic interventions become a spring for a new urban strategy in which the gaze on the future allows actions in the present instead of deny them?

18

Layer 1

A factory of knowledge.

22

23 “First we shape cities - then they shape us.”

(Jan Gehl, Cities for People, 9)

Rosetta Stone 17 “A tablet of gray granite found in 1799 at Rosetta, a town in Egypt: because it bore parallel inscriptions in Greek and in ancient Egyptian demotic and hieroglyphic characters, it provided a key to the deciphering of ancient Egyptian writing.”

Collins Dictionary, “Rosetta Stone.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://www.collinsdictionary. com/dictionary/english/rosettastone

Streets and footpaths, squares, parks and canals are the grammar of a city. They are the constitute elements of sentences. Together with houses, schools, theatres, libraries, churches, hospitals and other buildings they generate contents and meanings of the city. These fundamental factors define the urban structure and, therefore, they enable cities to come to life. They accommodate activities and provide collectivity. They create knowledge and interests for the protagonists of the story. Protagonists of books are living creatures; the old and the young, the inhabitant, the worker, the tourist, the customer and the animal. And than there is the nature, which is the ‘Rosetta Stone’17 of all the grammars and languages.

Every city can be read like a book. Ancient villages have shaped with their grammar today’s cities. Some of them still possess the ancient language, others are giving rise to a new forms.

The book of the Binckhorst is written by an old grammar and has a similarly language.

Craftsmen and labourers have been, and still are, the protagonists of the story. Binckhorst’s morphology has produced a variety of knowledge.

Woodworking, paper-making, handicraft, blacksmithing and metalworking. Art, painting and music. All enclosed in the same area, they have been shaped by its own grammar and language. In Binkchorst this unfinished and incomplete scenario, with neither schools nor libraries, with neither theatres nor churches, with neither squares nor parks, has created, on the contrary, a multilayered context. Voids and abandoned places, in fact, have facilitated

a natural spontaneity that turned to be fundamental for what Binckhorst is today.

Flexibility and affordability has accommodated experimentation and growth. The rowdy confluence of different fields and people has, indeed, created a collective and heterogeneous mixture. If on the one hand, this peculiar nondesign and neglected grammar has caused a hidden and misfit scenario, on the other hand, it has reinforced the street as principal element of its grammar. In Binckhorst streets are the most liveable place. They are the extensions of factories and industries, of ateliers, and, indeed, the place of the collectivity. If the insidespace represents the place of the production and strain, the outside-space is the place of exchange and collaboration, rest and recreation.

Beyond everyone’s work, snack-bars, parkings and footpaths, have been meeting point for the community. The importance of the street, as a collective element, has empowered trust and respect among people in Binckhorst. Coincidence and unexpected circumstances have proved that freedom and flexibility are fundamental factors of a good grammar, and therefore of a good architecture.

Outside of a car body shop.

24

18

Sennet, The Craftsman, 9.

25 I should say that craftsmanship is, above all, one of the most engaging working activity. It is based on the relationship between an artisan and the material and between artisans. An artisan must trust its own tools and machinery and, of course, the space around him. In fact it is the space where the designed object becomes executed, wether it is a piece of furniture, a painting or a car. Furthermore, most of the time these objects and materials find shape in the space and become part of another grammar, the one related to humans. Richard Sennet in the book The Craftsman says that: “Craftsmanship names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake.”18

Father of Sandro Bruti works on packaging for cakes at Jero Papier factory.

One of the moveble old bridges of the Trekvliet’s quay.

(On the other page).

Other fundamental factors of the grammar in Binckhorst are canals, bridges, quays and docks.

The Trekvliet canal, for instance, runs on the western edge of the district and represents a natural border with the neighbouring Noordpolderbuurt quarter. Water can be a separating element as well as a physical or intangible junction element. The same canal, in fact, represents the ancient high-way of the area, connecting Rotterdam and Leiden. Water, as natural element, is also a conduit for a whole community.

Layer 2

26

Caravan of an houseboat on the Trekvliet canal.

Around the Trekvliet canal many are the people that live and work on water. This ‘living condition’, creates a strong relation between them and enriches their feeling part of a community. Water, once again, can divide but can also unite people and places.

In the recent history, the ancient grammar of Binckhorst has been or is going to be updated and new forms are about to generate alternatives contents and meanings for this area. Streets, for example, have been reshaped; a new structure is overlapping the old one, defining new boundaries and thresholds, as well as voids. Brand-new constructions are attracting different typologies of workers and inhabitants that have a proper grammar.

It is therefore, of primary importance, to preserve the ancient grammar and properly integrate it with the new one; by doing so, new contents and meanings can coexist and strengthen themselves instead of collapse between each other.

How do the current users deal with this duality of grammar, contents and meanings? Beside the physical grammar of Binckhorst, how can I capture the intangible grammar, the one defined by interaction and exchange of current and future user-ship?

(over) Planning in the Dutch context.

30

31 “Order is not a characteristic of a specific era of Dutch history, order is the main characteristic, the existential condition of a civilisation which had nested and had to survive in the delta of three great rivers, the Rhine, the Meuse and the Schelde. Since the Middle Ages man took the initiative to organise the water management and he became a creator of land and land-scape”

19 Van der Cammen and De Klerk, The Selfmade Land, 15.

“Simon Schama is professor of history and art history at Columbia University in New York.”

Google, “Simon Schama.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://nexus-instituut.nl/ person/simon-schama/ 20

21 Van der Cammen and De Klerk, The Selfmade Land, 19.

(Bank and Van Buuren, The Age of Bourgeois Culture, 115.)19 In order to fully understand the historical nature of Binckhorst is necessary to move backwards, order and urban adaptation to order, in fact start long time ago. Optimisation, symmetry and efficiency are all part of what the English historian Simon Schama20 (1989) defined as the “moral geography”21; a struggle with the water management that has entrenched as a social dogma in the Dutch society. The Netherlands is clearly recognised as one of the most planned countries among the European nations, and its society takes for granted urban public and private interventions in the field of planning.

This marriage between spatial planning and the culture and society context, highlights the tread of a broader planning; often in fact the way a goal is achieved is more important, through a strong engagement and participation with the society, than what the actual outcome will be. On the one hand, this modus operandi provides implication of minorities, media, literature and art, on the other hand, it turns to be obstructive when every kind of spatial development must be conducted through plans. The minimisation of negative effects, due to an over-planned development,

does not leave room for spontaneity and improvisation.

In 2008 a new “Spatial Planning Act (Wet ruimtelijke ordening)”22 was introduced in reaction of the previous one which was considered extremely outdated, inflexible and slow procedures. “The new act has concurrently centralised and decentralised planning by an elaborate system of checks and balances, allowing for the transition from hierarchical steering to network steering (Roggemma 2008).”23 Municipalities and provinces basically got more freedom in enforcing their urban plans and indeed made them fully and exclusively responsible for their own interest. “Planning authorities are not bound to a predefined format for their structure vision, but should instead make clear how they intend to implement the strategy in order to achieve the stated goals and objectives”24, the so-called “Bestemmingsplan”25, or Zoning Plan.

Above the Bestemmingsplan, which is local, stands the Omgevingswet26 or Environment and Planning Act. The government has drown up this law that will enter into force from 2021. Each municipality, beside its local programme, has to adapt itself to the Environment and Planning Act, which takes into consideration air and water pollution, health, noise and living qualities, as well as working.

The Zoning Plan and the Environment and Planning Act turned to be strategic considering the financial and economical global crisis of 2007 and 200827. In the Dutch context, public and private investors understood that was not possible to afford mega-constructions and longterm masterplan, therefore many projects underanalysis got stopped.

22

Ibid, 33.

23

Ibid.

24

Ibid.

25

Ibid.

26 Government of The Netherlands, “Omgevingswet.”

Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://www.government.nl/ topics/spatial-planning-andinfrastructure/revision-ofenvironment-planning-laws

Environment and Planning Act, translated document.

27 Google, “Financial Crisis 2008,” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://www.thebalance. com/2008-financialcrisis-3305679

32 28 “Stroom Den Haag (an independent foundation founded in 1990) is an art centre with a wide range of activities. Starting from the visual arts, architecture, urban planning and design the program focuses on the urban environment. Stroom’s policy is not committed to any particular movement. The centre is open to everyone with stimulating ideas or a need for information regarding art and the urban environment. It aims at being a hospitable and stimulating platform.”

Google, “Stroom.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://www.stroom.nl/

29 Stroom, “OMA in The Hague.”

Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://www.stroom.nl/ activiteiten/tentoonstelling. php?t_id=2233982

30 Office for Metropolitan Architecture OMA, “OMA Study for Masterplan in The Hague.”

Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://oma.eu/news/oma-studyfor-masterplan-in-the-hague

33 In 2006 Stroom28 presented the exhibition ‘OMA in The Hague’29, an overview of many projects, either completed or remained only proposals, that the Dutch firm has done for the city. Between them, a non-executed plan for the Binckhorst was presented. The proposal revisits the Parisian boulevard Champs-Élysées that would have reconfigured the whole district and around it build fancy and robust residents with a city beach and a park. About the project, OMA partner Floris Alkemade, says: “With its location just blocks from the historic city center and the main railway terminal, Binckhorst has the unique opportunity to play a vital role in strengthening the character of The Hague as a world city.”30

Only four years later, in 2010, the same Kunstcentrum Stroom presented another exhibition by Yona Friedman31. He applied the concept of Ville Spatiale32, the one he has been working on since the early 60s, in the context of Binckhorst. About the concept he said: “the traditional structure of the city is not equipped for the new society”33. He suggested, following the concept of Ville Spatiale, mobile, temporary and lightweight structures instead of rigid, inflexible and expensive means of traditional architecture. The urban texture of Binckhorst is mainly defined by vehicles infrastructure and industrial activities. He takes into consideration the need of creating housing, offices, public facilities and a park, however, instead of demolition he proposes and experimental picture of the district in which the new city is built directly on top of the existing.

31 Google, “Yona Friedman.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. http://www.yonafriedman.nl/ 32 “A Ville Spatiale is a multilayered structural skeleton (grid) on stilts that can be flexibly adjusted when desired.

The structure is supported by columns (stilts) that are situated at an interval of 40-60 meters and which houses the accesses and facility networks. The base of the grid is 6×6 meter module that can accommodate all kinds of functions.”

Yona Friedman, “Ville Spatiale.”, Last modified on 20 February 2019. http://www.yonafriedman. nl/?page_id=78

33 dpr-barcelona, “Villa Spatiale in Binckhorst.” March 3, 2010. https://dprbcn.wordpress. com/2010/03/03/yonafriedman-ville-spatiale-inbinckhorst/

Yona Friedman’s concept of Ville Spatiale.

Renderings of the masterplan made by OMA. Source: https://oma.eu/

Villa Spatiale applied in Binckhorst.

Source: https://dprbcn. wordpress.com/2010/03/03/ yona-friedman-ville-spatiale-inbinckhorst/

34 Though these two examples are different, they are both relevant in order to understand the change of trend due to the crisis that The Netherlands faced, just as the rest of Europe did. Of course they represent only key studies in my analysis but I personally believe that they have much more to say.

Plan over a plan over a plan again; the complexity of the urban and local context remains hardly comprehensible. If change is part of a city’s nature, and the urban transformation in Binckhorst seems to be leaded mainly, or most likely, by economical and political reasons, how could the (over)planning not turn to brutalise Binckhorst itself and indeed its users? Which new aspects should be taken into consideration?

Layer 3

The car industry and the Environment Plan: two sides of the same coin.

38

39 “The life based on exchange, interaction and relation with other people, is the one I consider more authentic.

I believe that old jobs and craftsmanships have a lot to do with that. I am grateful for the life I had. With the documentary - binckhorst - I try to show the social context of Binckhorst and indeed its authenticity.”

(Wilma Marijnissen, 2019, The Hague)

34 “Pennock was a Dutch bodybuilder from The Hague (from 1900 to 1953). The factory was located at the Bleijenburg and later at the Binckhorstlaan and later at the Weteringkade.”

Conam, “Pennok.” Last modified on 20 February 2019.

Binckhorst is the last industrial area next to city centre. Since the beginning of the 19th century, it has been the paradise of many factories and industries. The most present sector was the one of the car industry. Showrooms, dealerships, garages and scrapyards were spread all over the districts. In Binckhorstlaan, for instance, on the corner with Zonweg used to stand the well-known complex Auto-Palace. Designed and built with highly attention for its aesthetic, with long glass windows that embraced the corner of the building, Auto-Palace used to be an icon for the whole city. It has followed the track of the vehicles manufactory Pennock34, which arrived in The Hague in 1886 and than moved to Binckhorstlaan. Auto-Palace has attracted people from all over the country, willing to see the new passenger-cars and trucks. The whole car industry found in Binckhorst a breeding ground and shortly thereafter severals car-garages and scrapyards settled down in the marginal streets, especially in the Trekvlietplein.

The charming context of that period, the beauty of the Auto Palace and its diverse surroundings are well-shown in the triptych-documentary

Auto Palace.

Source: Google.

‘binckhorst’35, by the theatre designer and visual artist Wilma Marijnissen36 and the filmmaker and photographer Marsel Loermans37. When I recently met Wilma Marijnissen the first thing she said about the documentary is: “The story about Binckhorst I tell with my documentary, is organised in an old-fashioned way. The same way by which workers use things over and over again; old machineries, tools, materials that have belonged to parents, parents of the parents, and will probably hand out to the future generation.”

There is a nostalgic significant in her words, since she has grown up in Binkchorst. She goes on: “When I was young, I used to spend my days in my parents’ garage where people would come to repair their vehicles and fill them with petrol.

Most of them were taxi drivers. Together with my mum, every day we would drive, with the old Mercedes my parents had, to the scrapyard in Trekvlietplein and get from there old replacement parts, such as side mirrors, car door and so on and bring them back to my dad. My mum was, at that time, a strong woman in a men’s world.”

The Gemeente Den Haag, the municipality of The Hague, just after the crisis decided to develop Binckhorst with a more ‘organic’ approach. A new masterplan came into practice and Binckhorst

35 Google, “Binckhorst de film” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://binckhorstdefilm.nl/ 36 Google, “Wilma Marijnissen.”

Last modified on 20 February 2019. http://www.wilma-marijnissen. nl/site/ 37 Google, “Marsel Loermans.”

Last modified on 20 February 2019. http://www.loermans.nl/

40 38 Den Haag, “Omgevingsplan.”

Published on 23 August 2018. https://www.denhaag.nl/ nl/in-de-stad/wonen-enbouwen/bouwprojecten/ gebiedsontwikkeling-binckhorst/ omgevingsplan-binckhorst.htm

41 has proposed as a pilot-project and a new planning programme, the Omgevingsplan38, or Environment Plan, have been made. This experimental plan, much more flexible than the Environment and Planning Act, acted as a catalyst for entrepreneurs and investors that can now freely operate among the new regulations.

Since the Omgevingsplan has been put into action from a twilight area Binckhorst has changed into a breeding ground for investments.

Big companies and corporations now sit around the same table together with the municipality.

Every decision is made taking into consideration investments and compensations.

As reported by an exhaustive presentation from the municipality of The Hague, the four pillars of the Environment Plan are: creating a new entrance to the city by the construction of the Rotterdamsebaan, reinforcing the economic factor thorough local companies and enterprises, building new residential areas and last working on the ecologic sphere with new experimental green-roofs-top, innovative technologies and renewable energies.

In order to achieve certain standards, that now are the core of the Environment Plan, the municipality has gradually operated by ‘cleaning’ the area from undesirable companies.

This process started in the period across the economical crisis, and it has reached its completion just before the entry into force of the Environment Plan. At the question -why has the car industry slowly disappeared?- Wilma Marijnissen explained me that the new pilot project specified a series of regulations and restrictions for many topologies of activities and, among all, the car industry was the most hit. In order to make Binckhorst attractive to investors and due to some criminal activities beyond the car-market, the car-scrapyards have been the first leaving the area.

However, Wilma remarks that “the whole car system and production is high-standing in a circle; there are the showroom, the dealership, the garage and the scrapyard, which were around twelve centres in Trekvlietplein.” Basically, immediately after that operation the whole vehicle chain-business collapsed. But while garages and scrapyards got pushed out without any financial support the more famous, Mazda, Peugeot, Toyota, BMW and Mercedes showrooms got a capital grant from the local government to move elsewhere and attract, there, more people.

As a result of this rashness of cleaning out the area, many are the empty spaces left behind. The whole Trekvlietplein, for instance, waits to be retransformed and in the meanwhile is standing there, empty, as if it was a close market or just a passage.

Views of Trekvlietplein.

The “archaeologist of the present” Melle Smets39, this is how he presents himself, has proposed, in collaboration with Sabrina Lindemann and the platform OpTrek, Binckhorst as a city factory for mobility. His project, ‘STADSFABRIEK’40, aimed to create a platform in which old crafts and new technology and design could find a connection among them. In this way, he said “the astonishing

39 Melle Smets, “About.” Last modified on 20 February 2019.

40 OpTrek, “ReSourceCity.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. project/20/resourcecitybinckhorst

42

41

Ibid.

collection of initiative and expertise can be forged into a blistering City Factory for mobility with departments such as the Binck Tuning center, for the pimps - Binck Prototyping, for the inventors - Binck Repairs, for the refurbishers and Binck Rental , for the tenants and mobility distributors.�41 There was no time for that, the decision of expelling the car industry would have been taken in a very short time.

STADSFABRIEK by Melle Smets.

Source: http://www.optrek.org/

It is proven that car industry, among others, produces significant pollution in the environment. Whether stopping it has been a good or bad choice it is not my place to comment.

However, it seems pretty curious that for an action that stands against the vehicles industry there is another larger programme in favour of the construction of a new motorway, that will bring more and more cars, and indeed pollution in the environment. What kind of urban approach could present alternatives to the flow of vehicles? How can infrastructures made for the cars improve and not crumple the slow mobility?

Layer 4

The Rotterdamsebaan: a new spring of renovation.

46

42 By other analysis it seems that the amount of dwelling are going to raise in the new years.

On a recent video posted of the Gemeente Den Haag YouTube Channel, the future estimate reaches the 115000 dwellings for the whole region. Many of them will find place in Binckhorst. It is therefore extremely hard to obtain reliable data.

YouTube, “Binckhorst.” Published on 12 October 2017. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=vZr__XSmxLA

47 At the moment, the focus of the new Environment Plan is the realisation of the Rotterdamsebaan that will be officially completed in 2020. At the same time, several are the construction sites throughout the whole Binckhorst that are working on new residential complexes. The same program aims to create an enormous amount of dwellings on the city territory and most of them will be located in Binckhorst.

At the moment non reliable data can be found, however the estimate says around 500042 dwellings per year from 2017 and 2040, data which have been confirmed by Sabrina Lindemann too.

The Rotterdamsebaan is the new connecting road between junction Ypenburg (A4 / A13)

and city centre. Before its construction became effective, the municipality had to make room for it and therefore it have gradually bought several plots of land adjacent Binckhorstlaan, due to the enlargement of the carriageway. In parallel several buildings were dismantled. In autumn 2015 two yellow housing buildings had been torn down. In the same year the former complex of the PTT-Telecom43 suffered a similar fate. When this building in Binckhorstlaan, have been demolished the communication company was already incorporated by the giant enterprise KPN44, which moved to a bigger complex on Maanplein. The new house of the KPN has been completely renovated and transformed into a living and working complex. This is currently the biggest complex in Binckhorst ad it stands as a new landmark. Many luxurious and hi-tech45 apartments have found space in the area and that was only the beginning.

Junoblok46, in Junostraat, is another building that has been transformed from an office into a high-quality house, hosting around 70 dwellings.

Brand new working and living complexes are popping out everywhere in the district. The approach is most of the time the same; tearing down and rebuilding on top of it.

Rendering of the Rotterdamsebaan Source: Gemeente Den Haag

43 The PTT , the State-owned Postal Service, Telegraph and Telephony (until 1928 Stateowned Postal Services and Telegraph ), was the Dutch stateowned company responsible for mail, telegraphy, telephony and, furthermore, radiotelephony.

44 Koninklijke PTT Nederland N.V.

45 “Very modern looking or made with modern materials.”

Cambridge Business English Dictionary, “High-tech.”

Cambridge University Press 2019.

46 Wonen in Den Haag, “Junoblok.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://wonenindenhaag.nl/ nieuws/werken-en-wonennieuwe-binckhorst/22d11003f491-4cd5-8d6a-b79c5a89fd04_ junoblok3/

Rendering of the Junoblok.

Source: Google

48 Google, “Binck Eiland.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://binckeiland.nl/en 47

48

Ibid.

49 It seems that these new four-storeys dwellings, with roof garden, will be out of the reach for many people. At the moment for the price is between € 489,850 and € 679,850 per single units.

Binck Eiland, “Now for sale.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://binckeiland.nl/en

49 In the southern edge of Binckhorst another complex is undergoing construction; Binck Eiland47. This residential ‘island’ will supplied 240 dwellings and 356 m2 of commercial spaces. The promotive narrative used by developers remains the same: “Now is the time to get on board and enjoy all the new opportunities the area has to offer. Living alongside the water, close to the city centre, with phenomenal views. That is Hip The Hague Living!”48 While the narrative used by the local media to promote the area does not leave chance to interpretation, it seems to be only an artificial game, made by and for a little exclusive group of people49, with neither connections nor real interests in Binckhorst.

I’M BINCK, “Information.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://imbinck.nl/ This workshop took place on the 7 and 8 of October 2017.

Together with some fellow students of the MA, Interior Architecture from the KABK (Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten Den Haag) and Denis Oudendijk and some of his collaborators, we made a “village camper with restaurant, bar, fireplace, seven places to sleep or hangout.”

Refunc, “Mobile Village Project.”

Last modified on 20 February 2019. http://refunc.nl/?p=3926 51

Google, “I’M BINCK festival.”

Last modified on 20 February 2019. http://imbinckfestival.nl/ 52

The are, however, initiatives that seem to work on a different layer, on another promotion perhaps just more authentic. I’M BINCK, for instance, “is an independent, open platform of and for companies, residents and organisations that want to actively work for a powerful area where sustainable added value is created.”50 The same platform, born in 2011 as an experimental symposium for an alternative approach to the local urban context, promotes monthly round tables, meeting and events by which entrepreneurs, residents, local authorities and developers discuss on the future of Binckhorst.

In 2017 I took part to the workshop ‘Mobile Village Project’51 organised by Denis Oudendijk, cofounder of Refunc, within the context of I’M BINCK Festival52. The mobile village, “built in a

Village in a day.

53 The village has been build in the morning, and the day after is has been dismantled. As it was a mushroom it has appeared and the day after disappeared, leaving a void behind it.

54 “Frank is a Binck will be the new center of the Binckhorst.”

HVE Architecten, “Frank is een Binck.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://hve-architecten.nl/ projecten/frank-is-een-binck/

I have been left pretty bewildered in finding out, according to Wilma Marijnissen that even I’M BINCK in the last few years has been reached by a new generation of stakeholders.

Rendering of the Binck Eiland.

Source: Google

50

day for a day”53 , took over the massive concrete parking on the corner of Melkwegstraat and the Saturnusstraat. This unused enormous area has a reservation agreement by the municipality of The Hague for the realisation of Frank is a Binck54, which is considered the largest rebuilding project in The Netherlands.

Meanwhile that empty area stands there, only machineries and scraps fill the void, waiting for Frank to arrive.

New entrepreneurs and investors now define themselves, reporting Wilma’s words, “stadsmakers” or city-makers. If that is now only a concern in few years it could become a real pathology for Binckhorst. What is certainly transparent is that this new generation of users have more and more space to operate and, on the basis of I’M BINCK success, the municipality is re-shaping also this platform into a more practical strategy for the future development of the area. This platform that was born as a reaction to the big masterplan, has recently changed its nature. In a recent meeting I had with Sabrina Lindemann, who is one of the funder of I’M BINCK, she told me that this year the I’M BINCK festival will not take place, instead other events will take it over.

Rendering of the Frank is a Binck.

Source: Google

50 55 This building, which is the oldest building of the whole area, is now hosting a private clinic for plastic surgery. It stands in front of the exit of the new Rotterdamsebaan.

56 “The Fokker Terminal is a characteristic and inspiring industrial building. The former school for aerospace engineering was redeveloped in 2009 as an event location for the business market.”

Google, “The Fokker Terminal.”

Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://www.fokkerterminal.nl/

57 Google, “Maison Kelder.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://www.maisonkelder.nl/

58 Google, “Jachtwerf de Haas.”

Last modified on 20 February 2019. http://www.jachtwerfdehaas.nl/

59 Based on the analysis I drawn up, the physical landscape of the district will radically change.

There is another project that is about to start.

The Trekvlietzone, an area of almost 12 hectares that from Binckhorstlaan goes all the way to the western edge to the Trekvliet canal. This enormous portion of land hosts among others, the Binckhorst Castle55, the Fokkerterminal56, the Maison Kelder57 and the Jachtwerf de Haas58.

The disproportionate plan, readily constable on the website of the municipality, will drastically overturn the area. A new promenade will wipe out the old cobbles, and most likely some of the house boats, depots and shacks alongside the quays. As for the rest of the district, people and enterprises that own the land can remain, for the rest will probably come the time to leave. The Jachtwerf de Haas is one of those who are safe.

However it has deal with the queues of investors and real-estate agencies that from time to time show up and ask for trading the land. High-rise buildings and new dwellings will replace old depots and warehouses. Here like elsewhere, the march of reorganisation is coming.59 The process of implementing the residential structure goes hand-in-hand with the renovation of ‘obsolete’ parts of the area. The identity of Binckhorst and its ground texture is changing.

The empowerment of the land value risks not only to blow away the social atmosphere of Binckhorst but rather and most dangerously, the morphological commitment essential to generate a future inclusive area. Can boundaries and thresholds play a role within this dispute?

How can they facilitate integration instead of exclusion?

Layer 5

Behind the walls of old and new companies.

54 60 “The countryside was also coming under increasing pressure from the customer’s desires. City dwellers were lo longer content with the woods and recreation zones designed in the earlier policy documents and plan. They visited, to their heart’s content, agricultural areas, nature reserves and monumental landscapes; by bicycle, by foot and in many other ways, since the package of leisure activities was spreading out in all directions.”

Van der Cammen and De Klerk, The Selfmade Land, 401-402.

55 The Hague is going to expand and, once again, areas that up until now were out of any interests become now fundamental pillars for the future of a city. This phenomenon is pretty interesting in the Dutch context. Cities have been often developed from their downtown and gradually expanded more and more towards the countryside60, where usually were based industries and factories. In other words, areas such as Binckhorst. This industrial enclave has been the house of a large variety of industries, and it is now turning into a new hub of creative and innovative enterprises. Not all the antique industries left the area but from what reported Wilma Marijnissen, and confirmed by my personal analysis between 60% and 80% of all the factories and industries are now gone.

origin. The company has been taken over by the Bruti family. Alessandro Bruti is today the third generation of the Bruti family and who still works there. The factory preserves the same machinery since its origin. They are all manual machines, none computers or digital devices have been ever used in there. In this factory in Komeetweg thousands of paper rolls coming from the German Black Forest61 have become packagings for food and exported across the whole country.

61 The Black Forest is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany.

Maison Kelder.

Concept cities expansion.

Old photo of the Jero Papier from the wall of the factory.

The Jero Papier factory is an example of an industry that resists to the march of urban reorganisation. Sandro Bruti and its family work quietly behind the scenes and out from the spotlights. The factory, in Komeetweg, is a modest industrial unit, a grey prefab with a big banner saying ‘Jero Papier’. When I had the opportunity to work with them for couple of days was like going steeping back 75 years into a place full of history. Since 1913, when the Polish Jewish businessman started this activity, the factory has produced packaging for various kinds of food. Unfortunately, during the period across the Second World War he had to flee due to his

Another old company is the bakery Maison Kelder. It was found in 1934 and was originally located in the centre of The Hague. When the production became more remarkable, it needed more space and Maison Kelder found a new location in Binckhorst, in Junostraat which is in the Trekvlietzone area. Bob Keptein, one of the protagonist interviewed by Wilma Marijnissen, expresses the awareness and maybe the risk of becoming one of the ‘undesirable’ factory of Binckhorst. The process of making pastries and cakes, in fact, requests a lot of energy and the sugar glaze container makes noise night and day, day and night.

At the moment, next to the Maison Kelder factory and just in front the cement industry, Dyckerhoff Basal62, are placed for a period of five years, tiny houses, green and white. This small complex in Jupiterkade, and I am abstaining from any judgment about its functioning, hosts asylum seekers from Syria and Eritrea. If, in the case of this complex, its only a matter of the five

62 In Binckhorst, The Dyckerhoff Basal industry is, at the moment, one of the most discussed regarding the new environmental plan.

Google, “Dyckerhoff Basal.” Last modified on 20 February 2019. http://www.dyckerhoff-basal. com/online/nl/Home.html

56

57 years, the coming Trekvlietzone project will have to deal with the noise of the Maison Kelder, the close Dyckerhoff Basal and the other industries all around the district.

63 Google, “Caballero Fabriek.”

Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://www.cabfab.nl/

For old factories that have fled there are many others, brand new, that are going to replace them, either within the same buildings or in new constructions.

The Caballero Fabriek63 used to be the Egyptian Laurens tobacco factory, established in Binckhorst in 1921. This complex has been turned into offices and business premises. Its 12,000 m2 accommodates a wide variety of companies. Today it is a multifunctional building for innovative, creative and cultural companies.

on the norther edge of the district, used to be the Central Warehouse of the PTT. Thousands of telegraphs and telephones have been repaired inside its walls. Today BINK36 gives room to new ambitious businesses, including design and tech companies, art studios and fashion brands.

From my sketchbook.

View of the new Caballero Fabriek from the bridge in Binckhorstlaan.

Entrance of BINK36.

64 Google, “BINK36” Last modified on 20 February 2019. https://www.bink36.nl/

A similar example of an old factory turned into new a multi-disciplinary context is the BINK3664. This complex of two long buildings,

The picture that is being prepared shows clearly what the future of Binckhorst will be. A new generation of people, workers consumers and ‘commoners’65 is facing a place which has been respectful to traditions and costumes. Binckhorst and its ‘old generation’ of users has stayed in the shadow for decades, connected with the ground and its materials and resources. They have always been content to live only with everything that needed, without any fanfares. On the contrary, the ‘new generation’ inhabiting the area, has as many new needs. Thus, where does tradition and innovation find a common ground?

65 The concept of “commoners” is a concept I have developed by myself. With commoners I allude to people who inhabit a specific area. I have mainly used this word to categorise inhabitants on Binckhorst, however the concept can be extended to a wider group of people who live, in a broader sense, an area. See the following concept of “commoning”.

“Commoning is a process of negotiating differences and conflicts between the individual, the community, and society.

It is a process that involves the spacial organisation of the relationships between production and reproduction, ownership and access to resources. A process in which solidarity networks are created and individual and collective rights are redefined.”

Gatti, et al., An Atlas of Commoning, 1.

View of BINK36 from Binckhorstlaan.

(Next page).

58

Layer 6

Laboratory 309.

62

63 There is a sense of urgency. It is a personal sense, that comes from the necessity of digging into the context and try to actively understand how can myself, with my thought and fascinations, becomes integrally part of my own strategy instead of stands far away from it. In order to question my perceptions and find possible implementations, I decided to give birth to >laboratory 309<. This brand-new space found

its location within the context of De Besturing.

Surrounded by other artists, designers and uncommon minds, in a space that have fought for its existence, >laboratory 309< will have a critical and activistic approach in response to the current â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;statusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; around it. It will effect real change through spatial interventions, and as an initiator, will produce a multi-layered empirical implications into Binckhorst.

Personal mindmap on the wall.

Perosal Soft Maps.

64

65

Manifesto provocative

temporary 66 Bishop and Williams, The Temporary City, 2012.

experimental

explorative

>laboratory 309< will provoke change, working on the line between private and public. A change is not only physical elaboration of spaces.

Physical elements shape our behaviours in the space, however, a change of perspective, a that is the one >laboratory 309< will focus on, can provoke a change of behaviours stronger than the one cause by a physical transformation.

The temporary condition present the opportunity to be playful and, at the same time, a way to start doing things by testing them out, as opposed to getting stuck in abstract and bureaucratic protocols or plannings. By acting temporary66, >laboratory 309< can become present in the public space and create a sphere for people to enter into and to interact with. Ideals become 1:1 proposals of a urban space made differently.

‘See what happens’ is it perhaps the spirit of our time. >laboratory 309< wants to be an experiment itself and at the same time a factory of experiments. It is an experiment because it goes beyond de surface, it looks at tangible materials, and intangible knowledge as well as situations. Thus it will be experimental because it will generate experiments there, beyond the surface, trying to reach essential but unexpected elements.

Explorations will be the fundamental tools of >laboratory 309<. The exploration of the urban space and practice67, through site-specific analysis will reveal tangible resources that can be used,

and intangible dynamics that must be respect.

Both are important factors of >laboratory 309<’s strategy68.

Being situational is the motto of >laboratory 309<. Being situational means for me obtaining a different point of view that the one I could have by standing in front of my laptop. It also means to think differently and adapt myself to the new situation.

situational 67 raumlaborberlin, Explorations in Urban Practice, 2017.

68 My strategy takes into account my personal Flow Maps, Flow Analysis and other materials. Together they provide a theoretical framework of my project, a strategy exactly.

The strategy defines goals and situations, resources, materials and plans. And then there is the tactic, which works under the strategy and provides more direct and practical outputs. Physical interventions, are, for instance, generated by the strategy, but with the tactics they reach an accomplishment.

Being situational also means creating the situations in order to understand better the urban environment. Inspired by the Situationist International, I want to use ‘urban tools’, such as the “psychogeography” and the “dérive”.

“Concepts such as psychogeography, dérive and détournement, became part of the common language of both critical and uncritical discourse, both within the academia and the mass media.”

Ford, The Situationist International, 152.

66

67

Flow Maps - The flow of workers is the most remarkable.

- Binckhorst is used day and night by those who are shiftworkers, from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. by the others with a more regular working-time. During the weekend, the district loses its main users.

- The whole district is configured for them.

- The flow of customers is another sizeable flow (car industry, DIY and industrial stores, shops and boat depots).

- The flow is intended to rise even more since in 2020 the new tunnel will bring much more people and cars.

- In Binckhorst walking distances are unsafe.

- The flow of people who lives in Binckhorst is various (houseboats, others live in some of the few housings that are located here and there around Binckhorst, KPN complex, the Junoblox and the Binck Einland).

- The average price for a dwelling in Binckhorst is becoming prohibitively expensive and it will hardly be affordable for a middleclass worker.

Userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s activities in the district.

68

DĂŠrive

DĂŠrive developed on the boundary of Binckhorst. I have tried to follow the edges in order to make a perfect ring but I got stopped many times due to fences and barriers all over the district.

Reliable map that I have made during my research. It has been used as a base for each layer of analysis.

(On the other page).

69

70

Layer 7

Conclusion.

74

75 Every layer is a different observation. It has been a research sui generis, however, due to the complexity of the context, several argumentations and historical facts often turned to be one the consequence of the others, as in the case of the car industry and its direct connection with the political sphere. Just like in the case of the I’M BINCK platform and its new link with investors and entrepreneurs.

I have taken into consideration many aspects and values, both negative and positive, but indeed fundamental for a clear analysis of Binckhorst.

Every layer ends with one or multiple questions that want to be stepping stone for my project, and food for thought for you, who are reading this text. They wish to provide room for imagination and being the space for discussion.

In today’s urban context, the role and the interaction between art, architecture and design is frequently argued due to its different levels of operation within the public realm. The grammar used by the artists, architects and designers is different, and more often hardly understandable even between each other. It seems that, ‘artistic’ projects, such as the documentary by Wilma Marijnissen and Marsel Loermans, as well as the STADSFABRIEK by Melle Smets use a specific grammar, that is easily comprehensible, but that do not reach further development or implication.

On the contrary architects and designers that influence the most the urban grammar, seem not be fully aware of the importance and the effects that this grammar has on the current and future users. The Rotterdamsebaan, the Binck Eiland, the new plan for the Trekvlietzone and Frank is a Binck tower, based on my analysis, speak another language that the one spoken in Binckhorst.

They use another grammar that comes from far away, from places that have been, and still are, arenas of consumption and that are now taking over spaces and consequently changing the social

morphology. While the physical reorganisation, through buildings, infrastructures and services, appears fully performed, the evaluation of current values and knowledge still stands into a twilight zone. The conflict of grammars that comes into being highlights the necessity of alternatives, both on the strategical and tactical field. >laboratory 309< seeks to generate an inclusive environment that works on a sensitive and intimate scale. Stick to my manifesto, as a mediator, I will work on the boundaries of both grammars. On the one hand, my keen eyes will try to capture the grammar of the past, with its urban dynamics and practices; on the other hand, conscious of the future programme of the area, my actions will create alternative scenarios and visions of Binckhorst. From now on, many other layers are going to be written there. But words will only serve to interact and share ideas, to analyse the scratches on the street level, to understand how old and new grammar, contents and meanings can coexist, and to focus on the public space, which is more than any other spaces, the sole fundamental to generate a vibrant and inclusive society.

76

Atlas of images.

View on the railway from the roof of BINK36.

77

78

79

Aerial views The Hague city centre

The Hague Central Station

BINK36

Jero Papier

Caballero Fabriek De Besturing

KPN complex

Ex ICC headquarter (International Criminal Court)

80

81 Construction site of the Rotterdamsebaan in Binckhorstlaan.

Source: Google Photo by Jurrian Brobbel.

82

Water front View on the Trekvliet side of Jupiterkade from Noordpolderbuurt.

83

84

85 View of the Glaswerk restaurant, winebar. One of the entertainment facility of the new Trekvliet redevelopment.

Fokkerkade 14, 2516 CC The Hague

Movable bridge in Binckhorstlaan, in the background the new KPN complex.

86

87

Street elements Ground view of Binckhorstlaan.

Street signs for pedestrian.

Construction site in Mercuriusweg.

88

89

Construction site of the Rotterdamsebaan.

Street barrier.

Temporary construction site in Maanweg.

Construction site in Mercuriusweg.

90

Materials Ground texture.

91

92

Fences and barriers.

93

94 Abandoned area in between Mercuriusweg and Polluxstraat.

View of the Binckhaven.

95

Unusual urban arrangements

Bench in Wegastraat.

Acknowledgments.

Writing this thesis has been a travel for me.

As in other travels many are the people that I had connections with, talked and had fun.

Some of them have been more relevant for its development others less.

Never mind, I want to thank indistinctly all of them, for the support and help that I have received, hoping not to forget anyone.

A special thanks to: Anne Hoogewoning and Gerjan Streng Jan Korbes Hans Venhuizen and Lotte van den Berg My family Lucia Fiorani Jack Bardwell No purpose family Inside Sabrina Lindemann Wilma Marijnissen Sandro Bruti De Besturing.

Thank you All.

Š Daniele Valentino March 2019

Printed at: KABK Den Haag Font: Chaparral Pro Sporting Grotesque Druk Wide Paper: Cyclus Offset