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INSIDE Travel # 1 , SPRING 2012

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To protect yourself and also open up. So travelling is something that invokes that feeling.â&#x20AC;?

LEBBEUS WOODS INSIDE Magazine

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INSIDE TRAVEL is the first issue of a series of magazines from INSIDE, the Master programme in Interior Architecture at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. This internationally orientated course is a meeting place where students, designers, theoreticians, architects and critics participate in broadening and deepening the content of interior architecture and public space design and contribute to solving social issues that really count.Â INSIDE is a two-year programme, taught in English, which targets the real world. A world that is changing. Large-scale interiors, the relation between private and public space, sustainability, a greater demand for social cohesion and simultaneous processes of growth and decay are themes that call for a new perspective on interior architecture. The content of INSIDE concentrates on issues that face designers, clients, residents or users of interior architecture. INSIDE Magazine

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Through observing, research, conceptualization and spatial design, sustainable, humane solutions for real world problems are developed and presented. INSIDE aims to penetrate the interior of interior architecture and extending that to the range of public spaces that surround us. In an ever-growing awareness of a world in which multiple and contradictory visions are present, we will challenge and see the world from inside-out and become INSIDE architects. The INSIDE programme consists of five parts. The heart features three studios — Inter, Urban and Space — that make up almost half of the total study load. In Studio Space this year Anne Holtrop took the unpredictable, chance and intuition as starting points and ended with the design of a house for the French writer Georges Perec that was scattered all over town.

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Studio Urban by ZUS focuses on public space that becomes more and more private, large-scale and interior. What forces propel this development and what is the role of the designer within these dynamics? Alongside these studios, students participate in a longer research trajectory entitled INSIDE Flows, headed by Jan Jongert. This year the research looks at flows of food and money in the contemporary urban landscape and interior architecture. In addition, the course includes a theoretical foundation provided by Louise Schouwenberg, which trains students to reflect on their position within the field of interior architecture, and a skills programme taught by various guest teachers that offers students hands-on experience through intensive technical workshops. Finally, the Travel programme by Hans Venhuizen allows students to observe and reflect on the discipline, cultural phenomena and social themes.

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“…A strategy that I developed was the strategy of strangeness. That’s a feeling you’ve got when you travel. It’s a very exciting feeling. If you go to a new place, which is very different from the places you’ve been before, and it feels very strange. Suddenly you have a feeling of fear, because you don’t know how to get around, you don’t speak the language, you don’t know the customs.... At the same time you have this tremendous feeling of liberation. This is paradoxical: shrinking back, yet expanding outwards. A kind of fundamental ambiguity. To be free and yet afraid. To protect yourself and also open up. So travelling is something that invokes that feeling.”

From an interview with LEBBEUS WOODS by Jan Jongert (1994)

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INTERVIEW WITH KYONG PARK Interviewed by Kyong Kim Transcribed by Kyong Kim & Minsun Kim

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I n terview K y ong Park Artist and architect Kyong Park is the renowned founder of the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. Since he left New York for Detroit, where he founded International Center for Urban Ecology, he has been involved in a wide range of urban research projects in rapidly transforming cities across Europe and Asia. One evening in The Hague, and of course one morning for him in California, we talked via Skype about his nomadic practice.

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KK: I would like to begin with a question about Storefront. It became an important platform for innovative and experimental work in the field of art and architecture throughout the 80s and 90s, but you left it in 1998. What triggered you to leave Storefront and why did you choose Detroit as your next destination? KP: I started Storefront of Art and Architecture in 1982 for no particular reason in terms of an artistic or organizational or cultural agenda. I had no particular goal or projection in mind. It began quite naturally in a period when independent art movements were on the rise in New York. Because of a downturn in the city there were a lot of empty spaces that artist groups could rent very cheaply. People formed small communities and started initiatives in the area of cultural production. And having a kind of cultural space for production was a good way to begin a community. I became associated with a number of young artists and architects at that time and we wanted to have fun in a space where we all could present our works and exchange ideas. The Storefront achieved a couple of important things. First, our programme was incredibly international. Every year more than half of the participants were international architects and artists, which was pretty unusual at that time in New York. It was still very provincial, mostly dealing with the city itself and not even all that engaged with the rest of the US. And second, the Storefront was one of the first spaces to promote the interdisciplinary relationship between art and architecture. I directed the Storefront until 1998. And for more than 10 years, I co-directed with artist Shirin Nesaht. I need to mention that because she was in the half of the Storefront along with me. In later years I realized that the city was changing. It was being commodified and becoming more conservative, more

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Nomadic Practice fixed in its structure of operation. You can call it a part of globalization or whatever. The economic agenda of New York changed, particularly through the presence of very strong mayors like Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomburg. They saw culture as an important asset to create a better image of the city. I thought that New York became more predictable and less experimental. ‘Culture’ became a commodity of economic strategy. Also, three exhibitions at the Storefront influenced my decision to leave New York for Detroit. One was a photography exhibition entitled ‘Basilico: Beirut’ by Gabriele Basilico. He was invited to photograph the downtown of Beirut after the civil war. The documents by Basilico startled me and made me think of the death of a city. The second exhibition to influence my decision was ‘War Architecture-Sarajebo: A Wounded City with Architecture Association in Sarajevo’. During the siege of Sarajevo, between 1992 and 1994, architects documented the buildings that were being destroyed by Bosnian Serbs. The destruction clearly showed that the Bosnian Serbs intended to destroy historical and cultural heritage in Sarajevo, to

destroy Sarajevo’s multicultural and multi-confessional history. The last exhibition was ‘The New American Ghetto’ by Camilo Josú Vergara, who is originally a sociologist and self-trained photojournalist. For 25 years, he photographed places in American cities that were suffering heavy decay. He created an incredible time-based histogram of urban transformation. This was particularly interesting for me because it was not a war that caused the death of a city. It was brought on by the society itself. Detroit represented this subject very well and I saw many opportunities there. It became less challenging to work in New York, producing cultural events and productions with artists and architects who are welleducated, for what we could call a ‘converted audience’, meaning that they already believed or understood the importance of art and architecture. For me, relocating to a city like Detroit was a real opportunity to test whether art and architecture have economic and social values other than as a cultural commodity. That’s the reason I left New York and the Storefront and went to Detroit. So I used a half of one hour. (Laughs)

‘CULTURE ’ B E C A M E A COM M O D I T Y OF ECO N O M I C STRA T E G Y .

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I n terview K y ong Park KK: One of your first projects, as far as I know, in Detroit was the Fugitive House. You travelled to 11 cities with an abandoned house from Detroit. What were your findings from this journey with a house from the specific context of Detroit? And how did you choose the cities you travelled to?

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KP: The Fugitive House is a subtitle. The real title is actually 24620, which is the original address of the house without a street name. I lived in the largest physical so-called ‘urban ghetto’. It measured three by three kilometres, pretty much like a square. Two of its sides were bordered by freeways. The third side was the Detroit River and the fourth was the Grand Boulevard, which used to be the edge of Detroit a long time ago. In the US, highways and railways typically cut up the cities into pieces. They isolate and separate different communities that have distinctive economic, political and racial identities. I guess that in my neighbourhood from 1998 to 2001, only 20% of the original buildings were left; half of them were either empty or burned by fire. That’s how houses were demolished in Detroit. You burned them. Detroit has a tradition called Devil’s Night, which is the night before Halloween, where people burn houses all over the city. 1998 was the highest number. More than 800 buildings and houses were set on fire in Detroit. Tourists used to come to the city to witness these fires. In fact, a lot of suburban people only came to the city once a year to see this. So there were a lot of empty houses in Detroit. Detroit is a very interesting place because architecture is not just a structure that has form and space but seems to have a kind of metaphysics of ‘b-e-i-n-g’ as well. The houses are people themselves, and every time you see them they seem to talk to you. Because the houses here, more than in any other place, show a visually and physically shorter history, a history of decay and damage and hopelessness basically. Almost like the people living in Detroit. You feel emotionally moved by these houses, as if you met somebody who has been hurt, shot, knifed or has died. So you want to reach out and help them. I was looking for a house that was empty. I originally proposed moving an empty house from Detroit to the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2000. My proposal was to put it on a floating barge and move it through the canals of Venice. It didn’t work out, but I kept the idea and worked with the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture, headed by dean Steve Vogel. He took me in as a chair of urban planning, even though there was no urban planning department. This allowed me to do my independent project, and I did a couple of other projects with the university. One of them was the Fugitive House.

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Nomadic Practice I worked with a studio with 12 students and professor Dan Pitera. We spent a whole semester figuring out how to cut up this house into small panels so that it could be moved. Then the house was invited by an exhibition called Archilab 2001 in Orléans, France, directed by Frederic Migayrou. So the house was transported from Detroit to Montreal, Canada, and from there shipped to France. Then trucked to Orléans, France. Because my students from Detroit Mercy were the ones who broke it down into pieces, they went there to put the house back together. And subsequently, it moved to different locations in Europe until 2008. A funny part is that the house was split into two pieces because it was invited to two different places at the same time. One place was Stroom, in The Hague, and the other was a giant show called Art and Economy, in Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, Germany. So I sent the back half to Hamburg and the front half to The Hague. The front half officially died in London, 2007. I still

have the back, and I brought it to where I now live and work in California. I am going to do a project with it some time soon. I want to take the house into the process of decomposition. I’ll take the house apart completely, into individual pieces, and reconstruct it into a new thing. Maybe something like Jungja, a traditional form of outside pavilion in Korea. I like to explain it like this: She, the house, wanted to leave Detroit like people left Detroit. She wished to find a new home, which is why she went to Europe. She was invited to many different places, but they just looked at her as an exotic wild animal from Africa. She never found her home and lost half of her body. This is when she realized that the only way to survive was to kill herself. She had to be another thing for society to accept her. She reincarnated into something else. She, the Fugitive House, will basically become a nomadic house because it’ll be designed in a way that it can still move around, which she liked from her past life.

THE N O M A D I C PRACTI C E G I V E S ME A K I N D O F COMPARA T I V E V I E W AND ULT I M A T E L Y COMPA R A T I V E ADVANT A G E S O F LOCALIS M W I T H I N THE WO R L D O F GEN E R I C GLOBAL I Z A T I O N .

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I n terview K y ong Park KK: Let’s talk now about the New Silk Road project, an urban study into rapidly transforming Asian cities. You briefly introduced the project at the INSIDE symposium held in September, 2011, and I thought it’s very ambitious to plan a study on such a wide range of cities in Asia, from Dubai, Samarkand and New Delhi to Tokyo. I want to know what you expected to see or hoped to find through the project, and what you actually found during the journey.

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KP: The New Silk Road project is a funny story. I applied for a teaching position at University of California, San Diego, where I am now. The job description fitted everything that I do, but the only problem was that I had not actually worked on anything about Asia since the Gwagnju Biennale in 1997. Most of my work was on American cities like Detroit, and on European cities. So I kind of made up a project called New Silk Road. I made a conceptual programme and presented it at my job interview, which was a lecture to students and faculties, as if I had started the project a year ago. The school really loved the project. That gave me more energy for actually doing it. Universities typically give you starting money and research budgets when you get a position. I took the money to start the project and that’s how I went to 18 different cities over a year period, between 2007 and 2008. It obviously has some reference to the old Silk Road, but my project does not have any direct relationship to it. I didn’t go to all the old cities on the Silk Road, trying to find what’s there now. Rather, I wanted to know if there was a new kind of Silk Road beginning to develop within Asia today. I thought this was probable because of the shifting in the global economy from West to East. In post-colonial Asia, a lot of economic development and so-called political upgrading has made relationships within Asia more and more important. I don’t want to set up a preconceived, predictable agenda. So when I am investigating in the field I try not to know too much about where I go beforehand. It’s to prevent myself from reading the city according to what I have predetermined. It’s kind of a Situationist mode. I travelled through all the cities on a Brompton, the smallest foldable bicycle. When I arrive in a city, I first check into the hotel, unpack the bike and cycle to wherever I feel like going. The New Silk Road project is not finished yet. I’m still investigating and trying to understand the deeper meaning of what I experienced and captured during my expeditions. To put it simply, my nomadic practice is this: you cannot understand one city without knowing other cities, without seeing other cities. You cannot understand your own culture without seeing other cultures. So the nomadic practice gives me a kind of comparative view and ultimately

Nomadic Practice comparative advantages of localism within the world of generic globalization. That’s what my investigation and project are about.

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KK: I think while your previous work was more about research and materializing research in gallery spaces, the Anyang Public Art Project (APAP) you directed in Korea in 2010 was more of a physical practice and intervention in existing urban fabric. I think there are certain limits and possibilities for a stranger stepping into alien urban conditions, and you were a half-stranger there. How did you come up with the idea of intervening in existing communities there? And how did being a half-stranger help or obstruct the project? KP: The basic concept of APAP was required by the commissioning organization, the city government of Anyang. The title that year was ‘New Community in Open City’. During my first visit to Anyang they took me to Anyang 7 dong. It was pretty much located in the centre of Anyang by being on an edge of old Anyang and new Anyang. There was a redevelopment project to destroy every building of 14,000 people in the community, except one apartment complex. I was shocked by this, but then they told me that it was just one of 31 redevelopment schemes in Anyang that would affect 164,000 people living within these redeveloping districts. That’s a quarter of the whole population of Anyang. Then I realized that Anyang was not the only city, and most of major cities in Korea had plans like this. What disturbed me was that they destroy the entire area almost like a war can do, in a developed country like Korea with a thriving economy. With that in mind, I thought we need to think about new forms of community and city. Koreans are very nostalgic about Dongne and Maul, a form of town and community in the traditional sense. But in reality these places don’t exist anymore. Some 95% of all the buildings in Korea last less than 40 years. Houses and buildings can be demolished after only 15 years for redevelopment. Everything is basically subject to an economic agenda. So the desire of wanting to return or recreate Maul and Dongne is completely impossible. We need to stop thinking nostalgically about old structures and have to think about building a new community that relates to our new conditions. That’s how the idea for New Community came about. In Korea, the government, the housing construction companies, and the citizens share the agenda on economic gains. But other than that, they share very little, which is proved by the current housing crisis. To create a better city we need to work together, with much more transparency and much more INSIDE Magazine

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responsibility. This can only develop from an idea of open city, because there has to be exchanges and clear negotiations. We wanted to open discourses between different sectors, especially within the community. The key to the project was not only to help the community understand its environment, but also to learn from them -- what their issues are and what dreams they may have. We tried to create a culture of self-engagement, to change the structure of real estate development in Korea. As an outsider or a half outsider, which is actually a tremendous advantage, I can see things they can’t see. Because none of us really look at the cities we live in. Did you go out and take pictures in Seoul? But when people travel to Paris and New York, they take thousands of pictures of buildings, shops, parks and all. In our own city, we’re blind. We walk around the city with our eyes closed, thinking we know the city so well. Because I also understand Korean culture to some extent, I am more attuned than a 100% foreigner who may not understand certain readings — local culture and space. This makes me perfect for understanding Korean cities. The nomadic practice keeps me away from any purely nostalgic and unrealistic localism. It also enables me to compare Korean cities with other cities and cultures to really evaluate differences, similarities and historigraphs, by which I mean not the history but current images of the history. KK: Today an increasing number of artists and architects deal with projects about communities and building relationships, but many of them last only temporarily for the time-span of an exhibition or festival. How did you consider this temporality of the festival in your project? KP: A project of course has a schedule. My service is to the city, and this project had a beginning and an end. Because it’s a city project, if you’re not officially under contract you cannot really act on it. And what we tried to do was to build a system of culture in which people could carry out what we did. What we did actually came from the community, because we engaged them and tailored our programme according to their needs, concerns and possibilities. I think we did that part very well. Around 5,000 to 6,000 people were directly involved in the project. They were from every generation, from seniors to school kids, and engaged with different programmes and projects by different artists embedded in different neighbourhoods. I told the city government that the project was to develop better relationships between them and their citizens. For example, the Museum of Complaints by the Community Museum Project was a community

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Nomadic Practice museum about registering complaints the people. The new administration from people. They visualized and orasked me to cut the budget in the ganized the complaints in a way that middle of the project. As a result, could be more effective. That’s a betthe projects for the summer were ter system than the system they have cut down. These were educational now in which the city government is programmes and events, performopen to receive complaints by letters, ances, theatres and concerts. The phone calls, or web entries. It’s about goal of these programmes was to integrating complaints and seeing the make people understand what we did overall picture. I told them they can with other communities and encourtake this idea to the whole city. age the people we had worked with Now it’s up to the government to talk with others. We built a space to realize the in Hakun Park advantage of to bring everywhat we did. body involved The reason it together, in ordidn’t work der for people out was, I to gradually think, politiunderstand cal sickness. the larger The party of project. Also, the mayor they could use at that time, those spaces Hanaradang for their own (A conservative projects over political party the years. in Korea), lost They could Citizens of Anyang (Korea) at the OPEN HOUSE the election to make proposproject by raumlaborkorea Minjudang (A als themselves, photographer raumlaborberlin liberal party) for instance, and a new and get supmayor took office. The significant port or funding. We also planned members of the council changed. And to teach them how to fund their a large, important part of the agenda own projects. But everything was was against APAP. They wanted to shut down by the political decision, shut us down. The irony is that what although APAP 2010 was really about we were doing was in principle much building a civil society. closer to Minjudang. But now they’re Despite the fact the project only interested in their parties, not didn’t continue, I believe it still exists INSIDE Magazine

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OPEN HOUSE is a project by raumlaborkorea Commissioned by APAP 2010 Matthias Rick with Jia Gu, Florian Stirnemann, Marius Busch and Benjamin Frick in collaboration with Collective Terrain, Mr. Lee and the citizens of Anyang raumlaborkorea is an intervention and research unit of raumlaborberlin photographer APAP 2010

Nomadic Practice among the people who experienced it. I also think it will make an impact over a longer period, indirectly. APAP 2010 was about how citizens can take the position to determine future development of the city. It’s part of new kind of development occurring in Korea. One project with a beginning and end cannot be the solution for the entire problem. A project like this ends and another project may begin somewhere in the future. This kind of project contributes to the changes that the Korean society needs.

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KK: What cities attract you most now? Or which city is your next destination? KP: At this point, I don’t know. It’s better to keep in all a mystery, isn’t it? Just like you don’t know where the next global crisis will come from. You may have little bit of an idea about where it might be or could be. But I like to keep it to myself. To be nomadic, you’re willing to go anywhere that matters, to be interested, involved, and active. So I’m open to what the world tells me rather than what I think about the world.

Map of Open House, Anyang Public Art Project (APAP) a project by raumlaborkorea Korea (2010)

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At INSIDE the basis of every design lies in observing, researching and analysing a situation. The best attitude for doing that is exactly how Lebbeus Woods describes travelling in his interview with Jan Jongert: to experience a tremendous sense of liberation and, at the same time, to be very aware of all the dangers and limitations that surround you. At INSIDE we aim to foster this state of mind through experiencing the real world in the Travel Programme. We are tempted to think that we know places once we have seen appealing presentations in publications or on the internet. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s until we really go there. Only by travelling somewhere you can see and feel the real spaces, smell the real odours, and meet the real people. And there is a lot to see and feel everywhere. Newly designed spaces that you only know from renderings in magazines, and places that are on the brink of change. Famous monuments and meaningful places you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know yet. Well designed as well as poorly designed spaces. Special and ordinary ones. And spaces that make you reflect on social issues, history, politics tand economic situations, or that are simply fascinating in their own right.

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We have devoted this first issue phenomena. A selection of those of INSIDE to the experience of travel are presented in this first INSIDE through interviews with artist Kyong magazine. However, with the deciPark and designer Jan Konings. sion to study at INSIDE, the travel They tell us how important travelexperience for this class started long ling is for their work. Because of the before they arrived in The Hague. importance of travelling, INSIDE has Using the different personal experimade it a significant ences of the students, part of the course. The we created the story of Travel Programme is fictional student called run by Hans Venhuizen, ‘Y’. A curious student ONLY BY T R A V E L- who asks questions who takes the students to cities, squares, polall the time. Y. tells us LING SOME W H E R E ders, industrial ruins, about her reasons for architectural highlights, YOU CAN S E E A N D studying at INSIDE and museums and lots of her experience there. other fascinating places. Meanwhile, Y. introFEEL THE R E A L Students gather impresduces us to the different SPACES, S M E L L sions, and from that phenomena the INSIDE they allow particular gathered on THE REAL O D O U R S , students to emerge. Phenomena their travels. are more than mere AND MEET T H E descriptions of a situaY. came to The REAL PEO P L E . tion. A phenomenon can Hague not only to study be anything that reveals design for the real world the ‘truth’ of a situation, but also to satisfy her or at least your personal curiosity about the royal truth about the entire situation, character of the city and the school. or just a small but essential detail. She wondered how these two coPhenomena are a tool to frame a existed in this city. situation and accompany you during the process of designing a spatial change. The first INSIDE class used their observations, astonishment and fascinations to frame their personal

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My name is Y. Last year I finished my bachelor studies in Interior Architecture in my home country. During my studies all my teachers expressed a strong connection with contemporary western architecture and talked about that a lot. I noticed that many of the offices they discussed were from the Netherlands. I learned many things about the fascinating work of Rem Koolhaas, MVRDV and Ben van Berkel. Once I attended a lecture about a proposal that MVRDV made for a large-scale urban reconstruction scheme in Taiwan. Instead of wiping out the existing urban structure of small buildings and narrow streets and replacing it by well designed high-rise development set in a park landscape, they made use of the existing structures and were able to transform the original energy of the place into a new design. I had never seen that before. I was used to tabula rasa plans no matter what the situation was. In fact, every city map you can buy in my city shows new roads and developments already projected onto the existing urban landscape. When I learned that Gerrit Rietveld, one of the founding fathers of modernism, came from the Netherlands, I decided to do my master studies there.

by Y The Hague 2012

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In selecting the place to apply for my master studies, I was attracted by the approach at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. During my bachelor studies I always felt limited in the design of interior spaces. I was sure that there was more to interior design than the interior of buildings. Subsequently, I recognized my own ambitions in the aim of this master study: to ‘design for the real world’. I also recognized some of the teachers from recent publications. The ZUS office had already impressed me when they gave a lecture and a workshop at my

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school in my final bachelor year. The work the INSIDE workplace was not completely of 2012Architecten appealed to me in its ready yet. It was the very first semester creativity and understanding of how to work of INSIDE, and we the students were also with existing materials and not think of these expected to create the interior of our own ideal designs that can exist in the computer workspace. We had to more or less conquer only. I applied and was happy to be able our own space. That took a bit more effort to introduce myself through Skype. Other than I’d expected but it also made me much schools request that you show up in person more aware of the space I was working in. for your application, but for me that was not And it made clear straight away that the possible. Last June I got the good news that education here was quite different to what I was accepted, so in August I packed my I was used to. In my country education suitcase and went to the Netherlands. basically equals instruction. Teachers told I had never heard me what I had to do. At of The Hague before, but 1 INSIDE, much more iniWikipedia told me that tiative was expected from the city is home not only me. It felt as though the to the Dutch government teachers were asking more but also the Queen of the questions instead of giving Netherlands. Also, the art answers and they expected school that facilitated my me to find my own position INSIDE studies is called in design and to act on the the Royal Academy of Art. basis of my own perspecSo with high, even royal tive on the real world. expectations I arrived at I didn’t know much Holland Spoor train station about the Netherlands but in The Hague for the first it turned out to be a countime. Leaving the station I try almost as complex and felt a great culture shock. vibrant as mine. Our first INSIDE working space The city wasn’t what I’d extravel programme event pected. I saw many different people from all took us to the city of The Hague and reinsorts of backgrounds and nationalities. The forced my initial culture shock. But not only Hague seemed to be full of people from all that, the artist Peter Zuiderwijk specialised corners of the globe. A few hundred metres in introducing us to the ‘flipside’ of the city, down the road I even saw this big traditional to the places you would never visit or even Chinese gate in the middle of the street. And find if you were a tourist. He proved to be a no sign of anything royal at all! So instead of master in revealing the qualities and culture meeting the queen I seemed to have arrived of this flipside. Kyong, for instance, my felin the real world. low student from South Korea, noticed this street furniture on a terrace in The Hague My first day at INSIDE was filled with that at first looked very inviting. But the thin lots of impressions. I was introduced to the cable wrapped around the furniture turned many workshops at the school. They were what looked like an inviting public space into very well organized, and I also learned that a closed and private one.2

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2 Most of the time, space is recognized and defined by visual experience. Sometimes, the boundary can be defined by a wall, a pane of glass, a row of columns, or even a line drawn on the ground. It relates to power, which is claimed and stated by the owner or user of the space. Shawn Chen, The Hague, Netherlands

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Kyong Kim, The Hague, Netherlands

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2 How much public? The proclaimed public space fears to become completely public.

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It wasn’t designed to look like that, but is newly built. Kyong from Korea took this it turned out that way because of how it was picture in Bruges. She was surprised by the used. The cable created an almost invisible effort that was put into saving this façade even border. ‘Most of the time, space is recognized though it appears to be in very poor condition.4 and defined by visual experience. Sometimes, Dutch student Nina explained that it is the boundary can be defined by a wall, a common to do it this way in the Low Counpane of glass, a row of columns, or even a tries, even if it is much more expensive than line drawn on the ground. It relates to power, building it new and you don’t see the differwhich is claimed and stated by the owner ence after the renovation. Real originality or user of the space.’ Shawn said. After this seems to be more important here than the day in The Hague we were mere appearance of it. On able to recognize invisible our travels we saw more borders between the posh 3 examples where new develand the working class peoopments try to harmonize ple in The Hague. Foteini, with existing structures my fellow student from and old buildings are Greece, noticed that a little preserved in a new consquare near some housing text. The most impressive blocks contained not only one was the Ruhr Area, some nicely shaped colwhich used to be the coal ourful children’s toys but mining and steel making also this fluorescent doll region of Germany. Now escaping though the fence, it is filled with basically obviously put there by the abandoned and rusty old residents. ‘Look at this doll. mines and steel mills. On It seems to be warning the our way to the Ruhr Area cars passing by about the we passed through Arnchildren playing. But there hem, a small city in the 3 aren’t any cars around, east of the Netherlands. This fluorescent plastic doll is placed to warn passing cars about children because this is a closed Ben van Berkel and his playing on a square that is completely space. But even so, the doll UNStudio are completing closed to traffic. Curiously, the doll is chained by the neck to the fence, either is chained by the neck to a new railway intersection as a warning or to prevent it from the fence, either as a warnthere. My Taiwanese fellow being stolen. ing or to prevent it from student Shawn had always Foteini Mermygka being stolen. Whatever the been impressed by the pubThe Hague, Netherlands reason, it’s crazy for this lications of UNStudio. Its site,’ Foteini said.3 masterpieces of fluid design Observing seems at first to be all about perfectly reflected what he wanted to do with being curious and critical about what you architecture, and he admired the way the ofsee. ‘Don’t trust the façades but always look fice succeeded in realizing it. But in Arnhem behind them,’ we were told. In China, when for the first time Shawn realized just what a you see a historical façade that looks well huge construction effort it takes to give these maintained, you can be almost sure that it buildings the appearance of fluidity.5

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5 Computer renderings make fluid architecture look very easy. Reality shows what a huge construction effort it takes to give buildings the appearance of fluidity. Shawn Chen Arnhem Train Station, UNStudio

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The Ruhr Area, a seemingly endless very charming in its incompatibility and consuccession of old factories and pipe structradiction. ‘The sensitive manner in which tures in a vast urban landscape, dazzled me. these facilities are detailed is delightful and it We visited three places that were completely demonstrates an approach to organizing recdifferent, even though they shared the same reational space that I have never seen before.’6 historical and industrial past. We started in As I walked back to the park entrance I Duisburg-Nord where an area of old steel ran into Minsun, a student from Korea. She mills has been turned into a public park. thought she was hallucinating as she looked Two of the four old steel mills were dismanat the space underneath a roof of big pipes tled and shipped to China to be used in steel and couldn’t grasp whether this was an production there. The inside or an outside space. other two were left to rust ‘There is no real roof. The and now dominate this fan4 rain is leaking through tastic industrial landscape and the walls are missthat was once completely ing. There are no tangible closed to public. The borders that usually define reshaping of this desolate inside space, but the space area into a public park did still feels spectacularly not follow the tabula rasa inside,’ Minsun told me.7 approach. These industrial Just to the north of complexes were simply too this industrial landscape solid for that. Demolishing park we visited the Marxthem would have required loh area. The neighboura huge financial investment hood is surrounded by in the area. Instead, the insteel mills that were still dustrial heritage served as partly in operation. The 4 a perfect backdrop to and area was heavily hit by The struggle of a European town facilitator for the new recunemployment. Many of to preserve or create its past image in the present. reational use of the largely the predominantly Turkish poor population of the inhabitants lost their jobs Kyong Kim Bruges - Belgium region. Big concrete walls in the mills and mines. Not became climbing walls. a very happy area to live in Saving an original façade can be A diving school houses until a shop selling bridal preferable to constructing it from scratch again, even if it is in very poor inside former gas tanks. clothes opened some years condition and restoration is the much And small contemplaago. For Turkish people more expensive option, and even if you couldn’t even tell the tion gardens now occupy marriage is the major event difference after renovation. former concrete storage in one’s life. People are containers. Dasha noticed prepared to travel thouNina van Hoogstraten that new pipes were added sands of miles to Istanbul to the industrial scenery to find the right clothing for in place so that children could slide through this event. The bridal shop ‘close by’ became them. She recognized it as the phenomenon a big hit, new shops followed, and now some of rethinking industrial space and found it 40 specialized bridal shops occupy the empty

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7 Even without the tangible borders that usually define interiors, this space feels spectacularly inside. Minsun Kim Landschaftspark, Duisburg-Nord, Germany

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spaces on the main street through Marxloh. nirs with it. For instance these black bathing The restaurants, bakeries, photographers ducks that call to mind the grime that miners and furniture shops that followed completed had to wash off every day. Now they even the success story of what had been a dead claim copyright on this double elevator tower street not so long ago. Although it did strike symbol that was developed for industrial use Minsun that the people on the street did look and is not unique to Zollverein. If you dare to all that happy themselves despite the happy use the symbol or pictures of the place, you bridal clothes.8 are certain to be sued.10 The last place in the Ruhr area we At the beginning of the January classes visited turned out to be the most famous we showed one another the travels we did one. The Zollverein coal during winter break. Once mine complex has been again it made us aware of 6 listed by UNESCO as a the cultural differences of World Heritage Site since our backgrounds. Kyong it ceased production. The showed an image of a Bauhaus-style architecture construction site in the dates from the 1920s and centre of Seoul. Because is still intact. With two muof the flow of income, enseums, a school, a theatre, trepreneurs cannot afford a conference centre and too much loss of income two restaurants, Zollverein and so they open shops has become the centre of as soon as possible, even an area that has shifted while construction is still from industry into culture in progress.11 and is proud of its achieveMinsun went to Isment. They succeeded tanbul during her winin completely transformter break and observed ing the area from one of Eminönü square. ‘You see, 6 abandoned structures into it’s a little theatre play in New pipes have been added to this abandoned industrial landscape a major tourist attraction itself. All the actors on this in a sensitive manner to facilitate and from a defunct factory square interrelate. The recreational use. complex into a commercial pigeons are there because Dasha Martynova icon. At the entrance to of the food, and the tourLandschaftspark, Duisburg-Nord, Germany the area I read that it was ists are there because it is forbidden to use the photos on their route. They only I took for anything other than private use. spend time there because of the pigeons that That’s why I took a picture of this cardthey want to feed. And the pigeon-food salesboard model of the place they sold in the men mediate between the two and organize shop instead.9 the space with their little booths. But on the Zollverein boasts a double version of the other hand they are also fighting the pigeon mine elevator towers that are typical of the poop that can harm their product, and they area. Zollverein took this double tower as a depend on the tourists to buy the food. The symbol and logo and produces lots of souvewhole scene would fall apart if the pigeons

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didn’t show up. So in a way that makes As the first semester progressed I them the owners of the place.’13 started to feel more and more at home in Magdalena from the Czech Republic The Hague. The initial culture shock receded took a picture in her home town of Usti and I started to appreciate the city and its nad Labem that she needed to explain to odd combination of posh and working class us first before we understood. The picture areas. Then someone snatched my laptop shows a building that was erected in a Brutalfrom my shoulder as I was searching for the ist style during the communist years. The keys to my house. I put up a struggle but lost. building was originally the headquarters Although I drew quite a precise picture of the of the regional communist party and was a face of the thief, the police showed me books showcase of their power during the 80s, as and books filled with known muggers and can be gauged by the huge relief of comcrooks who did not even remotely resemble munist symbols the man who took on the façade. 8 my laptop. That When they lost event changed power the Czech my perspective communists left on the city for a and two things while. On streets happened to the that had seemed building. First, it so familiar to was placed on the me I suddenly list of monuments thought I recogto be preserved. nized potential Second, the new crooks from the government formug-shot books bade the display I had looked of communist through. For a symbols. So this while I felt lost, 8 big symbol on the just as I imagine This partly abandoned main street in a working class area reinvented itself as a bridal fashion retail street and with that façade could neiNina felt must redefined itself as the happiest street in Europe. But does ther be removed have felt during selling happiness make people happy? nor shown. the blind painting Minsun Kim Instead, it was workshop we had. Marxloh, Ruhr Area, Germany covered with a That feellarge beer advering of being lost tisement. But when the wind blows across lasted until my fellow students took me to a the square, and that often happens because cake baking competition at Villa Kabila two many houses on the square were cleared weeks later to make me feel at home to give the building a space that matched again in the city. its importance, the canvas is pressed onto One of the travels brought us to a large the relief and for a short moment the comnew area of land in the heart of the Nethermunist symbol is visible through the beer lands. The Dutch are famous for reclaiming advertisement.12 land from the sea. Here I finally understood INSIDE Magazine

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9 / 10 The former Zollverein coalmine took the typical double mine elevator tower as its symbol in the production of souvenirs like these black bathing ducks that call to mind the grime that miners had to wash off every day.

11 The flow of capital means there is no time and space to waste. Sales start as soon as possible, even when construction seems to have just commenced. Kyong Kim Seoul, South Korea

12 This Brutalist building features a huge communist symbol on the faรงade that must remain concealed, yet it cannot be demolished because the building is protected as cultural heritage. When the wind blows onto the big beer advertisement, the relief and hence the communist symbols become visible again for a brief moment.

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Nina van Hoogstraten Zollverein, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Ruhr Area, Germany

Magdalena Curdova Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic

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the image of a trimmed tree that Magdalena had shown me when I was a few days in this country.14 This tree was being clipped and forced into a grid composition of branches and was an example of the way the Dutch treat nature. This nature is there to be controlled and shaped into a form that is most appropriate. ‘This trimmed tree prepares the Dutch citizens for the wide and flat landscape, where the trees that line the canals and roads are all at the same height and arranged in strict rows, equally reflecting the rules of mathematical order,’ Magdalena explained to me. The travels we undertook helped me discover many places that clarified things yet also puzzled me at the same time concerning the fine line that separates inside and outside. Interesting things happen along this slippery border. And I did finally meet the queen. I stood Y finally met the queen along the route she passed on the large screen during her annual parade The Hague, Netherlands through The Hague. Sadly, I only saw the backs of the many people waving at her in front of me. So I had to satisfy myself with the large big screen that broadcast her whole journey live, turning the entire street into one big living room, as Nina observed. Next year I will do what I saw other people doing and bring a little ladder with me.15

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Blind Painting Workshop by John Lonsdale Nina van Hoogstraten photographed by Dasha Martynova The Hague, Netherlands

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14 Trimmed Tree - Trimmed Landscape. This manipulated tree prepares the Dutch for their largescale manipulated landscapes and also reflects the rules of mathematical order.

13 All the actors on this square interrelate. The pigeons come for the food, the tourists come to feed the pigeons, and the salesmen come to sell the pigeon food to the tourists and prevent the pigeon poop from harming their products. The pigeons are in charge of the place, since the whole scene falls apart if they don’t show up.

Magdalena Curdova The Hague, Netherlands

Minsun Kim Eminönü Square, Istanbul, Turkey

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Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s until we really go there.

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INTERVIEW WITH JAN KONINGS by Nina van Hoogstraten & Kyong Kim

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Kyong Kim and Nina van Hoogstraten interviewed Jan Konings, an industrial designer primarily working on public space and one of the founders of INSIDE. We met him at a noisy Hotel New York in Rotterdam during the school holidays and talked about his work, his motivation to start INSIDE, and his travels. NH: You graduated as a product designer from the Design Academy in Eindhoven in 1990. How come an industrial designer is working in the field of public space? JK: Immediately after graduating, I began working with Jurgen Bey. We started making things ourselves, like furniture. Besides that, we did projects in public space and made combinations of those two. I honestly do not have a lot of ideas about furniture, so I stopped making it. But I’ve lots of ideas about public space. Which, until this day, I am actively involved with. I work alone and do not have an office space. Also, depending on the situation, I collaborate with others. I like to work with different people and keep my practice flexible. NH: Do you work with designers or architects? JK: I work with all sorts of people, from different professions and backgrounds. Depending on the project, whether it is an urban plan, television programme or piece of furniture, you need different sets of skills. I always like to collaborate; it makes things better. INSIDE Magazine

KK: I saw your interview on YouTube for INSIDE, in which you introduced your perspective on space. You mentioned that you approach space from an industrial design point of view. Could you tell us how it differs from the perspective of an architect? JK: This has to do with the name ‘INSIDE’. I think an industrial designer starts from the inside. Instead of looking at the entire world at once, we begin at a much smaller scale. For me, this process always starts with one person, with what he or she is doing, and what he or she could do. This issue of perspective is exactly what I want to bring to the INSIDE master in interior architecture. To teach students to take the view of one person and to analyze how this person uses the space, the city or products. The interaction between somebody and the object, between somebody and the space, and between somebody and the city or the landscape is really important. Another interesting aspect of an industrial design point of view is the idea of making prototypes,

Interview Jan Konings which the rooms and facilities are scattered throughout the Transvaal district in The Hague. What was your first impression of the area and how did you come up with the idea of creating a hotel? JK: My work is a combination of situations. On the one hand there are the proposals made by others; on the other hand I initiate projects myself and experiment with ideas I generate on my own. When I am asked to do a project, I try to combine it with one of the subjects I am tackling myself. For Hotel Transvaal, IÂ was invited by an art organization, which was located in the neighbourhood of Transvaal. During this period the neighbourhood underwent a huge transformation; 2000 dwellings had to be demolished, and 1600 had to be rebuilt. Because of this there were a lot of empty houses. The office of the art organization was in one of these old houses. They asked several designers, architects and artists to do something with the space. Initially

THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SOMEBODY AND THE OBJECT, BETWEEN SOMEBODY AND THE SPACE, AND BETWEEN SOMEBODY AND THE CITY OR THE LANDSCAPE IS REALLY IMPORTANT.

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of testing ideas or models. An industrial designer is never finished with the first prototype. We have to see how the objects we create perform in the real world. Do people like it? What do they do with it? Sometimes people use things in different, unexpected ways. That is also the interesting part of it. In industrial design you include everything you see during these experiments. Architects have to make a building or create something that has to function in a certain way. If it does not fulfil these expectations and function as expected, it feels like a failure. But for me this is just the first step. That is why I think in interior architecture, we should test our designs in the real world. You build something to see the reaction of the users, so you can include this in your design. You can repeat the experiment, or other people can, and we should share the knowledge gained. KK: One of your projects that comes across in that sense is Hotel Transvaal. You created a hotel in

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Inside Matters they wanted me to work with the façade of the office. But, before I tell you what I eventually did, I should explain a little more about my circumstances at the time. Just before I started working on Hotel Transvaal, I was asked by Motel Mozaique, a Rotterdam-based art and music festival, to make a place where people could sleep during the festival. I created a hotel that existed only for four days. I wanted to make a place where not just the visitors to the pop festival could sleep. I wanted a place that could be shared by many people who were either visiting the city or trying to settle there. That’s why it was called ‘Het Gemeente Hotel’ (The City Hotel), since it was accessible to all kind of people. Some beds were cheap or free, while others were very expensive. To realize this, we asked different organizations to participate. For the expensive beds we got the Hilton Hotel, for example, and we rebuilt their rooms in our space, including the pictures on the wall. For the cheap beds, we worked together with organizations for refugees and homeless people. It was a very tense public space, with people who do not normally sleep together. The hotel brought together all kinds of places from around the city in one central place. What I did for the Transvaal project was actually the opposite of ‘Het Gemeente Hotel’. Transvaal is a neighbourhood with a lot of empty spaces. Spaces that are not used for months or even years. I wanted to put them to use again, which is not only good for the residential quality of the neighbourhood, but also helps to sustain the social economy. Hotel rooms, with people coming and going, would bring life back to the abandoned houses and empty streets. This way, the city continues. All the things you would need for a hotel were already available in the neighbourhood. We made the existing shops and restaurants part of the hotel. In the end, the whole neighbourhood became a hotel, with the streets as its corridors. We asked artists and designers to create the interiors of the rooms. The rooms were all temporary, so they had to be designed in such a way that you can easily move them to another place. NH: Who were the guests staying at this Hotel? JK: The idea was to have totally different guests, like in ‘Het Gemeente Hotel’. There were illegal people living in this neighbourhood. These people paid too much rent, while there were many empty houses. On the other hand, tourists are also interested in places like this where you can connect with the city life. Most of our guests, though, were people from outside the district, who spent one night in the hotel.

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One person hotelroom at the mobile Hotel Experimenta

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Map of hotel servicesÂ Hotel Transvaal The Hague INSIDE Magazine

Interview Jan Konings KK: How did the existing community in Transvaal react to the project? JK: All of my projects have to do with people. The people living in Transvaal liked the project. For some of them it was because of money — the hotel provided them with a job. The most important part was that the project dealt with the empty homes and make the environment inhabitable again. The residents appreciated this. The intention was to continue the project for 12 years. Unfortunately, we managed to do it for just two years, because we ran out of money and had to stop. KK: After this project you did Hotel Experimenta, a mobile hotel. Although it also used existing local shops as facilities for the hotel, there seems to be a significant difference between Hotel Transvaal and Hotel Experimenta. JK: Hotel Experimenta is a very small hotel. It is the size of a single bed. One person, maybe two, are able to sleep in it. When you need to go to the toilet, you have to ask the neighbours. As a guest of the hotel, you get a map that helps you to find all the services. This structure encourages the guests to meet all kinds

ALL THE THINGS YOU WOULD NEED FOR A HOTEL WERE ALREADY AVAILABLE IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

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And there were some, who used to live in Transvaal, and wanted to come back to see their neighbourhood for the very last time. KK: Was everything demolished after the project? JK: Yes. There was also demolition going on during the project. It has everything to do with the way Dutch cities were built in the 20th century. We have an enormous planning tradition. We make very big, new neighbourhoods. Because of this, the demolition will be a big operation as well. The time between demolishing and rebuilding the neighbourhood will be around 12 years. During this time, the city is dead. In Holland we call this the tussentijd (the ‘time in-between’, in which there is nothing). I do not like the idea that there is nothing. In nature it does not exist. It is good for the city that there is always something. I want to enrich the city life during these periods. If not, people move out of the neighbourhood and shops start to close because of the lack of customers. Rebuilding a neighbourhood takes a lot of effort, so it is better for a city to continue.

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Inside Matters of people with whom they normally would never come in contact with. In the hotel there is a window, which gives you a really nice view of the city. The hotel room travels to different places. At the moment it is in a field somewhere between Rotterdam and Amsterdam. It is a reversal of sorts — not the guests but the hotel itself are travelling. I always think about what will happen after a project has finished. Do I have to demolish it? How do I do that? Who wants to do something with this? I always think about the lifecycle of things, how they continue over time. To me, the hotel is a metaphor for the city and how the city functions. A metaphor helps you in the process. Just a trick. KK: You mentioned the lifecycle of a project. I was told that in the Tarwewijk, a neighbourhood in Rotterdam you are dealing with right now, the residents are cynical about people entering and doing projects in their neighbourhood. How do you consider the lifecycle of these kinds of projects? JK: With a lot of my projects I remain engaged for years. For example, I started working on the Tarwewijk three years ago. I want

to become involved. I want to know the people, what they are doing and what their wishes are. I do not like flying in and then leaving for another project after just a week. Especially when you are dealing with public space, it is difficult to get familiar with the situation and how it works precisely. I started researching the Tarwewijk with artists, press agencies and photographers, to find out what the people are doing there. In the second step, together with Droog Design and Kosmopolis Rotterdam, we invited architects, urbanists and designers to make visual proposals of the possibilities for the area. The next step is to realize the proposals in the real world. This could take years. But that is a good thing. Development in the city takes time. Does that answer your question? KK: Well, I mean the project in the Tarwewijk is a new project and it is different from Hotel Transvaal and Hotel Experimenta, which were both temporary. How do you consider the beginning and the end of a design project in a settled community? JK: Hotel Transvaal had a duration of 12 years, which is quite a long period. Temporariness is actually an

TEMPOR A R I N E S S CAN B E V E R Y USEF U L I N ARCHIT E C T U R E .

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Rotterdam Tarwewijk interiors

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Inside Matters interesting subject in urban planning. It is a test, like a prototype within the design process. You can try it out, and if people like it, you continue with it. But if they don’t like it, you have to quit and develop something different. In temporary projects, people are not as scared, which makes it easier to accomplish something that exceeds the boundaries. This way, temporariness can be very useful in architecture. Another aspect is that in public space you have to deal with a lot of regulations and restrictions. Art projects seem to be exempt from these restrictions. It provides the freedom to create something new. An art project can serve as a starting point. NH: Does a project sometimes change from a temporary focus to a permanent one? JK: In a way I do not think in terms of ‘permanent’ or ‘temporary’. The strange thing is that architecture focuses on permanent situations. A permanent city does not exist; in reality, things change over time. Not only in physical terms, but also social and economic relationships. For me, that is our condition and we have to deal with it.

KK: Could you tell us more about the Tarwewijk? JK: I started this as an art project, alone. Over time, other organizations got involved. I worked together with an artist who was doing an art project in the Tarwewijk. We conducted a lot of interviews with residents from the area. Collaborating with this artist resulted in having different questions and answers to it. In the Tarwewijk, public life does not take place on the street any more, but inside the private homes of people. Private spaces facilitate public activities in a better way than our streets. This is because the public spaces are not made for these kinds of activities; like people meeting and spending their free time there. Together with other designers and architects, I make proposals for how to change the urban plans of the neighbourhood. The Tarwewijk was designed sixty years ago in a very modernistic way. The functions, among others infrastructure and housing, are divided. A city does not work like that any more. Nowadays, people bring their work to their homes. The houses are not made for this. We made an

EVERY P L A C E I S A GOOD P L A C E F O R A FASC I N A T I O N . BORING P L A C E S DO NOT E X I S T .

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update for the neighbourhood. Taking the perspective of one person and what he or she is doing in this environment. NH: All your projects seem to be in the Netherlands. Are you also doing projects abroad? JK: Honestly, I like working in the Netherlands, because I am familiar with it. But of course, I travel and do work abroad. Visiting other places is very useful. You find out new things, see what functions well and bring back that which could be useful for your own projects. I like to work with local people and learn more about the existing situation. When I do this in another country, for instance in Korea – which I did it takes me quite a lot of time. There are many places in the world I find interesting. Korea is actually a strange country because of its planning tradition and organization. NH: Do you know a place in the Netherlands that functions really well or not at all, and is worth visiting? JK: There are a lot of places that function well. The centre of Amsterdam is working like a rain forest. It is a very complex ecosystem; everything in it has a function and a place. The harbour in Rotterdam functions extremely well, because of its organization and logistics. The counterpart to this is the suburban area, which seems to work very well but is very industrialized. I think this is the opposite of what we want; it is not inhabitable. In Rotterdam there are still big gaps in the city, because of the Second World War. It will take years to turn it into a good city. NH: Do you have a place that fascinates you in a positive way in the Netherlands? JK: Every place is a good place for a fascination. Boring places do not exist. At the moment I am working on the Maasvlakte in Rotterdam, which is at the end of the harbour in the sea. I like being there, because everything there has such a huge scale. There is nothing you can relate to, like a tree. It is a nice place to visit. KK: We know you are the founder of INSIDE. What was the reason to start this master course? JK: There were several reasons for this. One of the reasons is that more and more interiors have to deal with a big scale – like airports, offices, and shopping malls. I asked OMA to develop this master course, as they have a lot of experience with this scale. OMA recently built a skyscraper in Rotterdam. The architecture of this building is the result of the interior. If you look at the building at night, the lighting within the building functions as a façade. When you think of this in terms of interior architecture, it is really interesting. In a

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Transvaal, The Hague

Cultural shopping street of Hotel Transvaal

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way, you start thinking from the inside and what the effect will be on the outside. A lot of interiors are based on money and commercial effect. But even private interiors need more than a commercial reason. You can also think of the cultural aspects, for instance. The people involved in this master programme work in different fields. ZUS works on the scale of landscape. Anne Holtrop combines art and architecture. It was nice to combine a mixture of different views. If you are studying it is good to experience different views to develop your own perspective on things. In the end it is important to share inspiration, experience and so on. It is not about consuming knowledge that is already there, but about everybody consuming and producing at the same time. That was the idea. NH: I am not sure ‘master in interior architecture’ is the right name for it. JK: What is better? KK: There is already a discipline called interior architecture, and this programme, in a way, challenges that notion. It confuses some people I guess. JK: I think it is important that it is about interior architecture. That is our collective reason to be here. If it would be industrial design we would have to deal with other things. So it is good to relate to the interior. For example, I was ‘inside’ almost all day. It is our daily environment.

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INSIDE is a two-year programme, taught in English, that targets the real world. AÂ world that is changing: large-scale interiors, the relation between private and public space, sustainability and greater demand for social cohesion are themes that call for new perspectives on interior architecture. At INSIDE, we will challenge and see the world from inside-out and become INSIDEÂ architects.

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Transvaal, The Hague

Cultural shopping street of Hotel Transvaal

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Programme lecturers and tutors All parts of the programme are led by internationally orientated architects and theorists: SPACE with Anne Holtrop (until 2012) Concentrates on chance. Our focus is neither likeness nor beauty as in traditionalism, neither logic nor ratio as A lot of interiors in aremodernism, based on money but rather and commercial the possible,effect. in theBut sense even of what private interiors needismore conceivable. than a commercial reason. You can also think of the cultural aspects, for instance. The people involved in URBAN this master with programme Elma van Boxel work in different fields. ZUS works on the scale of and landscape. Kristian Anne Koreman Holtrop combines art and architecture. It was nice to combine (ZUSa– mixture Zones Urbaines of different Sensibles) views. If you are studying it is good to experienceConcentrates different views on to urban develop interiors, your own fromperspective the agora toon things. the shopping mall, and the changing relationship between In the end it is important public and to private. share inspiration, experience and so on. It is not about consuming knowledge that is already there, but about everybody consuming and producingINTER at the same with time. Jan Konings That was(from the idea. 2012) NH: I am not sure ‘master Deals with in interior the theme architecture’ of food andishow the the right supply, name for it. preparation and consumption of food can produce new colJK: What is better? lective spaces or improve existing ones. KK: There is already a discipline called interior architecture, and this programme, in a way, FLOWS challenges with Jan thatJongert notion. (2012 It confuses Architecten) some people I guess. Contemporary interiors increasingly depend on a JK: I think it is important complex of that connecting it is aboutflows. interior Thearchitecture. Inside FlowsThat research is our collective reason to begroup here.investigates If it would be theindustrial nature and design behaviour we would of these haveflows to deal with other things. to support So it isthe good development to relate to of the sustainable interior. For design example, methods. I was ‘inside’ almost all day. It is our daily environment. THEORY by Louise Schouwenberg The course links the theoretical and intuitive insights of both theorists and students with practical case studies. In each block (four blocks per semester) the Theory INSIDE Magazine

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Programme and the Skills Programme focus on a common case study, which is worked out in separate assignments. Working on these shared case studies familiarizes students with both theoretical and practical concerns in spatialÂ design. THE SKILLS PROGRAMME is taught by various guest lecturers. TRAVEL by Hans Venhuizen National and international excursions, symposiums, lectures, interviews and studio visits stimulate the observation of and research into phenomena in spatial design. The findings are published in our promotional magazine INSIDE Travel. Head of INSIDE is Hans Venhuizen Various guest lecturers in 2011/2012 include: Pieke Bergmans Mathijs de Boer Lieven de Cauter Simon Davies Theo Deutinger Frank Feder Fredie Flore Job Floris Aetzel Griffioen Krijn de Koning John Lonsdale

Rianne Makkink Wilma Marijnissen Arjen Oosterman Denis Oudendijk Kyong Park Mark Pimlott Bertjan Pot Eva van Regenmoortel Lorenzo de Rita Marc Schuilenburg Peter Zuiderwijk

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TEAM OF LECTURERS

Transvaal, The Hague

Cultural shopping street of Hotel Transvaal

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Anne Holtrop Anne Holtrop (b. 1977) studied architecture at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. After graduating in 2005 he set up his own practice in Amsterdam. He was twice awarded grants from the Netherlands Foundation A lot of interiors for areVisual based Arts, on money Design and and commercial Architecture, effect. andBut in 2008 even he private interiors needreceived more than theaCharlotte commercial Köhler reason. PrizeYou forcan Architecture also thinkfrom of the cultural aspects, for theinstance. Prince Bernhard Cultural Foundation. His work has The people involved beeninexhibited this master in museums programme and work architecture in different biennales fields. in ZUS works on the scale theofNetherlands landscape. Anne and abroad. HoltropRecent combines projects art and of his archiinclude tecture. It was nice tothe combine Temporary a mixture Museum of different in Lakeviews. and DeIf Stijl you exhibition are studying it is good to experience in the different Gemeentemuseum views to develop The Hague. your own In addition, perspective he ison things. a guest lecturer and visiting critic at the Academies of In the end it is important Architecture to share in Amsterdam inspiration, and experience Rotterdam and and soison. anItediis not about consuming torknowledge with OASE,that an is independent already there, journal but about for architecture. everybody consuming and producing www.anneholtrop.nl at the same time. That was the idea. NH: I am not sure ‘master in interior architecture’ is the right name for it. ZUS [Zones Urbaines Sensibles] JK: What is better? Elma van Boxel (b. 1975) and Kristian Koreman KK: There is already (b. 1978) a discipline both studied called landscape interiorarchitecture architecture, at Larenstein and this programme, in ainway, Arnhem. challenges In 2001that theynotion. founded It ZUS confuses [Zones some Urbaines people I guess. Sensibles], a cross-disciplinary office for architecture, JK: I think it is important urbanismthat anditlandscape is about interior design.architecture. Realized projects That include is our collective reason to bethe here. landscape If it would design be industrial of the Dutch design Pavilion we would for thehave Shangto deal with other things. hai World So it isExpo good2010, to relate the to Central the interior. Park onFor theexample, World Expo, I was ‘inside’ almost all theday. Printemps It is ourPark dailyatenvironment. Grand Bigard Brussels, and the Spiegelzee exhibition pavilion on the Dutch coast. In 2007 they won the Maaskant Prize for Young Architects. Current projects include their curatorship of the 2012 International INSIDE Magazine

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Jan Konings Jan Konings (b. 1966) became a well-known Dutch designer when pieces of furniture he designed with Jurgen Bey debuted in the Droog collection in 1994. However, he considers himself a spatial designer rather than a product designer, and he operates along the boundaries separating urban planning, landscape design, art and ecology. With his designs he seeks to stimulate social cohesion in public space by making small changes or additions to existing situations. His projects include the design of a park on top of a former landfill in Haarlem, and Hotel Transvaal in the Transvaal redevelopment area in The Hague. Because of redevelopment, many buildings in this area lie empty and await either demolition or new tenants. In Hotel Transvaal, these vacant spaces were temporarily transformed into hotel rooms that varied from one to five stars. www.hoteltransvaal.com Jan Jongert Jan Jongert (b. 1971) studied architecture at Delft University of Technology and the Academy of Architecture in Rotterdam, where he graduated in 2003. He and Césare Peeren founded the architecture office 2012Architecten in 1997 and the Recyclicity foundation in 2003. 2012Architecten is a Rotterdam-based office that exploits and builds on the potential

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Architecture Biennale Rotterdam and their Luchtsingel initiative that will connect Rotterdam’s new central station with the Hofplein. www.zus.cc www.iabr.nl www.imakerotterdam.nl

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Transvaal, The Hague

Cultural shopping street of Hotel Transvaal

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of the design context in terms of its environment, potential workforce, energy sources, waste materials and so on. Recyclicity aims to turn different waste streams into building materials with as little added energy as possible for transport and modification. Jongert has worked on various projects, ranging from the WhiteGoodsHouse and the Miele Space Station II to Villa Welpeloo. In 2007 he co-published the A lot of interiors bookare andbased website on Superuse. money and commercial effect. But even private interiors need2012architecten.nl more than a commercial reason. You can also think of the cultural aspects, for www.recyclicity.org instance. The people involved www.superuse.org in this master programme work in different fields. ZUS works on the scale of landscape. Anne Holtrop combines art and architecture. It was nice to Louise combine Schouwenberg a mixture of different views. If you are studying it is good to experience Louisedifferent Schouwenberg views to(b. develop 1954) your studied own psychology perspective at on the things. Radboud University Nijmegen, sculpture at the Gerrit Rietveld In the end itAcademy is important in Amsterdam, to share inspiration, and philosophy experience at the and University so on. It is not about consuming of Amsterdam knowledge andthat the is Erasmus alreadyUniversity there, but Rotterdam. about everybody After consuming and producing establishing at the her same careertime. as aThat visual was artist, the she idea.has focused on NH: I am not design sure ‘master theory since in interior 2000. She architecture’ regularly writes is thefor right national and name for it. international art and design magazines and has contributed JK: What is better? to a range of books, the most recent of which is Misfit (2011), KK: There isa already monograph a discipline on designer called Hella interior Jongerius. architecture, Louise hasand been this programme,teaching in a way, at the challenges Design Academy that notion. Eindhoven It confuses sincesome 2001, and people I guess. in 2010 she was appointed Lector (Professor) Design Theory JK: I think itat is the important academy, that where it is about she also interior headsarchitecture. the Masters That research is our collective reason programme to be here. IfinitContextual would be industrial Design. design we would have to deal with other things. So it is good to relate to the interior. For example, I was ‘inside’ almost all Hans day.Venhuizen It is our daily environment. Hans Venhuizen (b. 1961) first studied Urban Planning at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, but switched to Architectural Design and Monumental Art at the School of the Arts INSIDE Magazine

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Arnhem. In 1999 he set up Bureau Venhuizen, a project management and research bureau in the field of culturebased planning. In search of a more specific identity for cities and areas, Hans links the worlds of culture and space to each other in different ways. His focus is always on the culture of spatial planning itself, and the game is his most important instrument. He developed various games, including the debating game ‘The Making Of’ and ‘Life, the Game’. Recent projects include Koningsas, a research for cultural/spatial projects in the GroningenAssen region, and K*eiland, a research and design project in an urban regeneration area in Utrecht. www.bureauvenhuizen.com www.hansvenhuizen.eu

At INSIDE, we will challenge and see the world from inside-out and become INSIDE architects.

CREDITS

Editors Hans Venhuizen Roosmarijn Hompe Marieke Ladru

Translation Billy Nolan

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Graphic Design Roosje Klap

Contributors Wei Hsun Chen Magdalena Curdova Anne Holtrop Roosmarijn Hompe Nina van Hoogstraten Jan Jongert Kyong Kim Minsun Kim Jan Konings Kristian Koreman Elma van Boxel Dasha Martynova Foteini Mermygka Kyong Park Hans Venhuizen

Special thanks Hanne Hagenaars Arjen Oosterman Louise Schouwenberg Lucas Verweij Margit Schuster and everyone else who us on this publication

Inside/Outside More information? INSIDE doesn’t stay Send an email to inside, however. It also opens info@enterinside.nl up to the outside world by or check staging two symposiums each www.enterinside.nl year, by posting articles and updates on our website and INSIDE A lot of interiors on the are student based blog, on money and by and commercial programme effect. coordinator But even private interiors need publishing more our thantwice-yearly a commercial reason. Roosmarijn You can Hompe, also think roosmarof the cultural aspects, magazine, for instance. which is in your ijn@enterinside.nl The people involved hands right in this now. master programme work in different fields. ZUS works on the scale Soof why landscape. wait outside? Anne Holtrop combines Royal Academy art and archiof Art tecture. It was nice Enter to combine inside ata mixture of different views. INSIDE If you are studying it is good to experience www.enterinside.nl different views to develop (MA) your Interior own perspective Architectureon things. now to read the philosophy, Prinsessegracht 4 In the end itsee is important the studios, to and share meet inspiration,2514 experience AN Theand Hague so on. It is not about consuming the people knowledge at INSIDE. that is already www.kabk.nl there, but about everybody consuming and producing at the same time. That was the idea. NH: I am not sure ‘master in interior architecture’ is the right name for it. JK: What is better? KK: There is already a discipline called interior architecture, and this programme, in a way, challenges that notion. It confuses some people I guess. JK: I think it is important that it is about interior architecture. That is our collective reason to be here. If it would be industrial design we would have to deal with other things. So it is good to relate to the interior. For example, I was ‘inside’ almost all day. It is our daily environment.

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Transvaal, The Hague

Cultural shopping street of Hotel Transvaal

Inside Matters