INSIDE magazine #11 by Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK)

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INSIDE Magazine 2019/2020

Master Interior Architecture www.enterinside.nl

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Social and Cultural Challenges in Interior Architecture — Issue L — Fruitful Inefficiency

INSIDE Magazine

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INSIDE Magazine is the eleventh publication by INSIDE, Master Interior Architecture, 2019/2020

INSIDE

Master Interior Architecture Royal Academy of Art Prinsessegracht 4 2514 AN The Hague www.kabk.nl www.enterinside.nl h.venhuizen@kabk.nl l.vandenberg@kabk.nl

Editors/Contributors:

Hans Venhuizen (Head INSIDE) Anne Hoogewoning (Tutor THEORY programme) Lotte van den Berg (Coordinator INSIDE)

Student Editorial team: Jeanne Rousselot, Martyna Kildaitė, Elisa Piazzi, Johannes Equizi

Graphic Design:

Linea Lan Cai Fabricius, Emma Benozzi (Design Office KABK)

Graduating students:

Shripal Shah, Ausra Česnauskytė, Samantha Vosse, Davida Rauch, Michael Barchini, Mary Farwy, Sebastian Koukkides, Keyi Xiang, Devina Amelia, Natali Blugerman

First year students:

Florian Bart, Alicja Będkowska, Tereza Chroňáková, Johannes Equizi, Julia Holmgren, Martyna Kildaitė, Aaron Kopp, Hugo López Silva, Elisa Piazzi, Natalia Pośnik, Jeanne Rousselot, Junyao Yi

Printing:

Lenoirschuring, The Netherlands With thanks for their contribution INSIDE would like to thank: Rooftoptiger (Sara Dandois, Bram Rombouts), Maud Vanhauwaert, Benno Tempel, Anke Smeets-Stoutjesdijk, Suzanne Lambooy, Jero Papierwarenfabriek, De Binnenstad garage Den Haag, Tiddo de Ruiter, Repro van de Kamp, Nelis Company, Concreet Design, Teleport Hotel, Yang Zhang (KAAN Architecten), Thomas Thwaites, Charlotte Martin (Woodstone Kugelblitz), Arne Hendriks, Wesley Leeman (Goldsmith Company), Pascal Lazarus (La Bonneterie), Klodiana Millona, Cam Liu, Peter Zuiderwijk, Marcel Smink, Studio Frank Havermans, Alexandra Landré, Mark Veldman (OMA), STEALTH, Cocky Eek & Renske Maria van Dam, Members working field committee (Dirk Osinga, Ira Koers, Francien van Westrenen), Arna Mačkić, Polis University Tirana (Ledian Bregasi, Daniela Kavaja, Endrit Marku, Elona Karafili, Cargo Collective, Seyed Masoud Mosavizade, Kruisherenhotel Maastricht, Benedictusberg Vaals, Oudenbosch Basilica, Chantal Hendriksen & Gijsbert Dijker Copyright © INSIDE, KABK The Hague/The Netherlands, June 2020 Most photos were made by students and staff of INSIDE. Exception: Chair Arena image at DMY Berlin — Ishka Michocka As it was not possible to find all the copyright holders of the photos in this publication, INSIDE invites interested parties to contact INSIDE.

Picture on the cover:

Photo made by Tereza Chroňáková ISSN 2589-8973

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Master Interior Architecture

INSIDE Preface

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“FRUITFUL INEFFICIENCY” In your hand you have the eleventh issue of the INSIDE magazine, the works and thoughts of the Master Interior Architecture of the Dutch Royal Academy of Art. Every year at INSIDE we choose a year theme as an impulse to the curriculum to explore a specific phenomenon in the built environment. We could not have imagined when we decided upon Fruitful Inefficiency as this year's theme, it would be relevant not only to our program but to society as a whole; at least as far as the term inefficiency concerns. As a result of the covid-19 crisis, the global society was extremely restricted in its freedom of movement. Also our program moved from the INSIDE studio space in The Hague to the digital world of Teams, Zoom and Skype. However, our year theme Fruitful Inefficiency was not provoked by this years pandemic, but inspired by a student who graduated from INSIDE in 2019. In his first year, I-Chieh Liu designed a very inefficient coffee ceremony within raumlabors Floating University project in Berlin. The guests who

sealed and fully air-conditioned car with light brown windows. Scent, tactile sensations, humidity, light, temperatures, meaningful body movements and other tangible expressions are lost as essential information, and just the image and voice remain. Although the digital world has endless storage capacity, computer communication leaves no physical traces. When the conversation is over, all that remains is silence, emptiness and maybe some megabytes on a hard disk somewhere that only contribute to the longing for the next meeting. Through the covid-19 crisis, culture showed its resilience. People turned out to be able to use their inefficient situations fruitfully: balcony concerts were organized, priests placed photographs of absent believers in their empty benches and forbidden funerals were transformed into hedges of honour with the streets filled with family and friends who, at an appropriate distance, cheered the deceased. The so-called one-and-a-half-metre society turned out to be an interesting challenge for spatial designers. Precisely these forced restrictions are able to cause unexpected innovations and new social relationswhips, a value

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Moreover, I am very pleased with the fact that, besides the editorial team consisting of Anne Hoogewoning, Lotte van den Berg and myself, exhibition tutor Paul Kuipers, Tim Devos and alumni Klodiana Millona and Jack Bardwell were willing to contribute with their sharp thoughts to this publication. This year we proudly present 10 graduating students. They have researched a rich variety of social and cultural challenges in various contexts and developed them into proposals for spatial change. Surprising are the variation in positions and approaches that the graduating students developed during the year, next to their ability to mediate, curate, moderate and even perform spatial change processes. We witnessed the development of a project connecting two completely different neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires in a playful way (Natali Blugerman), an exploration into the rural way of living in a Tibetan urban context (Keyi Xiang), and a thorough design research into the future possibilities of an ever-expanding shophouse in West-Java (Devina Amelia). Other students stayed closer to The Hague and investigated the dike system of the Hoeksche Waard (Samantha

preface

took part in the ceremony had to prepare everything by hand, and even had to make fire using an inefficient prehistoric wooden construction that I-Chieh had designed and built. In this way the ceremony became much more than just drinking coffee together; the ineptitude brought the guests closer together in the preparation of the event. It reminded me of a journey I once made with the director of Polis University in Tirana, Besnik Aliaj, who drove me by car for a lecture series from Tirana in Albania to Sarajevo in Bosnia. He knew the road until halfway, Podgorica, the capitol of Montenegro. In this city I found an old fashioned printed map in a bookshop, perfectly showing the route through the mountains between Podgorica and Sarajevo. To my surprise Besnik refused to use the map. Instead, he drove up to pedestrians, opened his window and asked for directions. Even when we were demonstrably steered in the wrong direction by our informants, he persisted in his strategy. When I asked him a bit annoyed why, he answered that he did it on purpose to hear more than the route but also to get to know the gestures, smells, language and customs of the people of the country. Obviously, by looking at the map in his air-conditioned car, these would have completely escaped him. The online education we had to switch to halfway through this academic year, is like driving through a fascinating landscape in a

that cannot be expressed in monetary terms. Also the INSIDE students appeared to be able to use the limitations of the situations they had to deal with in an extraordinary way. Models were built within students’ rooms and amazing presentation films were edited, where the limitations functioned as extra features. The crisis implied that our planned project in Albania in collaboration with Polis University had to be radically changed and some graduating students had to fundamentally adapt their spatial research to the forced limitations. Despite these challenging circumstances, exciting projects with fascinating presentations emerged. I would therefore like to compliment all our students on their perseverance and resilience. I also have to thank all our tutors, (guest)lecturers and facilitators at the KABK for their ingenuity and willingness to make extra efforts. It fills me with pride to be the head of INSIDE. In this magazine we present a selection of the results of this year's INSIDE programme. It includes the first year studios with Studio Makkink & Bey, MVRDV and Gerjan Streng in collaboration with Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius of raumlaborberlin. It shows the results of the Flows Program of Superuse, the Theory program of Anne Hoogewoning and the Travel program that I'm privileged to assemble every year. The publication also includes two interviews of first-year students with special people they met.

Hans Venhuizen

Vosse) or the spatial identity of immigrants in The Hague (Shripal Shah). Half of the graduating students did not define a specific geographical location but explored the relationships between sound and space (Michael Barchini), the political character of objects in public space (Sebastian Koukkides), spatial textile interventions that provoke movement and interaction (Davida Rauch), the identity of new urban professionals called Hello Everyone workers (Aušra Česnauskytė), and finally performed spatial experiments towards a new normal within the limitations of the private living space (Mary Fawry). Part of Mary's exceptional thesis is also included in this publication. As INSIDE we are extremely excited to welcome this great diversity of special spatial projects. We hope you will also enjoy this wealth of student proposals for spatial change. I am especially grateful to everyone who supported its creation. We wish all our students a bright and healthy future within the world of interior architecture. Meanwhile, we are already looking forward to our next academic year in which, in response to this year's enforced social distancing, we have chosen social re-approaching as our year theme.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

INSIDE Profile

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INSIDE is a master’s course for interior architects who start every assignment by conducting a wide-ranging exploration of a spatial context undergoing change. Wideranging here means that through observation, research and theoretical study, students chart and analyse a whole array of issues that are relevant to the spatial change that the context is undergoing. That wide range consists not only of spatial aspects but also of social, historical and ecological issues at play in the wider surroundings. After setting up and carrying out their investigation, the INSIDE students hone their skills in using the acquired knowledge to determine essential qualities that are of decisive importance for the spatial changes taking place. They then learn to incorporate those qualities in a spatial proposal grounded in a realistic perspective and in their social implications. B

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Master Interior Architecture

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INSIDE Profile

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FROM INSIDE TO OUTSIDE The term INSIDE not only specifies the space in which and on which interior architects work but also indicates the mentality with which they do it. These designers engage fully with society and have a keen awareness of social, economic and technological changes. They are capable of using their position to shape the relation between the space that relates most directly to people and the world that encompasses that specific context. For an interior architect, inside is never isolated but always connected to outside. To emphasize the relevance of the surrounding world to interior design, INSIDE started by embracing the motto ‘Design for the Real World’. This motto references a 1971 publication by the Austrian-American product designer and tutor Victor Papanek. Some forty years ago, Papanek sketched a picture of a practice he detested, in which designers produced useless, attention-grabbing, polluting, purely commercial and even dangerous products. INSIDE feels an affiliation with the line of reasoning developed by Papanek for product designers and translated its principles to the world of

inside profile spatial design within which we now find ourselves. In this way, INSIDE searches for the topicality and urgency of interior architecture in the ‘real world’, and thus for the contemporary cultural and social challenges for the interior architect.

CULTURAL URGENCY A focus on the cultural and social challenges that face designers brought INSIDE to formulate a number of principles that determine the nature of the study course. For instance, at INSIDE we initially work on projects concerning spatial change with an explicit social relevance and, moreover, a significant cultural urgency. For instance, a student charted from a variety of perspectives the history of a mountain village in China threatened with abandonment. Drawing on her analysis, she then proposed interventions at the scale of the economic and collective places of encounter. These interventions enable the village to make better use of its resources. At the same time, a tight-knit community forms around the new collective places of encounter, reducing the necessity to relocate to big cities. By approaching the spatial and social issues in the village in an integrated manner, this student creates new collective places. In this way she succeeds in assuming the role of bridge builder between research, design and practice.

Inside Magazine Cover 2018/2019.

VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY The interior architect who graduates from INSIDE displays a sense of connection with ‘the urgencies and challenges of contemporary society’ not only in the nature of the projects he or she does but also in how he operates. This designer does not approach a spatial context in isolation, as though it were an unrelated assignment or a tabula rasa, but always tackles it in relation to existing patterns of use and current occupants, and in relation to its wider context. An extended exploration of the characteristics of the spatial context undergoing change therefore forms an integral aspect of the design process. INSIDE sees plenty of opportunities for designers who take responsibility for the society in which they live and work, a responsibility that can express itself in various ways: from the enthusiastic idealism of the designer who dreams up visionary plans for a possible sustainable world, to the socially responsible commitment of the pragmatic designer who devises solutions for current urgencies.

THE REAL WORLD The relation with the real world is expressed in all parts of the INSIDE course and thus certainly in the choice of architects and offices that head the core studios. After all, they represent that real world and draw naturally from their practices in choosing real contexts and approaches as the basis for every studio project. Among the studio tutors at INSIDE are designers from MVRDV and Studio Makkink & Bey.

SUPERUSE Studios has been involved in the course at INSIDE from the very start. In all their work they acknowledge their responsibility for the ecological dimension of spatial interventions. By focusing on urgent themes affecting society, we highlight issues in today’s world that are also relevant to the current professional discourse. As far as the intended research and results are concerned, students are encouraged to think beyond what is possible. Idealism, imagination and sense of reality must find the right balance at the Royal Academy of Fine Art, where challenging the impossible is an everyday ambition. INSIDE aims to educate interior architects as autonomous minds, working in an applied context, who succeed in deploying the built environment as material for the imagination. They are designers who explore with an organic intelligence and act on the strength of a strong sense of responsibility to improve the built environment spatially, and thus also socially.

THE INTERIOR SPACE INSIDE focuses on design with social relevance, hence we do not respect the boundaries of specific physical or programmatic areas of work but, instead, concentrate on current thematic issues such as: changes in the health care system; the rise in the ageing population; the consequences of ‘the new world of work’; vacancy of office and retail space; changing lifestyles; the industrialization of the food industry; attention for schooling and education; and increasing importance through desire and necessity of self-organization.

Decision Making Arena at DMY Berlin in 2017, photo by Ishka Michocka

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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The spatial and social impact of these issues manifests itself in all areas of work of the interior architect. And moreover, students from countries all over the world at INSIDE prove capable of putting forward relevant social issues with a spatial component and with a cultural urgency we are unfamiliar with in the Netherlands, such as the seemingly unstoppable urbanization now taking place in China. INSIDE does not educate students to work exclusively in a Dutch spatial context. By enabling students to ‘pick up’ projects in their native countries and to develop them at INSIDE for their graduation, we open the door for an exchange of international experiences and mutual cultural influencing.

ENTREPRENEURS AND INSTIGATORS Within the nature of commissions available in interior architecture, the highlighting of social relevance and cultural urgency in design projects is not always apparent; in fact, they often recede into the background. In such cases, we educate INSIDE students to enrich existing projects with that relevance and urgency or to take the initiative in defining such assignments for themselves. The role of the interior architect as a connector and bridge builder between research, design and practice would seem to be more relevant than ever. It is a practice in which citizens have become more vocal, and no longer consist of individuals but of professionally organized collectives that cause the need to approach social and spatial issues in an integrated manner and not in isolation. More than has been

INSIDE Profile

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Master Interior Architecture

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the case up to now, commissioning in these processes entails working together with various parties with various interests. INSIDE attaches great importance to the skill of future interior architects in being able to explore such processes and, within them, to be able to define relevant interventions. At INSIDE, entrepreneurial skills stand for the successful running of a design office as well as instigating processes at the personal initiative of the designer. For INSIDE, the interior architect of the future is someone who, when commissions for desirable or even necessary spatial changes are not forthcoming, is capable of initiating them himself.

THE STRUCTURE OF OUR COURSE The INSIDE course is structured in a similar way to a research and design office. The main features of the course are the Studios in which students complete the entire process of a research and design project: orientation, research (through design), analysis, concept development, design (through research), presentation and evaluation. In the first year students are allotted four to eight weeks (comparable to a competition submission) or eighteen weeks (comparable to a regular commission) for the main projects in the Studios. Within the research and design process, various aspects are explored in depth in four parallel programmes: Theory, Flows, Skills and Travel. These programmes form an integral part of the design process in practice, but they are given emphasis during the INSIDE course in relation to the Studio projects, and are supervised by specialist tutors.

In this way, the analysis of the dynamic nature of a spatial context undergoing change is scrutinized closely in Flows, while the various theoretical aspects of a project are explored in Theory. An introduction to specific skills required in a project and to the approach of a particular tutor is offered in Skills, and relevant projects are visited in Travel. In the second year a Graduation Studio is organised to assist students in drawing up individual graduation projects. Students work independently and cover the entire process of orientation, research (through design), analysis, concept development, design (through research) and presentation by themselves, under the individual supervision of the tutors.

STUDIOS

The Studios form the backbone of the course, where students cover the entire process of orientation on the research and design of a selected spatial context undergoing change, research (through design), analysis, concept development, design (through research), presentation and evaluation. In the studios the students work on a concrete project under the supervision of a renowned designer, or under the supervision of a team assembled by this designer. The project assignment is determined by the studio tutor in consultation with the head of the course. The project can be purely academic in character or it may relate directly to current projects within the tutor’s private practice.

FLOWS

D "The

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End" a project by Mary Farwy and Sebastian Koukkides in Studio Parochial Spaces in Delft, 2019.

Contemporary interiors increasingly depend on a complex of (inter)connecting flows. At the same time the growing awareness of the limits to our resources forces designers to reinvent the performance of spaces we inhabit. This has led to interior designers rapidly becoming dependent on external specialists and losing one of their primary capacities: to integrate. Flows aims to support interior designers retaking an active integrating role in the execution of their profession.

THEORY

At INSIDE, research means deepening understanding, strengthening basic and essential research skills, and developing an individual approach to research themes. That is done by enabling students to conduct as much independent theoretical research as possible. Theoretical research here is taken to mean: systematic, critical reflection on the basis of a concrete question and definition of problem by consulting literature and other sources, with the aim of acquiring knowledge that offers answers to the question and problem posed.

SKILLS

Skills are advanced competences and techniques that enable students to carry out projects within the Studios more proficiently. INSIDE does not educate interior architects to cover a strictly defined field but, instead, focuses on the position that architects, responsible for the space that people relate to most directly as users of space, adopt in a process of spatial change. The skills are offered in such a way that students learn to practice them to such an extent that they can refine them on their own.

TRAVEL

At INSIDE the basis of every design lies in observing, researching and analyzing a situation. The best attitude for doing that is to travel to places and thus experience ‘a tremendous sense of liberation and, at the same time, to be very aware of all the dangers and limitations that surround you’. (Lebbeus Woods, as quoted in an interview with Jan Jongert — Superuse Studios). At INSIDE we aim to foster this state of mind through experiencing the real world in the Travel programme.

I-Chieh Liu presenting his project "Homelessness and the Inclusive City" at Archiprix, 2020.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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INSIDE In Memoriam: The Tower of Babel

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In september 2019, INSIDE students participated in the Tower of Babel project in Antwerp by Rooftoptiger. The students were guided by Tim Devos. THE DAM: A NEIGHBOURHOOD IN TRANSITION At the fringes of the city in the North-East of Antwerp lies a most peculiar small neighbourhood: the Dam. One can imagine the area is locked in between all different types of large-scale infrastructure like the ring road around Antwerp, a cargo-railway line, an industrial canal and the relics of a historical network of docks. The Dam has therefore always been a bit of an ‘outsider’, an isolated part of the city. But it is precisely its isolation and its connection to urban productivity that has triggered the Dam and its inhabitants to develop a very strong sense of local identity. A rich working-class history where a folksy neighbourhood and productive functions where intertwined. A neighbourhood of skippers who worked in the port and by the docks, and hard-working folk who spent

inhabitants made a loud claim to be closely involved in the development of the plans. Arguing for new public space, community infrastructure and an innovative reuse of the slaughterhouse halls.

THE POWER OF TEMPORARY USE: ENTER ROOFTOP TIGER AND THE TOWER OF BABEL The huge slaughterhouse site, and its emblematic halls, were simply lying there, dividing the neighbourhood. People started arguing for a temporary use of the site, to redevelop it again in an organic way, reapproriating it. Finally, a co-creative artist collective called Rooftop Tiger landed on the site. They quickly turned the halls into their creative workplace, submerging themselves into the neighbourhood. They create installations which engage with the neighbourhood, challenge them to collaborate, take action.

the tower of babel most of their days in the municipal slaughterhouse. The daily life and the residents, the atmosphere of the neighbourhood, was completely defined by this economical identity. At the same time accompanied with a strong social network and local working-class-pride, as a stubborn little village in the city. However, in the early 90’s rumours started spreading about a possible renovation of the slaughterhouse into a fancy new ‘food district’. Triggering a lot of local businesses to leave the neighbourhood when the slaughterhouse was shut down. Yet, nothing much has happened since. For two decades, the neighbourhood has been confronted with unclarities about the future of the largely abandoned slaughterhouse site. There was a talk of building a huge sports hall and even a hospital. Slowly, the social networks started eroding as the neighbourhood rightfully felt neglected. At the same time the sense of local pride and nostalgia still holds strong to this day, longing for the glory days of the Dam. However, as a consequence, the neighbourhood managed to stay outside of the gentrification and renewal agenda of the city, and got incredibly diverse. Today the neighbourhood finally finds itself at the start of big changes. A masterplan has been drawn up to plan a new residential area in the centre of the neighbourhood. What will happen to the slaughterhouse is up to day still an open question. At the same time, plans to expand the Antwerp ring road, are unravelling right in the backyard of the Dam. Unsurprisingly, local

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Tim Devos

At the same time their installations challenge the residents to make sense of what is happening around them, how their neighbourhood is changing, and which forces are at play. Needless to say, the Dam, in search of its renewed identity and a way to deal with the forces of the rapidly changing city, and Rooftop Tiger turned out to be a match made in heaven. They started off by making a neighbourhood sculpture: the physical translation of the dreams collected in the neighbourhood. A multifunctional installation as an instant public space, bringing people together. Next, they created a fictional cultural centre, CC De Vleeshaak, a performance putting inhabitants on stage to discuss the future of the Dam and the dangers of gentrification. But finally, they started working on perhaps their biggest and most ambitious project yet: The Tower of Babel. The project turns the legend of the Tower of Babel upside down. Whereas the legendary tower never got finished as people spoke different languages, the Dam’s tower celebrates super diversity in the neighbourhood. An ambitious co-building project based around a gigantic bamboo structure, where cultures can meet and languages resonate. It combines building as a social process and the power of poetry. Inhabitants helped in building the structure, by bringing in techniques and crafts from all around the world. At the same time the tower was a dynamic platform for workshops and cosy Sunday afternoon talks and performances.

roof of the former Antwerp slaughterhouse where Rooftoptiger took her name from.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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INSIDE In Memoriam: The Tower of Babel

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Master Interior Architecture

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THE ACT OF BUILDING When INSIDE got excited to organise their introduction week in Antwerp, this felt like a perfect match. For a week, the students worked enthusiastically together with the Rooftop Tiger crew and a bunch of residents. As the main structure was already there, we had the opportunity to build a series of ‘birds nests’. Developing the concept and the realisation in an organic and collaborative process. Not by drawing up plans, but by testing, experimenting, agreeing and disagreeing. Through experimenting with the huge variety of recycled materials stocked in the wonderfully inspiring warehouse of Rooftop Tiger, different techniques and processes were exchanged and even invented. From colourful fabric weaving, to making intricate yet improvised structures out of birch twigs, building bamboo walls, or creating adaptive furniture. By building together we got to meet the potential of the material and one another. Building was truly a social act, bringing people together, casually reflecting on the future of this site and the neighbourhood or just on everyday life and what we share or where we differ. After a week of working on the nests, alternated with some site visits in and around Antwerp, we took part in the Sunday ‘Droesem’. A salon where locals are invited to watch the progress of the tower and listen to a piece of music, poetry or simply come together. There the students reflected together with their audience on a most inspiring week.

outsider or insider�

A PHOENIX OUT OF THE ASHES On the night of the 9th of April 2020, the unthinkable happened: the tower was set on fire and finally collapsed. It is not relevant to think about the why and the who, but what is important is that it happened not out

AN ‘OUTSIDE’ VIEW ON INSIDE

of protest or antipathy against the project and what it stands for. But as Rooftop Tiger so poetically phrased: ‘The Tower was built out of bamboo and wood, but made out of the enthusiasm and dedication of many. And that, is not reduced to ashes, but just burns even harder.’ Lots of people payed their last respects to the tower, in their own way. But most importantly a new idea rose out of the ashes. A crowdfunding campaign was launched to fund the building of the BabelBühne: a new much needed green public space for the neighbourhood modelled after the hanging gardens of, of course, Babylon. The start of a ‘new’ building process, or perhaps rather a new chapter, to a wonderful story.

Every person looks at the world through his/her own glasses. This is stated by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the year 1781, in his famous discourse on ‘Ding an sich/Dinge für mich’: a person cannot know the world as it really is, but can only understand the ‘Dinge für mich’. So how I personally perceive the world is based on how it appears to me and what I think matters. Because of my background in media and culture, it took me a while to understand what INSIDE is about. When I started at INSIDE four years ago, I didn’t know anything about interior architecture. As years passed, I noticed how broad the notion of interior architecture can be, and how artistic it can be. Up to now I still feel like I cannot judge the projects of the students. I always say: your ability to judge is related to your own professional background, but the head of my department, Hans Venhuizen, doesn’t agree and thus he invited me to write about my ‘outsider’ view on INSIDE. What attracts me most about our program is its free approach and playful character. There can be a lot of idealism and fantasy involved in the student projects and I believe they can really create a better world. This new world starts in their heads. Especially currently with the corona virus spreading around us, that’s a comforting thought. INSIDE succeeds to place itself in the center of society as the

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with temporary "Tower of Babel" Tattoo, Photo by Natalia Posnik. Tower of Babel burned down on 9 April, 2020.

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market in Delft

Lotte van den Berg

student projects are reality based. The outcomes of the projects are often very optimistic, an utopian view on how the world could be arranged alternatively. I love this idealistic approach of our program; it likes to reciprocate and aims to make the world a better place. It deals with society, history and humans through imagery, visual culture and analyses of spaces and places through mapping. This anthropological approach speaks to me, I also like to observe, to just sit on a bench and watch people pass by. Through the lens of the student projects INSIDE allows me to travel all over the world. With this year’s graduation projects, the students took me on a trip from Tibet and Indonesia to De Hoeksche Waard and the most familiar space we all know best: the toilet. The first-year students on their turn took me on a trip to a village in the South of Albania. This ‘travelling around the world’ feeds my curiosity as the students always manage to surprise me with their skills and originality stirred up through their different background, cultures and identities. I often recall the course ‘Media, Culture and Identity’ I attended at the University, related to Kant’s vision on the world: wherever you are born on this earth, it defines who you are and how you look at images and what you see in images. The coming together of all these different visions and cultures at INSIDE makes me happy. We can teach each other and show each other new ways of thinking. This year we had a lunch lecture program about Fruitful Inefficiency. This theme appeals to everyone,

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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I guess. Who doesn’t like to do something occasionally that’s not at all efficient? In these quarantine times, for instance I started to puzzle. I would’ve never thought that I would enjoy doing this if society was still in its normal pace, but when the world slows down, you can take your time. In my view we should definitely continue to slow down more often. At INSIDE we call this process ‘being happily lost’ meaning that it’s okay if the students are lost in their process and are in the state of ‘not knowing’ what to do at that moment. The lectures also addressed other contrapositions besides efficiency and inefficiency like slow and fast, beautiful and ugly. For an ‘outsider’ like me I am often surprised when the students build a collective project with their hands and the final result does not need to be beautiful, because the process is even more important. Here my aesthetic view sometimes makes me judge the projects differently as I must admit I do enjoy beautifully designed pieces. I seem to be more on the efficient side and try to do my job as fast as possible and to manage everything in time. Why do I like to be efficient? Is it related to money? And is design and making art per definition inefficient as mostly you don’t make a lot of money? The lecture program seems to got me thinking about these questions. I like art and design because creating something with your hands signifies freedom for me. At an art and design school you can really be a free thinker, you’re not only being taught through books and readings (like at my university), but mainly to be your own original self. At an art school it’s far more your personal view that counts compared to any other education. That, I imagine also makes it scary sometimes... Due to corona we, at INSIDE, had to adapt a different kind of reviewing of the students’ work. They made films in which they explained their project and revealed their ideas. It made me understand the projects a lot better. The medium ‘film’ forces you to tell a clear story and to organize your thoughts. You have to be really specific in what you would like to show to the viewer. I like this way of presenting, also because of my background in media. In this sense corona gave me something back...

blocked bench in corona times in Delft

INSIDE Outsider or Insider?

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Master Interior Architecture

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In a society where design is increasingly used to maximize profit can the language of efficiency be repurposed to counter this prevailing logic?

I really enjoy the investigative attitude of INSIDE students, it’s very inspirational, they teach me to look at Holland with other eyes. For his graduation project Shripal Shah, a student from India, did a study about Transvaal, a multicultural neighborhood in The Hague. He made me even more curious about this area that’s so familiar to me. All in all, my years at INSIDE definitely made me more conscious of environmental issues like how to deal with waste. What our students can design with waste material for instance for the Studio New Workspace surprises me every year. There’s so much potential in materials and objects to be reused, discoveries you find out when spending a lot of time

WHY THE RUSH? THE ROLE OF DESIGN IN AN EFFICIENCY OBSESSED WORLD Curated under this year’s theme ‘Fruitful Inefficiency’ a series of lunchtime lectures with discussions was organised by alumnus Jack Bardwell. The invited speakers, all art and design practitioners, were asked to reflect on the topic through their practice. Since the Agricultural Revolution about 10,000 years ago there has been the promise that more efficient processes would create an abundance of fruit, grain and wheat and as a result there would be more time to enjoy life. In his book ‘Sapiens — A Brief History of Humankind’ the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari

INSIDE Fruitful Inefficiency

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The immediate question that follows this statement is: what parameters? And perhaps more importantly, who defines them? Some parameters for example the resources that are available to create with or the time in which to create, are fixed.Others, such as concepts that designers develop to work within or constraints from a client are created and are malleable, they are the point in which new ideas can enter. It is only when these parameters and their motives are understood can the designer begin to have some sort of agency in the process. The parameter to rule all parameters today is of course profit. Following the maxim that time equals money, efficiency is never far behind and its effects begin to reveal themselves in the spaces around us. There is a scene in ‘The Founder’[2] a film about the creation of the McDonalds franchise. In which the founders and brothers Richard James and Maurice James McDonald lay out with tape on the floor of an empty tennis court the plan for a new kitchen layout. The scene unfolds as their staff act out the motions of cooking and assembling burgers. Each in charge of an individual part of the process they begin to dance around the space while Richard James stands a top a ladder like

[1] Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens — A Brief History of Humankind (VINTAGE, 2014), 87 [2] The Founder, Directed by John Lee Hancock, 2016 [3] Arne Hendricks, "Fruitful Efficiency?" (Lunchtime Lectures, Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2020) [4] Keedy Jeffery, Greasing the Wheels of Capitalism with Style and Taste or The ‘Professionalization’ of American Graphic Design, Emigre Magazine, #43, 1997

fruitful inefficiency

with them. At INSIDE the students get time and are allowed to experiment and to fail. The world is a tough place, but INSIDE is a safe haven in which students can fantasize about how the world could be a little bit better. In this 1,5-meter society we currently live in, I need this positive and optimistic view on life. WIt seems like I’m not such an Outsider after all...

describes the Agricultural Revolution as ‘History’s Biggest Fraud’ and states that ‘Rather than heralding a new era of easy living, the Agricultural Revolution left Farmers with lives generally more difficult and less satisfying than those of foragers.’[1] Nevertheless the dream of less work for more fruit prevails. A mantra that you might recognise from claims that contemporary automation will offer us a work-free leisure-full utopia. Fruitfulness then, is a term intrinsically connected to efficiency, to growth, to the concept that more and faster equals better. Which is part of the reason why the term ‘Fruitful Inefficiency’, the title for this series of lectures, is so provocative. It is this juxtaposition to the point of paradox that was explored through these lectures, with artists and designers talking from contrasting positions of efficiency and inefficiency. The following text reflects on the conversations that were held over lunch after these lectures.

EFFICIENCY AND THE CREATION OF SPACE The scenes of the Agricultural Revolution; wild pastures full of roaming foragers being transformed into cultivated gridded farmland, is an obvious large scale effect of efficiency’s logic on our environment. But how does this relate to the role of the designer today? To design is to create within a set of parameters.

a conductor orchestrating their movement. This way of working was a revolutionary idea for a restaurant in the 1950s, one that reduced the delivery of a burger from ‘30mins to 30seconds’. While doing so Richard and Maurice arguably become kitchen designers, with efficiency and profit margins as their main parameter. The resulting design with its easily wipeable steel surfaces, complete with custom tools for squeezing out the right amount of ketchup and mustard into the Burger has become the aesthetic of efficiency, a default in fast food chains around the world.

LECTURE 1: EFFICIENCY AS A PRIVILEGE Lecturers: Pascal Lazarus (La Bonneterie) & Wesley Leeman (Goldsmith) Modernism was held up as the epitome of efficiency in design and the core of the inspiration in the Rotterdam based Goldsmith Architects’ practice. Efficiency at this time promised to create a better, less complex world after the mess and destruction of war. These same principles today are applied to a myriad of different contexts. Goldsmith’s current projects, such as a floating dairy farm in Rotterdam sparked interesting debate. Was the role of the designer to execute the desires of the client with clever solutions no matter what? Designers can no longer ignore the fact that they operate within a system that has efficiency as its

Jack Bardwell

INSIDE Magazine 2020

INSIDE Fruitful Inefficiency

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Master Interior Architecture

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INSIDE Fruitful Inefficiency

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evolution and progress is about efficiency. Are we able to change the perception that bigger is better and in doing so change the parameters of success? In Arne’s world we have a simple choice: ‘either we shrink towards abundance or grow towards scarcity’.[3]

CREATING NEW PARAMETERS

driving force. Can this be separated from the motive of profit with a goal towards a better world? The planet is running out of resources for a growing population and efficiency might be the only way to escape this. Was the very notion of inefficiency then a privilege that designers do not have time to indulge in? Before the advent of washing machines the laborious task of washing your clothes was not to be taken lightly, taking a whole day, if not more and for some parts of the world this is still a reality. Although these spaces, perhaps a spot by the river bank can become communal gathering places you are unlikely to think of the social gains of such an event while you do this back breaking work in the sweltering heat. It is only when the washing machine becomes a domestic norm might we begin to recognise the value of public communal washing spaces. This idea was taken to its extreme with La Bonneterie’s Utopian laundromat project at the Festival of Creative Urban Living last year in Milton Keynes (UK). The washing process was spread down an entire public street complete with bicycle powered washing drums and a tiered water filtration system to create an interactive public washing machine. Here the role of the designer could be seen to use their position of privilege to be able to imagine alternative ways of operating, one that goes beyond efficiency towards a world in which speed and growth is no longer the number one priority.

LECTURE 2: SIMPLE COMPLEXITY AND COMPLEX SIMPLICITY Lecturers: Thomas Thwaites & Yang Zhang (KAAN Architecten) If efficiency under the Logic of Modernism is about simplicity, stripping things down to their bare essentials, K

Post-lecture Lunch and Discussions at the INSIDE Studio.

The posters that were used to advertise the lectures at the KABK showed a series of Heath Robinson illustrations. Heath Robinson was a British cartoonist, illustrator and artist who was prolific during the 1930s. His most famous drawings depict elaborate mechanical solutions to seemingly simple everyday problems. The illustrations beautifully capture the ridiculous lengths that the logic of efficiency can go to and in doing so make us question the value of such acts. To me Robinson’s images sit in a very particular paradoxical zone that describes the two different aspects of this topic from INSIDE that was explored in this lecture series. In the pursuit of efficiency they are spectacularly inefficient and as such create ridiculous yet surprisingly fruitful new scenarios. Fruitful Inefficiency as a method then, uses the language of profit and progress deliberately flipped on its head. In doing so it aims to disrupt the prevailing market-logic of design. The outcome is surprising and often refreshing as it bucks the trend of 10,000 years of human logic and almost a 100 years of design thinking. Some projects as we have seen require an efficient approach possibly inherent to their scale and complexity. But from a position of privilege that is often afforded to designers, surely it is their responsibility to constantly ask where the need for efficiency comes from? Who or what is setting the parameters for design? Only then is it possible to make the informed choice as a designer to either grease the wheels of the system with style and taste[4] or to put a spanner in the works and imagine a different machine altogether.

then is inefficiency about complexity? The Toaster Project by the British designer Thomas Thwaites’ takes a seemingly simple item - the toaster- and tries to recreate it from scratch using one man processes. A monumental undertaking which took him on a long journey revealing the complexity and history of global industrialisation hidden within an object. Yang Zhang, architect at KAAN Architecten (Rotterdam), on the other hand takes something extremely large and complex, the design of Schiphol Airport’s New Terminal, and through efficiency gave clarity to the project, both for the design process itself and for the end user. Here the role of design took two distinct positions; one to make complex things simple and the other to reveal the complexity in something seemingly mundane in order to give a new perspective on the world around us.

LECTURE 3: SHRINK TOWARDS ABUNDANCE OR GROW TOWARDS SCARCITY? Lecturers: Arne Hendricks & Charlotte Catala Martin (Woodstone Kugelblitz) For the artist Charlotte Martin of Woodstone Kugelblitz (Rotterdam) inefficiency has become a way of living. Indeed by making it part of her practice, she was quick to point out the paradox of efficiency, that if the goal is to do nothing it is possible to become efficient at being unproductive. By deliberately living a life that chooses not to engage with the rush of efficiency Woodstone Kugelblitz creates their own world, one with a distinct aesthetic of slowness. The Amsterdam based artist Arne Hendricks however argues that we can solve the problem by reframing success from growth to shrinkage. By shrinking the world’s population to just 50cm tall we would certainly be more efficient in our use of resources. With this he questions the idea that

M L Heath Robinson Illustration. Swimming The Channel. Some Simple Devices to Ensure Success, 1935. from the scene in the film The Founder, 2016.

M 1:1

scale floor plan of McDonalds kitchen

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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Master Interior Architecture

OUTSIDE Travel

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FEELING ENDEM BY TRAVEL Spatial design is a complex matter by nature. After all, at various scales from cities to interiors, there is always a context with many preconditions that the designer has to take into account. Ideally, the design of space is neither dominated by the preconditions of others nor by the autonomous perspective of a designer. Spatial design is applied autonomy. The virtuosity of the designer lies in the way how she/he manages to deal with these preconditions and how she/he sorts, interprets, places in a hierarchy and depicts preconditions. In developing the ability to deal with the specific

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context from their own perspective, to act with an autonomous mind in an applied context, it plays a key role where designers themselves are situated. Their backgrounds and opinions that emerge from that, the preconceptions that came out of it, determine to a large extent how they themselves see the world and act as a designer in that world accordingly. Travel is an educational programme that enables future spatial designers, by means of travel, to discover their own preconceptions, to critically examine them, and to get to know their own position from the way they perceive their environment. Subsequently, the programme also

feeling endem enables them to use their own observations as personal special features in their designs. Travel is a course that takes about 28 days spread over a period of 8 months. Travel starts with Endem and ends with Stoffwechsel Endem is the Albanian concept for feeling happily lost and

invites participants to gather all sorts of impressions without actually knowing for what reason. TRAVEL consists first and foremost of a collection of travels. These travels can be short or long and far away or close to home, it doesn't matter. The design of the travels; the locations to be visited,

the planned meetings, the modes of transport, the moments and places of stay, the in-between, etc, is a crucial part of the travel experience. The instruction participants receive is simple: photograph what you notice and load those photos onto your travel blog. And do that Feeling Endem.

Hans Venhuizen

In other words, with a positive approach to the fact that you don't know what you're looking for. The photos on the next 3 pages were taken by: Hugo LĂłpez Silva, Aaron Kopp, Martyna KildaitÄ&#x2014;, Florian Bart and Johannes Equizi

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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OUTSIDE Travel

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Master Interior Architecture

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OUTSIDE Travel

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After the students have filled their travel blog with images of their own observations, the next phase of TRAVEL begins: 好奇 or HÀOQÍ. HÀOQÍ, the Chinese word for curious, challenges participants to reflect on what they actually saw and to discover all kinds of fascinating observations that stimulate their curiosity. In the third phase participants limit their observations to the core idea framed in language in various PADIDEH, the Persian word for ‘phenomenon’. These PADIDEH will be confronted with designtasks through placing both on two sides of a matrix (see examples on next page). The fields between the entered parameters on the x and the y-axis are left empty. What this creates is a personalized field of exploration in which the students'

own observations are linked to design assignments. Finally students explore the possibilities that are hidden within their own fields through applying the sometimes seemingly irreconcilable PADIDEH to the designtasks. In this way, the personal interpretations of the intuitively collected observations, contained in language, are brought into relation to design assignments and explored in order to finally be materialized again, in a different form. Following the four steps of the TRAVEL programme, increases participants' awareness of their own backgrounds and opinions that emerge from that. The preconceptions that came out of it, determine to a large extent how they themselves see the world and act as a designer in that world accordingly.

Create a situation of open negotiation by spatially representing all involved parties and influencing factors.

Design all elements to relate to the whole while still expressing their specific character.

Create spaces of intimate scale which are distinct in character, function and typology from its surrounding.

Frame the view to link a space to situations that occur on the outside.

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MEANING vs RECOGNITION (ESTRANGEMENT) Combine an existing and recognizable setting with some unconventional material.

TRANSITION Include a blurred, cloudy, dirt, layered material to confuse the sight.

SHELTER Use or create patterns or shapes that are clear to read or relate to some “home” or building archetypes that are necessary and functional like the idea of a door, a window, slabs, beam and columns.

HIDING Blending, masking, addition that does not disrupt the surface to keep a certain quality while makes it more functional.

ADDITION In the form of writing or with an object something is added to make an idea clearer or to suggest something.

As an intervention in a place within the space that is now, within the current circumstances, available to you. This can be your own living space, but also the public space that is still accessible to you today.

Make a sketch of the application in the box and place an image of your matrix on teams.

The public space in Dervican. Choose a certain place and make a choice between square, street, alleyway, public building or the space between public and private.

Challenge: Apply your rules (padideh) one by one to the three situations (tasks). Apply the rules even when that seems

TASKS The INSIDE studio space as you would like to use it next year (taking into account the possible restrictions related to the co rona virus, such as the obligation to keep a distance of 1.5 meters at all times).

Travel workshop Stoffwechsel Matrix Date: April 20 2020 Student: Hugo Lopez Silva

OUTSIDE Alumni in Corona Times

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our former students have a greater impact: their professional practice has radically invaded their private spaces. “At first it was strange to wake up in the morning and immediately face a huge computer screen and chair next to my bed. Sometimes it was quite a challenge to distinguish home and work space, both physically and mentally. But after a couple of weeks I got used to it.” (Goda Verikaitė — 2018) Not everyone succeeds in doing that. “I do not go to the office so I do not meet my colleagues or other related-to-work people. My working space is now my tiny desk at home,

alumni in corona times

Make the threshold between two spaces a site specific and extraordinary experience of transition.

PADIDEH

Master Interior Architecture

After the Royal Academy was closed in March 2020 due to the corona pandemic, it was amazing to see how quickly we switched to digital platforms. The Academy turned out to be excellently prepared for this unprecedented situation. Though, after an initial enthusiasm, the limitations soon became apparent. Digital communication is limited to image and sound and lacks the much-needed spatial and sensory information. Therefore it makes communication too efficient; there is no more time to linger, consider, look each other in the eye, have a quick chat in between, etc. With a reference to our year theme Fruitful Inefficiency: efficiency makes communication less fruitful. Every year we pay attention to our alumni in our magazine. This year we wondered how they experienced the lockdown situation. Has the coronavirus crisis affected their architectural practice? Did they learn or develop something new because they were forced to adapt to the circumstances? Can the alumni give (future) architects advice on how to deal with this situation? On these questions I've addressed the alumni. Below I have processed some of the responses I received. I mention the names of the former students,

Challenge: Apply your rules (padideh) one by one to the three situations (tasks). Apply the rules even when that seems impossible at first. Make a sketch of the application in the box and place an image of your matrix on teams.

TASKS The public space in Dervican. Choose a certain place and make a choice between square, street, alleyway, public building or the space between public and private.

Travel workshop Stoffwechsel Matrix Date: April 20 2020 Student: Aaron Kopp

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The INSIDE studio space as you would like to use it next year (taking into account the possible restrictions related to the corona virus, such as the obligation to keep a distance of 1.5 meters at all times).

INSIDE Magazine 2020

and the year of their graduation, in brackets. Many of the reactions were similar to the experiences you read in the media. Most replies came from alumni students with a permanent work contract who did not experience immediate financial challenges. "For me nothing has changed so far. However, I know quite a few individually working friends in the same or similar field who have had serious economical difficulties throughout this time.” (Goda Verikaitė — 2018) This corresponds to another former student who wrote that the day she received my email, she was told that her contract was not extended because of the crisis. In any case, everyone is aware of the risks of the situation: "Even though the crisis did not change my income, it led me to be more cautious about any expense I need to make. I started to just buy things to answer my basic needs." (Hande Öğün — 2019) An Italian alumna working in the Netherlands, recognized clear cultural differences between the countries in dealing with the crisis. “I have been told from the Italian side to be careful, to act right at the beginning of the spreading with strict measures, avoiding direct contact, be responsible for myself and for others. And the other side, people in the Netherlands act different, step by step and trying to do their best following all the measurements and waiting every week for more information from the government. These two differences in mindset, undoubtedly come from different political social and cultural situations.” (Camilla Casiccia — 2016) These changes in the working environment of

Handes Conference Room.

with no ergonomic chair...my neck is starting to feel this change!” (Laura Frías Muñoz del Cerro — 2019) But others say: “I just need a screen for the work that I am performing, the way I work did not change at all.” (Hande Öğün — 2019) But she did adapt her daily-life space: “The borders of workspace and home started to melt down more and more. I changed the way I am living in my apartment and assigned the areas for fun/exercise and for work not to feel like in the same place all the time, tried to separate them as much as possible.” Another alumna even recognized her own graduation project in this trend. “The role of Home will be changed so that Home-office will be increased if unnecessary meetings and movements from place to place do not happen.” (Minsun Kim — 2013, http://commongood. work) But in the end many respondents drew the same conclusion as we did at INSIDE. “Working in a team and having social interactions is very valuable and it keeps the motivation up; it is stimulating as well as healthy. Therefore sometimes we decided to have digital tea breaks all together.” (Camilla Casiccia — 2016) Perhaps the optimistic alumna in particular reacted, because the general sentiment was quite positive and also enterprising. “During quarantine, I have more free time for thinking and reading. So I started writing blogs for a Dutch audience to introduce Chinese design. (https://china2025. nl/author/ni-nan/) At the same time, I'm taking career related training courses like: project management and cultural & art strategy.” (Ni Nan — 2014)

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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OUTSIDE Alumni in Corona Times

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Master Interior Architecture

STUDIO The New Workspace

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STUDIO THE NEW WORKSPACE In the first studio of the first semester the students were invited by Studio Makkink & Bey to design their workspace on the basis of their own terms and conditions. The starting point of the design process of eight weeks was a 1-day internship at a nearby company in The Hague. These companies were not all aligned with design, like a car garage, a law firm and a paper factory. The students had to research and analyse flows which were present in these firms (for instance energy, waste and money), interview the owner or employees to find out the work flows and conditions and to gather rest material which they could use for their own workspace, like paper, car parts, concrete etc. It was a struggle for the students to create space with not so obvious materials, instead of

“I truly explored learning how to sow seeds and start some urban gardening in my balcony.” (Goda Verikaitė — 2018) “A good thing is that now I can use part of the money I am saving to join online courses or to buy crafts materials for my personal development. And this crisis has pushed me to start using my bike.” (Laura Frías Muñoz del Cerro — 2019) Others saw advantages in working online but were critical at the same time. “It has been possible to change a way of meeting face to face to video chatting or email, but it is not the best way to compromise.” (Minsun Kim — 2013) But not everyone thinks only of themselves. “When the virus breaks out around the world, people realize that art and culture are important ways to heal and recover from special times.” (Ni Nan — 2014) And there seems to be a lot to learn from this crisis. “I think it is important in these kind of situations to calm down and accept it as a time to stop and recharge, instead of panicking (I went through both phases). During this time, next to boredom I also

experienced very slow pleasures of life, such as: eating good and healthy food, sleeping properly, doing sports, watching old movies, not rushing, simply HAVING TIME.” (Goda Verikaitė — 2018) “Take some time for yourself, to relax and think about possible ways to continue being happy and useful for the society. Do not waste much time regretting, but start thinking of solutions to continue working, even if you have to transform the way you do it or change what you do.” (Laura Frías Muñoz del Cerro — 2019) But don't lock yourself in your own world. “Try to be active and be a participant in the office/school even when working from home.” (Camilla Casiccia — 2016) I also received professional advise. “I think we as designers should be trained to produce urgent — temporary spaces and really understand how all these possible changing necessities are affecting the spaces around us. And I believe it is always good to consider alternative scenarios for dealing with any situation / design problem and leave room for adaptability.” (Hande Öğün — 2019) And also a sincere heart-cry. “I’m trying to survive in this field as an interior architect, a designer or something else. I can’t give you technical advice but what I can tell you is that many are better than alone!” (Minsun Kim — 2013) The reactions I gathered seem to stem from a somewhat privileged situation without unconquerable challenges. What, however, is abundantly clear is a contagious optimism and a great ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Both seem to me to be excellent competences for a career as a spatial designer, not to mention a hopeful and forward-looking attitude. As Goda Verikaitė, who explored urban gardening, testifies: “My 'Corona Garden' marks the early beginning of the quarantine when I sowed seeds. Meanwhile I'm growing pumpkins in the west of Rotterdam. My friends, Klodiana, Cam and Jaja are planting carrots in the north of the city. Hopefully, by autumn, Corona will be gone, than we will gather harvest and make some reunion soup.”

Colleagues of Ni Nan (she works at the Dutch Embassy in Beijing) meeting Chinese Government Representatives in Corona Times. Courtesy of Dean Chen© D Minsuns Workstation.

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chairs and desks, as these were not allowed to be an initial element of the design. In the end, the students succeeded to extend the definition of ‘a working space’ and went through experimental hands-on experiences by implementing re-used materials for their ideal space to work in at INSIDE. As part of the theory & writing programme the students explored what a manifest is in order to write one themselves and to strengthen their ideas about their ideal, personal workspace as a call for change. Amongst others, there were pleas for cherishing privacy, cocooning and the ‘not one size fits all’ workspace. In collaboration with Studio Makkink & Bey (Michou Nanon-de Bruijn), Superuse Studios (Jillian Chen) and Anne Hoogewoning (Theory & Writing). With special thanks to Jero Papierwarenfabriek, Tiddo de Ruiter, De Binnenstadgarage Den Haag, Reprovan de Kamp, Nelis Company, Concreet Design and Teleport hotel.

( not ) one size fits all Alicja Będkowska

Comfort is not a regulated thing. We all have different heights, lengths, sizes and preferences. Comfort is being shaped for us. But can we become creators of our own?

preferences first

Make a choice

Don’t be naive about your own choices. Don’t believe what headlines say, always check

Claim the choice

Can comfort be tailor-made?

Ask yourself, what are you looking for?

Imagine no standards nor boundaries

See the guidelines

Don’t take what comes first, take your time and keep looking. to find personal comfort you need to investigate, compare

Be reasonable with what you are looking for. think as an individual, don’t look for definitions. Always respond to your own needs. Don’t follow the trends, put personal

Have a choice

Try to come out with the best possible solution, look for different angles, sizes, variations Don’t generalize. the only thing that should be defined is an individual product Personalize Make it your best.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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STUDIO The New Workspace

Every Studio within the INSIDE program contains a Flows study. The Flows approach to spatial design within the INSIDE program, aims for a 'systemic' understanding of our environment thus enabling resource flows to give a positive contribution to design by delivering innovative and sustainable solutions. Flows is a crucial tool for 'engineering' the ambitions of sustainability and circularity, which are indispensable for the future of our built environment.

STUDIO The New Workspace

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FLOWS:

plastics, paper, glass

SOAP FOR HOPE

PRODUCTION OF NEW SOAP BARS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

REFILL

ROOMS

MANUFACTURE

saves up 50 % of money compare to small containers

HOTEL TELEPORT

DIRTY LINEN

investing money saving money

(less by 13.2 tonnes)

LINENS

BREAD etc. FOOD + DRINKS

ECO-CLEANING PRODUCTS

BAKERY

RESTAURANT

COMPOST

WASHED WITH BIO PRODUCTS

on top of garage

BREAD

FRUIT + VEG

BLACK WATER

WATERING

TABLECLOTHES

WATER

BREAD etc.

GENERAL WASTE

SAVES UP € 60.000 / year

GREY WATER

FOOD + DRINKS

ECO-CHEMICALS supplier

REALLY BAD

UNEATEN BREAD

GREY

ECO-CLEANING PRODUCTS

NOT PERFECT

ORGANIC WASTE

ECO-CHEMICALS

DRINK supplier

DAMAGED OR REPLACED MATERIALS + FURNITURE

USED AS BUILDING MATERIALS FOR NEW PROJECTS - UPCYCLING

BEDSHEETS + TOWELS

ON PERFECT CONDITI

OF ECO-BA AMENITIES

local FOOD

60% LESS of GENERAL WASTE

USED/UNUSED RS SOLID SOAP BA

NE 5L CONTAITH ROOM

supplier

making money

USED BATHROOM AMENITIES

PS SOLID SOA

DRUGSTORE

+ -

8.8 tonnes / year

RECYCLE BINS IN ROOMS

PDF, EMAIL, digitalizing

SOAP

flows

SOAP RECYCLE

FURNITURE + BUILDING MATERIAL

PAPER PACKAGING

+ BUILDING MATERIAL SUPPLIER

CONTAINERS

FURNITURE

Money FLOW: furniture + material leaflet + prospects solid soap bars bathroom amenities room waste linen food + drink bread cleaning chemicals

RECYCLE

@ SEND BY EMAIL, ONLINE

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*HYGIENE REDUCE DISEASES

The Flows approach does not start by creating a hierarchy in complex spatial situations. Instead Flows focuses on the complex system itself that lies underneath every spatial situation. The systemic approach of Flows distinguishes three sections of flows: physical flows, energy flows and flows of value, and determines 14 different subcategories within these sections. The Flows approach supports designers to reason with reality and to understand the world. Understanding the situation not through simplification and isolation, but through establishing a 'systemic view' on the built environment. By mapping the dynamic and complex

SUPERUSE

FLOORS VOLUNTEERING

BEER, HONEY

GARDEN

LOCAL CHARITIES UPCYCLING

VEG + FRUIT PRODUCTION

HONEY *BEER

+ SAVED AMOUNT OF MONEY IN TOTAL: € 94 000 + profit from Superuse, honey production + food production FURNITURE + B. MATERIAL: upcycled: 50% - garden, bee hives etc. Superuse: 25% general waste: 25%

FURNITURE + B. MATERIAL: € 100.000 hotel is refurbished every 10 years

Printed prospects replaced by PDF + APP: saves up € 2500

PRINTED PROSPECTS: € 2500 22.000 leaflets + maps

SOLID SOAP BARS: reduction of waste by recycling 735 kg of soap waste per year, Soap of Hope = saves € 3000

SOLID SOAP BARS: € 1600 20.000 pieces waste = 735 kg/year

BATHROOM AMENITIES: replaced by 5 l containers € 2000 (saves up 50% of money compare to small containers) refilling = no waste

BATHROOM AMENITIES: shampoo, shower gel, conditioner € 4000 70-85% end up in general waste LINENS: hotel: € 80.000 restaurant: € 10.000 (money spent on washing)

LINENS: hotel: € 80.000 restaurant: € 10.000 (money spent on washing) sold or given away non perfect linen - profit of € 2000, almost no waste

ROOM WASTE: € 85.570 1 kg per person per night = 18 500 kg/year FOOD + DRINKS: € 60.000 food waste 1.98 t/year = cost of it: € 9.000 BAKERY: € 20.000 30% uneaten = waste of 1.5 t/year CLEANING CHEMICALS: € 3600 € 50 per room/year

ROOM WASTE: € 34.100 saves € 51.400 by recycling 60 % of the room waste - 11.1 t/year

HOTEL TELEPORT

FOOD + DRINKS: € 40.000 - reduced by supply from own food production compost - food waste 1.98 t/year = saves up € 9.000 BAKERY: € 6000 saved by upcycling waste of 1.5 tonne of uneaten bread/year - beer production, new bread CLEANING CHEMICALS: replaced by eco products - grey water used for watering of the garden - 1000 litres a day

BREWERY

BEER PRODUCTION

* COMMUNITY *ATTRACTIVITY * IMPRESS

+ T-shirts PRODUCTION raise money

STUDENT ACCOMMODATION

BEE HIVES

raise money

relationships of the designated flows, designers are capable to maneuver and understand the numerous layers involved. Flows helps them to bring these layers, and how they are intertwined, together to the core of their design process. Flows thus not only manifest itself in the research phase of a project but also steers the design process itself. Flows was originally developed for INSIDE by Jan Jongert of the Rotterdam based architecture office Superuse Studios. Since 2017 the Flows programme is further developed by the alumna INSIDE student Junyuan Chen, who graduated in 2015 with a Flows approach for the future ruralization of a small village in Southwest China. Superuse Studios recently introduced their Flows approach in China. Last year they realised a platform to visualize the system of Flows for the Zhaoqing High Tech Industrial Park in Guangdong Province in the South of China. This platform maps and shows the system of Flows in the industrial park by visualising the input and output of material and energy of each factory in the area. This visualisation creates awareness by the companies and local government about the relationship between the production and the various kinds of waste that production entails. Thus providing the knowledge to support the engineering of the waste not being dumped but to be renewed as resource.

Master Interior Architecture

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SOLD TO HOSTELS STILL GOOD FOR THEM

where are needed

STUDIO 1 FLOWS MAP BY TEREZA CHROŇÁKOVÁ The research that led to this Flows map is based on observations and investigation that were made during a one-day internship spent in the Hotel Teleport in The Hague. The Flows map shows the physical flows in the hotel, that within the hospitality industry is a typical example for a hotel of 84 rooms with a restaurant and student accommodation.

+ + + The map is mainly focused on material supply and physical waste of the hotel. At first, Tereza created a map of the current situation which was very linear. The final version of the flows map explores a solution that reduces the expenses and waste of the hotel and adds some positive values for the society and community around the hotel. The mapping process revealed various interesting facts about the hotel industry.

HOTEL TELEPORT

INSIDE Magazine 2020

STUDIO The New Workspace

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It’s the time workplaces being represented as spaces that give ultimate freedom to its employees. It’s the epoch of managers who can move around freely and hide in their private offices. It’s the time of minimal architecture. It’s the time when people are most distracted at work. A phone is ringing, clicking noise of heels on the concrete floor, ticking sound of typing on keyboards, people passing, chatting, a phone is ringing, monitors blink, people stare, someone comes for a chat, everybody is moving. The workspace is never still. It’s like working in a beehive with many distractions around. We all work together on a common goal and a single soul doesn’t

mean anything compared to the beehive society. We are never alone. We are always reachable. The lack of our privacy is visible. But even a bee needs to fly on its own once in a while. We have a need to be alone to be able to reflect and focus on our individual tasks. A workplace that accommodates groups, but also individual and private needs, is the only workplace that can improve our potential,

performance and productivity. We, architects and designers, need to consider a new dimension of workplaces where people are all equal and free. Where the workspace can be adjusted to our needs. Move freely. Walk into our capsules whenever we have a desire for it. Block our vision. Hide in the cells. Sit in there. Stand and lie in there. Write in there. Read in there. Work in there.

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Be in there. With no visual distractions. No disturbance of our eyes. With a warm and secure atmosphere. A place that becomes our second skin, protecting us from the rest of the world. There we are on our own. We can finally breathe, think, work and focus.

a story of capsules

Tereza Chroňáková

hierarchy, authority and security

Aaron Kopp

I do not want to have a workplace. A physical workspace would outline and influence my process. I want to be as free as possible from such influences; I want to be mobile and unrestricted in my actions; I want to inhabit and investigate diverse spatial situations. What is a workspace apart from its physical support? To have a workplace means that your labor is being taken seriously, you are accepted professionally. It means that you and your practice have a place in society. Labor is a social construct; we work for and with others; we measure and compare its value. Hierarchy is a key element for stability and control in our economy. The workspace bestows authority to your labor,

to your opinion. Positioning requires and generates authority, a lack of it becomes an obstacle and too much decrease flexibility. The more concrete and stable your workspace is, so is your position. It is what you can count on, take for granted, to plan and operate from, it is your base, your security. Are those values still contemporary? Is this idea of the workspace still sustainable? Society is changing more rapidly than ever, especially the creative industry. In my project I am navigating and negotiating my position in this contradictory field, going back and forth between extremes, representations, and absolutes. Choice by choice establishing my position.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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Master Interior Architecture

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za area an empty interstice

Johannes Equizi

I found an empty area, it has steel fences around and naked building fundaments embracing the plants growing in between. B It's flat, is surrounded by tall constructions, some of them of residencies, C factories and a religious-cultural center, probably an Indian one. People sing there inside, around echoes of construction sites. Also, this abandoned area has a strong voice, but you have to STAY there. It's the voice of the plants shaken by the wind. I observe this INTERZONE from different corners, I scour what is around and then it's time to go there INSIDE. The FEAR grows, you are crossing a gap in the fence where no one is allowed. D I put the hands behind my back like an old man when walking along a riverside. I have to look like a harmless person. I look around searching for something, maybe wicked eyes watching me, but nobody is around so I start to discover the interzone.E

Stocked old materials on one side, next to them two containers, in the center the SOUL of the rejected building, just half a meter tall, plates bolts and bullets are the not grown up backbones. I start to follow the soul along the perimeter. Around me, behind the fences, people don't care. The fear is gone. Who cares about an interzone? Along the edges of the soul a lot of objects lay together, hidden by the green flourishing plants. They are memories of kids, of junkies, of workers, of mothers. Is the interzone a CEMETERY? A forgotten dead stripe in the middle of the planned area? Someone comes out of a door, I am behind the fence but he smiles at me and say good morning. I jaunty reply. Somehow, after walking along the border I am part of it, I am an alive person in a dead interstice. The pedestrians look at me with no expressions. Nobody at

the window, nobody kicks me out. I sit down and start writing some impressions... If my presence is allowed now, what LIMITATIONS might I encounter? F I take my food here and move to the center. G I stand, eating my delicious bread with hummus and start turning my eyes around. PLEASE CONSIDER ME. I am in a closed area which not belongs to me. A woman in the canteen of the cultural center fixes her eyes on me — finally — smiles and continues to work. H Maybe nobody cares because this interzone BELONGS TO ANYBODY. Am I dead on the premature soul of this not-born building? Do the others look at us as a WORTHLESS PRESENCE, without fear? And if I start running, or crying, or stealing something, which borders keep me far and out from what is behind the fences, outside the interstice? Let's try doing something. I just walk along the foundations again, I arrive next to a big fence gap. I turn around my head: someone is behind a window with a phone. I cross the border, I am out the interzone. I AM OUT. Now I might be any pedestrian crossing the street and watching at a bag and a camera I left at the interstice — for the others I might be a stealer! I walk along the fence and I enter the area again at the same spot. I HAVE NO FEAR: I already know the abandoned area. For the people on the sidewalk I might be an outlandish stealer of bags. How is my presence perceived now?IJ I was wrong. NOBODY CARES, again. My bag and camera are dead in this cemetery. Am I the only one who still glimpse in its POTENTIAL LIFE?

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interview

Elisa Piazzi and Johannes Equizi

For the studio ‘The New Workspace’ two students, Johannes Equizi and Elisa Piazzi, went on a one day internship in the paper factory ‘Jero Fabriek’, a 107 years old factory located in Binckhorst, The Hague. They got fascinated by the old traditional machines and the atmosphere of the place that reminded them of the year theme ‘Fruitful Inefficiency’. Therefore they decided to interview the owner Sandro, who passes on the passion of his grandfather, the founder of the factory, that still exalts the human value. During our one day intern you told us that you don’t have a website nor email. If a client wants to make an order they have to call or send a fax. This can be seen as an inefficient system in nowadays society. Placing an order by phone, without getting an email as confirmation, can be perceived as ephemeral or unsafe. How do clients react?

Yes, you are right. We keep on using the same system as we did 107 years ago. With the pen in one hand and the phone in the other. Many people still prefer to call instead of sending a fax because the process is easier. We are forcing people to go back to the 70’s, in the pre-fax era, but I believe this system is very efficient. The confirmation of the order is not written, true, but it’s immediate. We are one of the last family-factories that do it this way. Our clients know us and we know them, there is trust.

So in a way, with this process you cut some steps.

Yes, exactly. If necessary an order could be placed in 15-20 seconds. With emails, you know, I don’t have to tell you, clients need to send a request for the order, we need to answer, then another email should be send for the delivery date, then another one … in the end it’s all about trust.

So clients choose you also because of this relationship of trust?

I have to admit that we don’t gain many new clients, instead we have a regular clients base. But even when we have new clients this trust comes naturally. Also because even if they are new clients, they already know us. In our market we are very visible especially because of our way of working and because of our long history. Not many factories can produce the products we make, or they can’t make them for the same price, even if they have internet and various “supersonic” machines.

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STUDIO The New Workspace

You told us that you work with different realities, such as psychiatric hospitals and schools for young adults suffering from autism. Do you think that it encourages customers to choose you? So there are also no strictly ethical reasons why clients choose you over others.

To be honest no. Most of them don’t even know we invite young people with autism to work with us, also because we don’t have a website and we are not trying to advertise it.

In a growth scenario with a greater demand for products, would you agree to adapt to new machinery? Or would you prefer to hire more employees but still remain faithful to the old machinery you still use?

The thing is that new machinery is very expensive. Even with printing machines that were paid off 40 years ago you don't earn it back. Being busy with the financial pressure of buying a fleet of new machines, would be just absurd.

Yes, we are lucky: there is so much paper work that we can keep working for ever. Jero Fabriek might go on for the next years. It is an oasis, a parallel world based on trust, on its history, also in the commercial sense. People know us. For other companies that recently opened, especially in current times with the spread of the virus, it might become harsh. Many people invested money, applied for loans. Here in Jero we do not have loans. As my dad always said: you buy only if you already have money, otherwise you create debts.

You know, if there were more orders, our products would become interesting for serious factories and then we would become just like another factory. There are already many factories working like that in Germany, Czech Republic and Poland. The production is a quarter of the costs and in fact the price of the products is also quarter. But here, perhaps because of the paper type, way of packaging, quality of the paper and the local production, these all make us different. In Germany the industries are going well because they have factories with hundreds of middle-aged workers, specially women, being payed 5 euro an hour. Hundreds of people packaging all day while in our place there are just a

I am sure you and the value of Jero Fabriek will last for long. Thank you so much for your time Sandro!

No, no. We have clients all over the Netherlands and some of them we never saw in real person. But those who know us well, they are aware: either because they came here or just because we told them. The only thing that is known to everybody is that we are an official leerwerkbedrijf. This means we are on the national list of places where people not only suffering from autism, before starting a professional life, can come here to gain experience. We sometimes collaborate with schools for autistic children and sometimes with psychiatric institutions, especially a group called Parnassia. We also used to work together with prisons but they have changed their policy and now it has become impossible to bring work over there.

But if it means that orders would increase...

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few. Compared to the Dutch paper production they cost half prize in Germany and in Czech Republic it is only one quarter. If nowadays one would like to invest in our sector on our scale... well, we would be better playing at the casino. Besides, in these years the production of plastic has some issues so imagine if there would be a paper revival and the market would ask only paper products and packagings. We, as a small industry, would be overwhelmed.

So is it an act of deep trust that clients prefer to choose your products and spend slightly more?

Well, one reason is that we provide specific high quality products. One of them is the Pappteller, a paper plate with an anti-grease layer usually for croquettes and herring. The paper is not produced in Belgium neither in Germany because it is a traditional Dutch product. It could be easily replaced with a plastic layer but in the Netherlands we are used to have this paper type, so this is requested all the time. In other countries it could be easily produced but since it is only used by the Dutch market the big industries prefer to leave its market flow to smaller industries like us. In the 70's there were seven other factories producing this specific product. However, today we are the last independent company offering them. In these times it is challenging for small companies like us to resist. I consider myself lucky because I am working with my family, we put passion in what we do, and as you have noticed, the atmosphere is nice here because there is romanticism.

So in a way the romantic environment of the factory, with its old machines, helps to tone down the precariousness.

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STUDIO 'HET (CERAMICS) PALEIS' Reinvent and reactivate ‘Het Paleis’ (The Palace) in Den Haag was the assignment for the first year’s student in the second studio. ‘Het Paleis’ is a dependency of the Kunstmuseum, located right in the city center of Den Haag, and currently in use as Escher Museum featuring the works of the Dutch graphical artist M.C. Escher. However, it is the intention of Benno Tempel, director of the Kunstmuseum, to exhibit the museums’ ceramics collection in ‘Het Paleis’ in the near future; one of the largest collections 17th century Delft blue pottery in the world. Besides the museum houses Asian, Islamic and modern ceramics. A perfect moment to reinvent ‘Het Paleis’ by exhibiting ceramics in all its splendour: what are the challenges and potentials for the display of Delft Blue pottery, a typical traditional Dutch product and for long the symbol of national pride? The studio lasted eight weeks and was guided by Aser Gimenez-Ortega and Elien Deceuninck of MVRDV, the Rotterdam based architecture and urban practice, and by the theory & writing tutor Anne Hoogewoning. Produced in the nearby city Delft, Delftware has a vibrant but also debatable history reflecting the long and lucrative ties of the Netherlands with China and Japan that led the country into the Golden Age. What narratives can be told about the pottery’s shift from domestic utensils to museum objects? And how can the museum benefit from the revival and newest trends in contemporary ceramics, as Delft blue pottery has a somewhat dusty image especially among the younger generation. All in all a perfect moment to try out new concepts of museum display and experiment on a revised taxonomy of ceramics, an idea warmly welcomed by the Kunstmuseum. With special thanks to Benno Tempel (director) and Suzanne Lambooy (curator of Applied Arts) of t he Kunstmuseum Den Haag.

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setting aside display dogma THE MUSEUM AS A SACRED SPACE

A few weeks before we kicked off the ‘Het (ceramics) Paleis’ studio, I visited Het Nieuwe Instituut (Museum for Architecture, Design and Digital Culture) in Rotterdam to see the exhibition curated by the international artist collective The Ummah Chroma (‘Community of colour’). On entering the main gallery, I was surprised to discover it was very sparsely furnished with just a few physical objects. At the centre of the space was a black, flat-topped pyramid surrounded by

Interactive installation with hanging ceramic utensils by Junyao Yi the palace at ‘Prinsjesdag’ (1981). ANP © B

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Anne Hoogewoning

concrete basins filled with flowing water, lit candles and small buckets. Walking towards the pyramid I felt gravel crunching under my feet and saw a guy in a robe using a rake to ritually create circles in the stones. Feathers, stones and crayons were positioned on tables. Spread throughout the space, small, leafless trees stood with empty bottles over the end of the branches. All the while fragments from the film As Told To G/D Thyself by the curators were being projected on the walls, creating an exciting soundtrack.[1] I left the exhibition — or, to be more accurate, installation — feeling a bit puzzled: I had not expected to find the museum transformed into a ceremonial site. I was, however, also touched by the introverted atmosphere and sense of sharing that came from performing symbolic actions and rituals with others. The curators call these actions ‘spirit strategies’ that offer 3D experiences encompassing empathy, their aim being ‘to provide a sacred space

to explore forms of spirituality, self-expression, black futurity and retro-causality’ [2]. The number of objects was limited, and the ones that were present were fully subservient to the visitor and their willingness to explore, smell and touch, and to subject themselves to experiences of dance, prayer and meditation. The aim of the museum was to create a fully immersive experience, with a complementary programme generating ritual performances, meditations and workshops. Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus crisis the museum was temporarily closed and most activities were cancelled.

REINVENT AND ACTIVATE HET PALEIS

After my visit to the exhibition, which resonated in me throughout the several weeks I spent preparing this studio with design tutors Aser Gimenez-Ortega and Elien Deceuninck, I wondered how on earth we could formulate a challenging brief for the students. The brief had two fixed points of departure: 1) The presence of an abundant collection of ceramics owned by the Kunstmuseum in The

D CA

fan of the monarchy waves when the Royal Family appears on the balcony of

‘G/S Thyself: Spirit Strategy on Raising Black Children’ at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam (till 28 June 2020), Daria Scagliola © [1] https://gdthyself.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/ [2] Ibid

D Installation

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STUDIO Het (ceramics) Paleis

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Hague ranging from 17th-century Delftware pottery to Asian, Islamic and modern ceramics; and 2) The future site of display of this collection is an 18th-century mansion in the centre of The Hague with a strong architectural identity and vibrant history (it served at one time as a royal palace). These parameters prompted questions centering on how to reinvent, activate and open up a former palace to engage with the public through an appealing display of ceramics, a medium with a somewhat stuffy image that was most likely to attract an older generation of visitors The studio started with a guided tour around the ceramics exhibition at the Kunstmuseum led by its Curator of Applied Arts Suzanne Lambooy (see interview on the following pages), which included a visit to the basement to see the unexhibited pieces stored there. Suzanne’s enthusiasm and engaging storytelling evoked the pottery’s natural surroundings: its domestic setting, its use, its smell. Suzanne’s devoted connoisseurship also made apparent that the contextualization of ceramic objects, each with their own tale to tell, is a must if we are to understand their significance and the hidden layers of meaning. After the Kunstmuseum we visited the palace, currently in use as the Escher Museum, accompanied by two guides: the Kunstmuseum’s director Benno Tempel and a guide specialized in the palace’s history. Their stories revealed that the building holds multiple layers of inhabitation; monarchs and nobility, political figures, and the chambermaids and kitchen maids who served generations of the Dutch royal family.

THE MUSEUM AS A DOMESTIC SPHERE ‘To live is to leave traces’ Walter Benjamin wrote on the subject of the private interior of the bourgeoisie, with its traces of everyday objects and imprints on domestic environments.[3] How do these traces left by occupants accommodate stories of personal recollections? How to engage with the multiple layers of domesticity in the building and how to deal with its enclosed domestic sphere? The name ‘Het Paleis’ originates from the time of Emma (1858 – 1934), Queen of the Netherlands, who bought the building in the late 19th century to serve as her winter palace. She decorated the palace abundantly with furniture and cabinets, some of them to display her Delftware ceramics collection. Before Emma moved in, the building underwent a major renovation including a new staircase in the heart of the house. This grand and heavily decorated staircase, with a beautiful stained-glass skylight, appears to go up to the second floor — but this is an optical illusion: the staircase in fact only reaches the first floor.

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STUDIO Het (ceramics) Paleis

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CHALLENGING DISPLAY OF CERAMICS

In the 20th century, successive generations of Dutch royalty received official guests at the palace, including US president Eisenhower and various Dutch prime ministers. And annually until 1984 the palace was the departure point of the Golden Coach that carried the Dutch monarch on the third Tuesday of September (Prinsjesdag) to the state opening of Parliament to give the Speech from the Throne outlining government policy for the year ahead. Afterwards the royal family would make their traditional appearance on the balcony of the palace to wave to the waiting crowds. During the 1980 – 2013 reign of Queen Beatrix, however, the palace was used less and less and the royal family decided to sell it to the city of The Hague on the condition that cultural activities should take place there.

The brief for this studio gave the students the rare opportunity to act both as curator and exhibition designer: as well as having to decide what part of the ceramics collection should be shown, they had to design the display, while taking into account the architectural features of the palace. In the first phase of the studio the students embarked on a design process and research path to devise an overarching premise (the research was accumulated in a short essay for the theory and writing programme). The first weeks were devoted to research and then the devising of a concept of the spatial intervention; the final weeks focused on the design phase for the transformation of the site into a ceramics museum. One of the physical elements parts of the final presentation was a resin model designed and produced in a three-day workshop led by industrial designer and model maker Vincent de Rijk. Below I look at a range of student proposals to give an impression of the diversity of the projects.

The role of Delftware pottery as a symbol of luxury and power (illustrated by Emma’s collection in her palace) prompted Johannes Equizi to devote himself to the demystification of ceramics. He based the narrative for the design of his exhibition on the concept of gradually peeling off the layers of symbolic meaning of ceramics, starting from the stage of untouched stored object. Here, Johannes argues, the emotional distance between the viewer and the domestic item is at its greatest, giving rise to misinterpretations of ceramics. The exhibition proceeds to focus on the elimination of this gap and to expose the ceramic object’s original intended function in the household by allowing visitors to use them in a domestic setting. The ultimate moment of demystification is a yearly public event organized by the museum when items from its ceramics collection are thrown from the palace balcony and smashed — the broken pieces are then put on show and reused for creative purposes. The title of Hugo Lopez-Silva’s project is Het Nieuwe Volkspaleis (The New People’s Palace). The palace’s austere monumental facade is hidden by an extra layer of frontage constructed as a public and open-ended frame through which the stairwell remains visible, giving access to all floors. Hugo conceives ‘the museum’ as a centre of knowledge exchange and community. To this end the ground floor becomes an open depot with cabinets for Delftware and background information on its cultural projections. People can store their own ceramic in the depot, through which these items derive new meaning and become connectors among the public. On the subsequent open floors there is a library and a restaurant, and activities such as workshops and meetings are held in order to engage with societal and political issues, using objects as the mediating medium. The diversity of the Kunstmuseum ceramics collection inspired Junyao Yi to delve into the historical roots of Chinese, Islamic and Japanese ceramics and the related rise of Delftware pottery. This Chinese porcelain with characteristic blue and white

[3] Walter Benjamin, “Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century,” in Reflections, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), p.155– 156. E The grand staircase at the palace. F Julia Holmgren presents her project, for the final review, about the lack of tactility in museums.

decoration became a desirable luxury commodity in the Dutch interior when Dutch trading cities started importing it from the early 17th century onwards. Junyao’s interest was particularly caught by the phenomenon of Dutch craftsman copying this specific type of Chinese porcelain, leading to the project titled ‘Imitation or Innovation?’ This question is the connecting thread running through the exhibition, wrong-footing the visitor at every step by displaying porcelain originating in both China and Delft and asking, ‘Which is original and what is imitation?’ An interactive installation on the top floor, where visitors can pull hanging household ceramics to find the right answer, invites the visitor to reflect on whether imitation could be the premise for the innovation of ceramics. Martyna Kildaitè’s project ‘(Re)interpret Duality’ focuses on Delftware’s dual character: originally made as functional domestic products, over time they became desirable objects for collectors and museums. In the exhibition she uses two narrative strands to explore this equivocal status: the grand ground floor and first floor host a display of ‘artistic manipulations’ by interdisciplinary artists invited to reinterpret Delftware. The results of these experiments include robotic and hydraulic sculptures and interactive games, highlighting the unanticipated value of ceramics for new works of art. The more humbly furnished upper floors, where chambermaids once lived, hosts a participatory exhibition that includes workshops exploring the manufacturing and use of ceramics. Here the visitors can make their own pottery and dine together using self-made tableware. In this studio the students got the chance to question conventions around displaying ceramics and to generate a certain consciousness about the ambiguous legacy of the medium. The future setting of the collection — in a former palace with traces of its previous inhabitants — challenged the students to reflect on contrasting, merging or highlighting the exhibits in the context of the dominant interior. These considerations led to a wide range of design proposals, each with

their own discoveries and potentialities that could open up the building and foster debate, not least on the matter of why it would be a good idea to accommodate a ceramics collection at Het Paleis. This question fits within a broader debate about the future of the Museum Quarter in The Hague, including Het Paleis, which has been a subject for discussion in the city council for several years. Hence, the studio as a whole is an example of the way we at INSIDE embed our education within current professional practice.

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New façade for ‘Het Nieuwe Volkspaleis’ by Hugo Lopez-Silva. H Display concept of the exhibition ‘Imitation or Innovation’ by Junyao Yi. Sound installation and hydraulic sculpture of ceramics for the exhibition ‘(Re)interpret Duality’ by Martyna Kildaitè.

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STUDIO Het (ceramics) Paleis

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Suzanne Lambooy is an expert in ceramics, especially Dutch Delftware and its interaction with Chinese porcelain and Islamic art. After graduating from the glass and ceramic conservation department at the Dutch Cultural Heritage Institute, she gained a theoretical background by studying art history. Currently she is curator of applied arts at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag. During our second studio, which was to relocate the ceramics collection of the Kunstmuseum to the Escher Paleis, Suzanne kicked off the studio with a wonderful tour through the collection and its backstage. Can you explain what your work as a curator of applied arts entails and what the most challenging part of your work is?

It is a really a good question because so many people don’t know what a curator does. On the other hand, everybody is a curator nowadays with Instagram. People think a curator selects beautiful things but the word curator comes from the Latin ‘curare’: take care of things and that is what I do. I take care of a collection and my specialization is the applied arts up to 1880. At the Kunstmuseum there are curators for modern and contemporary arts, fashion, photography etc. in total about ten, all for

Jeanne Rousselot and Martyna Kildaitè

I got offered a job at Christie’s and became ceramics specialist and studied art history at Leiden University in the evenings. I am glad to have completed both studies because I can value both the material and theoretical framework of objects. Then I continued to work as a researcher for an antique dealer and got specialized in Delftware which brought me finally to the Kunstmuseum. It is a long story but to make it short: I had no clue that I would become a Delft ceramics specialist. Sometimes when you say yes to new adventures it leads you to somewhere really nice. I hope it will be the same for you. I was lucky and had good mentors who guided me and gave me life lessons. I met three to four persons who changed my life. My advice to everyone is to find these mentors during your studies.

interview

different fields. We make exhibitions but in the first place we take care of our collection, in my case 3D ‘usable’ art from furniture and silverware to Islamic art, Chinese porcelain and Delftware, which we store, research, document and publish. The curator is like an investigator, we dig in the archives to find sources that can tell us where the objects are from and who made them. We select objects for exhibitions and for loans and we reveal their personal stories. So we are the connectors between the object and the visitor in the museum. Martyna: you are like a “Voice of the Object”.

Where and when did your passion for ceramics arise?

My mother always took me to thrift shops to find little treasures. It began with the idea to open my eyes to find beauty in simple things. When I was in high school, I loved making art but I also liked languages. So I didn’t want to choose between art history or going to the art academy. I had a counsellor who told me about a private university in Amsterdam for conservation of applied arts and I started ceramics and glass restoration for four years. We were only with four students. We learned the historical techniques and the science of how to conserve and restore art pieces. Besides my studies, I worked at the auction house Christie’s in Amsterdam as a viewing day assistant. It was a perfect job because all collectors and dealers told me a lot of stories about the objects so I learned a lot. When I finished my study

Do you have a favorite ceramic piece from the collection of the Kunstmuseum?

That’s so hard! I love all of them! There is something special in each of them but recently we bought a really special top piece. It is a pair of flower pyramids from Delft, there are only five pairs known in the world. I always dreamed to acquire one for the collection but they are so rare and cost a lot of money. The pyramids are 1,60 m high and are dated around 1690. All of a sudden there was a sale from a private French noble family so the whole Collections team of the museum went for fundraising and we got them! Incredible, still can’t believe it.

What can we learn about people’s life in the past on the basis of the Delft Blue pottery collection of the Kunstmuseum?

That is a hard question too! The applied arts of ceramics connect me with the past because ceramics were used in daily life. Somebody made it, someone used it, had it in his hands and cherished it. There is a lot of humanity in ceramics, it passes through time. Now it is my turn to inform and interact with the public about the makers, about whom we know so little, and the techniques that were used at that time. Ceramics often commemorate a wedding or a birth and we still celebrate these occasions. Especially Delft ceramics are inspired by other materials, external influences and there is a wide variety of techniques and

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STUDIO Het (ceramics) Paleis

sources used like prints and paintings to look for. As a curator you are like a detective. What you can learn from ceramics is very personal: you could be inspired by their beauty, their makers, their exciting history etc.

How would your ideal ceramics museum look like and what are your dreams about the future ‘Het (ceramics) Paleis’, the assignment of our studio?

I think, we should join all your concepts and realize it :) I would like the museum to be beautiful, interesting and inspiring… It should have a Dutch section to show the international roots. We often forget the huge influence of the Netherlands in Europe and in Asia and we often discard the Islamic roots of ceramics. The museum should present both the story about the history as well as the crafts of ceramics making. The Victoria and Albert museum in London is a good example: they have spaces for artists being part of the exhibitions who have their studios in the galleries of the museum. If crafts are involved, a museum should also show new objects being made and be a place for inspiration. Typical of ceramics is, that they have been used so it would be a nice experience to hold the pieces and for instance have a dinner party in the museum. In any case I would like the museum to be different. Worldwide there are so many ceramics museums but a lot of galleries do not come alive until they become some kind of community place. This is challenging, let alone safety-wise, but also with regard to making ceramics and especially when combining these with a restaurant. It is a big project to take on. Most museums focus on good education, which is an incredibly important core necessity, but you don’t find ceramic museums yet as lively community centers with a much more artistic approach.

Delft Blue pottery has a somewhat dusty image. Can you share some tips on how you try to draw the attention of the visitor while attending an exhibition on ceramics?

Ceramics and other applied arts are very distant in a sense that you actually need some knowledge to see and investigate what they are like. Once you get that, it becomes more and more interesting. So we need to bridge this distance, which we created ourselves in the past, between the object and the visitor. The curators are the storytellers trying to catch the attention of the visitor and to open up this ceramics world. There is also a lot of contemporary kitsch ceramics but if you recognize the high quality and beauty of ceramics and how it is made and was used for you can create a connection between the viewer and the object. A lot of my friends and colleagues like to serve coffee or tea from real porcelain or have dinner parties with porcelains and ceramics. This is becoming more popular as it gives a lot of extra pleasure and here the contemporary artists and designers can play a role. I would, of course, like to teleport back to Delft around

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If you could live in another period, which one would you choose?

1685-1690 to take a look at the potters studios. There are just a few archival resources that tell us who made the design of Delftware. There are no designer’s names known, only factories. How did they work? Where and how did people buy their Delftware? With the factory, in shops, at markets? So little is known how these places looked like. I would love to peek through the door and see what is going on in ‘De Grieksche A’, one of the best of all 30 potteries in Delft. In my field of work, I investigate the past and it gives you a basis for the current time. It gives perspective, comfort and opens your mind to see the circle of life. But I would also like to live in the future, let’s say 50 or 100 years from now, and to experience how the artists shape the future with their innovations. Artists can give a glimpse into the future. They are always ahead of time and they stimulate to reflect on hard topics in politics, economics or about nature. What would your answer be?

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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STUDIO Studio Albania

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"In March a novel virus spread rapidly through the world while I was working on a university design project that was aiming to support the community life of a village called Dervican in the south of Albania. Just a week before the university closed, I returned from my research journey to Derviçan. I was full of enthusiasm, love for the people that I met, with a strong passion for creating some positive contribution to the village. Suddenly, from one day to another, everything changed. All the positive feelings abandoned me, only one feeling stayed — a feeling of being lost. I didn’t know what to do. I was supposed to come back to Albania in June and work together with the community in Dervican on developing my project, but with the situation getting worse I realised at some point, that I won’t be able to return there any time soon." (Tereza Chronakova in her Research Paper "Distanced Designer", Czech countryside April 2020) STUDIO ALBANIA: 12 STUDENTS ALONE IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER How fruitful inefficiency became reality and a studio renamed itself "with care" Klodiana Millona & Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius. Developing techniques to redirect the ongoing transformation of our world is the daily bread of the designer and thus of those guiding others to become one.

THE TASK OF THIS STUDIO WAS TO COME BACK FROM THE OVERWHELMING HOSPITALITY OF DERVIÇAN AND WORK ON IT: DEVELOP INTERVENTIONS FOR A SECOND VISIT, WHICH HAVE THE ABILITY TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS IN AN APPROPRIATE LANGUAGE TO INSPIRE A CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE FOR FUTURE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THIS VILLAGE AND THE VALLEY AROUND.

inside with care

Klodiana Millona and Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius

We look at the world and know it cannot go on like this. And we know it is up to us (among many others) to present propositions for change. We look at land use, exploitation, climate issues, resource economies, social dynamics, water pollution, cultural divisions, unequal unifications and irresponsible power plays; we analyze ecological disasters, interspecies communication, global and local unfairness, space politics and historic traumas. We aim to position ourselves as creators INSIDE the very map that we draw of the world we look at. Often we realise that we have parachuted ourselves into landscapes we cannot grasp, with rules we don't understand, written in languages we don't speak, based on customs we have never encountered. And we find out that despite all the good ideas we might have, we need regional guidance and local knowledge to gain orientation. And suddenly the scenario has flipped around: we thought we came to help and here the local expert stands in front of us, while we turn our map around and ask: "Can I help you?" A number of questions rain down in our mind "why did i come here? — what am i looking for? — who am i, to invade this territory?..." We would naturally collapse, if it was not for the local agent to save us and put us back on track "you must be hungry, come with me, be my guest!" We are strangers! We are guests! We can sit down, lean back, relax and see. And we can ask questions. Thats enough. From here our work becomes clear; it will be to formulate these questions, our words, our language, our formats, our preconditions as precise as possible.

When we arrived back from Albania the conditions had changed. This did not change our task. It changed the University around and thus the way that those guiding the students had to reimagine their techniques of teaching.

WITH CARE In the unusual circumstances we found ourselves — in the midst of a pandemic, limited mobility and education shifting to digital — we could not continue with conducting this semester’s studio as usual. Aware of the difficult moments we are going through, in different ways, our feeling was, that it is impossible to ignore them. 12 students and two teachers alone in front of the emitting light of their computer’s screens without the same ability to concentrate. We can’t ignore the effects this situation has on our individual wellbeing, mental health and the current precarity; fatigue, delay, exhaustion, burn-out, anxiety and disease. The 1:1 intervention in Albania became impossible. We had to change plan. We had to shift the focus. The powerful feeling of solidarity, hospitality and community spirit in the village of Derviçan produced a valuable cartography, a site of entanglements, that at least tangentially prompt us to consider, the importance of care; for one self, for our loved ones, for the ones that are less privileged than us, for our planet and all itshuman and non human species.

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We asked the students to develop their projects from the position of a caring designer and present their individual work as a particle of a collaborative strategy to be illustrated through a collective website. The studio’s outcomes explore through varying layers ways that expand and intensify the notion and act of caring. They are neither solutions nor recipes, but a constellation of efforts that the students describe as below:

“Our understanding of care stems from the singularities observed in Derviçan and our proposals push further the practice of care in its community, materials, locations, celebrations, traditions, individuals; based on our personal approach. The projects address lessons learned in (and with) the place and their development into many topics, articulating our singularities. They resonate back there or grow outwards to other settings - hoping to challenge the established concepts of modern society. Our attempts synchronise in doing so by making Derviçan visible and exploring ways to amplify the notion and act of caring through design. We believe that care can connect us with others in our quest for change. In this era of uncertainty, care can help us to establish a direction to act.” PRACTISING CARE Through the projects of the students we read patterns of care that get disseminated partly by amplifying the vernacular (→ Natalia, Martyna, Julia, Johannes, Tereza, Jo); addressing local and traditional practices as a means of resistance to the homogeneity of modernism and its evident threat in the village and beyond,

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through celebrating the uniqueness of vernacular knowledge, traditions, rituals, tangible and intangible heritage, and local resources through the lenses of the contemporary student of interior architecture. Various ways of mapping and reinforcing patterns of collectivity in the village and addressing it as an agent for future imaginaries emphasises care in stitching togetherness (→ Tereza, Natalia, Martyna, Jeanne, Johannes, Aaron). Along these lines, empathy and togetherness are thought as a (political) tool to rethink systems of governing and the re-invention of everyday life through solidarity, care and negotiation by re-defining commons though kinship as proxies. (→ Johannes, Alicja, Tereza, Florian, Jo, Aaron) Moreover narrating an atlas of spatial diversity in the village by rethinking its values within and beyond the place, is composed carefully by students through a glossary of space making (→ Florian, Alicja, Jo, Natalia, Hugo, Tereza). Among others we have seen efforts in looking at the landscape as an active agent: Looking beyond its flatten picturesque canonical image, exploring topography and its materiality in shaping everyday life, the hidden narratives in the iso-polyphonic traditions as an archeology of a landscape of truth and soil as a silent witness to its formation by different powers; unearthing the ecological dimensions of human impact on the formation of the current landscape, within an anthropogenic perspective. (→ Alicja, Natalia, Elisa, Aaron). Different pursues of radicalising hospitality push forward the unconditional hospitality of the village, therefore thinking of it in terms of space as well, to reimagine its dynamics based on shared responsibilities which stimulate community participation and appropriation (→ Jeanne, Martyna, Johannes, Tereza). Other efforts were made in reading the complex history and mesh of relationships between minorities on the question of Albanian and Greek origins through traditions of music and crafts; diving into semantics of origins: Whose Culture? (→ Natalia, Martyna, Jeanne). At last, a series of strategies for and from the periphery re-think critically the marginality produced by the ‘center’ — the premise of power and dominance — by de-centring the very center and empowering the periphery from within. (→ Aaron, Johannes, Hugo, Florian)

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Endem is an Albanian word for strolling around without a specific aim. To write down a review of a travel that took place two months ago, amid a pandemic and restricted mobility measures, somehow troubles nicely my stomach with some feelings of nostalgia, guilt and pleasure. Time, space and mobility, -vectors that sculpt into cognition a travel,- have mutated into forms that seem unrec-ognisable to what they meant some weeks before. However, thinking of a previous travel, becomes a kind of liberating technology at the present situation of an almost global lockdown. Especially, for me, it is a travel back home while being far away from home. What comes after these lines is an attempt to reenact in a linear time manner a journey through different places, helped and validated by scrolling the abundance of pictures taken with me. This year’s travel in Albania anticipated the first year’s last semester design studio of INSIDE that would start right after the one week travel, and had its focus on Dervican, a village in the south of Albania. The idea was to explore the rural area, as a periphery, searching for narratives that dismantle the construction of it as a byproduct of the hegemonic narrative of the center, - the premise of power and dominance. We read the country and unfolded our trip through a

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luggages. The place is an old house that luckily has resisted the pressure of developers tearing down old traditional villas in exchange of new apartments for the owners in the new multi-storey building. A very common practice in the years after communism in the city, which had a tremendous impact in the disap-pearance of traditional old private villas typical of Tirana, mostly dating from the 20s.

THE VERY CENTRE We start our tour from the very centre of Tirana, ‘Skanderbeg’ square. In many ways this is also the very centre of Albania, its clear geo-political centre. The square has been renovated through an international competition, and is considered as one of the biggest architecture and urban planning projects undertaken from the Albanian government in the country. Its development reveals the many political complexities of the country and how architecture is intricately related to it. Ajmona Hoxha, a local architect who has been part of the team designing this project, takes some time to dive us through it, in time and space. We start with a bird eye view, right on the edge of the square outline, on the first floor’s balcony of Hotel Tirana, a building of the ’79 built during communism, the only hotel and one

endem

Klodiana Millona

structured exploration influenced by its status quo, yet still not too directive towards the knowledge we were looking for, free and open for the unexpected. We focused on the notion of periphery, both as a geography and as a concept, and the forces that produce it, looking simultaneously and inevitably to the “center” as its counter narrative par excellence. On the early morning of February 21st, in the vast space of Schipol, I am looking for familiar faces. Sipping the overpriced coffee offered in the airport, I look for the departure number, and here I add two more familiar faces to the inventory I am creating in my mind of all students we should be departing with. It is exiting cause I don’t know them well, and now we will reduce distances while I fulfil my promise to show them Albania. 8:55 We land in Tirana. Sun is shining. The weather is sweet. There are real mountains here, - one of the students sitting next to me in the plane tells while gazing from the window. Oh yes they are. I get comfort-able and in the mood. I recognize this air. I see the group relaxed. I am the local so they are saved from the burden of figuring out transport or addresses. I feel relaxed too. I am home. It’s 9:30 and we have a nice strong coffee in our hands. Once out of the airport an army of taxi drivers approach us to offer what they suppose we are looking for; driving to Tirana. Almost every meter we hear of a different price. I get to know by asking some strangers that the bus leaves every hour to Tirana. We depart. 11:00 am. We finally make it through the traffic at the ‘Shqiponja’ roundabout, which requires a mix of self learned driving skills and some luck. We arrive in Tirana. After exchanging some pocket money at a local exchange office, we fight our hunger with some street food breakfast, byrek. We stop by the hostel to drop

of the tallest buildings of the city in that period. Even though, hard to imagine it as such, at the current moment, confined by mushrooming skyscrapers all over Tirana. We take a walk to see the different parts of the design of the square and experience walking through its different levels, pavilions and the small alleys intentionally created by its landscape design. We follow towards the south of the main axis of the boulevard “Martyrs of Nation”, whose end is the very centre we just visited, where most of the significant historical buildings of Tirana are concentrated in. Our next stop is at the National Theatre of Albania. Ergin Zaloshnja, a local artist is waiting for us. More than briefing us on the history of the building, the reason we meet him are the current happenings around the theatre. It is for more than two years a space of ongoing protest against its demolition, a decision of the government argued over a plan to build a new ‘modern’ one, designed by the famous Danish architect Bjarke Ingels through a very contested process that allows the government to give the public land to a private developer. The developer would invest the money on a new theatre and build two tower blocks for his own interest on the given public land. In many attempts to save the actions of the government to tear down the building, a group of artists and activists have occupied the space and continuously protect against governmental actions, by a permanent group of people being physically present in the space. In the meantime they have self-organised public events, even in the difficulties of being cut off the electricity from the municipality. We were lucky to meet one of the activists who let us enter in and see the theatre stage. Next stop goes through the pyramid, the former museum of Albania’s ex dictator, abandoned for many years and now in ruined state of being. The future plan

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is to revitalize and transform it into a multi-functional centre for technology, culture and art. Moreover we have a little de-tour behind the National Gal-lery of the Arts, where we find a number of massive sculptures of Stalin, Lenin, Enver Hoxha and an unrecognisable woman portrayed as ready to fight. We can’t identify her, but it feels nice to see some attempts towards gender balancing among these dominant men. Even though there is very little chance that this is more than pure randomness, just as their mere placement. Displaced from their former contexts, -some still in good conditions and others deteriorating, - they are like relics from a previous time witnessing silently. Later on, Ergin takes some time to share his thought on the contradictory space of the ground floor of the prime minister office, which is by his own initiative turned into an art gallery named ‘Center for Openness and Dialogue’. Pretty ironic, isn’t it. He sheds light on the instrumentalization of art by power and politics and the oppression that independent artists are currently faced with in Albania. A great number of them have boycotted this place and have critically produced work that reflects on the paradoxes of such a place. It is almost sunset and we end the day at the ex Block, once a gated residential area during communism, allowed to be accessed only for the politburo and denied to most of Albanians, and nowadays flourished with cafes, bars and clubs.

TWO KINDS OF PERIPHERY After having visited the very centre, inevitably overloaded with a communist heritage landscape, reflecting on the architecture of such a past as an instrument in the manifestation of its ideology and its current con-ditions, the second day we literally visited two kinds of peripheries: the Rolling Hills gated community in Mullet and the area of Kamza. The artist Endi Tupja made several attempts before hand in getting us access to the exclusive residential area of Rolling Hills. The compound includes luxurious villas inhabited by some of the richest people in the country, including many public figures, from politicians, journalists, to pop stars and football players. There is a vast green and a deaf silence as we walk around it, surveilled constantly by the highly vigilant escort booths spread around the enclosed area. Luxury cars sometime pass by, people staring suspiciously at us, not in the most welcoming way we could argue. ‘No pictures allowed’ we were made that clear, and yet we found our ways to smuggle some pixels of this surreal scenery. The rest of the day brought us to the town of Kamza, the biggest informal area of Albania and the same time the pure manifestation of the periphery by all means. We meet with a group of young activists practic-ing under the non for profit organization named ‘ATA’ (meaning THEM in Albanian). They live in Kamza and strive to build a valid alternative of cultural life, social and community center services and social activism resisting the dogma of second class citizenship, invisibility and abusive land occupation that surrounds them. Kamza is a young city that emerged in the outskirt of Tirana after the 90s, as a result of the fast de-velopments that the country underwent after the fall of communism. Informal migration, mainly from the north of the country, brought to what was previously a state owned farm of 6000 inhabitants, a huge wave of people from rural areas.

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The close distance to the capital, Tirana, a city whose entrance was heavily controlled during communism, coinciding with the low cost land and the vast amount of free space in Kamza, made the area alluring to migration. This flux of rural migrants found the government unprepared, and initially there was not much done to accommodate them. Nevertheless, informal settlement grew immensely, resulting in mushroom settling, lack of infrastructure and services, bringing an increasing conflictual climate especially between migrants and landowners. Tensions escalated when the government decided to relocate migrants to their former villages, facing resistance from the last ones. Its population grew rapidly counting above 113 000 as of today. We talk with ATA in their space about how the inhabitants of Kamza have been stigmatised as squatters, asphyxiators of the capital’s urban life and accused of ‘ruralising it; about their continuous sub-mission to marginalisation and their identities being shaped as a dictation of the idea of otherness, within the framework of the constructed notion of periphery. We then take a walk around the city. On Sunday 23rd of February we visit two museums in Tirana that give us a more thorough idea of the communist past and a better understanding of the current situation we grasp here and there by strolling around and engaging with locals. One of them takes us through an overcrowded bus to the periphery of Tirana, where we enter for some hours in a five floor underground bunker that was secretly being built to host all the politburo in case of a possible nuclear attack of Albania, which never happened. On the way back we decide to walk for 45 minutes crossing on a wide range of different urban developments, almost as if walking on an imagery cross section of Tirana and its periphery. The next days we move out of Tirana, visiting Elbasan, a 40 min ride from Tirana and enter in the remains of the largest industrial site built in Albania during communism supported by China, once an ally of the country for a short period. We are guided by a former worker, Ilir Tupja, who helps us re-enact a day in the metallurgical site. It is heart warming and very enriching to hear his very personal stories while we are sur-rounded by endless monstrousness steel and concrete structures. The last two days take us on the coast of Albania, starting with Durrës, the biggest harbour in the country and a case of touristic development abuse with blatant consequences. We go further to visit Thurmanë, the most damaged area by the devastating earthquake that touched Albania last November, diving into its post disaster conditions. By surprise we are reached by locals, who wish to tell us their traumatic stories as a need for their voices to be heard and their concerns to not be forgotten. The visit is not easy. The condi-tions on the site of the earthquake are catastrophic, with still a remaining brutal landscape of residue that spark our imagination immersively in reconstructing what had happened. The remaining two days we move south of the country and explore the booming coastal development of the Albanian Riviera with luxurious hotel compounds that are becoming more than ever common and have pushed the privatization of the beach, and more than ever making this region less inclusive. Local guest-houses are still existing and we stop one night in one of them, in the city of Himara. The story of the owner is like many in the region; one of emigration and remittances invested back home in tourism, a practice

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which last for the months of summer and leaves the rest of the year the region in complete emptiness and lethargic sleep. We try to understand the different perspectives and the actors by meeting people working in the municipality, residents and by chance also a member of the last remaining iso polyphonic group, who gives us a spontaneous performance while we are inside a 15th century castle. For a part of the group this journey comes to an end, and for the rest goes further focusing on a very specific location, that of a village, Dervican. Nevertheless, traveling does not stop once we shift geography. In here travel is not performed as an excursion. It takes its ground from the Albanian word “Endem”, meaning happily lost, moving in space therefore also in thoughts. Perhaps an easternized, Albanian version of the ‘flaneur’, which stimulates students to bring together any kind of feelings, thoughts, impressions and ideas without filtering. How to look back on these at a second reading? Which different layers are added? How to deal with the accumulated site specific knowledge, growing more complex and rich in non numerical data? The journey’s aim is to critically observe, research and analyze situations as a fundamental part of every design process, encouraging the students in their ability to do so, by placing them in completely new envi-ronments, trying to decode phenomenas that come to their attention, investigating and understanding the socio-political context that produces them.

AUTHOR NOTE ON 19 MAY 2020 In between the time this article was written, a few significant developments have taken place that I found necessary to better understand the context described on the text above. 1. Two more traditional historical houses— some of the last existing ones in Tirana — were destroyed to make space for clientelist high-rise buildings. All of this executed while the country is in a state of emergen-cy as a response of the pandemic. 2. Making use of the pandemic and the declared state of emergency of the country, the Albanian govern-ment transferred the ownership of National theatre land to the Municipality of Tirana. Within one week they produced a doubtful engineering report stating that the building’s construction could not be saved which brought them to the decision to demolish it. Protesters were issued extensive fines for staying on site to protect it based on the allowed hours for citizens to be out of their homes. On the last day of the emergen-cy measures, Sunday 17th of May, early morning, at 4 am, hundreds of police entered the building, beat and arrested the activists and artists that were inside, including the artist Ergin Zaloshnja, who guided us in Tirana during our trip. They teared down the building in the most brutal way possible, and within few hours it was gone, after 27 month of everyday 24 hours protection from activists, the longest resistance that has ever happened in Albania.

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Master Interior Architecture

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INSIDE Magazine 2020

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A research paper on the reconstruction of space based on polyphonic music from southern Albania. If I were to mourn my husband who died in a distant port, I would go to the sea. The depth of water, the invisible horizon would perfectly emphasize the emptiness in my heart, and the intangible distance of separation between me and my already late husband. I would walk on the black sand along the coastline and leave traces of bitterness and unimaginable sorrow. All dressed in black. Tears blown by the wind into the sea would raise the level of water, preventing me from impossible connection with him anyway. — Sea, bitter sea, what did I do to you that you drown my husband in the depths of your waters? — I would ask forever. The story I described is not invented by me but is a short visualization of the lyrics of polyphonic music from the southern part of Albania. It is one of many that in such a significant way connect the story with a specific space and orient one's experiences towards it.

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for which space would not establish a special rhythm. Thus, space is in the South Albanian polyphonic music an inseparable element of the collective experience, and imagining a situation without defining its location is simply impossible. My research methodology is based on a literature review that will allow me to understand theory lying behind the term “collective memory” and “genius loci”. This theoretical framework is crucial for further steps, which I will describe by a physical research tool. Theoretical descriptions are going to help me not only name relations happening in a certain environment, but also will give me awareness about their origin and possible meaning. Therefore, the further part of the research is going to lean on interpretation and speculation that emerge to the research question: “How will the speculative landscape look like if I let the polyphonic music to design it?". However, all attempts of its interpretations through collages, drawings, and analytical models based on traditional songs will be a representation of my physical research tool. In my opinion, this methodology works the most effectively, because all terms introduced in this paper use a wide range of symbolism and forms which are easily described spatially.

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[2] Lolis K., The Continental Polyphonic Songs, Janina, 2006. [3] Norberg-Schulz C., Genius loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, Edinburgh College of Art Library, 1982.

Natalia Pośnik

What is more, collective memory and genius loci are strongly linked with imagery. I would like to confront these theoretical considerations in the field of anthropology by transferring them to the spatial language. Furthermore, I would like to reconstruct spaces that were meaningful for the one and those in which people embodied their own memories. While interpreting, I try not to follow vernacular, but perhaps find a reference to the context. From a personal perspective, this methodology allows me to position myself within an approach that the polyphonic culture has its own voice and guide the narration on its own. The local book titled "Continental Polyphonic Music", describing the history of polyphonic music on both sides of the Greek-Albanian border was the starting point triggering my observation process and acknowledging the local heritage.2 However, the publication of Christian Norberg-Schulz titled Genius loci: Towards a phenomenology of Architecture, was the catalyst of my interest by exploring the relationship between human and his closest environment and elaborating on terms i.e. "space" and "character".3 In the world of architectural practice, the Norwegian architect became a precursor of fundamental theories associated with architectural phenomenology, predominant for my further consideration. Moreover, during my short but very fruitful stay in the village of Derviçan, I put down roots of interest in this topic. I had a pleasure to learn and experience the power of polyphonic songs that people have carried in their hearts for generations, and thus, to continue my research enriched by new experiences and awareness of the strong cultural identity.

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[1] Norberg-Schulz C., Genius loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, Edinburgh College of Art Library, 1982, p. 5

memory infrastructure Through translating and analyzing selected songs my curiosity about the described locations was raised, as roughly as was the sea in my imagination. "Port", "sea", "sand", "shore", "footprint", "water", I mention a couple of material attributes of the location and confronts them with physically intangible phenomena - "distance", "emptiness", "black". Collectively, they are a library of abstract “data” and tools that both the author and character of the song, used to describe her own existential space.1 Moreover, she defined her feelings in the space, matched them with a specific situation, and thus gave the space importance. The strong marking with the landscape I found as the common feature in the most percentage of the songs from the area I analyze. This tendency confirmed the character striving for identification with an environment and the need for her belonging. The spatiality expresses what could never exist in the spatial form, but obviously places itself in the space and becomes a part of it — atmosphere. Finally, these attributes determine what we colloquially call the "spirit of place", and thus expand the scope of my interests with terms such as genius loci and collective memory. The main topics of the songs are related to one's closest environment, her everyday activities, and what is even more important — life situations. The loss of a loved one, love, marriage, or the birth of a child are the themes among the many others that characterize the world of oral tradition. These aforementioned situations need an environment. From my observation, it is clear that all of them need a different one or a different range of its attributes. I assume that there is no situation without a landscape or an event

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I strongly believe that through my research I will give a great tribute to honour the richness of polyphonic music and of revisiting to places. For dwellers, my general aim is to support the preservation of the polyphonic tradition and bring the meaning of everyday life experience back to reality. In the architectural sense by the preservation I mean the “speculative landscape” that excites inspiration by using the right stimuli to fully satisfy the eye and sensation-seeking mind of the young generation.

GENIUS LOCI — “SPACE” AND “CHARACTER” It can not be unnoticed the strong relationship between the author of the song and his living environment, especially while considering the spatial character of iso-polyphonic music. Each song is a collection of material attributes and life-situations, which complete the existential phenomena — "spirit of place". Therefore, it led me to investigate the term such as genius loci, which comprises a variety of complex factors, not only limited to the physical features of space but also those expanded to the psychical ones The term genius loci was widely elaborated by Christian Norberg-Schulz in the 1980s.4 First of all, he evokes the term „existential space” which explores the relationship between human and his closest environment. Its concept is divided into the complementary terms „ space” and “character” in accordance with the basic psychic functions "orientation" and "identification".5 As I mentioned before, the physical and psychical character of the songs completes the collection of existential phenomena, and thus, determine the environmental character of space — the place. According to Norberg-Schulz’ concept of place every space where life occurs is the place; the place is the space with distinct character; the place is the most unique experience of space. Therefore, the place is simply the organization of three-dimensional elements of „space" while "character" denotes to the general "atmosphere".6 Although the phenomena of place are analyzed by means of "space” and “character”, the structure of the place itself should be also described in terms of “landscape” and “settlement”. Christian Norberg Schulz, in the aforementioned publication, evokes Heidegger's conceptions of dwelling.7 "Place" and

"dwelling" are synonyms, and "dwelling", in an existential sense, is the purpose of architecture. The man dwells when he can orientate within and identify with an environment, or, in short, when he experiences the environment as meaningful. Therefore, architecture means to visualize the genius loci, and the task of the architect is to create meaningful places, whereby he helps man to dwell.8 Likewise, Marc Treib, noted historian and critic of landscape and architecture, formulates his statement simultaneously overtaking possible questions, considering the role of an architect in the process of designing the space, by referring to the terms of meaning.9 The designer helps to make a significant place, but he cannot design significance in the place at the time of its realization. The significance lies with the beholder and not alone in the place, while meaning accrues over time.10 As Edward Relph, Canadian geographer, whose career mostly concentrates on the critical observation and description of changing landscapes, concludes in the essay “Place Reclamation” genius loci cannot be designed to order.11 It has to evolve, to be allowed to happen, to grow, and to change from the direct efforts of those who live and work in places and care about them. In other words, meaningful landscape, or places are the result of a dynamic process that evolves in time, and it grows with human occupation — by involvement and commitment. It is an accumulation of everyday experience and shifts the focus into a more complex set of layered relationships. In addition, I need to quote one of the most powerful statements mentioned in the documentary titled “Polyphonia — Albanian forgotten voices” directed by Bjorn Reinhardt in 2011: “The culture is the reflection of the work people do in their surroundings. If there is no culture, no songs, you have not got anything to look at yourself. The culture is a mirror of the job one does.”12 — declaimed an Albanian singer. To conclude, genius loci represents the linear relationship between the place and meanings of people’s actions taken in their closest surroundings. Moreover, I can assume that genius loci is the term that defines and describe the polyphonic landscape. Not only it enriches the mental sphere of dwellers and emphasizes their artistic sensitivity, but also it is the main source for shaping their existential space. Finally, it let me to the presumption that it is not the polyphonic music influenced by landscape, but the polyphonic music creates the landscape on its own through the sense of genius loci.

[4] Norberg-Schulz C., Genius loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, Edinburgh College of Art Library, 1982. [5] Ibidem, p. 5-9 [6] Ibidem, p. 11 [7] Ibidem, p.5 [8] Ibidem, p.5 [9] Treib M., Must landscapes mean? [in:] Theory in Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, p. 89-101 [10] Ibidem, p. 101 [11] Relph, E., Place Reclamation, [in:] Theory in Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, p. 103 [12] Reinhardt B., Polyphonia – Albanian forgotten voices, Maramures Filmarchive, 2011.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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THE LANGUAGE OF LANDSCAPE — TANGIBLE AND INTANGIBLE SYMBOLS OF SPACE While thinking about my first love I will always recall that one tree in the middle of the meadow, with quite enormous branches, and not that far away from my home. I had a little sunshine in my heart, instead of being in love, which until these days it seemed to be enough descriptive expression to define my thoughts and feelings. Through orientating by experience towards that one specific place, I carry that legacy in my body in mind until now. Ann Whiston Spirn, a Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning at MIT, once said, “Landscape is the material home, the language of landscape is a habitat of mind.”13 Simultaneously, it opens the tangible and imagination possible. The landscape itself became the well-formed text open for interpretation and transformation, while other multipartite scenarios connect places with his dwellers. In general, human feelings and actions are written down through landscape and described by its language. The language of landscape became our native language and the first text, read before the inventions of other signs and symbols.14 Referring to Heidegger’s concept of dwelling this statement explains the phenomena of caring for a place — is self-expression.15 Following this, human need symbols, which „represent life-situations", furthermore, to become the work of art. According to that, the work of art aims to "keep" and transmit meaning, which is one of the basic needs of man to experience his life-situations as meaningful.16 As a result, symbols become the language of the landscape by constantly transforming it according to the human perceptivity of space. Landscape is the world itself and may also be metaphors of the world. Herewith, at the example of polyphonic music people were using different kinds of metaphors to express their feelings. These metaphors were mostly represented by attributes defining space i.e. animals, plants, or objects. For instance, the partridge may exist as a partridge or as the metaphor of a woman. The same situation appears with other birds such as nightingale — boy, swallow — girl. Some collocations i.e. ‘partridge in the cage’ defines the phenomena of past culture by which a woman used to be not allowed to gather in public spaces with man and be under the control of their male bodyguards.17 These tangible attributes reveal the intangible character of space, thus, triggers the hypothesis about the fictional experience which does not occur by reading it literally. Thereby, the interpretation starts with reading between the lines and it is the point of departure to question the image of the existing landscape. The human affection to symbolism is the part of his identification with space, by which we can describe the culture in the specific region. Thus, many artists and architects refer in their work to the concept of the meaning of symbolism as the response to the specific context – memorial. By analyzing Anish Kapoor’s contemporary sculpture titled “Cloud Gate” in Chicago (US), the work carries symbolic character and becomes an integral part of the landscape. In the John Tusa Interviews, the artist said “The work itself has a complete circle of meaning and counterpoint. Without your involvement as a viewer, there is no story.”18 Despite, the physical responses to the local context, the sculpture demands human involvement and

STUDIO Studio Albania

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collective experience that expands the meaning of cultural landscape. In terms of polyphonic music, the physical response to space seems to be more complex and needs further exploration, mostly due to the unique factor responsible for its preservation — the presence of the one. The human body is the only archive, through the cultural landscape still exist in the one mind, is developed and constantly experienced. In my opinion, the polyphonic landscape demands the new medium supporting the human in the process of cultural preservation. In the architectural sense by the preservation I mean the new medium, deviating from the standardize and traditional mechanism of commemoration and place reconstruction.

SPECULATIVE LANDSCAPE — METHODOLOGY OF RECONSTRUCTION In the final stage of my research phase, especially on the stage based on practical matters of lyrics translation, I noticed some significant similarities between the songs. These similarities were mostly related to the repeatable pattern of locations and attributes. By overlapping various groups of components and extracting them I could easily speculate missing elements of the spatial description. As a result, I could reconstruct the full image of space even though, there was one simple component mentioned in the song. The more songs were analysed the probability of the new spatial connection was rising. However, the speculation process is not faultless, according to the symbolic meaning of a wide range of the attributes that define the spatial language of space, and may deform the reconstruction of the existing landscape. Perhaps, this kind of deformation in terms of interpretation is the common phenomena and it is not unavoidable at that particular stage. Nevertheless, treating the cultural treasure of folk polyphonic music analytically, even to the limits of artificial intelligence, can lead to interesting ideas and generate a situation that would never have happened in the real-time action. The same process occurs in the human body while bringing the memory back. Some of the images appear with great attention to the details, some of them are blurred, or the order of sequences is illogical. Every moment of bringing the memory back is the moment of its deformation, and thus, the irreversible element of distorted reality — history transformation. Thereby, I would like to raise the question: Should we trust the human body as the only medium and archive of cultural heritage unquestionably and uncritically? As Louis Kahn put it into words “History only becomes meaningful if it represents new concretizations of the existential dimension. In general, the concretization of the existential dimension depends on how things are made, that is, it depends on form and technology — inspired technology.”19 In my opinion, the Albanian folk music should confront technology. Even though the tradition is still present among the oldest generations, it passes unnoticed for the young generation, due to the insufficient conservation measures. Approaching technology will enable a new experience based on “speculative landscape”, and thus, become a reliable inspiration for

Master Interior Architecture

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STUDIO Studio Albania

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[13] Whiston Spirn A., The language of landscape [in:] Theory in Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, p. 125 [14] Ibidem, p.125 [15] Ibidem, p.126 [16] Norberg-Schulz C., Genius loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, Edinburgh College of Art Library, 1982, p. 5 [17] Roth K., Benovska M., Balkan Life Courses. Part 1: Part 1: Childhood, Youth, Old Age, Work and Rituals, Lit Verlag, Berlin, 2018, p. 301. [18] Tusa J., The John Tusa Interviews: Anish Kapoor, [aired:] 6 Jul 2003, on BBC Radio 3. [19] Norberg-Schulz C., Genius loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, Edinburgh College of Art Library, 1982, p. 6

modern polyphonic music. In addition, it will generate the landscape that uses the right stimuli to fully satisfy the eye and sensation-seeking mind of the young user.

CONCLUSION The polyphonic music holds back a lot of stories, relationships between people, and life-situations that bond people with space they simply dwell. This everydayness is described between the lines of each song and speaks in the language of landscape to describe the meaningful experience. Space plays a significant role in the everyday experience of the past and future generations, and thus, it becomes the essential subject of my interpretation. Not only, the lyrics of the polyphonic music cultivate the space, but also the structure of the music performance creates an architectural setting itself. With several voices, the music amplifies the experience of space, and thus adapts the human body as the only medium responsible for cultural landscape reconstruction. Thereby, the spatial character of the polyphonic music - lyrics and performance, is the proof of one's strong identification and orientation towards the existential space. On each stage of my research, I was trying to grasp the tangible image of genius loci that the polyphonic music gives a great tribute in the multiple existential dimensions. The literature review, symbolism, and speculation diversify my perception and cognitive skills in approaching this intangible phenomenon. Moreover, the general aim of the research was to confront the fundamental theory of Christopher Norberg Schulz concerning the psychical character of space with modern references in the field of architecture, art, and music. Despite following traditional and already defined solutions in terms of genius loci, this methodology has proven itself to be relevant in modern times as well. Through the overall deconstruction of the song structure, I developed the full image of space. As a result, space revealed its repeatable character, defined a universal library of meanings, and thus, proofed its origin character — defined cultural landscape. In fact that every landscape on the planet may be visualized the same way, the understanding of symbolism and meanings makes the experience of space unique

and unpredictable. The process of reconstruction is challenged due to the unspecified character of the songs in terms of quantity of attributes, therefore, it needs external support through speculation. Finally, the reconstructed space becomes the side product of my project — “speculative landscape”, which might be relevant for sufficient experience, especially for the young generation. Based on my research analysis and personal interviews with the local group of singers from Derviçan village in southern Albania, it becomes clear that the polyphonic music does not need physical architecture, but it needs the situation that allows the polyphonic music to fully reverb. Despite the spatial character of the music itself, my design presumption excludes the physical intervention in the local context. From the architectural perspective, I can assume that the first task is to develop the spatial sensitivity to the attributes of places among dwellers, which in further perspective may support the cultural preservation of southern Albania. To conclude, if genius loci demand the presence of the character in the process of space reconstruction, the polyphonic music might be the one that challenges the position of the designer and demands reinvention of the methodology of work. I believe with the theoretical and practical background, the polyphonic music may take over overall narration, and the language of architecture will be the right tool allowing the reconstruction of the existential space. I hope with the general aim of the project, I can bring the lost meaning of everyday life experience back to reality — space and mind. “At the end of the world, only our memories will bring the landscape back.”

INSIDE Magazine 2020

STUDIO Studio Albania

inside

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Because of the travel restrictions caused by the pandemic, the INSIDE students could not return to Derviçan as intended, to realize their proposals on a scale of 1 to 1. They worked out their projects within the pos- Hello Derviçan! sibilities offered by their own Our class would like to thank you all for the beautiful moments we spent in your village, for all the hospitality and welcoming gestures towards us. We will never living space. By the end of the that. Unfortunately, we are not able to return due to the corona pandemic project they still wanted to share forget situation. Therefore, with honour to Derviçan, we created a website containing the experiences and results with all our projects that are inspired by our stay in your village. This is the link: www.withcarefordervican.cargo.site the people in Dervican who had We also sent multiple postcards with information and pictures of our projects. received them so hospitably. We would be very happy if you use the blank ones to respond to us with some The students made postcards of feedback or just a note saying hi. You can send them to this address: Van Der Duynstraat 94, 2515NL Den Haag, Netherlands. their projects and sent them to the villagers. Thank you! With love, INSIDE students

student projects

JEANNE ROUSELOT FOOD IS JUST PRETEXT

These few months I have been experiencing the action of cooking and eating as a design tool. A tool to fathom food as a pretext to interact with others, to build relationships between people and me or between people together. It showed me how powerful commensality, in other words the notion of being around the same table is.

Master Interior Architecture

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STUDIO Studio Albania

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HUGO LÓPEZ SILVA THE ABANDONED PROJECT

JOHANNES EQUIZI PRIMORDIAL CLEPSYDRA

JUNYAO YI BEYOND THE DOOR

“The abandoned project” is a creative practice for online collective writing, thinking and making together. The goal is to open the process of design to let everyone engage in the imagination of futures. In this practice, there are two concurrent actions: an editable glossary to discuss the meaning of words as we think about and design how we desire to relate to our environment. Those actions take place in between online and offline, inside and outside, objects and concepts, Albania and the world, Dervician and you and me.

How can we contrast the global issue of rural villages’ abandonment? Can we reactivate them through a ludic path that reaffirms their potentialities? The game Primordial Clepsydra is challenging this. By playing it the villagers will gradually self-reorganize their infrastructures to achieve more independence and synergy with their community and territory. The idea behind the game was triggered by my experience in the village Derviçan: its prosperity relies on its inhabitants’ participation, on their lore and knowledge, on their vocations.

While the door is very well designed with thousands of different dimensions, material, construction methods, etc. But nobody takes it into consideration that there are many possibilities in front of the door in terms of interactions. The space of the doorway is where we can take a break from whatever is occupying us inside and remind ourselves that there is a world outside full of other people doing other things. In my project, I repurpose to design the door beyond the door and opti- mize the door into street level.

AARON KOPP HAJDE! HAJDE! HAJDE!

ALICJA BĘDKOWSKA IN-BETWEEN SPACES

NATALIA POŚNIK MEMORY INFRASTRUCTURE

FLORIAN BART THE ELEVATED COMMONS

ELISA PIAZZI FLOODED SOCIETY

Derviçan is charming, set in a beautiful landscape, and its inhabitants are resourceful, yet there seems to be no future for the village. A promise is needed, as long as there is nothing to look forward to, families will continue to see a better future for their children elsewhere. Hajde! Seeks to trigger and facilitate a discourse between the villagers about their future, by confronting them with a series of building proposals, each spatially representing and utilizing a key quality of the community.

We are living in this strange moment, forced to live in our own neighbourhoods. The appreciation we had to find for the spaces around us became a trigger for the development of my project. Project that aims to explore the value of the local landscape of Derviçan, emphasising the moments between social life of the village and nature itself. The in between space is a structure consisting of seven small interventions applied to the local fabric, highlighting important moments and adding another perspective to them.

Cloudy day, mountain, meadow, grass, partridge, golden scarf, dew, waves, black sand, moon, snow, road, bridge, window, yellow dress, nightingale, branches, tree, forest, apple trees, backyard, boat, gold coin, gun, poppy, cotton, dove, buzzard, tears, water, foreign port, rain, keys, Greek flag, ring […]. I mention a couple of physical attributes. While analysing lyrics of the polyphonic music from the southern part of Albania, I collect them. As artificial intelligence, I reconstruct the existing landscape and speculate fictional situations.

Although I have friends living around the city, I hardly know any of my close neighbours. With this project, I would like to demonstrate how the elevated levels of Het Oude Noorden can enhance neighbourly interaction by transforming flat rooftops into common spaces. The elevated commons are flexible and temporary structures that are in a continuous change according to the needs of the neighbours. I designed a set of architectural elements that are multi-purpose and multi-interpretable and accommodate this changing need.

We, the flooded society, finally came to the conclusion that it’s doubtful that things will go any better. Climate change won’t stop. Even if we drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions we are locked in for significantly higher sea levels. Sooner or later everything will not be working that fine anymore. We want to face the problem with courage, keeping a proactive thrust. We decided to leave the dry land and embrace the water, leaving everything we know behind to reach a more sustainable and relaxed society.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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STUDIO Studio Albania

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MARTYNA KILDAITĖ STICHING TOGETHERNESS

JULIA HOLMGREN AD HOC SOLUTIONS

TEREZA CHROŇÁKOVÁ THE LIVING ROOM OF DERVIÇAN

‘Stitching togetherness’ celebrates craftsmanship as well as craftswomenship and attempts to shift textile making from an individual practice to a public ritual. I believe that textile handicrafts, as a slow, sustainable and ethical production method, can become a tool to solve contemporary problems, such as social segregation. Through a long-term strategy of craftivism and physical installations in public spaces, the craft making can be integrated into the urban fabric and public life of Derviçan and can turn into a visible phenomenon that encourages commonality, reduces segregation and generates economic profit.

’Ad Hoc Solutions’ addresses the importance of the method ‘do it yourself’ as a necessity within the domestic space. The project and topic initially began as an observation during a field trip in a village, Dervican Albania. There, I was confronted with the physical solutions to problems, where the villagers creativity in relation to the restricted amount of material was considered. The solutions were depending on different aspects, I chose to focus on knowledge, location and resources. Throughout the project I moved from Dervican, Albania, to The Hague, The Netherlands and Lund, Sweden. These locations have shaped the project using the same methodology and approach throughout all of them.

Empower through spatial design, that is the motto of ‘Living Room for Derviçan. The main goal of the intervention is to create a dialogue between genders and generations in Derviçan to dismantle position of women in a patriarchal society. It’s not about segregation, it is about bringing people together and celebrating local culture, crafts, traditions and togetherness. I believe the design is an opportunity for women and the younger generation to catalyze the actions to create a new position for them in the village and to positively contribute to the current problem of depopulation.

Master Interior Architecture

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INSIDE Magazine 2020

insiders inside

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Paul Kuipers

This year INSIDE invited artist, architect and exhibition designer Paul Kuipers to coach the graduating students in designing their joint exhibition. When Kuipers, in collaboration with Erik Jutten, started working with the students, the world was still corona-free. From March, he and the students faced the almost impossible task of designing an exhibition in a space that you are not allowed to enter with people you are not allowed to meet. Paul Kuipers incorporated his experiences into this text, introducing the graduation students shortly with their projects. From left to right: Paul Kuipers, Erik Jutten, Ausra Cesnauskyte (p. 54), Michael Barchini (p. 52), Keyi Xiang(p. 57), Mary Farwy (p. 61), Natali Blugerman (p. 60), Devina Amelia (p. 59), Shripal Shah (p. 53), Sebastian Koukkides (p. 56), Davida Rauch (p. 55), Samantha Vosse (p. 58).

PHASE 1 CLOSURE / SHARED SCREEN Students who graduate from the Master's course Interior Architects (INSIDE) present their work after their final exams in a joint exhibition. This is held annually at INSIDE's workshop within the building complex of the KABK and is designed, built and hosted by the graduates themselves. As a coach to guide this group towards an exhibition concept and its implementation, regular group sessions and individual discussions were scheduled. Obviously, these physical encounters came to an abrupt end when, in March 2020, our country was led into an 'intelligent' lockdown. Naturally, we continued our contact in the digital environment. Social distancing leaves us no other choice. The group became a 'team', zooming in on each other on shared screens. INSIDE's physical workshop was fragmented into the personal living rooms, not necessarily connected anymore to the location in The Hague. The living room became simultaneously classroom, studio and experimental space. Being locked up inside was immediately shifting the perspective on each others own project. Contactless technology was needed to protect our health. Now, two months later, the figures seem a bit more favourable, we are slowly working on a return to normal status. However, the question arises how the

drastic consequences of the covid outbreak will affect the definition of the new normal. Or rather, how abnormal will the new normal be? Are we going to survive in a distance-reality in which we are only allowed to touch screens?

PHASE 2 DISCLOSURE / DNA OF SITUATIONS We know how important whistle-blowers are to gain insight into the hidden methods of tech giants, trillion dollar companies and the government. Transparency is vital for a well-functioning democracy. Providing insight into company and government interests makes it possible to make choices with regard to the public interest. Whistle-blowers expose new knowledge. Somehow there is a nice parallel between the work of whistle-blowers and the selfless work of the graduate students of INSIDE. This research-based Master also exposes a variety of knowledge about certain situations. The disclosure of socio-cultural, economic and climatic issues with regard to a chosen spatial context or situation provides an impressive insight. Based on this know-how, gained throughout their graduation year, students develop a design practice with which they can act within the spatial context of their research.

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A fascinating spectrum of subjects present itself this year. Devina adds a chapter to the history of a family business in Sukabumi (Indonesia) and Keyi maps the fragile status of nomadic life in Aba County (Tibet). Sebastian investigates the politicization of public space by means of objects while Shripal is stripping the culture-specific features of the Transvaalbuurt in The Hague from white-washing. Natali addresses the social distance between rich and poor in a neighbourhood of Buenos Aires through props and theatre play. Davida takes thread and fabric as a metaphor to make social networks understandable while Ausra searches for new forms of sociality in a free time-society where technologies have taken over our work. Samantha explores the space enclosed by the dykes of the Hoeksche Waard while Michael explores the limitation of space through sound experiments. Finally, Mary breaks through the socio-normative rules through the distortion of reality in narrative film scenarios. In her search for a new normality, she suddenly turns out to be surprisingly actual. With this exposing of socio-cultural factors, various narratives emerge that can influence existing systems through ideas and designs. Just as viruses fumble with existing DNA, INSIDERS fumble with contextual DNA through their transformative narratives, with a similar Darwinian aspiration for continuation and progress. Once again, the Covid-19 crisis stresses the relevance of this (precarious) professional practice and the importance to protect the continuation of it. This generation of graduates will be the first to relate to a new situation in which social distancing will play a major role. Inadvertently, digital technology seems to be making a rapid advance in the rearrangement of social life. At INSIDE we have already started this by communicating remotely in vlog and blog form. Interim presentations, green light and even graduation itself are now carried out by means of a compact translation of the students' project into a film. Thinking about the future exhibition model, ideas about digitization also appear. But some hesitation is appropriate. The utopian internet once held the promise of 'being infinitely connected'. It could be considered as the ultimate democratic instrument because everyone was guaranteed a free access. Now we know that the infrastructure is being used and misused by governments and tech-giants to gain more and more grip on citizens and consumers through data collection. While the protection of privacy was already an issue of concern, it became all the more urgent during the Covid-19 crisis. In her essay Screen New Deal on intercept.com, the Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein warns against the emergence of a high-tech dystopia legitimated by health reasons. A future reality in which our private domain is invaded with even more technology. “Far more high-tech than anything we have seen during previous disasters, the future that is being rushed into being as the bodies still pile up, treats our past weeks of physical isolation not as a painful necessity to save lives, but as a living laboratory for a permanent — and highly profitable — no-touch future.” Collaborations between government and tech giants leads to an unprecedented data-mining of our words, moves and relations. What will be the role of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, drones and robots? Will robots take over actions such as welcoming visitors of an exhibition or awarding a diploma? And will drones carry out our field trips and bring materials for models at home?

GRADUATION Projects

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In other words, a critical attitude is first and foremost required. It is obvious and in the spirit of INSIDE to examine the current situation in a critical way in order to arrive at future scenarios.

PHASE 3 EXPOSURE / GOING VIRAL The lockdown requires an intelligent breaking out. It is now up to the INSIDE group to consider the post-COVID era; it's consequences for a contact-full reality and new forms of proximity. After an initial shock about the sudden interruption of the chosen path, the group is prepared to relate themselves to another normal. How are their graduation projects presented at the end of the year, who are the visitors, and how do new notions about museum visits and cultural experiences arise? Are we approaching the existing spaces with a factor 1.5 or are we looking for alternatives and is there a new sense of space? The new situation has already led to various forms of immediate action. Davida, for example, was seamlessly shifting her project from the academy's laboratory to her homely atmosphere. With the living room as a starting point, threads are stretched that make the relationship between housemates, neighbours and passers-by palpable. And Mary suddenly turns out to be the main occupant of her film sets investigating a new normality. The students are divided into several groups, each of them take on an aspect of the exhibition. In addition to the groups that arrange the spatial concept and practical matters, two groups are specifically dedicated to adhere to the possible consequences of the current measures of the physical exhibition. Because the students have already invested a lot of energy in a new digital form of presentation, they already know how it can be translated into an adapted exhibition concept. In addition, there is a group that investigates how the individual projects, as well the Master's course INSIDE itself, can be expressed in a manifesto. Abandoning the obligatory graduation expo at the KABK, that each year attracts a lot of people, the question arises above all how to publicize the great projects that have been carried out within the walls of INSIDE. Hence the challenge for this group is to think about new forms of propaganda. It is fantastic to see a group of students at work, who have all started relevant studies into social and cultural topics within a specified spatial context. Therefore they deserve more than the ordinary attention. The big question remains how to go viral in order to spark an international curiosity through transformative narratives.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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SONIC CITY — “GYMNASTICS FOR THE EARS” Listening is a way of sensing the environment. However, our modern life is dominated by visuals; everything surrounds us is primarily aiming to stimulate our vision. All other senses are treated of secondary importance. The ability of human beings to sense space by listening, is rarely recognized as a consequence of a design industry that is driven by visuals. How to include sound in design thinking? How would a Sonic City look like? What is a Sonic Society? Despite our visual predilection our aural experiences form a significant aspect of our spatial experiences and our apprehension of the world. The act of listening means raising awareness of sonic environments and comprehending the meanings that are conveyed within these sounds. The project is about designing objects/spaces that enhance the aspect of critical listening through movement of the body; in other words, “gymnastics for the ears”. These tools/structures are sound-space instruments and each of them stipulates certain body movement. The intensity and rhythm of sounds and the speed of motion are all interrelated variations that determine the sonic experience of a space. My collection of designs is meant for people who need “no earflaps”. Aiming at including sound as an active element in spatial experience, as well as, encouraging people to become critical listeners. Finally, this strategy would result in a “better listening” society.

michael barchini

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Master Interior Architecture

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shripal.126@gmail.com Graduation Tutor: Tim Devos

michael.barchini@gmail.com Graduation Tutor: Jurgen Bey

shripal shah

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BUT WHERE ARE YOU ORIGINALLY FROM? My research stems from a deep seated yearning to ‘feel at home’ in a different country. As an immigrant/expat in the Netherlands, I constantly look for cues of how cultural identity is expressed in space, outside of my own home. In a multicultural, cosmopolitan society, while it is often easy to identify places that are ‘designed’ to express and celebrate culture, I am fascinated by the idea of immigrant owned shops as markers of culture. These shops are unassuming and mundane, however, in my experience, they become inadvertent bearers of cultural identity, like Surinamese Hindustani ethnic food stores, Turkish barber shops and Moroccan coffee houses. I wish to understand how cultural identity is expressed/repressed/territorialized/manipulated and capitalized through the medium of these immigrant-owned ethnic stores. I have chosen the neighbourhood of Transvaal as my study site. Transvaal is a low income multicultural neighbourhood in The Hague that has undergone massive redevelopment in recent time. The area is bisected by the multicultural shopping street of Paul Krugerlaan, which at one point served as a spine for all trade and commerce in the neighbourhood. Amongst several proposals to redevelop this neighbourhood, the municipality had proposed to rebrand Paul Krugerlaan as a ‘Little India’ shopping street. Aiming to promote tourism (and subsequent gentrification), the rebranding projected onto the neighbourhood a phantom identity that did not entirely reflect the true multicultural values of the neighbourhood. I wish to map the softer values, informalities and everyday interactions to reveal the subcultures of Paul Krugerlaan. It is imperative to ask ‘Who owns this street?’ ‘Whose identity is one borrowing/appropriating?’ ‘What are possible cultural mutations endemic to Transvaal?’ I have proposed a one week heritage festival in Transvaal with various events that are designed to confront the people of Transvaal with their own cultural complexity. The festival is anchored on 3 main events: An exhibition of rare artefacts from Transvaal, the Transvaal Pilgrimage and the Transvaal Cultural Integration Festival. Using this proposed festival and the fictional narratives within it, I would like to trigger awareness and dialog on how the ‘Transvaalians’ position themselves within the cultural fabric of the street and it’s imperative transition.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

ausra cesnauskyte edisni

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ausra.cesnauskyte@gmail.com Graduation Tutor: Jurgen Bey

#HELLO EVERYONE! The Emergence of a New Society in Reply to Overdesigned, Sterile City Landscapes This project invites everyone to step into the very near future — the time when technology and machines will reach sufficient levels of efficiency and leave us with enough time to rediscover our human nature. Spatial and temporal opportunities for failures, accidental events as well as undesigned situations will once again begin to increase. How will the new city landscape look like? What kind of role will humans play within it? I am proposing a speculative scenario of the Hello Everyone workers community, its emergence and proliferation. Here the community initiate the process of our surroundings unalienation, which, like a virus, is about to spread throughout the modern city landscapes. Their unique uniforms and unusual behaviours, all together “dress” the city and unfold new types of connections with our human & nonhuman surroundings. These connections differ from city to city and from job to job. Hello Everyone workers see their jobs as a way to form new routines, which have a great influence on how we perceive ourselves within our physical and social environment. Thus, their daily appearance within the urban setting ensures that they become part of the city landscape, adding new cultural and social dimensions to our public spaces. Hello Everyone community-building process might remind you of a theatrical production. It contains two interlinked dimensions, the backstage, which comprises the multi-disciplinary collaborations between creatives, and the public space (the city), where Hello Everyone workers daily routines take place and interweave with its inhabitants’ lives (the audience). Starting in the Netherlands, the Hello Everyone community is slowly expanding to other cities within Europe.

Master Interior Architecture

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davida rauch

davida_rauch@hotmail.com Graduation Tutor: Michou-Nanon de Bruijn

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INTERWEAVING MOVEMENTS This project is rooted in my fascination for weaving, both as a craft and as a concept. While getting to know the craft, as a somatic dancer I got intrigued by the movements, rhythm, and dynamic techniques involved in the weaving process. This fascination formed the basis for two videos: ‘The Loom’ and ‘The Embodied Loom’, in which I analyze the movements of the process of setting up the loom and explore how the movements of the machine can be translated into the human body. These videos are the first two parts of my end result: a four-channel video work. My inspiration from the concept of weaving lies in its multilayeredness: weaving is the slow process of integration, which does not only apply to materials but can also stimulate social interaction. This became clear during the corona crisis, when my ambition for this project really started to fire up: the desire to interweave myself with my surroundings through movement. I decided to bring the weave movements to a larger scale by means of a huge weaving loom set up in my street. This machine would allow me and my neighbors to interweave ourselves with the social and urban tissue of my hometown, Utrecht. I considered the concept of 'fruitful inefficiency’, the year theme of INSIDE, of great importance for this process. Moving along with the unexpected contributed to the momentum. Through inefficiency accompanied with hard work my wish came into being: On June 13 we held 'De Dag van de Verweving’ (The Day of Interweaving): a day in which I, a weave team, and my neighbors collectively weaved a material and social network. This day has formed the input for the third and fourth video: ‘The Social Loom’ and ‘The Street Loom’. Altogether, the four videos form a plea to consider the 'act of moving' as an integral aspect of spatial design.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

sebastian koukkides edisni

My project is concerned with objects in public space, objects that are placed there with the aim of fulfilling a function. It questions their role and the intentions behind them and explores whether objects in public space can be politicised and if yes, in which ways. It starts of by exploring and cataloging objects and looking further into how they are created or used and by who. This lead to the creation of a tool that categorises objects based on their intentions and the agents that are involved. This is then used to analyse a number of objects and make conclusions about whether they are politicised and how. The findings of this research prove that objects in public space are being politicised and raise questions about the lack of awareness and communication regarding the intentions of objects in public space. These questions act as the driving force for the design process. The aim of the design project is to raise awareness about this lack of communication about objects in public space. To do that a fictional film is created , that result to different design scenarios set in the near future. These scenarios then lead, to a series of speculative designs that test the extremes of the research findings and explore the design process and to what kind of society they could lead to. In doing so, they aim to act as a catalyst for debate and critique and stimulate thinking on the topic.

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Master Interior Architecture

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keyi xiang

xiangkeyi86@163.com Graduation Tutor: Jan Körbes

sebastiankoukkides@gmail.com Graduation Tutor: Tim Devos

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57 URBAN / RURAL INTEGRATION

Last year, due to my exploration of my cultural identity, I spent half a month in my grandma's hometown, Aba County, in northern Sichuan, Tibet. As a designer who grew up in the city, I tried to explore a rural herdsman Tibetan family from my own perspective and to reflect on my life in the city. How is their rural life affected by urbanization? But I also studied the opposite: how urban life can be influenced by the rural lifestyle. Through this knowledge exchange, I created a loop system I called ‘Knowledge Lab’. So I would like to assemble various object workshops as a program of urban-rural integration in the loop. I want to associate my program with national urban-rural construction projects. Meanwhile, it can be used as preliminary research for specific projects, and the collected data will be returned to the on-go projects and advertising of the urban-rural integration program at the same time. Because all these projects are based on the national plan, I can apply with this project for support from various national funds and institutions. Based on this structure I designed three levels of workshops in the urban-rural integration programs with different projects. The first level of workshop design is about the exchange of knowledge for daily life objects. The workshop design in the second level is about the exchange of teachers and school locations. The third level of the workshop is about experts exchange, for example, I tried to choose Coca Cola cans as a common material for the first level of the workshop. I shift the cans function into my daily objects and tried to use them in a city ritual. Actually it is a re-understanding process for the city life.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

samantha vosse

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FROM HIGHER GROUND Dikes define the Dutch landscape. This is definitely true for the island Hoeksche Waard in South-Holland with its 270 km of dikes. Growing up in one of the many dike-houses has made me very aware of the consequences of climate change. Dikes are the tangible evidence of the rising sea-level; as the sea-level rises the dikes are raised accordingly. The Hoeksche Waard is protected from the water by a 70km long dike-ring. During my research I have walked this defense line and as I made my way around the island, step by step, I started to notice changes; sometimes very obvious and sometimes more subtle. Cues in the dike’s surroundings that indicate changes in the dike. More often than not these cues can be found in the houses surrounding the dike. The houses along the dike-ring have a shared history with the dike but they will not have a shared future. Because as the water further rises, the dike will have to be raised, leaving no space for these houses. But I believe that it can be different; by rethinking the way we live with the dike. By looking at the past changes and the present situation I speculate about the future of dike houses. As the dike is raised, the houses are not torn down, but they change along with the dike. Each change in the dike is followed by a change in the architecture of the houses. The changes in the architecture show the changes in the dike.

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samanthavosse@live.nl Graduation Tutor: Jan Körbes

Master Interior Architecture

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devinaalexandra@yahoo.com Graduation Tutor: Fokke Moerel

devina amelia

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THIS SHOPHOUSE IS NOT FOR SALE My project deals with a revitalization of the shophouse owned previously by my Chinese grandparents in the small city of Sukabumi, West Java, Indonesia. The building which has served my family and the community for 50 years, evolved informally throughout the time. Not only as a live-work facility but also as a trigger of an intense and socially connected community, especially to bridge the gap between the Chinese Indonesian population and the indigenous people of the area. This gap culminated in the riot in 1998, an unforgettable tragedy that we do not want to reoccur in the future. What lessons can be learned through the history of a shophouse; how can we critically reflect on it and progress towards the future? Facing the aging population of the city and the massive urban development taking place in Indonesia, the shophouse of my family will be is one of hundreds in the city which might be sold or replaced by massive and repetitive shophouse units. Stakeholders target on people with a higher income — widening the gap between the poor live in the back alleys and sacrificing the values of the local communities. Lessons learned from the context and history of this particular shophouse, my project proposes to reinvent the building by using reclaimed and existing fragments. The strategy will occur on various scales ranging from revalue the local craftsmanship, rethink the relationship of the live-work typology and regenerate the life of the shophouse and its community in an urban context. In this way my proposal aims to become a prototype of how an old shophouse model could be transformed to achieve harmonically a socioeconomic, cultural and environmental sustainability.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

natali blugerman edisni

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Master Interior Architecture

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n.blugerman@gmail.com Graduation Tutor: Fokke Moerel/Jan Körbes

“BRAERCROILOE3T1A OR BRAER” Braercroiloe3t1a or “Braer”, is a meta neighbourhood. It was born over the areas of Recoleta and Barrio 31 in Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Braer is a brain. It receives its stimulation from its inhabitants who, through sliders in the virtual realm, enter quantities within different parameters. These values are a representation of their desires and states of mind and each inhabitants inputs are transformed by Braer, into fingerprints. These fingerprints go to the neighbourhood archive. Braer counts with urban designers, which intuitively choose from the archive a fingerprint they are drawn towards. Then, each designer creates a group of creatives, that can be composed by non-designers inhabitants of Braer. The play is to translate, together, the chosen fingerprint into an urban intervention. They will follow all the information the fingerprint gives, visually and with the values, to materialize the desire or state of mind of the fingerprint’s owner, in the urban scape. The intervention will be called after the fingerprint owner, and, as each fingerprint is different, each intervention will be different too. Furthermore, the designers will be encouraged to reinvent the environments where they will develop each fingerprint. They can choose whichever context they feel it is most inspiring for the creation of the design. If in any moment in the process it happened that they get stuck or frustrated, they are invited to take a break of fresh air and come back to the group to continue dreaming together. The process should be enjoyable. The designers are also invited to bring a gesture, a present, to their materials providers. It could be anything, for example a rain drop.

mfarwy@gmail.com Graduation Tutor: Michou-Nanon de Bruijn

mary farwy

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THE CARE WATER CLOSET “The new normal” Normative grids imposed by the capital rule the normal human’s life. Those capital notions led to exponential growth in economy and technology. Good for us! But is it good for ourSELVES? Look! The normal human has to know it all, all the time. The normal human has to do it all, all the time. The normal human has to be understood, all the time. My research questions ‘normality’. The normality of the human behavior, at this time. And because crises rip open the fabric of normality, my research is also focused on marginal spaces and characters in times of crisis. Crisis whether mental, personal or global stress on the urgency to care. But the problem with care is that it is too personal, lacking the spatial and mental tools to communicate it with the self and with others. This project is for care in times of care crisis, abolishing distressing normalities. The new normal agency proposes a care centred future scenario where ‘new senses of normality’ can be experienced. My design; ‘the care water closet’ reproduces the toilet space as an everyday space mobilized with domestic self care tools, focusing on the psychological value of toilets. Time here is reimagined as a value measured by means of care, not by means of production. The water closet has care uniforms that communicate care with others through the element of water. The care water closet generates a community of agents that hacks the ‘flush society’. They are a community of individuals celebrating their intrinsic values through their behaviors and appearances. They have different agendas in relation to the water, the psych and the communal care. This design is for the self, the others, the water and for what is valued, in times of the future. It is to deal with the mental and physical sh*t instead of flushing it away.

INSIDE Magazine 2020

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SPACES OF UNKNOWING, MARY FARWY This graduation thesis is a joy to read and to visually explore! The reader is taken on an adventurous journey to learn to see the unseen and share this skill with others. The text invites â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to reflect on the fundamental question how our spatial environment is detected and controlled: how are norms of human behavior determined through space and how, in turn, do they impose (in)visible social grids? The thesis testifies of the quest to escape from these norms and to seek for the unknown and the imaginary within the margins. Due to the lack of space in this magazine, only a few pages are included that show the intricate layout with skillfully made drawings. Please use the QR code to download the entire thesis!

Graduation Thesis

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Master Interior Architecture

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Graduation Thesis

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INSIDE Magazine 2020

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HANS VENHUIZEN Head of INSIDE & Tutor Travel programme Hans Venhuizen deals with the culture of spatial planning. In his search for a more specific identity for cities and areas, Hans links the worlds of culture and space to each other in different ways. In this, his focus is always on the culture of spatial planning itself, and the game is his most important instrument. The relation between playfulness and seriousness is a key feature in all of his projects. LOTTE VAN DEN BERG Coordinator INSIDE Lotte van den Berg studied Media & Culture in Amsterdam and graduated with a Master in Film Documentary in 2011. After graduating she worked, among others, at Media festival Cinekid. In February 2016 she started working at INSIDE. In addition to her task as coordinator, Lotte collaborates with the students on the visibility and public relations of INSIDE. Last year Lotte was also appointed a Coordinator at the Master Photography & Society. ERIK JUTTEN Studio Tutor — Practice skills Erik graduated in 2004 at the Visual Arts department at the Royal Academy of Art. He works as initiator and partner of art projects in public space. He is a founding member of City in the Making, an activist organisation reclaiming empty buildings for living-working and communing in Rotterdam, see: www.stadindemaak.nl. Erik collaborates with students on a one to one scale projects in 'a real world' context. ANNE HOOGEWONING Theory & Writing Tutor (first year and graduation year) Anne Hoogewoning studied architectural history and museology. She is co-founder of AB Cultural Producers working in the field of research, writing, advice, fundraising and teaching within the disciplines architecture and design. Anne is also coordinator of the artist/design residency Van Doesburghuis at Meudon/Paris. Additionally she is board member of ArchiNed, the architecture site of the Netherlands. GERJAN STRENG The Cloud Collective — Studio Tutor and Research Graduation Tutor Gerjan Streng is an architect/ researcher and co-founder of Bright/The Cloud Collective, a collaboration of design companies based in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Together with a team of 10 partners, Gerjan aim to explore urban challenges caused

by changes in climate, mobility, economy and energy. Data analyses, spatial scenarios and prototypes are their methodologies to get a grip on uncertainties.One of their projects is the Ministry of Food; a research into the future of food and its possible outcome for the energy transition. JUNYUAN CHEN Superuse Studios — Flows Tutor Junyuan Chen graduated from INSIDE at the Royal Academy of Art in 2015. Her design approach is to start an encompassing research based on her own observations and analysis. In her projects Junyuan include both political and environmental issues and integrates technology and social needs. A year after her graduation she was asked to collaborate with the Rotterdam based Superuse Studios to expand their network in China. FOKKE MOEREL MVRDV — Graduation Tutor Fokke Moerel is trained as an architect at the Technical University Delft. Since 2016 she has been a partner at MVRDV (Rotterdam) which she joined in 1998. She leads projects in, among others, the Netherlands, Eastern Europe, the Americas. One of her well known projects is currently under construction: the public Art Depot of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, to be completed in 2020. She lectures internationally in Europe, America and Asia. ASER GIMENEZ-ORTEGA MVRDV — Studio & Graduation Tutor Aser Giménez-Ortega graduated with a Master degree in architecture at Universidad Politécnica de Valencia in 2005. Two years later he became a senior project leader at MVRDV (Rotterdam) where he was appointed associate director in 2017. He is involved in the conceptualization and execution of several projects of various scales including the DNB Headquarters in Oslo and Roskilde Festival High School in Denmark. Aser regularly conducts student workshops and gives lectures worldwide. ELIEN DE CEUNINCK MVRDV — Studio Tutor Elien Deceuninck is a Belgian interior architect at MVRDV since 2011. At MVRDV she has been involved in the conceptualizing and execution of projects of various scales, from large scale urban designs to small scale exhibition and interior design such as ‘GROOS’, an art gallery and store, ‘The MVRDV House’ and the atrium design of the new Boijmans van Beuningen depot in Rotterdam and many others.

INSIDE Tutors STUDIO MAKKINK & BEY Jurgen Bey & Michou-Nanou de Bruijn — Graduation Tutor and Studio Tutor StudioMakkink & Bey works in various domains of applied art including product design, public space projects, architecture and exhibition design. Their office is based in Rotterdam and includes professionals from different fields of knowledge, forming alliances with other designers, architects and experts. Makkink & Bey are known for their critical attitude driven to understand the world and question it. One of their interests is the future of the new working landscape which they introduced at INSIDE in the first year programme. JAN KÖRBES REFUNC — Graduation and Skills Tutor — Hands on Design Jan Körbes is co-founder of REFUNC; an architecture laboratory and an experimental method that deals with the function, perception and meaning of (unused) components, material and sources. REFUNC questions the standard design approach where form follows function by shifting functionality of existing objects, components or spaces to achieve an endless lifespan. In their approach inspiring and sharing are key words. TIM DEVOS Graduation Tutor Tim Devos is an engineer architect and urban planner. He is one of the founding partners of Endeavour, based in Antwerp, a social enterprise that provide research, innovation and consultancy in urban planning in order to make cities more sustainable and inclusive. Tim holds a PhD on participation and coproduction in urban planning processes at the Social Geography Department at KU Leuven. BENJAMIN FOERSTER-BALDENIUS Raumlaborberlin — Studio Tutor Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius is an architect based in Berlin. He is partner of raumlaborberlin; a collective of eight trained architects who have come together in a collaborative structure to work at the intersection of architecture, city planning, art and urban intervention. One of their recent projects is Floating University to explore the future of architecture schooling. Located in a rainwater basin the temporary structure was under constant development for which they invited 25 affiliated design schools, one of them being INSIDE. PAUL KUIPERS Skills Tutor — Exhibition Design Paul Kuipers is an architect based in Amsterdam. Recently

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he graduated with Achterhuis, an architectural research on spatial encryption, by designing a new public home for Edward Snowden. In 2016 he founded his own studio after working at EventArchitectuur, a design firm for time and experience-based architecture, for 15 years. Additionally, since 2012 he collaborates with artist Jonas Staal on art-politics related projects like New World Summit and New Unions, based on a joint research into speculative and utopian forms of architecture. LEEKE REINDERS Skills Tutor — Observation Leeke Reinders is a cultural anthropologist who explores creative links between ethnographic fieldwork and the design field of (interior) architecture, urban design and urbanism. His main interests are the anthropology of urban space, the meanings and practices of home, narrative mapping and the relations between architecture/planning and the everyday. Leeke holds a PhD on identity strategies and identification in a post-war neighbourhood in the Netherlands. LUCAS VERWEIJ Skills Tutor — Presentation Lucas Verweij is a designer, writer and teacher. He is a versatile man who moves across design in all its facets, whether it be as an architect, moderator, teacher, writer or educator. Lucas acts as initiator and curator of public events in the field of architecture and design and he writes regularly on his observations on design through his blog and the designblog ‘Dezeen’. Since 2008 Lucas lives in Berlin where he was a teacher at Berlin’s two design schools and currently at Poznan’s ‘School of Form’. MAURICIO FREYRE Skills Tutor — Film Narratives Mauricio Freyre is an artist and filmmaker whose practice RIEN is currently based in Madrid. His work spans photography, artistic videos, commercial clips and cultural documentation on design, architecture and urbanism. His personal inquiries revolve around systems and structures of ideas negotiating between the constructed and the projected. Mauricio’s projects and films have been exhibited among others at Rencontres Internationales, Haus der Kulturen and TENT (Rotterdam). VINCENT DE RIJK Skills Tutor — Model making Vincent de Rijk is trained as a designer at the Academy for Industrial Design in Eindhoven (currently Design Academy). After his graduation he started ‘Werkplaats Vincent de Rijk’ in

Rotterdam. Since then he has been working in the wide range of design as an industrial designer, furniture maker and model builder. His most well known product is a series of ceramic bowls with polyester resin. Thereafter Vincent started to make architectural models of resin, primarily for the Dutch architecture office OMA. GERT DUMBAR Skills Tutor — Graphic Design Gert Dumbar, whose career presently spans more than 30 years, has consistently sought to raise the standard of graphic design and visual communications – at home in the Netherlands, as well as abroad. He studied graphic design at the Royal Academy of Art in the 70’s and concluded his studies in the post graduate graphic design program at the Royal College of Art in London. In 1977 he founded Studio Dumbar, one of the most influential design studios in The Netherlands. Gert Dumbar is a strong believer in elves and gnomes. KLODIANA MILLONA Studio Tutor Klodiana Millona is an architect and researcher. She graduated from INSIDE in 2017 and from the Institute of Sonology Conservatoire of The Hague in 2019 and since then she has been working independently within practices of researching, curating, writing and field recording. Recently she has been a contributor at the Oslo Triennale of Architecture, Lisbon Triennale of Architecture and she is currently a recipient of the Talent Development grant 20192020 from the Creative Industries Fund NL conducting a research on two cities: Taipei and Tirana, developing a critical cartography of de-centred social welfare domesticities. ESTHER DE VRIES Skills Tutor — Graphic Design Esther de Vries lives and works as an independent graphic designer in Amsterdam. She graduated from the Rietveld Academy in 1998, from then on she mainly designed books, ideally in close collaboration with visual artists, designers and institutions like museums. She is asked for assignments in which an editorial approach is desired; especially collaborations which allow for a lot of freedom often resulted in appreciation and prizes. A number of those designs were therefore included in museum collections. For more information see www.esther-de-vries.nl.