Talking Walls


Location: Rotterdam, NL
Year: 2018
Type: Folly
Status: graduation thesis

Stacked block structures (‘follies’) are placed in a leftover landscape (berm) between infrastructures to reveal and frame the poetic of the everyday life in and around the place. Functioning similar as a chapel along the roadside. These structures do not have a practical purpose (like a folly), but they do want to tell stories about the sensory experiences of a place. A story one is able to see, to read only when slowing down. It is about perceiving, not only with the eye but also with other senses like, smell, sound and touch. Furthermore, the architectural structures want to emphasize on being in the moment as the experiences are all about a short timeframe: the minutes and the hours of a day. They focus on all the different rhythms around you. As this place is set between infrastructures there is movement everywhere around you: moving cars, moving trams, moving bikes, moving pedestrians, moving boats. But also, above you, under you and inside the landscape: moving clouds and moving grass. I call it Talking Walls because through the wall-structures the experiences of the place are emphasized and in such a way you can see them as talking with their surroundings, talking with the human encounters and talking with each other.

The in-between landscape is often characterized by being narrow but long. To experience the full length of the place three structures are placed divided in the landscape, to guide one through it. As these places are about the individual encounter, contemplation with the artifact, they refer to the position of the human body: sitting, laying, standing.

The laying one is emphasizing on the awareness on what is beneath us and above us. It is designed like a bed. The walls are partly built, and nature can take over the structure itself.