In the heather and woods of Den Dolder lies a psychiatric Institute with department pavilions dating from 1911 till now. The different agendas in treating and curing the clients is physically shown through these buildings. We did an artist-in-residence program in ‘Het Vijfde Seizoen’, one of the pavilions on the grounds, to investigate this phenomenon.

We found the pavilions that were making direct contact with the surrounding woods the most inspiring. We decided to give each of the pavilions a feeding platform for birds. This in order to enhance the interaction with the woods through the birds that would come out to feed. We would place the platforms within the gardens and each platform would take the shape of the pavilion to which the garden belongs. The esthetics, the modernist reference, points to the wish for a direct relationship with the surrounding woods. We are now working together with Altrecht Talent on implementing the design.

Kinderen helpen bij het aanmaken van kompost in een kuubkist. Ze leren hierbij de juiste manier van stapelen van afwisselende lagen uit aarde en organisch huishoudelijk afval en tuinafval. Als toplaag wordt gecomposteerde aarde (van het vorige jaar) toegevoegd.

Tussen voorgeboorde gaten in de wanden van de kuubkist worden dan touwtjes gespannen, om kweekvakken te maken. In deze kweekvakken worden diverse soorten groentenzaden en bloemenzaadjes geplant en met water besproeid. Enkele weken later zijn in de kuubkist verschillende soorten kool, salade, en bloemen gegroeid. De kweekkuubkist toont aan, dat een kuub aarde van goede kwaliteit genoeg is, om een mens met groenten te verzorgen.

In the North East Polder of the Netherlands an old harbour with its dykes becomes a focus point in the impoldered landscape. The owner of the site would like us to build a holistic centre including a tea room along the dyke. We propose a design which at one end is firmly rooted in the soil and by different turns rests on the dyke, then slowly turns towards the sky. We use local wood, stamped clay, basalt rocks and hemp as building materials.

For the Dutch t.v. series Wroeten (about a city slacker (actor Arjan Ederveen) that is going to live in the countryside) we build a grocery shop that also functioned as a little restaurant and a beauty salon. The grocery shop sold home grown vegetables. The table with a scale model of the wroeten house and garden served as explanatory device to give advise on the different difficulties that occur while growing vegetables and plants and trees from the region in your garden.

A photography exhibition concerning Dutch farms and their contemporary use was held in ‘The Year of the Farm 2003′. This exhibition called ‘Faces of Farming’, was designed and installed by us inside and outside of characteristic farms in each of the twelve provinces in the Netherlands. After completion of the twelve exhibitions we showed them as one exhibition in the National Photo Institute in Rotterdam.During this assignment we researched the quality of the farm yard and found it perfectly suited the idea of slow growth. Also the old fashioned way of unpurposeful moving about (scharrelen) around the farm and seeing what is to be done by constantly walking around somehow still existed even in the most industrialized farms. Together with KoehorstIn’tVeld we made a publication of the research and the exhibition.

A registration of a tour with horse and carriage through the north east of the Netherlands on the normal provincial roads for cars.

Guests from the architecture & urban design field but also politicians and leisure experts join us for a ride. We question them on what they see from the carriage and what they think of the (in)possibility of slowness in this part of the country.