Institute of place making

Abstract

This booklet shows the results of a project developed by TU Delft in a Master elective course offered by the chair of Landscape Architecture: Landscape Architecture ON site, being part of Oerol Festival 2013. The aim of the project was to express the landscape of Terschelling into a temporarily project during the Oerol festival on Terschelling Island from June 12th through the 23rd, 2013. The chair of Landscape Architecture at TU Delft was invited three years ago to contribute to the discussion about the Wadden Island with particular emphasis on Terschelling. The question was how to become an active part of the coming editions of Oerol, since the festival is going in the direction of more permanent interventions in the landscape. Further, the festival is leading the way in designating close relationships between nature and culture, and between landscape and inhabitants. The chair has been contributing since then with projects inside the “expedition program” and participating in seminars. The first project for Oerol was designed in 2010. Since then, the chair has contributed every year, titled “Sense of Place”, wherein the landscape of the Wadden area and that of Terschelling was discussed by artists, landscape architects, ecologists and curators. Oerol has a long tradition of landscape and location art and is one of the major international centres of development in this field. With the island as a source of inspiration and stage for broad programming, the Oerol festival has a leading artistic profile with a focus on culture, nature and experimentation. Each year, Oerol selects approximately twenty innovative and experimental projects that fit within the overall perception of nature and culture. The ‘expedition program’ includes projects from all disciplines and mixed forms, such as short presentations, performances, landscape art, theatrical films and installations. Our contribution to the expedition program this year is called ‘The Institute of Place Making.’ It is an interactive project which explores and makes visible the experiences of visitors and inhabitants in the landscape of Terschelling. The project is a result of several weeks of teaching, workshops, external lectures, sites visits, and brainstorming sections. It ultimately developed into a project wherein people were asked to take a closer look at the landscape and heighten their awareness of the island by answering the question: “What is your most sacred ‘place’ on Terschelling, and why?”