Food. It is grown, processed, distributed, sold, eaten and then oftentimes carelessly discarded. In the European Union, 88 million tonnes of food waste is produced each year, while the Netherlands stands out as the EU’s largest producer. Food waste causes soil degradation, emits significant amounts of greenhouse gasses and can contribute to poorer respiratory health. Moreover, food waste is also representative of our growing disconnect with natural systems and subsequent unsustainable lifestyles. Yet, annually, more natural habitats are destroyed to make way for agriculture and livestock, often in response to providing for a growing population. However, there can be a reimagination of a more circular bio-based economy and food supply chain that lessens the pressure on the earth. The existing infrastructure of the Port of Rotterdam and its surrounding areas provide a fertile landscape in which this can take place. Additionally, while reducing food waste, intensifying social segregation and inequality concerning ethnicity, income and urban/non-urban divides in Zuid-Holland can be addressed to ensure environmental, economical and social robustness and longevity. Solutions for problems relating to food waste, and social segregation and inequality, have then been translated into a spatial vision and strategy to realize a more circular and inclusive food supply chain in Zuid-Holland by 2050. The vision and strategy are based on holistic analyses of the spatial distribution and character of the current linear food supply chain and demographic studies of the inhabitants of Zuid-Holland. This is then supported by policies and strategic projects that aim to use and build onto existing frameworks and spatial conditions to achieve the overarching aims. Key drivers of the vision and strategy include a transition of the port’s current fossil fuel economy to a regional hub for organic fertilizer production to be exported domestically as well as internationally. Additionally, a network of community exchange centers and a matrix of interfaces together aim to change the spatial and societal fabric of Zuid-Holland. To do this, they provide space for members of the same and different communities to share knowledge, experiences and tools, as well as re-establish connections with the natural world.

This booklet is the attempt to synthesize the work developed by a multidisciplinary group of Master students from TU-Delft during the Landscape elective course OnSite. The course revolves around the design and the construction of a temporary project in a landscape setting, preceded by extensive exploration of the site. During the course, the students were given the unique chance to experience the land in multiple forms, and later on, feel the impact of their intervention. We were assigned to work in the area called Land of Chabot, located in the north of Rotterdam, where the famous painter Henk Chabot (1894-1949) used to live. The area is constrained by the Rotte River on the north, an untouched forested area on the right and a relic of the original agricultural polders and on the left. It is currently being cut in the middle by the construction of the A16 motorway, which leads to deep structural and symbolic transformation of the landscape. Chabot used to paint this landscape, evoking the essence of the land by his raw, harsh, and bold brushstrokes. Another powerful characteristic of his work are the different viewpoints from which he paints the land, bringing the viewers to experience its openness and contemplate the land to its fullest. Today, the land of Chabot is a fragment of an open farmland tissue that once surrounded the whole city of Rotterdam, and that has been profoundly changed over the years. The reason why this specific piece of land remains, is the construction of the A16 motorway that is now happening, after 30 years of planning. A huge contradiction arises due to the fact that the highway that is disrupting the land by carving it in the middle, is the very same reason why this land has been kept preserved over the years. During the design process of our intervention, we aimed to tackle the cultural and symbolic significance of this place, and mostly, what new meanings and ways to see this landscape could take place now, given its inevitable current transformations. We dived into Chabot’s paintings and tried to capture his shifting horizon - that is different when viewed from the Rotte than when viewed from the dike, from the house where Chabot lived and worked, or from the polder floor. Our intervention became an attempt to descend into this land in order to see it.