In the graduation project Living the Pause, the phenomenon of “hanging around” in the public spaces of Hoboken and Kiel in Antwerp was researched. Fieldwork was conducted to investigate where people hang around and how they do so. The findings from these observations were later translated into an urban and architectural design for the neighbourhoods of Kiel and Hoboken.

The project was designed through the lens of facilitating for the ‘in-between’. Meaning creating spaces where hanging out is encouraged. The program includes a primary school, a kindergarten, and a theater. The two schools are housed in a former office building of one of the factory halls of the Blikfabriek, a former rim factory in the south of Antwerp.

This booklet describes the process of work carried out by a group of students within the On Site Studio of the Department of Landscape Architecture at TU Delft (Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences)in the spring of 2024. The students
have different academic backgrounds in either architecture, urbanism or landscape architecture and have been divided into dynamic sub-groups focusing on different approaches to analyse and design, but the work is the result of an effort by the group as a whole.

As the title of the studio ‘ON SITE: Scenes in Stadspark West’ suggests, this project took place in Stadspark West (SPW), a unique location in Rotterdam, however it is not an officially recognised geographical name. The initiators behind SPW refer to it as ‘an idea’ and ‘a fictional park that actually exists’.

This document is divided into three elements, the first part, Analysis and Research, deals with the embodied on-site analysis of the site and the theoretical research that underpins this analysis. The main aim of this part is to get a better grip on the multifaceted area of Stadspark West and to find better ways to describe, define, discuss and work with this area from a landscape architectural perspective. The second part of this booklet focuses on exploring and transcending the outcome of this analysis to a wider audience. In the project we achieve this goal by designing an intervention in the landscape. As the findings of our analysis have come from our first-hand embodied experiences, the aim is to present and extend these impressions from the same perspective. In the final part we use these findings to create an overall vision for Stadspark West.

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.