Attuning the living Ruin
Contemplation, ruinosity, and care along the Schie
M.B. Poorthuis (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
S.I. de Wit – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
S. Milinović – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Robert Gorny – Graduation committee member
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Abstract
This thesis investigates how the latent contemplative and ruinous qualities of interstitial landscapes along the Schie in Rotterdam North can be spatially framed as an armature for contemplative attunement with nature. The research starts from the observation that residual infrastructural spaces are often dismissed as leftover, unsafe or illegible, while they may contain strong ecological, atmospheric and experiential value.
Through literature research, precedent analysis, repeated fieldwork, deep mapping and design experiments, the thesis examines how contemplation, ruinosity, fourth nature, succession and tree architecture can inform a landscape architectural design attitude based on restraint rather than replacement. The Schie interstitial is read not as empty ground, but as a living ruin: a landscape already shaped by water, infrastructure, spontaneous vegetation, informal use, weathering and time.
The design proposal for Stadspark-West introduces a minimal spatial armature of routes, thresholds, tree structures, steel edges, pause moments and adaptive maintenance. Rather than producing a finished park image, the design prepares conditions in which visitors may slow down, stand still and become more attentive to ongoing processes of growth, decay and care.
The thesis argues that landscape architecture can support attunement not by controlling the interstitial landscape, but by making its existing temporal, ecological and spatial qualities perceptible.