Anarchisphere
Where the City Meets the Wild
Z.A. Holiday (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
S. Milinović – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / U)
J. Gosseye – Mentor (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
G. Karvelas – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / AE+T)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
This project begins with a question, not an answer.
What is public space, and who is it really for?
The Anarchisphere explores how architecture might provoke awareness of invisible systems of control while creating conditions in which power relations are critically dismantled. It asks how people might reclaim the ability to shape their surroundings through self-organisation, mutual aid, and collective action.
Rather than prescribing use or behaviour, the project proposes architecture as an open framework: unfinished, unstable, and open to appropriation. Public space is treated not as neutral ground, but as a contested terrain shaped by power, regulation, and design decisions that often go unquestioned.
Situated along the railway corridor between Rotterdam Centraal and Rotterdam Blaak, the project intervenes in a landscape defined by speed, infrastructure, and surveillance. A rigid triangular grid establishes an imposed order, which is disrupted by a new anarchic axis. Along this axis unfolds a system of mobile units, climbable towers, and wild ecologies. These elements resist a fixed program and invite misuse, transformation, and collective negotiation.
The Anarchisphere is not a singular object, but a lived condition. It is both an actual place and a theoretical understanding of space and its function. It is a desire for more: for freedom, autonomy, and comfort within the public realm. Through exposure, friction, and disruption, the project challenges preconceived notions of publicity and freedom within existing structures of hierarchy and power.
Architecture is turned inside out: a host rather than a master, a provocation rather than a solution. By giving people the means to create, occupy, and redefine space, the project asks what public space could become when authorship is collective and authority is no longer fixed. Ultimately, The Anarchisphere positions architecture not as a tool for control but as a catalyst for awareness, creativity, and freedom within the urban public realm.