Ingo Vetter , Nils Norman , Dan Peterman
Workshop Playgrounds Hoogvliet

Report of a workshop on Playgrounds in Hoogvliet

A large portion of Holland’s available housing is located in the large-scale, quickly-built modern residential areas that were built shortly after the Second World War and are, meanwhile, in need of massive renovation. Such a large-scale renovation of postwar residential areas forces one to contemplate the use of public space. The method used with Rotterdam’s residential area, Hoogvliet, is a good example of this. It is one of the first projects that SKOR was involved in. (1)
The study ‘The World is my Playground’ unites theory and practice, creating a scenario for the development of a ‘play network’. The project approaches the playground from a town planning perspective and aims to put the matter of designing a playground high on the agenda. Hoogvliet served as one of their case studies.
SKOR contributed by organizing a workshop that took place on 13 and 14 December. A gathering of people from diverse fields of expertise were invited to come up with ideas for the potentialities and different functions of the open space in general and, more specifically, for playgrounds. Participants of the workshop included legal philosopher Gijs van Oenen (University of Rotterdam), ecologist Matthijs Schouten (University of Wageningen) and visual artists Dan Peterman (Chicago), Ingo Vetter (Berlin) and Nils Norman (London). Together with Hoogvliet’s administrators and officials, the Playgrounds researchers and SKOR’s representatives, they explored the parks and nine districts that make up Hoogvliet and took part in a round table discussion. (2)

Recently artist Nils Norman did research on what he personally calls ‘adventure playgrounds’. These are playgrounds that offer a large amount of space for unforeseen usage. He delved into the history of the development of playgrounds since the 1930’s and made sketches of this. Recently in the late modernist town planning - particularly in England and Germany – playgrounds that have been designed and furnished by children are being realized.
However, due to increasing liability issues and regulations it is becoming increasingly difficult to assign children a role in the design process. According to Norman the foremost meaning of these places is that of the ‘ecological niche’ as they are often valuable habitats that hardly change during extended periods of time. Only their surroundings alter.

Ingo Vetter studied two places that had been ‘squatted’ and serve as examples of spontaneous urban agriculture. One of these was an undeveloped plot of land close to the Berlin Wall that was already squatted back in 1971. It was here that a type of children’s farm emerged as a result of the surrounding inhabitants who started keeping chickens, goats and pigs etc. on the property. The area was used by a variety of groups at varying times and the maintenance was performed by the users themselves.
The other example is the dilapidated and deserted city center of Detroit. After the collapse of the automobile industry when nobody took responsibility for the inner city anymore, it was only the poor who continued to live in this neighborhood while the rich departed for the suburbs. People began to farm the unclaimed land not in order to survive but, rather, as a symbolic statement that demonstrated that this was their land and that they would use it as such.
Based on these examples, Vetter would rather have no physical products developed for Hoogvliet that fix the land’s usage but, instead, create conditions that allow exceptional and unforeseen usage.

Dan Peterman is more interested in the organic processes of urban society than in the isolated concept of the ‘playground’. He is a long time resident of Chicago and lives on the border of a wealthy area and an underprivileged neighborhood. Like an isolated enclave, the University of Chicago is located next to this area. After his studies at the art faculty of this university, Peterman joined a group that created all kinds of artistic interventions that served to improve the neighborhood and its community life. He was, among others, involved in the establishment of shops that recycle materials.
Peterman is mainly interested in the conditions that instigate all kinds of processes that are, in turn, added to the existing local complexity. With his interventions he consistently makes use of the available resources and the existing conditions. In this way, Peterman tries to find alternative models for developing and stimulating organic processes that are in contrast to systematic processes in which everything has been predetermined.

According to ecologist Matthijs Schouten - who, in addition to his ecological research also researched the perception of landscape – there are basically two types of distinguishable landscapes: the natural landscape and the semi-natural landscape. The first type includes ‘wild’ nature whereas the second type is represented by the (agri)cultural landscape. He connects both types to the Nietzchian dichotomy of Dionysian vs. Apollonian. In this way the first is natural and unconnected to space and time and the second is semi-natural, having come forth through the interaction with humans. The latter type which is connected to space and time, gives one a sense of harmony and serenity. In other words the relation between the geomorphology and the history of habitation is imaginable and the landscape can be read like a book.
According to Schouten, the riverbank forest that surrounds Hoogvliet refers to the Dionysian landscape whereas the old village center (formerly a fishing port) refers to the Apollonian landscape with its recognizable topographical human touches including the dyke, the church and the pattern of streets. In Hoogvliet he distinguishes a third type, namely, the rational landscape.
Schouten suggests that many of the green open spaces that are hardly used as public spaces should be better utilized in order to allow new experiences to come about. In doing so, one should make use of the geomorphology so that the landscape can become readable again.

Philosopher Gijs van Oenen does not agree with the basic principle of Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and he considers this book to be old-fashioned and boring. In his opinion, people do not essentially need to ‘play’. One should actually see playing as a specific feature that can offer a solution to certain issues and problems in contemporary society. As such he considers Nieuw Babylon (New Babylon) which is based on Huizinga’s homo ludens concept, to be a good example of a bad idea. On the basis of Huizinga’s book the artist, Constant, differentiates between two domains, namely, the domain in which the production of necessities is realized and the domain of free time or relaxation. According to Gijs van Oenen this dichotomy becomes highly problematic when there is no connection between the two domains. In the town planning of the 1960s and 1970s, the divisions between working, living and free time bore significant consequences. Public and private functions were divided, separated and, literally, worked out on different levels. The Bijlmer is a famous example of this and, in Hoogvliet, this disconnection of different domains can also be seen. According to Gijs van Oenen one should not view ‘playing’ as the highest level but, rather, as a possibility to connect different levels with each other, similar to the negotiations that take place between the public and private aspects of life.
Since the 1970s, people have become more individualistic. They no longer form a homogenous community but are, instead, autistic and behave as such. Van Oenen distinguishes three types of behaviors that are related to how people envisage themselves in the public space.
1. Nimby (not in my backyard): You are not involved. You appreciate public affairs but you cannot accept the negative consequences thereof. It’s all very well as long as it doesn’t bother you.
2. Capsular (see the publication Lieven de Cauter, De Capsulaire Samenleving, NAi Uitgevers): People who withdraw from public space and act as if they are not actually in it. An example is someone wearing a walkman in a train.
3. Interpassive: You notice your surroundings but are, simultaneously, connected to your personal life. An example is someone using their cell phone in the train. You are aware of the public life but, because you are in connection with your private life, you don’t have (or want) any interaction with it.
These three phenomena have dramatically altered the public space. Gijs van Oenen proposes transitional spaces or ‘playgrounds’ that are informal and can forge a connection between the public and private life. The creating of this is, in itself, a type of game.

'The world is my playground' was made possible with the contribution of the Stimuleringsfonds voor Architectuur (Stimulation Fund for Architecture).
Check out www.speelwereld.nl and www.dollab.nl (click on ‘werk’ and ‘playgrounds’)