Silent Occupation
Sarah van Sonsbeeck and Roosje Klap (2018)
Over the course of two weeks in January 2018, 180 students from the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam and I joined forces during the Winter School. In this two-week research and design programme, students of architecture, urban design and landscape architecture explored the Kop van Java (Head of Java Island), an as yet undeveloped plot in the centre of Amsterdam. This new generation of designers is not just designing our built environment, but our mental space as well. How do we experience the space that is designed for us? How does it influence us and others? The space we presume to be our own (privately, architectonically, legally) is not as solid as architectural drawings or documents of ownership might suggest. We have laws regulating the right to have a home, and the quality of that home, but how about the right to silence? Or the right to speak?