A temporary installation transforming discarded materials into a house-like structure for gathering and collective presence. It addresses housing precarity and gentrification, using improvised acts—tying, stacking, wrapping, balancing—to show how informal design fosters care and adaptability.
From Waste to Gathering Space
Originating from research in Rotterdam South, the project responds to urban development shaped by gentrification and the housing crisis, reclaiming waste as ground for presence and care. It draws directly from the rhythms of the local market, where vendors build and dismantle their stalls each day, negotiating density, mobility, and uncertainty through inventive use of what is at hand.
Practices of Improvisation and Care
Inspired by these everyday tactics—tying, wrapping, stacking, balancing—the installation adopts an ethic of improvisation that resists finality and control. Like the market stall, it is never fixed, but responsive: a design of verbs rather than nouns. By embodying this raw, adaptive intelligence, the work questions disposability in both materials and lives under conditions of urban transformation. Blending structure, painting, and sound, it becomes not only a shelter but a stage for dialogue, where visitors can experience waste as resource, fragility as resilience, and space-making as a collective act.