Night Lab is an initiative of Studio Monnik to raise awareness about the vanished darkness over urban areas and the over-illumination of our cities. We looked at the dark city with a diverse team of designers and researchers. A city without light pollution, where the rhythms of our planet are not denied but embraced, and […]
Tag Archives: What are public spaces for all?
Dark nights?
Light has long been seen as a positive force in our environment. Artificial light allowed us to overcome nature’s darkness. It is Enlightenment in its most concrete form. Light represents economic activity: Factory workers in brightly lit production facilities during the night shifts, office workers burning the midnight oil, greenhouses that illuminate the cloud cover […]
Fauna towers
A family of three new towers responds to three existing church towers. Recognizable, with a reference to a rich past. Playful, with a different perspective from every angle. Reflecting in the water, they are clearly visible but not accessible to humans. What could actually happen there? Three follies, delightful objects as found at estates of […]
Folly
In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of garden ornaments usually associated with the class of buildings to which it belongs. source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folly
Events
Temporary use prepares the site for a new future.
Polaroid Performance Factory
How do you bring new life to an old factory site? In 2008, housing association Domijn purchased the five-hectare Polaroid site on the edge of Enschede’s city center. Full demolition and new construction with apartments was intended, but investment opportunities were limited due to the financial crisis. Our team developed a strategy to improve the […]
Industrial heritage
Almost everyone in Enschede knows someone who has worked in the Van Heek factories or at the Polaroid. The site is part of the collective memory of the city. The buildings play a role in this, but the true value of this heritage lies in the stories of entrepreneurship and hard work. Enschede’s textile industry […]
High tech – low tech
The sci-fi rom-com ‘Her’ by Spike Jonze shows a world in which technology functions so well that it becomes virtually invisible. In this future we see no cars and the phone – a beautiful small pocket book – rarely appears. The vast majority is controlled by artificial intelligence. All other communication between technology and its […]
En Place
The Brussels canal zone is like a mirage: those who are looking for a relaxing place along the canal will surely be disappointed. In the middle of the busy European metropolis you do find the openness that is lacking in other places. However, this space is mainly utilitarian and almost entirely designated for the infrastructure. […]
Willem II Passage
Can technology, a sense of security and an atmosphere reinforce each other in an architectural design? For a new connection between the center and the railway zone in Tilburg, The Cloud Collective designed a sequence of spaces where the city, traffic node, rail passage and vacant industrial heritage merge seamlessly. Technology does not play the […]
Sugarloaf Key
In 1929, Richard Clyde Perky constructed this tower in Sugarloaf Key hoping that bats would eat malaria-spreading mosquitoes in Key West. Unfortunately, the bats soon left the tower. Two comparable ‘hygiostatic’ towers by ecologist Charles Campbell, meanwhile, are currently in use as bat nurseries.
Piushaven History
Since 1923, The Piushaven connects the center of Tilburg with Eindhoven, Antwerp and the Randstad, via the Wilhelminakanaal. The port has been used extensively in the first years to bring sand, grid and coal into the city. The harbor’s importance decreased in the sixties with the rise of road transport, the construction of the national […]
Piushaven Pavilion
The Piushaven pavilion revives Tilburg’s old harbor pier. An impressive steel construction houses a new restaurant while adding a high-quality public space to the city. The robust pavilion creates a clear beacon for passers-by. Raised public space This important location in the city accommodates a combination of a public and private spaces. A restaurant shares […]