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Nature of Hope 2024

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The 11th edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) with the title Nature of Hope will take place from 29 June to 13 October 2024 and will include an exhibition at the Nieuwe Instituut, a public program and Botanical Monuments, green places in Rotterdam. The theme of this edition, Nature of Hope, focuses on how architecture can restore ecological balance by taking biodiversity and nature as a starting point.<a href="https://iabr.nl/en/nature-of-hope/visit">Plan your visit</a>In addition to the exhibition at the Nieuwe Instituut, it includes an extensive Public Program and a green network through Rotterdam to visit its so-called Botanical Monuments. Through a series of events, lectures, workshops, excursions and other activities, Nature of Hope’s Public Program of connects to various forms of existing knowledge and the practices that are transforming the very nature of the design disciplines. Some of these will take place in the Practice Place, where we invite the architectural community in the broadest sense to come together around transforming practice. Keep an eye on the agenda for <a href="https://iabr.nl/en/nature-of-hope/public-program">the full program</a>.Nature of Hope will focus on a combination of hope and nature. This choice stems from the recognition that everything begins with the Earth and that our exploitation – or rather, depletion – of the Earth, each other, and the living world is leading to multiple ecological and social crises. As humans, we can no longer place ourselves above or at a distance from nature and nor do we wish to. How can we put the knowledge and practices of spatial design at the service of the planet and all the creatures that live on it?

This year’s biennale edition, themed Nature of Hope, is put forward by IABR Director Saskia van Stein and curated by the IABR 2024: Nature of Hope Curator Team. The team consists of architect and researcher Janna Bystrykh, architect-researcher and philosopher Catherine Koekoek, researcher and writer Hani Salih, spatial designer and researcher Alina Paias, and designer and writer Noortje Weenink. The curator team, whose members come from different backgrounds but share a common basis in spatial design, manifests the change that is already underway.

Nature of Hope 2024. The 11th edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) with the title Nature of Hope will take place from 29 June to 13 October 2024 and will include an exhibition at the Nieuwe Instituut, a public program and Botanical Monuments, green places in Rotterdam. The theme of this edition, Nature of Hope, focuses on how architecture can restore ecological balance by taking biodiversity and nature as a starting point.<a href="https://iabr.nl/en/nature-of-hope/visit">Plan your visit</a>In addition to the exhibition at the Nieuwe Instituut, it includes an extensive Public Program and a green network through Rotterdam to visit its so-called Botanical Monuments. Through a series of events, lectures, workshops, excursions and other activities, Nature of Hope’s Public Program of connects to various forms of existing knowledge and the practices that are transforming the very nature of the design disciplines. Some of these will take place in the Practice Place, where we invite the architectural community in the broadest sense to come together around transforming practice. Keep an eye on the agenda for <a href="https://iabr.nl/en/nature-of-hope/public-program">the full program</a>.Nature of Hope will focus on a combination of hope and nature. This choice stems from the recognition that everything begins with the Earth and that our exploitation – or rather, depletion – of the Earth, each other, and the living world is leading to multiple ecological and social crises. As humans, we can no longer place ourselves above or at a distance from nature and nor do we wish to. How can we put the knowledge and practices of spatial design at the service of the planet and all the creatures that live on it?<h2>Curator Team</h2>This year’s biennale edition, themed Nature of Hope, is put forward by IABR Director Saskia van Stein and curated by the IABR 2024: Nature of Hope Curator Team. The team consists of architect and researcher Janna Bystrykh, architect-researcher and philosopher Catherine Koekoek, researcher and writer Hani Salih, spatial designer and researcher Alina Paias, and designer and writer Noortje Weenink. The curator team, whose members come from different backgrounds but share a common basis in spatial design, manifests the change that is already underway.

The guide will take you on the roof for an hour and a half and will tell you all about the history, construction, design and the range of products produced on the Dakakker. In addition, maintenance with and by volunteers, the bees, worms and chickens and the education program for children are discussed as well. The Dakakker is also part of 'Slimdak 010', a system that is in contact with Buienradar and can retain and drain water when necessary. International collaborations are also explained and there is room for questions from the participants themselves.The route of this tour runs over the Dakakker, over the Luchtsingel and through the Central District, the area in which the Schieblock is located. This area was and is subject to the dynamics of the big city. A lot has changed in the past and this area will continue to transform in the near future. The spoken language is Dutch.A ticket is €4.Dakakker. Photo: Fleur Beerthuis

Meet the Rooftop Farmer

Every Wednesday afternoon during the summer vacation, you can join a walk-in workshop where you work with a guide and other children to create a diorama of the future. Which animals live where? Do we live in underground houses? You decide! Help build a world that grows every week.For six weeks, every Wednesday afternoon, we will build and craft the future together. Bury your future message, design a real treehouse tree, and dive into the glitter river. Together, we'll create a diorama full of hopeful future dreams, where not only your ideas but also you can wander around! Each week, the diorama will be filled with new stories through different workshops and will look different. As hopeful world-makers, we will work together with nature, culture, and hope!Culture (July 31 + August 7)A lot has grown in the diorama recently. These two weeks, we will add the finest ways of living together in the future. Will you create an underground network of tunnels with luxurious rooms? Will you add a treehouse for animals and people? Or will you live high in the sky with the crow? Come and live together in the diorama of the future!Suitable for children aged 6-12 | Language: Dutch/English | Location: Nieuwe Instituut | Free admission | Walk-in from 12:00-15:30.WonderBuildWeeks in Nieuwe Instituut. Photo: Sabine van der Vooren

WonderBuildWeeks: Culture

How to practice resistance as a design professional? The Guided Curator Tour by Noortje Weenink focuses on alternative forms of organization in formal and informal architectural practices. The tour will center various forms of architect-client relations – those in which architects and institutions support cooperatives, co-creation, and new forms of collaboration. The tour highlights the agency of spatial designers in finding alternatives to the traditional role of the architect.The spoken language is English.The event is free. Registration for this tour is not mandatory but advisable due to limited capacity. Noortje Weenink. Photo: Sabine van der Vooren

Guided Curator Tour with Noortje Weenink

Every Wednesday afternoon during the summer vacation, you can join a walk-in workshop where you work with a guide and other children to create a diorama of the future. Which animals live where? Do we live in underground houses? You decide! Help build a world that grows every week.For six weeks, every Wednesday afternoon, we will build and craft the future together. Bury your future message, design a real treehouse tree, and dive into the glitter river. Together, we'll create a diorama full of hopeful future dreams, where not only your ideas but also you can wander around! Each week, the diorama will be filled with new stories through different workshops and will look different. As hopeful world-makers, we will work together with nature, culture, and hope!Hope (August 14 + 21)These two weeks are more hopeful than ever. In the past weeks, future designs have taken root in the soil of the diorama, and this week we look up together. Share your wildest future dream and let it float high in the sky. Among the cumulus clouds and castles in the air, your hopeful dreams become reality.Suitable for children aged 6-12 | Language: Dutch/English | Location: Nieuwe Instituut | Free admission | Walk-in from 12:00-15:30.WonderBuildWeeks in Nieuwe Instituut. Photo: Sabine van der Vooren

WonderBuildWeeks: Hope

Nature of Hope approaches architecture as an ecological practice. People are not separate from nature, but an integral part of it. But the binary thinking in which nature is everything that is not human or made by people has a long and dominant history. To introduce the exhibition, IABR therefore asked researchers, philosophers, historians and writers to reflect on how we look at nature. Every week we share one of the contributions, which can also be seen in the exhibition.Mihnea Tanasescu argues for the importance of relearning to read our environment.The UN declared this the decade of ecosystem restoration. It looks like we are finding a new path. But are we? What does it mean to restore, for what purpose? Most importantly – how?  As we are reshuffling the natural world, we grasp for technical solutions: burning the right kind of fuel, planting to sequester carbon, designing for resilience. But we are losing sight of the basis of ecological crises: a severed capacity to build meaningful relations with our surroundings. We have lost the ability to pay attention to the ecology around us and to understand its terms.  Perhaps, then, what needs to be restored is the capacity to read our environment, to notice what matters in specific places, who the important non-human actors are. Restore gentler, more attentive, bio-literate humans.  Reminders of previous ecological sensibility exist. Secular olive trees in Puglia, Italy, were crafted through generations of ecological knowledge, caring for and reciprocating the life of a plant that became a cherished family member. Olive time, spanning generations, commanded good relationships with the larger environment, too.  With the modernization of the olive ecosystem, a plantation logic developed, driven by ecological simplification through chemical inputs designed to extract maximum yield with minimum labor. This temporarily increased olive oil production, but also weakened trees and disconnected people from their traditions of care. Progress accelerated time, shrank futures, condemned life to a suspended present of loss.  What does it mean to restore an olive grove that took centuries to build, and a fraction of that time to undo? How can a secular giant be revived in a world without the patience of olive time?  The magnificent trees are disappearing, literally being burnt as disease – the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa – ravages their bodies. Restoration cannot mean remaking them as such. Instead, we must relearn the kinds of relationships that took centuries to develop, and that gave us olive trees, and olive people. Perhaps we can create, through many generations, something new that we have not yet imagined. Perhaps we can restore time.

Mihnea Tanasescu - Olive Trees in the Time of Xylella, János Chialá

Who builds towards a green future on a daily basis? To show how big ideas and visions find their way into reality, "Botanical Monuments" is part of this edition of the biennial: a collection of Rotterdams community initiatives around urban nature. They represent the ambition of the IABR to change the relationship between architecture and nature. But how does this ambition come to life in and around the city, who are the people behind big visions and what can we learn from them? Sabine and Jocelyn create the series "Seed Sowers" and engage with those taking steps towards an architecture that, in collaboration with nature, builds for future generations. One of the Botanical Monuments is the Voedseltuin, located right in front of the IABR office. We were welcomed with homemade beetroot flatbread and coffee in a space filled with enthusiastic volunteers. Erik, the director, tells us more: “The Voedseltuin was established 14 years ago, starting on a filled-in harbor in Rotterdam, where the first Voedselbank (a food bank providing groceries to those in financial need) in the Netherlands was founded. Now, the garden produces food for about 170 people, working from a simple idea: producing one's own food in the backyard, together with the clients and suppliers of the Voedselbank. The abandoned area was once known as a red-light district, and we were designated by the city as the ‘place-makers’.” By 2024, people on welfare benefits had collaborated over 7000 square meters of formerly vacant land to develop a production garden, learning-work garden, city garden, and incubator space, but this success did not come easily. Erik, who has a sharp vision for creating such a place, explains, "To get a grass-root project like this off the ground, more is needed than just a plan and an ideal. It's crucial to understand the value of such a place and communicate this to different target groups." Over the years, Erik has navigated various roles, requiring him to speak different 'languages'. "Each role demands different words. To convey our relevance to an architect or the city, I speak in broader, overarching terms and use maps and other visual aids. A healthcare institution, on the other hand, requires a more day-to-day approach, focusing on programs, schedules, and personal interactions," explains Erik. This transdisciplinary approach to placemaking has borne fruit. The garden has grown into a thriving environment that collaborates with twelve Rotterdam healthcare institutions. It serves simultaneously as a production site, area development project, social workplace, recreational area, ecological hotspot, and experimental incubator for science and art. It is also a vital source of food for many Rotterdammers. Volunteers produce healthy food annually for hundreds of families on limited budgets. Another aspect of 'placemaking,' according to Erik, involves building relationships. The slow and non-forced growth of a community. For Erik, the concept of community encompasses a wide range of social, commercial, and artistic connections to the Voedseltuin that have developed over the years. "Our team, consisting of a small number of garden guides, is the core of the community, as are the 60 to 80 volunteers who maintain the garden. Our collaboration partners, such as the food bank, healthcare institutions, welfare organizations, and of course the municipality, make up the second layer of what I consider our community. We also maintain good relationships with neighboring offices; mostly trendy, innovative architects, artists, designers, and developers who enjoy taking a walk in the garden during their break. They regularly come up with interesting collaboration proposals and initiatives that continually add new functions to the garden, from artworks to scientific and spatial experiments." The way diverse groups of people get involved and contribute to the garden is remarkable and beautifully illustrates the approach Erik describes. He talks about entering different worlds, bringing them together, and creating relevance for all these groups in one place. “Transdisciplinary working is crucial—thinking beyond the boundaries of your own field and taking on multiple roles: an architect who thinks like a social worker, an artist who engages in social work. I hope the field of architecture will develop in this direction, because this is how you can truly make an impact,” says Erik. Curious about the Voedseltuin? <a href="https://dev.content.iabr.nl/media/pages/nature-of-hope/botanical-monuments/babc90725f-1719488888/a3_map_def_en.pdf" target="_blank">Click here</a> for their spot on the Botanical Monuments route. You can find opening hours, activities, and more information <a href="https://iabr.nl/en/nature-of-hope/botanical-monuments">here</a>.

De Voedseltuin

With more than 70 architects, researchers, designers, and writers, the 11th edition of IABR "Nature of Hope" offers a wealth of perspectives and ideas on how architecture and spatial design can contribute to regenerating nature, biodiversity, and restoring ecological balance. But how do we preserve all those amazing, forward driving perspectives? When an exhibition becomes a place of encounter, the question of documentation arises: that is why IABR invited Meta Office to create an installation that serves as a digital, living archive. We spoke with Edward, one of the initiators of Meta Office about the installation, the biennials’ theme, and the processes involved. <a href="https://meta-office.eu/" target="_blank">Meta Office</a> began as a research-based design collective, focusing on how tangible materials can interface with digital processes, working at the intersection of architecture, multimedia, and technology. The core team, composed of Lauritz Bohne, Lea Scherer, and Edward, expanded to include collaborators like digital designer Felix Reiterer and architect-carpenter Manfred Scheibelreiter. Meta Office innovatively merges physical and digital spaces in its projects, collaborating with a growing network of industrial designers, manufacturers, and media artists. Their work has been featured in museums and exhibitions including Centre Pompidou in Paris, Fondazione Mast in Bologna, and C.I.V.A. in Brussels.And now, the collective can add the IABR at Nieuwe Instituut to that list this year. But instead of showcasing one of their own creations, their work will be in the background, archiving all the works and dynamics from June to October, the duration of the biennial. In collaboration with the edition's curators, Meta Office developed an interactive living archive to document the event. The installation combines traditional design with interactive elements where participants contribute, adding another layer of engagement by granting visitors ownership. The installation uses four tools to input thoughts and learnings, creating a publicly sourced cartography through sound memos, photographs, and drawings. This feeds into a main ‘open document,’ which will grow continuously throughout the biennale and beyond. The process of archiving, both physical and digital, involves the careful collection, preservation, and organization of information to ensure knowledge remains accessible. The biennale offers an extensive collection of innovative projects and experimental works that are of great value to the future practice within various disciplines. The curators therefore consider it essential to document all these contributions. This is especially important as numerous workshops, events, and activities are organized during the biennale at the <a href="https://iabr.nl/nature-of-hope/public-program?program=program-3">Practice Place</a>. This way, not only the experts but especially the visitors gain ownership over the knowledge that ultimately emerges from Nature of Hope. It embraces the concept of both a physical and digital structure for organizing knowledge, ensuring that it remains available online for future generations of makers once the biennale concludes in October.For Edward, the primary goal is to embrace a more inclusive approach to the discipline of architecture. He explains that at Meta Office, integrating diverse modes of knowledge into the architectural field is crucial. "We celebrate inclusivity and plurality. Architects often want to do everything themselves, seeing space as an open canvas created by individuals. However, we believe space is shaped by collective efforts. We aim to give room to different visions, knowledge, and working methods that are equally valuable. Participants here will bring the installation to life—people visiting the biennial from various backgrounds, fields, and nationalities, even those outside the realm of architecture. This will generate new knowledge that extends the discourse of architecture beyond the event. Our vision is for participants to be honest and open, ensuring that the project's mapping remains authentic."Given Edward's vision, designing the installation for IABR was a perfect fit for Meta Office, despite it being their first highly interactive project. The firm typically focuses on object-based design, but this opportunity allowed them to contribute to broadening the discipline. "Architecture needs to let its guard down, become accessible, and open its discourse to other forms of knowledge and practices that are transforming the nature of design disciplines," Edward noted. This installation embodies that philosophy, encouraging a more inclusive and collaborative approach.Edward is eager to see how participants will bring the installation to life. He believes that the longer it runs, the more value it gains. He is also excited about the biennale’s Botanical Monuments and their connection to the public program. “The biennale’s engagement with local initiatives puts the theme of hope into practice across the entire city in a very hands-on way. There’s much to learn from how other disciplines address similar issues. In Rotterdam, small but driven collectives are doing significant work, making it an excellent city for new alliances and uncovering hidden gems for our practice.” Curious? Check out the installation at the Practice Place, part of the exhibition in Nieuwe Instituut.

A Living Archive by Meta Office

Nature of Hope approaches architecture as an ecological practice. People are not separate from nature, but an integral part of it. But the binary thinking in which nature is everything that is not human or made by people has a long and dominant history. To introduce the exhibition, IABR therefore asked researchers, philosophers, historians and writers to reflect on how we look at nature. Every week we share one of the contributions, which can also be seen in the exhibition.Clemens Driessen shows what we can learn from a tuft of grass, such as Albrecht Dürer painted in 1503.Dandelions no longer in bloom, leaves of the broader plantain, common meadow grasses, yarrow and daisy. Growing together as a single tuft of grass.   Historians of both art and science see this image as a key event. Facing a sod of grass at eye level initiated a new way of looking: the realistic representation of the natural world for its own sake.   This is not nature at its most beautiful. The composition appears random. But the level of detail indicates importance. These plants are not just symbols. Nor are they mere background, filling up the margins. It is a portrait of a piece of grass, just the stuff under our feet.   Roots are visible, and exposed soil. Dürer may have pulled the grass out of the ground to portray in his studio. But, even against a white background, this still seems a living piece of turf as found in a meadow, without isolating different species from their environment.  Art here precedes science, through the originality of changing perspective and interest. But this detailed focus on grass could also draw attention to the experience of farmers caring for their land, or of cows eager to get a taste. The image may even invite the viewer to take the position of the dandelions, ready to open up and spread their seeds.  Today, Western culture is said to suffer from ‘grass blindness.’ We have been educated to think of nature as spectacular, to value ecology in terms of rare species or impressive landscapes.   Our current ecological unraveling could in part be due to a lack of appreciation for everyday nature. Artists such as Dürer may guide our experience to move beyond the modern separation of science and art, of reality and experience, of truth and poetry. In order not to tear nature apart into its individual elements, but to see beauty, variety and abundance where we may not expect it.

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Mihnea Tanasescu - Olive Trees in the Time of Xylella, János Chialá