COAST ATLAS
The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies, 2024
Studio: Project NL
Site: Dutch Coast
Coast Atlas is an academic design-research project that investigates the physical transformation of the South Holland coastline between Hoek van Holland and Katwijk aan Zee.
Drawing on archival maps, drawings, photographs and historical documents, the project traces how the Dutch coast has been continuously shaped through changing ideas about landscape, recreation, infrastructure and environmental management. Through collecting, categorising and annotating archival material, the research documents spatial transformations over time and explores how archives can be used as tools for understanding territorial change.
My contribution, Seaside Buildings, focused on the emergence of recreational architecture along the Dutch coast and the relationship between material culture and social change. Through archival research and analytical drawings, the study examined how changing perceptions of the sea transformed the coastline from a site of danger into a landscape of leisure. Comparing the Kurhaus in Scheveningen with the recreational settlements of Hoek van Holland, the research explored how architecture reflected shifting ideas of status, accessibility and public life, from elite seaside tourism to the democratization of recreation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The project investigates how buildings, materials and construction methods communicate broader cultural values and societal transformations. The outcome takes the form of archival research, analytical drawings, a publication, digital application, exhibition and public presentation, developed as part of the Coast Atlas research programme in collaboration with Allmaps and the TU Delft Library.
This project is created in cooperation with Britt de Schoenmakere, Claire Demeyere, Eleni Magnisali, Imane Amzil, Gabi Stabile and Yingxin Zhang.
Teaching team: Juan Benavides, Jules Schoonman, Salomon Frausto and Sanne van den Breemer.