imagine islands (1)

Imaginative journey
to the islands of
Marker Wadden

INTRODUCTION

We will now take you on an imaginative journey
to the islands of Marker Wadden. All of the travel
stories we tell reinterpret the space you can find
there at the present moment.
We don´t have access to the island as it exists.
Instead phenomena we heard about the island are
pieced together in our imagination. We perceived
all these interesting things, and made sense of
them by composing them together into space.

The spaces are makeshift and yet somehow
specific, pragmatic yet ceremonial as they are
originating from multiple unclear sources and
pointing towards speculative futures. We take
elements from the everyday and reformulate them,
or bring them to an extreme, to disturb the ways
in which we have learned to see things, patterns,
their functions and values.

PROCESS

Research

starting building a suggesting
from a fact narrative space

visiting trigger the postcard
reason story / idea image

We are still on our journey, we are still there. This
is why we send postcards to give you insights of
what we experience.

F O R M AT
sending postcards

enables us to show fragments
stay conceptual

creating fake evidence

VISUAL FORMAT

Fragments of a place
Evidence of a place

Evoke the advertisement of national parks.
They are so beautiful to become iconic.

STORYTELLING FORMAT

from travel
journal

to fantasy





THE REED RING

We are looking at the process of landreclamation.
This journey plays with the idea of the nature reserve
which presents a certain stadium of ecology. It
plays with the absurdity of nature as something
stable. We question which stage of ecology we
want to have fixed forever.

starting
from a fact

Planting process to achieve ferti
first: reed to make ground solid
reed building walls by its very na

What if we stop it at the moment where there are
pipes and reed?

suggesting
space

ile ground:
ature



It was a memorable afternoon, at which we were strolling around
in the reeds to have a chat. The sun, having no alternative, shone
on the known when we decided to go a bit further than usual.
We felt like exploring. While the rustling of the reed swallowed up
some parts of the conversation, I understood that the roots of
the plants are keeping the ground in place.
After a period of reed growing here, this will be fertile ground
for cultivating further plants. I lost myself in the thought that the
landscape is once again only a means to an end that someone
imagined beforehand. At the moment, in this transitional phase,
the reed is perfect for birds to nest. When I was still daydreaming
about this, my sister already took my hand and pulled to go fur-
ther. Crossing the land, we fantasized about how to contribute to
this transitional zone with what we can find here.
“Let’s also construct our hidden nest for resting.” We discove-
red a pile of red clay pipes that were used to drain the swampy
area in the first place. We collected the pipes, stuck them in the
ground and filled them with reed which formed a wall by its very
nature. Listening to the sound of the wind passing through the
reeds, we nested with the birds for a while.

FLEXIBLE MEMBERSHIP

There is a need and demand for spending time in „nature“ and
in wilderness, but maybe not completely wilderness. Some grass
and trees and flowers and harmless animals would be nice. It
would also be nice if it is accessible and comfortable and maybe
have a wifi connection.

fact

fala atelier

A convenient nature is a good idea;
not the full experience but a flexible membership.

space



It had been years since I had been out of the city. I could barely
remember what it was like to feel the sand under my feet and
longing for the idea of a day spent in nature. Having the idea
that things had to be perfectly comfortable when I was there, I
packed my bag with equipment for every occasion and even took
my tent just in case.
It must have been a special day, the ferry that travels back and
forth to the island was packed with people. Everybody wanted
a piece of that nature, for sure. When the ferry docked at the
island, the visitors spread out to find the piece that puzzles their
expectations.
After walking around a bit I found a nice dry spot, cleaned the
surface off the rocks and started installing my base camp. I
immediately hung my windshield because I already knew the
island was too windy. Knowing that I would have to adjust it
every twenty minutes to protect myself from the sun, I stuck my
umbrella into the sand. As I took my phone the Marker Wadden
WIFI option popped up on the screen. My alarm was set to 2
hours because there is only a limited visit time in this nature, until
the ferry takes you back to the city. It was such a nice day spent
in nature!

ACCUMULATION ATOLL

This island offers a solution to the fact that the wind is constantly
taking away sand from the island. Looking at the engineering part
we try to understand why specific technical problems occurred
over time. Because of the constant monitoring, analyzing and
maintaining of the ecologic conditions, the creators of the
Marker Wadden were able to stabilize and preserve their project.
However, this was often at the expense of way more material,
such as sand, than predicted.

fact

How can the weather conditions, especially the wind,
in relation to human social behavior could not make but
solve problems?

space



Arriving on the circular island, I was intrigued by this new way of
creating land. I thought it was wonderful, partly because flying
particles that often seem so intangible and timeless were now
accumulating and creating the atoll. To stay somewhat out of the
wind, people hung their sheets on the windbreak construction,
whereby the textile caught all kinds of materials from the air. From
sand deposits at the bottom to dandelion seeds, insects, shells,
feathers and plastic candy bar packaging: materials that origina-
ted from the other surrounding islands.
I read somewhere that last year the island was only as big as a
house. Due to the number of storms and the heavy wind season,
I could now almost see one football field full of people laying on
the island with their colorful windshields dancing in the wind, se-
arching for more material flying in the air and on the ground. No
wonder why it is called the ‘Wind Wadden’. I couldn’t help not
being curious about what the other visitors had captured from
the rest of the material traveling by.

THE DRYLAND BASIN

If we want one, we must also be aware of the existence of the
other and we must give space to the other. There are always
two sides to a coin.
All horizons are in this way false. As Sun Ra put it, “space is not
only high, it’s low. It’s a bottomless pit.”

fact

Steam engine in temple
shape - that celebrates new
possibilities new develope-
ment
Silt is like yoghurt to walk on.

How much silt can we accumulate?
What do we need to do to be able to walk on it?

space



Today, we stepped on the newest solid ground of the Netherlands. We
visited the Dryland Basins on Marker Wadden. We took an amazing hike
from one to the other, trying to stay on the sturdy ground. It is fascinating,
in the sense that silt, once as soft as yoghurt, has never been used as a
material for building islands before.
Only then I realised that the dry land I was standing on, is temporary without
the architecture to negotiate that for us. If we want that, we have to give
space to the other. By “the other” I mean the water in the moist silt that gets
collected in the water temples.
These little ‘temples’, that celebrate the creation of land, work like huge
drainage pipes and glorify the ability of humans to rebuild dry land. At these
attractions, we were able to discover birds and fishes. A proud excavator
driver told me that they “It’s satisfactory in every respect, we clean the water
and we create land. It’s like separating the egg white from the yolk.’’

SEA SECTION

The land is reclaimed from the sea. As a result of the manipulation,
the ecosystem intentionally had been changed in a way that was
promoted as giving back to nature; creating a habitat for the fish
and the birds.
But wasn‘t there already a nature before human intervention?
Just a different nature than anticipated maybe.

fact

• 172 • Dwelling

Chapter Ten 1
2

3

Building, dwelling, living: 4
5

How animals and people make themselves 6
7

at home in the world 8
9

10

1

2

This chapter is partly autobiographical, and describes my own attempts over the last few 3

years to find a satisfactory way of understanding the relationships between people and 4

their environments. It is incomplete, in the sense that I cannot claim to have yet found, 5

or that I will ever find, final answers to the questions that are bothering me. Indeed, if 6

one of the main conclusions of what I have to say is that so-called ‘ends’ or ‘goals’ are 7

but landmarks on a journey, then this must apply as much to my own thinking and 8

writing as to everything else that people do in the world. The most fundamental thing 9

about life is that it does not begin here or end there, but is always going on. And for the 20
same reason, as we saw in Chapter One (p. 20), environments are never complete but are 1

continually under construction. My purpose here is to consider the implications of this 2

point with regard to our ideas about the similarities and contrasts between human beings 3

and other animals in the ways in which they go about creating environments for them- 4

selves. I am concerned, in particular, with the meaning of architecture, or of that part of 5

the environment which is conventionally described as ‘built’. 6

In recent years, my own ideas have undergone something of a sea change, which is 7

where the autobiographical element comes in. I began with a view that was – and indeed 8

still is – fairly conventional in anthropology, one that sets out from the premise that 9

human beings inhabit discursive worlds of culturally constructed significance, laid out 30

upon the substrate of a continuous and undifferentiated physical terrain. If I differed from 1

my colleagues, at least in social anthropology, it was in my concern to spell out the impli- 2

cations of this premise for the distinction between human beings and non-human animals. 3

I felt sure that the models developed by ecologists and evolutionary biologists to account 4

for the relations between organisms and their environments must apply as well to the 5

human as to any other species, yet it was also clear to me that these models left no space 6

for what seemed to be the most outstanding characteristic of human activity – that it is 7

intentionally motivated. Human intentions, I argued, are constituted in the intersubjec- 8

tive domain, of relationships among persons, as distinct from the domain in which human 9
beings, as biological organisms, relate to other components of the natural environment. 40
Human life, I therefore proposed, is conducted simultaneously in two domains – a social 1

domain of interpersonal relations and an ecological domain of inter-organismic relations 2

– so that the problem is to understand the interplay between them (Ingold 1986a: 9). 3

Starting out from two quite reasonable propositions – that human beings are organ- 4

isms, and that human action is intentionally motivated – I thus ended up with what 5

appeared to be a thoroughly unreasonable result: that unlike all other animals, humans 6
live a split-level existence, half in nature, half out; half organism, half person; half body, 7

half mind. I had come out as an unreconstructed Cartesian dualist, which is perhaps not 118

tim ingold nick stath

The idea of giving back to nature is something to be proud of for
many, it is an idea to be questioned for some. The question is:
“what is nature/natural and who are we to give back: if humans
are considering themselves at a point where they can give back to
nature, that means those people don't see themselves as a part
of it yet superior to it. Seeing humans superior to nature means
everything created by humans is artificial. And then by what right
do we call the artificial land created by humans as nature if we
don't consider humans as nature?

space



I remember us playing with my little brother as kids. We were at
the beach, making sand castles. We were playing around with
our tiny buckets and shovels in the water when we realised that
the upside down bucket wouldn’t sink. We were mesmerised by
the fact that the air was pushing it up when it’s upside down,
making it impossible for a child to press it underwater. After many
failures, we managed to do it together with my brother. There it
was! A bucket full of air inside the water! We had stolen a bucket
full of air and given it to the fish!

That night, we couldn’t sleep out of excitement, we had this big
plan for tomorrow; we were going to fill the sea with air so we
would be able to walk under the sea and the fish would be able
to fly. The next day we ran to the beach with our buckets and
filled the sea with air all day long. Nothing was changing, the sea
hadn’t moved an inch. After hours and hours of trying, we went
home, exhausted and upset.
Only now I realise, what a juvenile thing it was, to think that you
can make a difference in the way of things being. If you want to
fill the water with air or the air with water, you need to find a way
to contain it.

RESONANT RESIDENCY

This journey is about the Architecture of sound in relation to
the coupling of sound with space, memory and emotion. The
weather conditions of the current Marker Wadden and the rich
biodiversity of birds and other animals provide an authentic
audiological space. We are looking at how a space would be
shaped because of this sound identity and what it will reflect onto
people, concerning emotion and memory.

fact

Its very windy - also called the Wind Wadden.
The sound identity of Marker Wadden is unique.

The island is an instrument for the sound identity.

space



You would love to sail here! Marker Wadden is such a unique
place for its sound. To sail here immediately took me back to my
childhood, when we used to sail together.
What’s most clear in my mind is the sound of my surroundings just
before falling asleep on board. The harbor is about the memory of
security, togetherness; coming home from adventure, excitement
and curiosity, all connected by these sounds.
It's the rocking of the ships on the water, the loud howling
wind between all the masts in the harbor, people whispering or
laughing, ropes slamming against poles, the sloshing water, the
creak of the wood and always the seagulls. Every harbor had its
unique sound and memory.
Here at this harbor, the architecture is amplifying this unique
soundscape, depending on the distance from it. It is an instrument,
collecting all the sounds and creating an augmented symphony,
almost like a calling from the island.



UNTOLD STORIES

We have been piecing together the phenomena
we heard about Marker Wadden and speculating
spaces. We already sent our fake evidence from
our imaginative journey, but we want to continue
imagining and creating those spaces.
For our untold stories assignment, we will be
creating those spaces and going on a virtual journey,
embracing a new format and technique. We won't
take others to the adventure but we will show the
evidence.