The Sleeping Garden

How to design an expierience of retrieving in nature in the middle of Holland’s second-biggest city? Design a park, built entirely from used railway sleepers. That was the basic idea of this proposal by graphic designers Hendrik-Jan Grievink and Kim Engbers (TEST), together with Henk Hartzema and Ruby van den Munckhof (ex-West 8 architects). The park was situated in a so-called “leftover space”, an area between three railroads near Rotterdam Central Station (NL). By simply creating a labyrinth of stacked up railway sleepers, a new and exciting urban environment is being achieved. Is it a park? Is it a playground? Is it a forest? Is it a monument? The no-programming of the spot will eventually lead to new and creative ways of using public space. In time, all kinds of flora will grow and take over the wooden structures. The Sleeping Garden was conceived for the competiition “A design for places leftover after planning”, commissioned by Atelier HSL.

www.atelierhsl.nl