NDSM Lusthof

Lusthoven have a rich history as places that were meant to stimulate the senses. At the same time, they increasingly became an exclusive place for the wealthy owners to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. One example is the private Lusthoven aan de Vecht, where only wealthy Amsterdammers used to go. With this contemporary NDSM Lusthof, you can Studio Ossidiana a parallel between the pleasure gardens of yesteryear and the courtyards of today's apartment complexes, which are often only accessible to owners or tenants.

Ossidiana asks questions about private and public, and who has the right and access to green and exclusive nature in today's city.

Like the former Lusthoven, this garden is surrounded by a playfully designed and colored fence with peepholes. It is an architectural garden designed for people, plants and animals. This is how you design Studio Ossidiana a special feeding area for birds. The fence makes you curious and encloses in order to make the plants grow as well as possible. You can lounge around the edges and partly inside on coloured round molded platforms.

Living Library

To see the garden up close, you can become the project's gardener, attend a tour or tea session, or come and have a look at regular times when people work in the garden. The plants are inspired by the Turkish Ottoman gardens where medicinal herbs as well as trees or flowers flourish. Just like human migration flows, this garden is home to a colorful collection of local, native and exotic plants (coming to NDSM). It is an agricultural garden in the broadest sense of the word where plants have a 'function', from pollinators for bees and butterflies to tea herbs. Studio Ossidiana likes to mention it: a living library, where they call for you to come and sow seeds of herbs or plants (from faraway places perhaps) that you have special memories of.

As Studio Ossidiana writes: 'Within the former shipyard, we imagined it as a port made for soil, plants, and minerals, a circular world-observatory to stay, to look into, and from which to observe the world around it: a sequence of openings frame the cardinal points, as well as directing the gaze towards the axis of dawn and dusk during the summer and winter solstices, marking the passing of the seasons. '

NDSM Lusthof fits in with the mission of the NDSM-werf Foundation to create a permanent NDSM Culture Wharf, with space for the imagination of (inter) national creators. This art installation is made possible by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, and Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie. Plug Verfgroothandel made a contribution in the form of paint.

EVENTS

As described above, NDSM Lusthof can only be entered from inside at specific times. Below is an overview of the events around NDSM Lusthof where you can enter the garden and see it from inside. You can get up this page (free) sign up for one of the events. Do you want to become an NDSM gardener? Then read here more information and sign up at vrijwilligers@ndsm.nl.

Tours: Sunday, September 1, 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m., by Arja Helmig.

Tea sessions: Friday, July 26, 15:00, Saturday, August 24, 15:00

Garden work by gardeners: every Tuesday and Friday morning

NDSM Children's Atelier: Wednesday, August 21, 14:00 - 17:00

About Studio Ossidiana

Studio Ossidiana (2015, Rotterdam) is led by Italian architects Alessandra Covini (°1988, Milan, IT) and Giovanni Bellotti (°1987, Pavia, IT). Ossidiana works at the cutting edge of art and architecture. With their projects, they try to generate new encounters between humans and animals and thus re-anchor our relationship with nature in our built environment.