During the 2010 Architecture Biennale in Venice, RAAAF ¹ presented the installation Vacant NL — where architecture meets ideas, proving that thousands of inspiring, vacant public buildings in the Netherlands dating from 17th to the 21st century, can potentially be reused for creative entrepreneurship and innovation.²

As a follow-up to this project, the Sandberg Instituut — together with course directors Erik Rietveld and Ronald Rietveld — developed the oneoff Master’s programme Studio Vacant NL, which ran from 2011 to 2013. We wanted to encourage designers, creatives and scientists to develop fresh, innovative and realistic design strategies for the temporary use of vacant buildings and spaces.

The programme challenged students to take a hands-on approach and combine insights and solutions from different fields of knowledge. Participants experimented in several unique vacant buildings, making site-specific design interventions.

The graduation work included the installation Inside The White Whale — Temporary spaces for young entrepreneurs, which travelled from Amsterdam to design fairs in Rotterdam, Eindhoven, The Hague, Milan, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Some graduation projects resulted in spin-offs. Sjoerd ter Borg, for example, recently applied his graduation strategy ‘Uitgeverij van Leegstand’ (Publisher of Vacancy) at the Marineterrein in Amsterdam.

Results of this programme are published in the book Vacancy Studies: experiments & strategic interventions in architecture (nai010, Rotterdam 2014), with contributions from Ronald Rietveld, Erik Rietveld, Jurgen Bey, Arna Mackic, Barbara Visser, Ester van de Wiel and Martine Zoeteman.