NDSM Lusthof

NDSM Lusthof can be visited continuously, both during the day and in the evening. The plants inside the garden will grow with the seasons, so the garden will look different each time of year. NDSM Lusthof is only accessible for the public to enter at specific times. On the rest of the days, the garden can be viewed from outside.

Studio 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. How to 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.

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. '

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 sow seeds of herbs or plants (from faraway places perhaps) that you have special memories of.

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.

About Stichting NDSM-werf
Stichting NDSM-werf programs and manages the monumental outdoor space of NDSM as a cultural wharf, with its public character, creative experimentation and multiple perspectives at its core. The foundation develops and presents site-specific installations and artworks by and with artists, designers and architects.

‍NDSM Lusthof was made possible in part by the Amsterdamse Fonds voor de Kunst, Creative Industry Incentive Fund and CUltuur Fonds(NH).
‍Plug Verfgroothandel has contributed to paint.