Space Producers, 2004

Book

Publisher: Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi Uitgevers/Publishers)
Graphic design: Irma Boom
ISBN: 90-5662-359-1
170 x 240 mm, 160 pages, English

As space producers we concern ourselves with matters of architecture, urbanism, (non)design, opinion, imagery and other - currently unpredictable - space-related issues. This book is the direct outcome of being awarded the 10th Rotterdam-Maaskant Prize for Young Architects. The Maaskant Prize is an incentive prize - it is not so much granted for what we have done so far, but for what we are expected to do (in the near future). Actually, the Maaskant Prize isn't about celebration; it's more of an assignment, a cryptic task: to live up to these expectations.

Up till now, the office's agenda has been univocally implicit and inclusive - an apparent ‘choosing not to choose'. As far as this book is concerned, its sole desirable coherence is intuition - an intuition for the disparity of opportunities heading our way. This random journey into 51N4E's space arsenal is a hard copy of ambition, amazement, trial and error, meeting people, cultural innuendo, makeshift politics, process nightmares, commercial fancies, mind-bending insights, bluff, blown-up contradictions, escapism and finally, it's an unfinished sympathy for the sake of successful space.