The expressive potential of Concrete with Studio Ossidiana

Workshop Structure

Over the course of four days, participants will work with Giovanni Bellotti and Alessandra Covini of Studio Ossidiana to collaboratively design and build a modular platform - a shared space for eating, playing, sitting, and displaying objects. The project will explore the rituals associated with these actions, focusing on their spatial, temporal, and material aspects. The platform will be constructed using modular elements, each crafted from different materials sourced in the city’s expanded territory, the landscape along the river Maas. These materials will be transformed into new "artificial rocks”, telling stories of the landscape they belong to, suggesting a new contemporary geology.

The workshop will begin by collecting materials from the contemporary landscape along the river Maas. This diverse environment—a system shaped by water, soil, landfills, dunes, and polders—has evolved over time through horticultural and industrial processes. Participants may collect shells from Maasvlakte, metal scraps from the port's scrapyards, or bricks, glass, and stones from construction sites and landfills of demolished buildings. We will draw inspiration from this unique setting as we explore a new material vocabulary for the platform.

The platform will be composed of modular tiles, each becoming a world on it’s own, abstracting a field, canals, the dunes, or chimneys of the factories - all fragments of a petrified tapestry. The workshop will focus on casting and terrazzo, a composite material made from granulates bound with lime or cement. Terrazzo, which dates back to ancient Roman times, was traditionally created from polished fragments of leftover stones and terracotta. In this workshop, we will reinterpret the terrazzo tradition by experimenting with unconventional materials, formwork, and finishes. The materials scavenged from the city—such as clay, seashells, mineral waste, fragments of bricks or stones, marble, charcoal, and soil—will become either formwork or aggregates in the process.

The workshop will take place across two locations: the Independent School for the City in Rotterdam and Tomaello in Vlaardingen. At Tomaello, participants will collaborate with terrazzo artisans to cast and finish the pieces. The program is hands-on, encouraging participants to experiment with new forms and materials while engaging with the historical and contemporary contexts of terrazzo-making.

The workshop will run for 4 days, on the 1st, 2nd, 9th and 16th of November, concluding with a collective event that showcases the platform and the ideas developed throughout the week.

Workshop Programme

Friday, 1st November
Location: The Independent School for the City

13:00 – 14:30 Introduction presentation by Studio Ossidiana

14:30 – 17:00  Scavenging and collecting materials for use in the mixture.

Saturday, 2nd November
Location: The Independent School for the City

10:00 - 12:30 Assessing the collected materials, designing the modular tiles/elements.

12:30 - 13:30 Lunch break

13:30 - 17:00 Production of the formwork and casting of material samples.

Saturday, 9th November
Location: Tomaello (Vlaardingen)

10:00 - 17:00 Finalise formwork and casting with artisans of Tomaello.

Saturday, 16th November
Location: Tomaello (Vlaardingen)

10:00 - 15:00 Polishing at Tomaello

15:00 - 17:00 Installing the platform.

Pictures by Kyoungtae Kim and Riccardo de Vecchi