Making Sense: Take Care 1012

During the pandemic in 2020, we undertook a sensory mapping of the Red Light District of Amsterdam. The aim was to develop a method for how sensory research can be conducted on a neighbourhood level in collaboration with local communities. For this project we collaborated with The Prostitution Information Centre (Amsterdam), the trans sex worker community, artist-architect Dr. Roelof Petrus van Wyk, and writer-researcher Bob van Toor.

The process involved recording the suddenly unfamiliar sensory landscape of the district – sounds, sights, smells, textures and tastes – under strict lockdown conditions. Normally bustling with music, various scents and pulsing light, the lockdown turned the district into a space of eerie silence, almost void of activity.

This project, located in the still-emergent field of sensory urbanism, explored how the changes in the sensory landscape of the district were related to political debates about its future and the ongoing policies of the city of Amsterdam to sanitise the area. Our methodology was later shared with students from the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam.

Take Care 1012 advisory partners included Het Nieuwe Instituut, The Mobile City, Failed Architecture, STIPO and 3 Layers. Making Sense: Take Care 1012 was supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL architecture grant.