The Purple Lab

The Purple Lab explores the tension between everyday life in an urban area, and the development of urban spaces, within the area of Katendrecht, in Rotterdam. Using a rigid and harsh system of documentation on the site, we collected soft data to capture moments that represent the intangible fibres of city living. We act as the vessels through which subjective information about the area can be documented and analysed, combining the physical elements and our perceptions of the space into an interpretation of the social reality of this neighborhood. We designed and built ‘The Purple Lab’ to look at Katendrecht through new lens, emphasising the multiple realities existing at once, and offering tools to visualise the intangible, nodding to the juxtapositions of the strategic urban changes and the spontaneous quotidianity.