In order to experience enough diversity, the three hour walk is crossing four green structures and the beach boulevard. All five are situated in Scheveningen and built in different ages. During the walk, I photo documented human activity and kept track of social encounters. The following pages show the route, the amount of social encounters (red on the map) and a photo series for each place.
It starts with my personal favorite (1) the Gemeentemuseum, now Kunstmuseum Den Haag, designed by H.P. Berlage in 1935. Its public gardens are interwoven with the geometrical yellow-brick architecture of the building. The brick sculptures and artworks placed on the two-centimetre-cut grass reflect the language of the museum. Apart from some mysterious individuals situated as far away from eachother as they possibly could be, the place is desolate. From the serene quietness I move to (2) the Scheveningse Bosjes; a forest planted around 1670 to keep dune sand from drifting away. The extensivily conserved vegetation appears closed, wild and untamed. People, especially with medium-sized dogs, only seem to gather in the small open fields that occur randomly in the organic fabric of the forest. After the quietness of the geometrical world and the wild forest, the route continues into a more cultured verion of nature: (3) the Westbroekpark. The english-style landscape park is designed in the 1920s by Westbroek, and partly by Zocher Jr., and is characterised by scenic pond viewpoints packed with people. Especially in the northern part, where the grass becomes shorter and the planting more cultured, the enclosed field is dominated by family-activities. From this popular social oasis I move to (4) the linear park next to the Haringkade, which follows the structure of the canal. Here, people seem to gather only around planned activities like a petting farm, a skatepark and a playground. The alternation between people and no-people is most present here. Lastly, the promenade on 5. the beach boulevard: a no-go zone, a walk of shame avec la mer du nord pour dernier terrain vague et des vagues de dunes pour arrêter le vagues (eng. with the North Sea as the last wasteland and waves of dunes to stop the waves - translated from Le Plat Pays - J. Brel). Here, on the waving plateaus, designed by De Solà-Morales in 2012, people distribute themselves like ants.
Based on this walk, it seems that people prefer places with prospect (see prospect-refuge theory). That is that people like to be in fields with more people and opportunities. Most activities that they do (gaze, talk, play, sport) are also possible in places with more refuge, like the museum garden, but people still prefer to do them in fields. No doubt this recent urge to prospect is a reaction to the strong refuge we experience daily in our homes.
