Logo Parc

Logo Parc is a research project in design for public space that mainly focuses on the Zuidas (South Axis) in Amsterdam: a prestigious area of high-rise offices, residential and cultural facilities on both sides of the A10 motorway. The Zuidas is still under construction. Its train station – six minutes from Schiphol Airport – will be redesigned for high-speed trains, becoming one of the busiest stations in the Netherlands. Prominent banks, accountancy and law firms (ING, ABN AMRO, Ernst & Young, Nauta Dutilh) have their main offices there and new public/private endeavours, including a ‘museum for design’, are about to be realized. It is an area full of potential where nothing seems lacking. Logo Parc considers these developments – economic vitality, mobility and dynamism –typical of recent cultural, social and political changes. Why, to what end, and how does ‘design’ fulfil its current role in service of economic and corporate interests at the Zuidas? These interests stretch far beyond the grey zone of the traditional office park – they appear and re-appear in both public space and in private space, in street furniture and in the deluxe kitchens and bathrooms the open-plan Zuidas apartments are fit up with. Research into the representation of economy could generate new symbolic and critical design strategies to express corporate interests.