Objective
“A city that tolerates contradictions deserves objects that do, too.” 010 Totems materializes a participatory archive of Rotterdam’s micro-legends—localized, lived, and a bit absurd—via a generative pipeline rendered in ceramic.
Project
Situated in generative design and roffa culture, 010 Totems asks how locally tuned tools and material practice can transmit situated knowledge: the partial, embodied understandings of Rotterdam held by temporary and long(er)-term inhabitants. 010 small figurines—totems—freeze moments only locals recognize: a matcha-green canal surf spot; a tricycle-riding Spiderman; the Pigeon Lady whose flock perches like Disneys Cinderella chorus; laughing gas canisters glittering sidewalks; and common dread of biking over the (Mt)Erasmus Bridge.
Methods & material
The work moves from street-level observation into a generative pipeline (text-to-image → image-to-3D). Forms are 3D-printed for tests; final pieces are cast in ceramic — nods to Dutch Delftware. Material choice is part of the argument: it should chip, age, and carry handfeel—like urban memory.
Contribution
Material archive that frames temporary residence as attentive, situated knowledge. Light humor functions as a research instrument for testing recognition, specificity, and warmth in dutch gedoogcultuur. Later on: A replicable pipeline for collective place-making that treats computation as snapshot of a moment;
RQ How can generative tools capture the situated knowledge of a place?
010 Totems gathers ten small figurines that fix Rotterdam’s micro-legends in matter: a matcha-green surf canal; a tricycle-riding Spiderman; the Pigeon Lady; laughing-gas canisters and the shared pulse-raise of crossing (Mt) Erasmus.
Grown from Roffa street talk—peers, photo walks, and a long-running barbershop—each piece begins as a generative sketch, moves through image-to-3D, and settles as delftware ceramic. The tone is light on purpose: in a city shaped by gedoogcultuur, humor is a research instrument for testing recognition, specificity, and warmth.
“If Rotterdam had inside jokes, these are their souvenirs.”
Totems:
Stairway to heaven