Truck Stop Border Project: A Polyphonic Space of Transit

January - September 2025

Team: Nasim Razavian, Oscar Rommens, An Vanderveken

Nasim Razavian from studio ilinx together with Oscar Rommens and An Vanderveken (import.export Architecture) have received a fund from Stimuleringsfonds to develop a research and design project titled Truck Stop Border Project: a polyphonic space of transit.

The project imagines potential futures for the NL-border-truck stops beyond the homogeneity of logistics and approaches them as polyphonic socio-cultural meeting points for a multiplicity of actors and as spaces of care and rest. It will also explore the truck stop as generators for the border zone envisioning new economy and relations in its peculiar context sensitive to their unique identities.

The project begins by mapping and analysis of the dynamics between the borders & the truck stops in a larger context. Then it zooms in on three case studies located in (A) Hazeldonk & Meer (NL-BE), (B) Mol (NL-BE), and (C) Dinkelland (NL-DE). Finally, through a series of drawings and texts it imagines future scenarios for these three cases and their peculiar border zones. The expected outcome is a publication exploring the current conditions and future scenarios through mediating between multiple scales, from the Trans-European Transport Network to the bed of the truckers. The project develops through conversation with multiple actors specially the truck drivers and those in minority, using methods of interview, mapping, photography, filming and drawings.