Long-form archive · rough figures · independent research

Archive entry 01 · Long-form research

Making the in-between.

A counter-archive of material waste, demolition debris, and alternative reuse in the Binckhorst, Den Haag, 2025–2026. Nationally, roughly 88% of construction and demolition waste is reported as recycled — but mostly reused as lower-grade material (road base) outside the city. Figures for the Binckhorst itself are not shared publicly, so everything below is shown at that level of detail.

ORIENTATIONWhere to start, if you did not arrive by QR.

§ 01
The fragments — what was demolished
§ 02
Where the material actually goes
§ 03
The site it came from — render vs. reality
§ 04
The hidden rules and histories
§ 05
What could remain, and how

§ 000 / CONFRONTATION

FIELD WORK · SEVEN CONCRETE PIECES

22.05.2026 / BINCK CITY PARK

Seven cast objects, handled as evidence of what was removed.

§ 000A / FIELD REPORT - CAST OBJECTS, BINCKHORST 2026

26 MILLION TONNES.
88% RECYCLED. MOSTLY MEANSDOWNCYCLED.

26 million tonnes - construction and demolition waste the Netherlands produces every year. 88 percent of it is officially recycled. That sounds responsible. That sounds like the system is working. But almost all of it becomes road base - buildings crushed and buried under asphalt somewhere outside the city they came from. Recycling, in this context, means using the material for something lower-grade. Destruction at a slower speed.

In response, seven concrete pieces - each cast around mesh and fragments of demolition debris collected from sites around Binck City Park. The concrete cracked during casting, not by design, but because the material refused to stay buried.What was buried became visible.

FIELD WORK

§ 000B / STATUS BEFORE AND AFTER CASTING

FIELD-VERIFIED · IN-BETWEEN PHASE

BEFORE CASTING

AFTER CASTING

CLASSIFIED AS CONSTRUCTION WASTEEMBEDDED AND PRESERVED IN CONCRETE
SCHEDULED FOR ROAD AGGREGATE OR LANDFILLGIVEN A FORM IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO HAVE
NO DOCUMENTATIONDOCUMENTED HERE
INVISIBLE IN THE TRANSITIONPLACED BACK IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD IT CAME FROM
ZERO MATERIAL VALUE (OFFICIAL)CARRIER OF SITE MEMORY (ACTUAL)

§ 000D / EVIDENCE - MAKING PROCESS

PHOTOGRAPHIC LOG · CAST 001-004

$Cast block, mesh armature exposed at fracture$

CAST-001

FIELD PHOTO

Cast block, mesh armature exposed at fractureEVIDENCE / 000C

CAST-002

FIELD PHOTO

Cast block with embedded glass and meshEVIDENCE / 000C

Cast block reintroduced to plant matter from the site

CAST-003

FIELD PHOTO

Cast block reintroduced to plant matter from the siteEVIDENCE / 000C

Cast block, section view — brick and mesh inclusions

CAST-004

FIELD PHOTO

Cast block, section view — brick and mesh inclusionsEVIDENCE / 000C

§ 000F / SOURCE MATERIAL — FRAGMENTS BEFORE CASTING

FIVE TYPES COLLECTED ON SITE

FRAG-A · Clay brick — Binckhorst demolition stock

FRAG-B · Concrete rubble — site-collected

FRAG-D · Galvanised wire mesh (armature)

§ 000E / SEE ALSO - § 001B HIDDEN RULES

THE FRAGMENTS INSIDE THESE PIECES WERE CLASSIFIED ASWASTETHE MOMENT A DEMOLITION PERMIT WAS FILED. THE PROCEDURE ALLOWS FOUR WEEKS - A SLOOPMELDING. IN THAT WINDOW, MATERIAL IS PROCESSED, SORTED, AND DISPATCHED. NO INDIVIDUAL FRAGMENT IS TRACKED. NO ORIGIN IS RECORDED.

THE CONCRETE HERE IS THE ONLY RECORD THESEFRAGMENTSEXISTED.

[ → FOLLOW THE MATERIAL / § 001 MATERIAL FLOWS]

[ → THE SITE THESE CAME FROM / § 002 BINCK CITY PARK]

PLATE 02 / STANDING WITNESSES - CABALLERO · HARBOUR · CASTLE

§ 001 / HIDDEN FLOW

MATERIAL AFTERLIFE · VERIFIED CASES + NATIONAL CONTEXT

Following the material after the skip — verified routes against the national narrative.

88% RECYCLED - MOST DOWNCYCLED.

In the Netherlands, ≈88% of demolished building material is officially recycled - but most is downgraded into road aggregate, losing 80-90% of its embodied value. Only ≈13% of new construction material here comes from secondary sources. Circularity claims in Binckhorst need to be read against this national context.

SEE THE THINNEST YELLOW LINE? THAT IS THE 5% THAT IS GENUINELY REUSED ON SITE.

EVERYTHING ELSE IS DOWNCYCLED, EXPORTED, OR LANDFILLED.

↳ Read left → right: demolition site → transport → destination. Ribbon thickness = share of national flow.

§ 005B / WHERE DOES THE WASTE GO?

SANKEY · SOURCE → MATERIAL → FATE · HOVER OR CLICK A FLOW

PLATE / 005B

Where do Buildings go?

Ribbon thickness = share of total demolition mass. Roughly 88% of what comes out of Binckhorst is recycled on paper - but two-thirds of the entire stream is reused as lower-grade road aggregate. Genuine on-site reuse is the thinnest band on the diagram.

HOVER A RIBBON

Move your cursor over any coloured ribbon to read its source, material, share of total flow, and final destination. Click to pin a flow.

ROAD AGGREGATE

EXPORTED

ON-SITE REUSE

LANDFILL · HAZARD

THE YELLOW RIBBON IS THE THINNEST ON THE DIAGRAM. IT REPRESENTS GENUINE ON-SITE REUSE - MATERIAL THAT STAYS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD IT CAME FROM. FIVE PERCENT. THE SEVEN OBJECTS IN § 000 TOOK THIS ROUTE. NOT BECAUSE THE SYSTEM ALLOWED IT.BECAUSE THE SYSTEM WAS BYPASSED.

[ → THE SITE THESE MATERIALS CAME FROM / § 002 BINCK CITY PARK]

§ 001B / THE HIDDEN RULE - INSTRUMENTS OF ERASURE

08 INSTRUMENTS

Procedural, financial, and spatial mechanisms that erase without breaking any law.

Hidden rules are not illegal. They are not secret. They are procedural, financial, and spatial mechanisms that work within official systems — but whose effects are invisible to the people they affect. Each rule below has been found through site observation, document research, and interviews carried out in Binckhorst between January and May 2026.

RULE ID	RULE NAME	WHO IT PROTECTS	WHO IT ERASES
RULE 01	FLEXIBLE ZONING - OMGEVINGSPLAN BINCKHORST	Developers, investors, owners with capacity to initiate plans under the 'global destination' zoning model	Existing tenants, small businesses, workshops, residents without legal or financial capacity to respond to flexible procedures
RULE 02	FOUR-WEEK DEMOLITION NOTICE - SLOOPMELDING	Building owners, developers, construction timelines - allows demolition to proceed quickly within Bouwbesluit / Omgevingswet	Residents, neighbours, material - if no objection is filed within 4 weeks, demolition proceeds; no fragment is tracked
THIS RULE IS EMBEDDED IN THE OBJECTS IN § 000. THE MOMENT A SLOOPMELDING IS FILED, MATERIAL ON SITE IS RECLASSIFIED AS WASTE. FROM THAT POINT, IT HAS FOUR WEEKS BEFORE PROCESSING BEGINS. NO FRAGMENT IS TRACKED. NO ORIGIN IS RECORDED. THE SEVEN IN-BETWEEN PIECES WERE COLLECTED INSIDE THIS WINDOW. [ → SEE THE OBJECTS / § 000 THE OBJECTS]
RULE 03	MINIMUM EVIDENCE - PRIVATE CCTV / 24H DELETION	Private operators choosing the legal minimum retention - business choice not legal requirement	Residents documenting theft, harassment, parking exploitation - their evidence is erased every 24 hours
RULE 04	PRIVATE PARKING MONOPOLY - Q-PARK & VORM	Developer VORM, operator Q-Park, municipality - pricing loop set without binding municipal involvement	Binck City Park residents - paying up to ≈€400/mo with no permits and no cheaper alternative permitted
RULE 05	PARTICIPATION WITHOUT BINDING POWER	Developers - consultation is required, but acting on feedback is not	Residents - input is procedural, not decisive; participation creates the appearance of consent
RULE 06	VACANT LAND - NO LEGAL OBLIGATION TO OPEN	Landowners and the municipality - cleared plots may remain fenced indefinitely	Neighbourhoods - plots like Vestaweg sit empty for ≈9 years; access is granted only under political pressure, not legal right
RULE 07	RESPONSIBILITY LOOP - NO SINGLE ACCOUNTABLE ACTOR	Each actor in the loop - Municipality → H2S → Q-Park → VORM → Municipality - each defers, none holds full accountability	Residents seeking redress - no single body answers; complaints circulate indefinitely without resolution
RULE 08	ROOFTOP ACCESS RESTRICTION - BINCK CITY PARK	Premium residential unit owners - upper-floor tenure holders	Lower-tier residents - social housing occupants - all non-premium tenants

§ 005B / HOW A HIDDEN RULE WORKS

STEP 1 / OFFICIAL PLANNING DOCUMENT PUBLISHED

▼

STEP 2 / PROCEDURE OPENS - FORMALLY ACCESSIBLE TO ALL

▼

STEP 3 / TIMELINE IS SHORT / LANGUAGE IS TECHNICAL / INFORMATION IS FRAGMENTED

▼

STEP 4 / OBJECTION WINDOW CLOSES BEFORE MOST RESIDENTS KNOW IT OPENED

▼

STEP 5 / ONLY WELL-RESOURCED ACTORS RESPONDED IN TIME

▼

STEP 6 / DECISION IS MADE - APPEARS PROCEDURALLY CORRECT

▼

STEP 7 / EFFECT IS FELT BY THOSE WHO NEVER KNEW THE PROCEDURE EXISTED

[ → NEXT: THE HISTORY THAT PRODUCED THESE RULES / § 006 HISTORY]

§ 002 / BINCKHORST MAP - DOCUMENTED SITES

BINCKHORST · 07 DOCUMENTED CASES

52.069°N · 4.338°E

OSM · CARTO DARK · COUNTER-ANNOTATED

ARCHIVE / KABK INSIDE 2026 · REV. 2026.07

COUNTER-ARCHIVE · UNOFFICIAL

MAP LEGEND

● YELLOW — MAIN CASE STUDY

● WHITE — DOCUMENTED TRANSITIONAL SITE

● GREY — REFERENCED / NOT FULLY DOCUMENTED

BASE: © OPENSTREETMAP · CARTO · ANNOTATIONS: COUNTER-ARCHIVE

DEMOLISHED

Site fully cleared

VACANT

Empty ≥ 5 yrs

REDEVELOPED

Replaced by new program

SELECTIVELY REUSED

Partial reuse

UNDER PRESSURE

Standing, threatened

MATERIAL EXPORTED

Components moved

HISTORY ERASED

Labour / social memory removed

[ → NEXT: THE RULES BEHIND THESE SITES / § 001B HIDDEN RULES]

§ 002B / SITE INDEX - SEVEN TRANSITIONAL SITES

07 DOCUMENTED CASES

[ → FOR THE MAIN CASE STUDY SEE § 002 / BINCK CITY PARK]

[ OPEN THE TOOLBOX ]

BRICK SHARDS. TILE FRAGMENTS. CONCRETE RUBBLE. WIRE MESH.PICK SOMETHING UP. FEEL THE WEIGHT OF IT.THIS IS WHAT BINCKHORST WAS MADE OF - BEFORE THE PLAN DECIDED IT WAS NOT NEEDED ANYMORE.

SITE 01DEMOLISHED → THIN PARK

VESTAWEG / PROEFPARK

Post-war social housing along Binckhorstlaan/Vestaweg, cleared for the Rotterdamsebaan corridor. Plots empty ≈9 years before Proefpark opened. Material destination: not publicly documented; likely road aggregate.

VESTAWEG / PROEFPARK · TIMELINE

2015 · CLEARED

9 YEARS — VACANT — NO USE — NO RECORD

2024 · REPLACED · THIN LINEAR PARK

Nine years of vacancy. The land was cleared in 2015. Nothing was built. Nothing was documented. The site was held — by whom and for what purpose is not shared publicly. In 2024 it became a park. The park is 4 metres wide.