Boris von der Mohlen

De Slibkapitalisten

There is a dutch saying, “wonen onder de rook van” (‘living under the smoke of’). Nowhere is this saying more literal than in Doel, a small village beside the Port of Antwerp and the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant. . Once a thriving community, Doel is now nearly a ghost town, its streets largely abandoned due to decades of expropriation plans and ongoing conflict with the port.

For years, there has been tension between the village and the port. At stake: the survival of Doel and the Doel Polder. The port needs more space, but should this come at the cost of the last Scheldt polder? The clash between social and economic interests continues to spark debate.

Yet, this opposition is not so black-and-white. The polder itself was created through a rational land reclamation system, often referred to as ‘polderkapitalisme’, where economic factors shaped the landscape.

Currently, large parts of the polder are being converted into nature reserves as compensation for the disruptive dredging activities in the Scheldt. This transformation erases the landscape’s economic foundation.

In this graduation project, the port's dredging problem is turned into an opportunity to create a new economic foundation: 'slibkaptalisme'. Broader social challenges in the polder, port, and Scheldt are leveraged to make the project financially viable.

By reclaiming loose silt through a silt engine and upgrading it into clay, the disruptive effects of dredging are mitigated while creating a new marginal revenue model. Silt farmers maintain the tidal landscape by harvesting, maturing, and selling silt.

A constant struggle unfolds between the rational structure imposed by the silt farmer and the Scheldt’s tide, which wipes away those traces. The farmers’ simple industrial homes confirm the port’s presence.

Even polluted silt from the harbor docks is processed, opening up possibilities for experimenting with silt bricks, roof tiles, and ceramics. In this way, Doel becomes Belgium’s ceramics capital, known worldwide as ‘De Slibkapitalisten’.

 

Graduation date: 30 January 2025
Graduation committee: Herman Zonderland (mentor), Mathias Lehner, Jan Maas 
Additional members for the exam: Riette Bosch, Iruma Rodriguez Hernandez