Placemaking Week Europe 2024 - Rotterdam

Start the morning off feeling grounded. Ping will give a short introduction to meditation before guiding you through a 30-minute practice. The perfect way to begin a day of exploration ahead!

Work in the garden in the mornings alongside other volunteers! 

Get to know the locals and hear about the vision and stories of the place and its people. 

Capacity: Each morning, there is space for 5 participants. 
Please arrive promptly at 9:00 in order to receive instructions from the gardener.

This session is dedicated to fostering connections between regional placemaking networks from across the globe. The aim of this gathering is to serve as a platform for representatives from various worldwide regions to come together to share their unique approaches to placemaking, exchange best practices, and discuss challenges and successes. This is a unique opportunity to learn from diverse experiences, build a stronger network, and collaborate together on future initiatives. Whether you’re part of a regional network or looking to start one, join us to gain insights and expand our global placemaking community.

Starting Point: Square in front of Hillevliet

Hillevliet has long dreamed of a more beautiful square in front of their building. Now, as part of Placemaking Week Europe, Stichting Steensoep, Hillevliet tenants, and the neighborhood are joining forces to make this dream a reality by creating beautiful, colorful tree pits. Ready to roll up your sleeves and help locals turn this vision into reality? Feel free to join in whenever you like, stay as long as you want, and help us plant some greenery in the south of Rotterdam!

The notion of the 15-minute city has become a prominent approach thanks to its ability to create walkable and sustainable neighborhoods. Building on that approach, this 30-minute session aims to delve deeper into the idea of applying mixed-use and close-proximity principles on a smaller scale.

During the session, we’ll:
- Highlight case examples of the best mixed-use spaces we’ve seen yet
- Share concrete tactics for mixing up your places; combining offices with schools, shopping malls with libraries, and airports with forests.

This vision challenges traditional standards of zoning and spatial organization, advocating for a seamless integration of work, education, culture, play, and nature – within the same close quarters. At its core, the conversation is driven by the belief that by embracing the 1.5-minute place concept, we can create more inclusive, liveable and loveable places that enrich the lives of those having a relation to them.

Capacity: 25 people (first come, first served)

Starting Point: Gemaal op Zuid 

Art without a story is just an object. But can an object become art with the right story? Welcome to The Museum of Unintentional Art, the museum with the largest exhibition space in the world: the world itself.
We turn the museum walls inside out and elevate the mundane into art.Our curious museum director takes you on a one-and-a-half-hour tour and transforms you into an unintentional art connoisseur.  

What happens when a room filled with placemaking experts and enthusiasts is faced with community engagement challenges to be solved in different urban scenarios? What creative solutions and ideas will be put on the table? This session will dig into the knowledge and first-hand experience of participants, to find gold nuggets  of placemaking essentials that will help build a shared map leading to long-lasting impact in community engagement. 

Starting Point: Keilepand Community Garden Club House

Join us at the Voedseltuin community garden for Keilepand during Placemaking Week Europe.

Explore how the garden fosters a healthier, more sustainable city through local food and community engagement.

Hear the inspiring stories of the founders and their vision for urban transformation, and then roll up your sleeves to help maintain the garden. Connect with others who share a commitment to building a sustainable urban future.

Recently, there has been a lot of fuss around co-creation as a way to tackle big urban challenges. However, talking about experimental approaches seems to be much easier than planning and implementing them in existing (governance) structures, let alone, making experimenting part of full urban development processes. This training sessions allows participants to playfully lay out the cornerstones for experimental approaches and to discuss: Where to start? how to plan? What methods / tools to use?

Learn from global placemaking network leaders and emerging networks, and discuss strategies for growing the collective learning, advocacy and impact for national and agenda placemaking networks and campaigns.

The PlacemakingX Global Placemaking Summit recently convened 150 of the world's placemaking leaders in Mexico City to set the course for the global placemaking movement and supporting the 30+ regional placemaking networks with emerging cross-cutting global agendas.

This moment represents a major evolution point for placemaking, since we launched the movement over10 years ago from Project for Public Spaces. We started PlacemakingX in 2019, almost 5 years ago, with the goal of further decentralizing and networking the movement globally, and have since seen strong self-organization around the very adaptive and nimble regional and national networks.

Informed by, and looking to support, these networks, the next evolution of placemaking movement will include cross-cutting agendas that are being formed with similar structures and process to the regional networks. As with the national networks, each agenda has leaders that have emerged to form each agenda network. While continuing to be open to additional leadership, these leaders are helping to take responsibility for guiding and growing the learning, advocacy and action of the network.

We invite placemaking leaders to join these regional and agenda networks to help them realize their potential. These networks and agendas are all designed to keep each-other supported, challenged and inspired.

Each part of the world is leading the placemaking conversation from different strengths.
Whether from a dominant discipline, sector, or demographic, every strength has much to offer, teach the rest of the world.

Experience a hands-on workshop on the potential of gamification and AI in participatory design, and discover how it can meaningfully connect communities, local governments, and other stakeholders to design better places for people.

Our session will use the Delfshaven area - where the festival is taking place, as a case study for an area that is undergoing urban renewal. In our workshop, attendees will use digital tools and board games, experiencing the potential of gamification in the design process on various scales. During the workshop, attendees will participate in a unique board game that encourages a creative dialogue where all voices are heard and common interests and disagreements are addressed, resulting in a plan expressing that dialogue.

In addition, we’ll harness cutting-edge technology to gather ideas and input from participants, processing them through AI to visualize their potential impact on the urban environment. This innovative approach demonstrates how community input can play a meaningful role in shaping the urban environment, improving the quality of urban development, and empowering communities in creating places. Our workshop emphasizes the vital role of community involvement in urban planning and the power of gamification in creating meaningful engagement.

By participating, you'll gain insights into effective participatory design techniques and experience how user input can significantly contribute to improving our cities. Schedule: Introduction and Overview Presentation of the case-study area Interactive Workshops AI-Powered Idea Visualization Group Discussion and Q&A The future of our cities is green, human-centric, and collaborative. As a decision-maker, you cannot afford to fall behind. Join us to lead the way in better cities!

Socio-Spatial Opportunities Mapping - for desired interventions

Come outside with us and explore the possibilities for placemaking, looking at and discussing the needs of the users!

Based on Placemaking education, that we teach at the University of Amsterdam, Socio-Spatial Opportunities Mapping offers an interdisciplinary research approach to inform the design of appropriate place-interventions.

During this session we engage in fieldwork in the area. We will scan relevant elements and patterns on-site and conduct effective short interviews with users. We will then integrate and visualize these insights into a multi-layered map.

You will be guided by our experienced team of university staff.

Join our workshop exploring the transformative potential of children's empowerment in shaping school environments. This session will provide insights why participatory practices in pre-schools and schools are essential and how they differ from urban placemaking. Participants will delve into practical methodologies that engage young children and learn how to harness children's ideas to enhance school spaces. Architects, educators and psychologists will present an overview of the theoretical framework behind school-based placemaking, highlighting unique challenges and opportunities it presents. Attendees will learn the crucial conditions necessary for participation and understand why this approach benefits the entire school community. Through interactive format, we will demonstrate techniques for interpreting children's wishes and assessing their involvement in decision-making processes. Participants will gain practical tools for evaluating the school environment to ensure it supports children's self-expression and active participation. The workshop will cover methods for co-creating tangible, contextually relevant projects with students, fostering a strong sense of school identity and community. We will share real-world examples and outcomes, illustrating how these practices transform physical spaces and rejuvenate relationships within the school, promoting collaborative and project-based learning. This session is designed for professionals seeking to implement innovative strategies that catalyze positive change in educational environments.

How do we encourage organisations to see engaging communities around place as more than a ‘nice to have’ - or worse, as something to avoid for fear of basic design feedback? An answer may be in using market-focused organisational mechanisms such as ‘ESG’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’.

This session will highlight examples from Australia which we hope will bring new perspectives on engagement and community development, demonstrating ways projects can harness organisational aspirations and commitments around ‘the S in ESG’ (i.e. social impact) to help drive better local engagement and a more inclusive place outcomes.

The session will be focused on a new methodology designed to help organisations better understand what the new consultancy Amplifier Collective refers to as ‘the five P’s’ - place, people, policy, politics and partnerships - and drive more targeted local responses to social impact and engagement. These might include strategies and partnerships for purpose-driven procurement, community development, corporate giving/volunteering, creating employment pathways, and economic development – and importantly find
ways to build internal capacity to deliver places for people.

In this session, we will explore how to integrate placemaking concepts into university courses. By incorporating these ideas into the curriculum, educators can foster experiential learning opportunities that prepare students to become active Placemakers. Through practical examples and case studies, we will demonstrate the benefits of hands-on involvement in community-building activities.

Join us for an engaging panel discussion where we will examine how university students can actively participate in the placemaking movement and contribute to various projects. This session will highlight how students can bring fresh perspectives and innovative ideas to these initiatives, ultimately enhancing community life and fostering a sense of belonging.

Designed for students, educators, and practitioners, this session offers practical strategies and valuable insights. We will hear stories from experienced practitioners and educators who have successfully integrated placemaking into their teaching and projects. Through this session, we aim to spread knowledge and provide tools to help universities and students engage more deeply with placemaking, contributing to the creation of vibrant, sustainable communities.

Note: This session will use headphones for audio

Hometown Architect is a unique initiative by the Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF) that brings together local architects and community stakeholders to explore possibilities to regenerate their town centres. This is a community-led placemaking approach that recognises the unique value of each town and village and understands that local knowledge is key in the effort to revitalise town centres. By encouraging connections and combining the power of shared imaginations, Hometown Architect acts as a catalyst for change.

Hometown Architect aligns with the objectives of the recent Town Centre First Policy in Ireland and aims to support its delivery by facilitating local communities to participate in a co-design process to envision the sustainable regeneration of their town centres.

Participants in this session will have the opportunity to hear about the development of community-led placemaking projects in the Irish context, looking at the challenges and opportunities. Hearing from Vanessa Menegaldo, manager of IAF’s ‘Reimagine’ placemaking programme and Helena McElmeel, the architect that worked on one of the projects, participants will have the chance to learn about the work developed and the methods used to engage with community stakeholders in the process of transforming towns to make them better places to live, work and enjoy.

Through Sê Bairrista (a project developed by a consortium of an architecture office, NGOs, community groups, and public companies, and funded by European and national partners) R/C proposed the qualification of 5 public spaces in a municipal housing neighborhood in Lisbon for activities such as playing, cultivating, chatting, or debating, aiming to improve the quality of public space and increase social cohesion in its different dimensions: sense of belonging, relationships of trust between residents, and between residents and local institutions.
 
The project was monitored and evaluated by the Lisbon Institute of Social Sciences and had the following impact: 30% increase in trust in institutions; 26% increase in social cohesion and the feeling of belonging to the territory and the group; 29% increase in interest in participating in citizen initiatives; 32% increase in the frequency of use of public spaces.

With this short presentation, we would like to discuss questions of methodology of co-design and impact assessment involving different groups and local entities and the importance of design in creating a sense of belonging in the specific context of a municipal housing neighborhood.

This participatory walkshop is designed to explore the connection between the city and the water. Through walking, observing and engaging with other placemakers, we look and map the presence and traces how water forms part of the city.

The first half of our walkshop, will take the participants to a playground of public space. Through a ‘Walk&Sense’ session we will explore the surrounding environment by using our senses. This experiential exercise will emphasise how we perceive, sense, frame and construct the places we inhabit.

The session will conclude with a joint reflection and analogue data visualisation exercise. This will allow participants to share their experiences and insights, showcasing the traces, marks, and narratives related to water that define our cityscape in the public space itself.

The walkshop will be conducted by the members of the Bosch Alumni Network’s Placemaking Impact Field.

Capacity: 25 people

Starting Point: Gemaal op Zuid 

The Afrikaanderwijk has its own strengths and challenges: it has the highest unemployment rate of Rotterdam, but it also has a lot of values, in Culture, Creativity and Craftmanship. These talents are deployed by the neighborhood cooperative in order to keep the benefits local. We'll walk through the neighbourhood, visiting the circular recycling station on the market which is run by the neighbourhood cooperative, and we'll visit the community garden. What does it mean to self organize in a gentrifying area? 

Join us for a workshop that combines the speculative power of storytelling with the hands-on perspective of service design, introducing a narrative-driven approach to placemaking.

In this session, you'll explore a fictional future neighborhood through the daily lives of its inhabitants—humans, plants, animals, and insects. Inspired by the children’s storybook format, participants will design their own story books encouraging radical participation in their own fictional scenarios and imagining what would make our heroes’ utopian lives fulfilling and happy.

As we dive into these stories, insights about community life will emerge, highlighting potential issues and opportunities for improvement. Combining sketching and storytelling with a systemic approach, we will explore how the crafted stories intertwine, making the multiple factors involved in placemaking emerge, and highlighting potential action points. What resources, activities, and connections, are necessary to make the narratives become reality? What systemic changes are required?

This workshop explores the complexity of community-based placemaking processes, weaving storytelling and design-driven methodologies to generate systemic change towards a collective sense of place.

Celebrate with you fellow placemakers at Keilecafe! Live djs, music, drinks, and snacks will be available in Rotterdam's "Permanent Festival" - right next to our main venue!