Placemaking Week Europe 2024 - Rotterdam

This session aims to explore and develop innovative strategies for integrating green spaces into urban environments through placemaking. By sharing our insights from the European projects Regreeneration and Greendense, participants will comprehensively understand the challenges and opportunities related to greening dense urban areas. Specifically, the cities involved in the projects are 10: Paris (FR), Barcelona (ES), Alverca (PT), Bucharest (RO), Dordrecht (NL), Bruges (BE), Mechelen (BE), Bremen (DE), Cork (IE), Nantes Métropole (FR).

This session will foster a collaborative environment where participants can exchange ideas and develop new approaches to urban greening, ensuring lasting impact. By integrating cultural capital and green infrastructures, the session aligns with the theme of co-creating inclusive, resilient, and dynamic urban spaces. Participants will leave with practical strategies and a deeper appreciation for the power of greening in urban development.

Ever wondered what’s beneath your city streets? With more than half of the world's population living in urban areas, cities are getting creative with the limited land above ground. From bustling Latin American metropolises to sleek European capitals, urban spaces are growing upwards and downwards!

Join us as we venture into the underground wonders transforming our cities. Discover Seoul’s high-tech metro farm where robots are cultivating plants in once-abandoned subway spaces. Explore how Paris is reviving its forgotten quarries and tunnels, and how Singapore and Helsinki are leading the way in reimagining subterranean spaces.

In a world where Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo calls underground spaces an “incredible wealth,” and Hong Kong is digging deep for essential infrastructure, we’ll dive into the potential of these hidden realms.

This panel will cover:

1. What is Underground Urbanism? Uncover how utilizing these spaces can create sustainable, resilient, and equitable cities.
2. Effective Implementation: What makes underground development successful?
3. Future-Ready Planning: How can planners and city administrators harness subterranean spaces for disaster risk reduction and sustainable growth?

Get ready to dig into the future of urban living—because sometimes, the best solutions are right beneath our feet! 🌍🔍

As we prepare our cities for the future, facing ongoing crises like climate change, social inequalities, population growth, and resource scarcity, we must also consider the needs of the other beings who we share our urban spaces with. Although urban planners and designers have developed tools to accommodate biodiversity, we still don’t fully understand the needs, desires, habits, and fears of the more-than-human worlds that surround us.

In this workshop, we will explore new ways to connect and strengthen the bond between urban communities and the non-human species that inhabit our cities through design. We will imagine what it’s like to scavenge canals for nest-building materials, navigate between glass towers at high-speed using sonar waves, stretch a lichen body in ultra-slow motion towards a moist crack, or search for food scraps in dark alley garbage bins. Together, we will practice shifting our perspectives, attuning to the more-than-human world, and uncovering the intricate web of entanglements that binds us.

These experiences will be documented and shared through drawing and collaging, and the insights gained will not only deepen our empathy for the more-than-human world but also inform and inspire future designs, guiding urban planners and designers in creating cities that are more inclusive, sustainable, and responsive to the needs of all species.

Unlock the power of green rooftops in our dynamic session, "Green Roofs: Unlock the Impact", where you will learn the practical tools how to estimate the transformative potential of green rooftops in enhancing urban climate resilience. This dynamic workshop invites urban planners, architects, policymakers, and sustainability enthusiasts to explore the practical applications of green infrastructure through hands-on modelling exercises and collaborative learning.

Participants will be divided into groups to evaluate green rooftops using three distinct tools: stormwater management models, energy performance simulations, and urban heat island mitigation models. Through these activities, you will gain practical insights into how green rooftops can reduce stormwater runoff, improve energy efficiency, and mitigate urban heat islands.

Working with real-world data, you will analyse different scenarios and compare results to understand the multifaceted benefits of green rooftops. By the end of the session, you’ll walk away with tools to advocate for and implement green rooftops in your projects and communities.

This session is your gateway to understanding and leveraging the full potential of green rooftops. Don’t miss this opportunity to network with like-minded professionals, share ideas, and contribute to creating sustainable, livable, and resilient cities. Let’s elevate our urban landscapes and unlock the impact of green roofs together!

We want to improve the quality of life in neighbourhoods to make more places greener. As cities and housing corporations we see a lot of places that can be better used. Public spaces and semi-public places around social housing have sometimes bad quality and are not well used.

Together with our citizens and tenants we start processes to design more attractive, healthier and greener places to make more places for community, to come together, to play and give more space for biodiversity, meetings, playgrounds and climat adaption.
 
In different countries and cities we meet the same challenges. Cities and housing corporations from Portugal, the Netherlands, France and United Kingdom will show in this workshops you some good examples in our cities and together we will share our challenges and questions. How do you like to contribute to greener the areas and built communities? Which steps can you follow to engage several stakeholders to invest in greener spaces? Can you share with us your good examples? Come and join our workshop and participate with your knowledge and experiences

If we want to create meaningful impact in the field of climate change mitigation, public participation and sustainable and circular urban development there is an urgent need to bridge small scale civic initiatives (in placemaking) with larger infrastructure and area development initiatives and enable participation and civic development in these projects. While civil society initiatives are increasingly being recognised in the field of place-led development, civil society actors and initiatives in the area of infrastructure still receive too little acknowledgement and support. But what can we learn from these initiatives and what (regulatory) framework do they need?

In this session we will take a closer look at one of the most interesting area development projects in Rotterdam (Keilekwartier / Merwe-Vierhavens) and learn from international best-practice examples. We will investigate how civic infrastructure initiatives (e.g. energy communities) can foster resilient area development and create benefits and a just transition for the local community. How can these large scale developments still include citizen initiatives in a meaningful and just way? Can we develop good overarching frameworks for these developments?

Are you eager about doing a placemaking project, but struggling to get started? Or are you curious how to kick-start your placemaking process in 70 minutes? Play the Placemaking Game with us!

The Placemaking Game playfully makes you and your team acquainted with the act of placemaking and supports you in developing a placemaking project. The game is designed for citizens as well as for government officials, policy makers and professional placemakers. It supports those that are less familiar with placemaking as well as the process of experienced placemakers. The Placemaking Game aims to facilitate placemaking projects and will bring up international parallels and differences. 

It can be played with groups of 3-12 people and takes about 60-90 minutes. The game initiates interactive discussions about placemaking and moves placemaking ideas forward towards tangible action. Individual dreams and ambitions are translated into one collective vision. From this vision concrete roles and action points are articulated.

The participants work in teams to redesign an existing neighbourhood in Rotterdam in a 3D game. New houses need to be built, but the neighbourhood also needs to be adapted to the changing climate. Which team will create the best design?

The participants are kindly requested to bring their own laptops to the session (not a table or phone). A mouse is handy, but not required.