Placemaking Week Europe 2024 - Rotterdam

Creative Placemaking focusses on the cocreated program and design of our public spaces via art and culture. The key is to power squares, parks and streets with a diverse a group of local communities as possible. In this way we stimulate inclusivity in our cities from the hearts of our cities.

Creative Placemaking combines the sectors of city development, with that of the arts and civil engagement. This is no small feat. It demands new forms of collaboration, new ways of thinking and innovations in organizational systems.

In this workshop Donica Buisman (founder and CEO of RAUM in Utrecht) will tell more about how she implemented and tested Creative Placemaking at the cultural square of RAUM and the obstacles that she faced. Jeroen Laven (Domain Manager of Culture, Inclusive Living and Media for the municipality of The Hague) will share experiences and challenges in creative placemaking in his work for The Hague. The workshop will be moderated by Bert Determann (cultural placemaking specialist with a long history in working for theaters).

We will explore how we can deepen the innovations that are necessary to make successful and lasting Creative Placemaking possible. We will work on three themes (work together, make it last & create impact) in three rounds (innovations, obstacles & solutions) and with three perspectives (software, orgware & hardware).

The Happy Proximity Fresk is an engaging, thought-provoking and playful workshop created by Chaire ETI researchers (from IAE Paris Sorbonne University). It is a collaborative and creative activity to help participants self-reflect on their daily routines and the spatial and temporal dimensions of their lifestyles at a city, territory, or neighbourhood scale. Participants are invited to play fictitious personae and map their personal weekly activities on a canvas structured around the six social functions (organized by distance to their home, transportation mode and frequency.) It functions as an empowerment mechanism to trigger participants' desires and motivations to transform some of their living habits (usually built over time and therefore mostly never challenged) or practices or the local urban policies if they are decision makers or stakeholders of the city community or governance.

For any project to be a success, a placemaker has to find common ground between different aspirations and priorities by being the driver towards a common goal and outcomes. In a university context, students have to balance the requirements of their course in addition to satisfying the needs and expectations of the stakeholders they are working with.

In this session we will explore and develop the tools to measure success, be it learning outcomes forstudents in an educational context or spatial and social outcomes for communities. Success and failureare closely linked, and can be simultaneous. A project that was an utter failure in terms of delivery can provide the best educational outcome for a student or practitioner, and vice versa. A short term failure might lead to long term gain by planting the seed for something greater to happen. Equally, a short term success can easily evaporate.

Through case studies we will explore the good, and not so good, of placemaking. Through interactive workshop discussions we will identify potential risks and opportunities that will assist students and professional placemakers alike to benchmark their output by framing expectations against defined criteria providing invaluable learnings for future projects.

This session delves into the transformative potential of urban challenges, focusing on how vacant office buildings and department stores can be reimagined as vibrant, sustainable spaces. By examining five successful reuse projects from Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany, participants will gain insights into practical strategies and tools for revitalizing commercial areas. The session features a diverse panel of experts, including representatives from municipalities, investors, concept developers, and urban social designers, who will share their experiences and perspectives on creating lively communities and smart business cases.

Participants will benefit from engaging in an interactive "fishbowl" discussion, allowing them to contribute to and expand the "method box" of solutions for urban transformation. By learning from real-world case studies in cities such as Hanau, Lübeck, Berlin, and Amsterdam, attendees will acquire valuable knowledge to enhance their strategies for future urban development projects.
Reasons to Join:

- Discover innovative approaches to transforming urban spaces into sustainable hubs.
- Engage with a diverse group of experts and peers in a dynamic discussion format.
- Gain practical insights from successful case studies to apply to your own projects.
- Contribute to shaping the future of urban development and sustainability.

Outdoor work and appealing workspaces outdoors foster creativity, social interactions, and well-being, while enriching a city's network of public spaces. This workshop focuses on collaboratively designing green and sociable outdoor work areas and raising awareness about their importance.

The session highlights the overlooked aspect of placemaking and vibrant cities: work and workplaces. As an example, 1 out of 10 companies are located in one of the 3800 business parks in the Netherlands and almost a third of the jobs can be found in such environments.

In the session participants get insights about the benefits of outdoor work by the founder of Outdoor Office Day Ioana Biris and how the movement promotes sustainable urban design, a more creative working culture, well-being and nature connection. Päivi Raivio & Daniel Bumann from Parkly, an innovative urban furniture company creating green and social places, will present how green modular pocket parks have changed outdoor spaces in work and study environments and present solutions for turning grey spaces into vibrant places.

The interactive workshop session focuses on co-creating guidelines and ideas for great, connected outdoor working environments. A light hand book will be published after Placemaking Week by the session team.

In this co-creative workshop we will explore Placemaking tools for Social Sustainability.

Hosted by ARTTENDERS, Rotterdam and JES Socialtecture, Hamburg, you`ll benefit from the fruitful combination of two perspectives: holistic knowledge and hands-on project expertise. The aim of our session is to explore social sustainability in placemaking. What does it actually mean? How do we achieve it? What can we specifically do to improve social connections? In 75 minutes we will focus on Social Life and it`s impact on placemaking.

Learn from ARTTENDERS experience in Rotterdam`s Social Design projects and it`s unique approach to integrate diverse people. Learn from the SOCIALTECTURE Principles of Life which describe the way Social Life works.

Together we will dip our toes into the pool of Social Design and Socialtecture. We will immerse ourselves in a joyful, intense co-creation providing us with a new perspectives on how we see and create places.

You will leave the workshop with a new insights on Social Life. You will be equipped with tools you can adapt to your own needs.

“Placemaking for Social sustainability” will empower us to make places that enhance community cohesion, encourage togetherness and lead to a sustainable Social Life.

This is a deeper dive into the findings from the Wednesday session Diving into Afrikaandermarkt, Part 1: Field Trip*

This workshop explores the hidden power of Market Squares as dynamic, multi-use public spaces, using the Afrikaandermarkt as an interactive case study. The market is located on Afrikaanderplein, a large park in the middle of the multi-ethnic Feijenoord neighborhood in Rotterdam South.

We'll first explore the big picture with a short presentation, "Squares are the Hearts of Communities, Markets Their Soul: How Cities Put Them Together and Thrive." Then, people who attended the field trip on Wednesday will report back some of their ideas and opportunities for the Afrikaanderplein based on their Market Place Audits results. We'll then set pen to paper, breaking into a few small groups to explore the placemaking potential of the square and market and identify the potential for Rotterdam to further public engagement about this site.

*This workshop is recommended even if you missed the field trip on Wednesday, as we will cover the general principles of placemaking for market squares and demonstrate how to apply them to the local site.

Join us for a workshop focused on cultivating empathy to drive systemic change in placemaking. This session addresses several critical challenges: the fields within the "quadruple helix"—academia, industry, government, and civil society—often struggle to collaborate effectively, define their roles in urban transformation, and ensure that placemaking efforts are genuinely inclusive and reflective of the communities they serve. By bridging these challenges and aligning aspirations, the workshop aims to foster more cohesive, impactful, and inclusive collaborations. Participants will gain practical skills to enhance empathy in their professional and personal interactions, making it easier to work across these diverse fields and engage with the full spectrum of community stakeholders. We will be using tools such as empathy mapping, role-playing, and incorporating approaches from systemic thinking to deepen your understanding of collaborative innovation, community engagement, and ensuring that all voices are heard in the placemaking process. The Greek office of STIPO and Among, two NPOs based in Greece, bring together their knowledge and experience to offer an interdisciplinary and experiential workshop that will provide theoretical insights and practical tools that the participants could bring back to their own context.