Placemaking Week Europe 2024 - Rotterdam

Capacity: 2 groups of 15 people (first come, first served)

Starting point: Wilhelminaplein, under the bridge at the quay
Ending Point: Metrostation Leuvehaven

The Rondje Bruggen is a popular running route that runs along the north and south banks of the Maas and no fewer than three iconic bridges: the Erasmus Bridge, the Willems Bridge and the Koninginne Bridge. There are great opportunities to develop the area into a river park. Where you can relax for a while, with a beautiful view of the river. Where you can meet friends or meet new people. Where you can muse on a bench, exercise outside or just take a walk. Where you can eat your sandwich or drink a cup of coffee during the break. This is already clearly visible in some places and good use is also made of public space. In other places, a lot still needs to be done to make the space attractive for use. Take a 'bridging tour' and discuss your ideas and experiences with us and each other.

Drawing tools from the world of speculative design and filmmaking, join us to gaze out across the water, imagining a world on the shores of a distant future where the waterfront shapes new ways to experience nature and culture in the city.

The built environment as a sector often fails to take a critical long-term view on placemaking, designing for ‘here-and-now’, developing places which can become redundant as soon as they’re built. Waterfront placemaking will be hit especially hard, as sea-level rises impact billions around the world.

We will introduce placemakers to the value of building long term futures-thinking into their process, providing you with tools to become more critical, confident, and imaginative.

The session combines a workshop and a walk. Drawing from tools from our work on Collective Place Futures, we’ll share our unique ‘worldbuilding blueprint’ to create a palette of future places, characters, artefacts and rituals from which you create a news report from the future waterfront. We will then take a walk along the waterfront, to play out our future news report on-location.

While place foresight is serious business, our process takes us there through serious play!

In this panel discussion I will present a self-initiated project called "Hanging Gardens of Berlin.”

This session offers an alternative perspective on creating green public spaces: by reusing an existing body of water, purifying it and turning the whole area into a living food system.

The participants get an insight into the world of biologically grown fungi-based materials and their potential for creating future public spaces. We will also explore bio-remediation strategies of reusing existing water in our ever thirstier cities.

The presented project is a proposal for a community garden suspended from the ‘Landwehrkanal’, a waterway that runs 10km through Berlin. Anyone interested can grow their own food here, using only water from the canal for irrigation.

In the same process the canal’s water is purified through bio-remediation, letting the entire area become a thriving eco system.
 
The pots that make up the garden are biologically grown from a fungi-based material.

By presenting this community-based food infrastructure, I invite participants to re-examine our social expectations around both food and water, while proposing ways for creating new spaces of coexistence.

THIS SESSION TAKES PLACE OUTSIDE OF THE VENUES - THE MEETING POINT IS:
Koningsdam 1, 3011 TN Rotterdam

Bridge keepers' houses are increasingly lonely and empty because bridges are centrally controlled via cameras. As a result, the social role of the bridge keeper is increasingly being lost. These sympathetic, small spaces (and sometimes also enormous bridge cellars under the road surface) are increasingly gaining new meaning in the Netherlands as exhibition space, art/culture/community space, hairdresser, hotel room and more. Since 2012, the Bridge Keepers' Houses Foundation has built up various expertise in the field of knowledge center, projects and management and aims to give empty bridge keepers' houses in the Netherlands a new and sustainable purpose.

In the Netherlands we estimate that there are approximately 1000 bridge keepers' houses. But what about the rest of Europe?

The Bridge Keepers' Houses Foundation aims to give vacant bridge keepers' houses a new purpose in the Netherlands. We want to use the power of the Placemaking Community to come up with a new destination for one of the vacant bridge keepers' houses in Rotterdam. So we do a brainstorm on a very special location ship ramp ‘Koningspoort’ We involve the municipality of Rotterdam, which owns the bridge keeper's house, with multiple civil servants from different departments.

Inclusivity is the cornerstone of thriving urban spaces. It’s about creating environments
where everyone, regardless of background, ability, or identity, feels welcome and
valued. In cities, inclusivity is crucial, it fosters community, enhances quality of life, and
ensures that all residents can participate in and benefit from the vibrancy of urban life.
Rijnhaven, and more specifically Luxor Theatre are two of the most relevant locations in
Rotterdam when it comes to urban developments and leisure, and both are striving for
the implementation of inclusivity.
 
The session will begin inside the Luxor Theatre, where a speech from the theatres
general director will be held to share insights on how places like Café Dox are essential
for fostering diversity and connection. This will be held in the iconic Rijnfoyer, to allow
for a breathtaking view of Rijnhaven, and its new developments.
 
Following this speech, a second speaker will join to share more detailed insights on the
topic of inclusivity and its importance in society, with the goal of informing and sharing
knowledge from experts.
 
The second part of the session will be an interactive activity. This experience will allow
for the visitors to engage with inclusivity firsthand, and to explore activities that
challenge the understanding of accessibility, community engagement, and urban
design. It’s an opportunity to think creatively about how we can make Rijnhaven a space
where everyone feels they belong.

Note: This session will use headphones for audio

Citizen involvement in Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) creation improves societal effect. Citizen participation in NbS production is understudied, despite evidence that it may shift behaviour, raise awareness, and encourage sustainable solutions.
 
Attendees will use human-driven 3D printing to build concrete structures that can sustain reed growth and merge human and environmental demands. This DIY activity will address aquatic nature-based solutions and alternative public engagement methods. The concrete structures can be installed in freshwater lakes as shore protective units to enhance biodiversity and support ecological systems and to understand how active engagement can change community values.

At the end of the workshop, attendees can take home a pre-made scale model of the structure they helped manufacture as a token of their participation. The role of this token in creating value from the experience will be addressed in the concluding survey questions.

This interactive panel invites you to imagine how waterfronts and natural spaces can be transformed into vibrant, sustainable community hubs. A group of experts will share their insights on how thoughtful design and a multidisciplinary approach can shape these areas into spaces that not only bring people together but also care for the environment. They’ll discuss how to create places that blend nature with community life in ways that inspire a strong sense of place. Whether it's about designing spaces that encourage social interaction or  with cultural and creative incorporating elements that honor the local ecosystem, the conversation will highlight how we can reimagine our natural surroundings to serve

Note: This session will use headphones for audio