Placemaking Week Europe 2024 - Rotterdam

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.