Cities are expanding and populations growing, the phenomenon of global urbanization causes cities to change. Rotterdam is the most progressive vertical urban city in The Netherlands. Starting from the 1990’s Rotterdam’s high-rise strategy caused the city to densify its city center. The vertical expansion is set to grow even more, especially in the city center. Which is expected to grow exponentially as Rotterdam is building more 50.000 homes in the city center aiming for people and most importantly families. Our group vision enforces living in the city center by supporting the city living by redesigning the urban public space and our projects that take on the specific missing functions.
One of these important missing functions in the Rotterdam city centre is education. But the conventional Dutch school typology is no longer applicable to the dense urban city. This results in the typology of the urban school which has not yet been explored in the Dutch setting. The Rotterdam Urban School explores new urban educational typologies in a building combining diverse student bodies. The Internal design of the project will enforce 21st century concepts of learning in its design.

The skyscraper has since its invention shaped modern cities all over the world. More than any other architectural typologie it embodies the social-economic tendencies of the context in which it arises. As our urban ideals shift away from a corporate towards a community oriented built environment, aided by the process of densification, the skyscraper will consequently have to change with it. However, its vertical orientation poses serious challenges when it comes to sustaining the social interactive character at the heart of these densification strategies. Therefore the project proposes a rethinking of the standardized elements in tower design, shaping a continuous system of publicly accessible plazas throughout the vertical organization. Plazas that form unique activity spaces that serve both the in-building community as the wider urban neighborhood of the Rotterdam Central District.

In the 20th century, the notion of logistics migrated from the military sphere to trade, from Europe to the Americas. This shift in the theory of transport, accompanied by developments in transport and communication technologies, has revolutionized the way we buy, leading to the digitalization and "logisticalization" of trade. E-commerce is effectively eliminating the functional necessity for urban commercial space and replacing traditional stores with suburban distribution centers and virtual platforms. However, commercial space has long since held an important role in the public and social life of cities, a role which is only amplified by urbanization and the densification of cities worldwide. As the online market is becoming saturated, online brands are increasingly turning to physical space as an effective means of promotion. A new typology emerges: The Experience Space, aiming not to distribute but to advertise through experience. Through a particular focus on the human experience, this typology presents a new alignment of public interests and private funds, and an opportunity for corporate funded urban recreation space. The city of Rotterdam is facing rapid densification in the upcoming years and demonstrating a need for new types of public amenities. In the context of an exceptionally fragmented and competitive online market, the Dutch city creates an opportunity for the success of an architectural strategy in brand promotion. The project materializes in the design of a new landmark and leisure resource for Rotterdam: the Coolblue E-Experience Centre, a building which addresses local and national interests.

The fascination started with the idea that a street is a gettering place for everyone. It is an open space where everybody can come and where people can meet and interact with each other. But is the street designed as a place for interaction? Or is it intended to get from one place to the other? Is the street a logistical way of working, to structure the city and the flow of people? Research has been done about the street, what is a street, and how do we experience a street? To create a better understanding of how streets are designed different street typologies around the world are analyzed. The exciting part about the streets is that they are everywhere, they already designed in a certain way during medieval times. Everage cities exist 1/3 out of streets. Can we see the street still as a public space, or is it occupied by the car? Looking at Rotterdam, 75% of the public space exists of streets, and are mainly occupied by vehicles. So what if we can see the street again as a public space, rather than a place for movement. This research focuses on how the connection between houses and the place for social interaction can increase in the street in relation to the built environment. The research question for this paper: How can the street become a public space through the design of a building? The research question will be tested in Rotterdam city center. Rotterdam is after the bombing design in a car-oriented way, which makes the topic very interesting. Besides of urbanization the big cities becomes denser and denser, this also includes Rotterdam. So the city needs to extend to household all those people. What you can see in Rotterdam is that the centre of the city is slowly moving more to the south. The city’s municipality created a high-rise strategy that will make it possible to house 50.000 more people/houses in the future. But through so, the number of buildings in the center is increasing and the amount of public space decreases. Streets are playing a significant role in the design of the of new households, and to keep the city livable. To test the research question through the design of a building, a specific location in Rotterdam’s center is chosen, called the Kop van Zuid. Through analyzing streets around the world and researching the different aspects of the street. Three main ambitions are defined, which will play an essential role in this project: designing a place for social interaction, establishing a human scale in the city center, and creating a connection between the street and the building.

The digitalization of labor – enabled by the rise of the Internet and digital technologies – began a redefinition of architecture typologies. The typologies of Home and Office, once seen as stable and fixed, with clear distinctions, are now blurring their boundaries towards each other. The ubiquity of the network has spread work outside of the office and, as a result, the boundaries of these two dimensions are diluted in the realm of an omnipresent and interconnected reality. New phenomena are emerging. Every place, as long as connected to the network, becomes a productive one, even the most private and intimate: the home. How is this shift concretizing in architectural design? The productive home project aims to give tangible and spatial form to the contemporary condition of labor, unfolding the blurred line between domesticity and productivity. The project has been thought out as a series of designed scenario: each of them aim to reflect upon the relationship between the working and living sphere: from blurred to sharply separated, the goal is to express the different nuances of the contemporary condition of Labor.

In the coming 20 years, the city centre of Rotterdam will face a new wave of constructions, with the goal of densify the area with new 50.000 dwellings before the 2040, converting the city centre towards a more residential and international character. This up-coming densification of Rotterdam, led by the high-rise strategy developed by the Municipality, it is going define a border condition between the new high-rise developments and the historical neighbourhoods, such as the case of Cool Zuid and Baankwartier, causing a disrupted relationship between the built environment, the public space, and the human scale, creating tension and dichotomy. Within this scenario, what could it be a different catalyst event, different from the high-rise strategy, that will lead the future of this neighbourhood, preserving its human scale while accommodating the future of the city? And so, “How is public space going to be reconsidered within the international character and the high-rise strategy of Rotterdam?”. Therefore, if the Municipality of Rotterdam will be more focused on the skyline of the city, the goal of the Open & Closed is to explore the so-called “groundline” of Rotterdam.Thus, the Open public space that today is only perceived as playground, a fixed mono-functional use, in the coming years it will be re-thought and designed as a more informal public space, where different users will start to interact and co-exist. Meanwhile, the Closed public space will be a new Performing arts centre, where the already present activities such as dance, music and theatre studios in the area will be reallocated in one public building. However, it will be important to make a strong synergy between the Open & Closed public space, made of visual and physical relationships that architecture can create, together with a public program to engage a broader audience, in response to the future growth and needs of Rotterdam.

The Bank of Maas is a project which explores the changes in the urban fabric of Rotterdam, occurring as a result of technological developments. The project reflects on these developments, and utilizes them in order to create a condition for urban production to take place. The Bank of Maas is a project which provides Rotterdam with the productive resources necessary to the functioning of a modern-day city. It does that by creating spaces for production and storage, supported by smart production tools and an innovative storage technology. The project explores the relationship between the industry 4.0. ( production based on automation and smart technologies) and dense urban environments. By bringing production back into the inner city, the Bank aims to consolidate industry 4.0 with local skilled labor and local raw materials. The project of the Bank of Maas is an experiment, imagining a future in which cities exist as productive, well connected bodies in itself, facilitated with a network of productive resource banks.

With global urbanization, cities all around the world are changing. Rotterdam is expected to grow significantly in the upcoming decades and therefore will experience densification. This densification takes shape in the form of Rotterdam’s high-rise strategy and will have a direct influence on the way residents live in the inner city center of Rotterdam. Therefore, the need for leisure amenities in dense area’s is of significant importance. With leisure-time being an important part of the day, investing in a wide range of amenities is crucial for a city center. In this project, the focus is on leisure sports, which is known as a space consuming function. This results in the following research question: How can space consuming leisure sports be implemented in a densified city center, in order to be a social condenser? The design assignment will be a leisure sports facility in the city center of Rotterdam. This building aims to engage the residents in sports and social activities and thus intensify their social interaction. By looking to other countries, this project can be a future migration of the Athletic Club; a combination of a social club and a sports club. This typology is the main reference for the final design; a tower filled with stacked sport facilities and social amenities.

New Urban Front investigates how waterfront densification can contribute to interiorizing the Maas river in Rotterdam. In the past decade, the post-industrialization of Rotterdam's docks has created a new urban front: the Maas. However, this waterfront lacks character and scale, while water and city lost their programmatic relation after industry migrated out of the city. A mixed-use high density transversal typology is proposed at the Linker Veerdam, the historic crossing of the Maas river, to heal this schism and place water back at the center of urban memory. A sectional base, large floating plinth, and towers connect water and city with a programmatic cut and add urban scale to the river. Urban program is loaded onto the river by introduction of a boat-in cinema, a Maaspodium opening towards the water, and multiple pools and piers. This creates a multi-layered and multi-scale relation between water and city. By doing so, New Urban Front contributes to interiorizing the Maas river and convert it into the central public space of Rotterdam.

In the post-industrial city, storage is not physical and immobile. The increasing digital storage flows, such as data, knowledge, and information, play a vital role in determining the physical parameters in cities. Ideas, as the collective term for knowledge and information, can be stored in the digital medium. This paper addresses the topic of storage of ideas as the collective form of knowledge and information. The development of digital and dynamic storage generates new typologies, while challenging other existing typologies to transform their scope and services. In particular, the public library, traditionally devoted to storing ideas in the form of passive knowledge, is now confronted with a completely new way of producing knowledge available to people.

The personal contribution is to conceptualize a future library as a modern panopticon, particularly, the visibility in panopticon as the metaphor of efficient knowledge sharing creation activities. To achieve this, the research question is “How to translate the concept of storage of ideas into a collective building of knowledge and information?”

The answers to the research questions are derived from the relevant building typologies research, which includes cultural institutions: libraries,community centres; storage facilities: datacenter, distribution center; disciplinary institutions: panopticon.

South of Rotterdam as the testbed offers the challenges and opportunities for the project of storage of ideas. A future library’s specific design brief is constructed by analyzing three aspects, including the creative city strategy, the lack of cultural institutions, and the existing bottom-up creative industries.

Have you ever wondered what the food you eat everyday can tell you about where you come from? Have you ever wondered why people from different parts of the world eat different types of food? There is more connection between food and culture than you may think. On an individual level, we grow up eating the food of our cultures. It becomes a part of who each of us are. On a larger scale, food is an important part of culture. Traditional cuisine is passed down from one generation to the next. It also operates as an expression of cultural identity. Immigrants bring the food of their countries with them where cooking traditional food is a way of preserving their culture when they move to new places.
With the influx of immigrants, cultural diversity in the city of Rotterdam has increased since the 1980s. More and more places where you could try foreign culture began to appear. This is Rotterdam, the city of diversity, the city of immigrants, who add both cultural richness and social encounter to this town. But as time goes by, exclusivity in the city Centre also progresses. Hot spots in Rotterdam are becoming more and more exclusive, which results in a slow displacement of cultural diversity.

The idea of mobility nodes has been migrated and developed over time. A lot of research has been focused on those (inter)national nodes of a train station, this article is focused on the ‘Secondary Nodes’. Those regional nodes, of multiple transportation flows, are situated in densifying metropolitan cities. In Rotterdam, the Node Beurs is situated in the inner-city and contains a junction of traffic flows of the metro, tram, bus, ferry, car, pedestrian and bike. Prospects indicate that the rising densification, leads to almost double amount of people using the metro at Beurs. At the moment Beurs is already an overloaded and fragmented node that forms a barrier within the urban tissue. While the Node Beurs has the potential to be a clear entrance to the inner-city and guide the traffic flows that cope with the capacity increase. The Node also has the potential to be part of the patchwork of public spaces, adding to the public floor-line of Rotterdam. Generating a multiple leveled open space and place to stay, with leisure, shops and other facilities. The project is establishing new urban connections, as well as strengthen the existing once by interweaving the hard infrastructure with the soft program and public space by making it pedestrian-oriented. The main goal of this architectural project is creating a new entrance that functions as a gateway to the inner-city, connecting the surrounded neighbourhoods, unravel the flows and directly connect the different types of transport. As well as it is an area that gives breathing space to the densifying city. The multiple leveled square function as a social place where people meet and are invited to explore the daylight perforated underground world. The recognizable entrances adding to the human scale and add to the local and regional character. As well as the pillars influence the local climate, by giving shelter for the rain and heat, function as a sounding board translating the weather to the underground area. The flexibility of the transport hub is key for future developments, as the underground is already quite full, there is still some room to extend the entrance or bike facility or add an extra metro line possibly. Interweaving, perforating and breaking the underground open, increase the accessibility and mobility of the secondary node Beurs and the inner-city itself.

Since the neoliberal implementation in the government plans of Rotterdam in 1987, the vision of the city changed quite radically. A decade before the change, the city rejected high-rise buildings. But since this new vision, called ‘Nieuw Rotterdam’, got approved, Rotterdam implemented a high-rise vision which made the city as it is today; defined by a modern character and full of high-rise buildings, at least for Dutch standards. Yet, this high-rise implementation is only a small attribution of the conducted vision that was established in the late previous century. Neoliberal implementation goes further than merely implementing American-like high-rise buildings. It concerns the economics; particularly the liberation of the market and the multinational business trend that defines the contemporary economical appearances of both city and country. Since the drastic changes in city vision, Rotterdam opened up its borders and adopted a desire for foreign business, to upgrade their economical game and compete against the economic prosperity of other cities. Rotterdam therefore changed quite radically since Nieuw Rotterdam was practically implemented. Its buildings grew, its habitants grew and it became a popular place for tourists. In the Netherlands, Rotterdam is known today for their rich modern architecture and its modern appearance. However, the aspect of business, is less thriving. While it started to aim at welcoming more foreign business about thirty years ago, Rotterdam today is still struggling to find and welcome foreign companies and multinational business into its city. One of the primary reasons for this, is that both the city centre and its economical heart of the RCD, lacks an economical identity. Rotterdam did have its identity of the industry and the port, yet the neoliberal growth and privatization of those instances led to the translocation outside the city centre. In addition to this, the economic sector of industry became less favourable, since the tertiary sector of a business service economy predominates a neoliberal oriented city. The project of the Vertical High Tech Campus explores the promising economical sector of high tech in combination with its research and business aspects in an urban environment as a step towards providing a new economic identity for the city of Rotterdam.

In recent years, microproduction has been gaining more and more attention. Microproduction is form of contemporary craftmanship which is focused on the local production and global connectivity. Changing consumer trends and the emergence of new technologies, in particular additive manufacturing, are starting to shape the new production economy based on mass individualisation, locality and decentralization of manufacturing. Reaserch conducted on the ongoing changes in production paradigms shows that it can have a positive impact on the environmental and social aspects. Because of it’s limitted scope and size and it’s non-invasive character, microproduction can now be embedded in urban environments. However, the conducted analyzes focus on economic and political aspects, without regulating the spatial aspects of the microproduction paradigms. It is relevant to understand the spatial conditions of microproduction embeddement concept, because it’s quality will have the huge impact on the potential social, economical and spatial benefits of microproduction. The purpose of the project is to answer the questions about the conditions of microproduction embeddement. What are the urban conditions associated with microproduction? Which programs can be associated with microproduction? What are most relevant design aspects? To clarify the design and spatial aspects of embedment of microproduction in urban areas the design concept was preceeded by and based on the typological study focused around the topic related architectural examples.

"Air Rights" in New York gives freedom for the super tall towers, while cages low rise buildings which sold their unbuilt. This graduation thesis investigates the future possibilities for the lots which sold their air rights. By exploring underground space, this project solves urgency of limited buildable spaces, and tests how to make subterranean space inviting. It is also a critic of achieving density and verticality by only introducing high rise towers in New York.

The traffi c network of Midtown is under an enormous pressure, with a subway system that has deteriorated to such a dismal state that nearly all available funds go into maintenance and overhaul. Since Manhattan is an island and there are a limited number of access points, these connections are even more congested. For commuting to and from the island the subway has always been the most used mode of transport, but the poor conditions have recently led to a decline in the usage and has stimulated the rapid growth of ride-hail and carsharing services e.g. Uber, VIA Van & Lyft. Especially the underserviced, East and West areas of Midtown which are overpassed by the connection, benefi t from the expansion of this new extended transport network. On the other hand Midtown keeps on developing and growing. With more and more homes being built, which is leading to more inhabitants whom all need to move within the city. This leads to the question: “How can the entry points of Midtown contribute to a greater mobility of the city?” The project investigates the way new and old transport modes can be connected. The project is a 45,000 m2 mobility hub and Tesla city headquarters showcasing a new type of mobility hub in Midtown connecting rideshare, ride-hailing, the subway and Tesla’s future mobility ideas. The building consist of two main components, the Tesla offi ces and a parking and charging places for over 800 cars. The project is located near the busiest bridge (Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge) to Manhattan, the Frank D. Roosevelt Highway, The East river and the N,R,W subway lines. The project researches the new connections between the aspects mentioned above.

In the coming decades, cities will have to house a lot more residents. For now, this unavoidable change is yet unimaginable. However, cities do have to prepare for challenges to come. Cities face the task to offer more housing in an already set framework of the existing context. How can a provision of housing be made in a dense urban context like Midtown, New York?

At the moment Midtown is known for its office like character, a mono-functional money-making machine, one can state. Midtown is the area with the most expensive land underneath the most expensive buildings in Manhattan. These buildings vary between multinational enterprises and residential buildings for wealthy cosmopolitans.

A change is happening that offices are moving towards Hudson Yards This is new urban development south-west of Midtown. It is a booming area offering lots of offices, retail and in the future residential space. With offices moving out of Midtown, there is a new potential for a new character of Midtown. This might be an opportunity for more affordable housing for future residents.

1227 Broadway is a plot with a design for a hotel of 145m high. However, by introducing a new zoning rule, affordable housing is stimulated. By changing the program to affordable housing, high-end housing, and retail it is benefitting the new rule of increasing FAR and hereby unlocking a new potential of value. With this change in program, a new design proposal is made. This new proposal benefits affordable housing, high-end housing, and the developer's interest. Affordable housing is made possible by introducing high-end housing catering to the high land value, for a hypothetical business case. By implementing affordable housing as a base for high-end living, high-end housing is therefore realized on a higher level, gaining a more valuable view over Manhattan. With this new zoning rule, the developer can put a bigger building on the same plot.

Changing an existing plan for a hotel to a plan with affordable housing whilst implementing a trend to luxury, it answers the question: How to make affordable housing on expensive land?

This research is exploring possibilities for Midtown to create affordable housing, by focusing on the increasing gap in the growth of housing prices and income.

As big player architecture has been the main shaper of the NYC skyline this thesis sought to find the answer to which industry would follow to built the next addition. The result is a vertical tech campus where the new york office is mixed with the california campus to create a flagship store/office for the fictional client Google inc.

Public space in Manhattan is mainly generated through a mechanism called Privately Owned Public Spaces, shortly POPS, allowing developers to construct taller buildings in exchange for the provision of public space. As a result of this incentivizing mechanism there are countless manifestations of public private contradiction in the city of New York. Furthermore, the city's process of densification results in a shift from a monotonous office environment into a mixed-use living environment - inherent to this change is a desire for a new type of public space that fosters healthy densification. The main question of this project relates to how such a new type of public could evolve, taking into account the critical force of privatization. In order to explore the main question, this project speculates on the contradictory nature of public space production by means of the design for an extremely private NSA office, which through its constrains for security and privacy, generates a unique public housing and sportscenter. The project reveals the potential of integrating mutually exclusive private and public worlds into a singular structure, while at the same time highlighting that the debate on densification is one of zoning regulations rather than spatial-architectural design.

This project is part of the Complex Projects graduation studio, which investigates urban challenges as a result of political, economic, and environmental change. In this project especially environmental change is being considered, but also political and economic changes are intrinsically linked to this environmental change. With the current changing climate, an increased risk of extreme weather conditions, such as flooding and storms, will change the urban landscape of Manhattan, New York. Previously, there have already been numerous large storms which cause flooding and large-scale damage in the city. Currently, New York has an individualistic approach to larger scale issues, but these will not continue to suffice and are often short-term solutions in protecting the larger scale public infrastructure. On the waterfronts of Midtown Manhattan, new coastal barriers will be constructed as part of a larger scale resiliency project, to protect the city from flooding. The project is located on part of this coastal barrier, and investigates how a New York type building (in scale and density) can be placed on the new urban development, using the clash in the grid and the changing in levels to
create a building, comprising of housing and retail, connected through public and private atriums.