[Evento] Rotterdam Architecture Summer School 2007

[3CPO]

Rotterdam Architecture Summer School 2007


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Masters: Ruurd Gietema (KCAP) and Jacob van Rijs (MVRDV)

Shift of port activities
All around the world port activities withdraw from urban areas due to globalization, the subsequent scale-leap and increasingly tight environmental legislations. The same is the case in Rotterdam where port activities have been shifting towards the coast since the early twentieth century resulting in large-scale vacant areas along its river banks.

The CityPorts area
Within the next 30 years a very large and diverse area, the so-called ‘CityPorts’ will fall vacant. It contains a rich industrial heritage that to a large extent can form the background for a new urbanity with exceptional mixed-use areas. Various port areas already have been given new functions. By doing so the river banks and various port basins have been more connected to the city.
The renewal of ‘CityPorts’ seems to be a logical continuation of this strategy, but every comparison stops right here. The CityPorts area is much larger than all previous areas and is comparable to a medium-size city. The case study of this year’s Summer School comprises the most urban part of the CityPorts area together with its adjacent neighbourhoods.

The Green Machine
The Rotterdam Architecture Summerschool is a two-week programme designed to provide master students and young professionals an exercise in dealing with a unique, yet realistic design problem as well as an introduction to a substantial port transformation assignment for one of the biggest ports in the world today.

Together with international fellow students you will be studying questions as ' How can the main objectives of this area be realized within the context of a CO2 reduction approach?' and ' What does it lead to in terms of innovative concepts for architecture, urban design and public space?'.



Theme

A radical shift
It is already on the horizon and will soon become inevitable – a radical change has to happen to minimize the results of global warming. Before all this means a reduction of CO2 greenhouse gases to reduce the warming effects. Well said but how can this be achieved? Or better – how can Rotterdam achieve this goal? Of course energy consumption reduction standards have to be raised, all kinds of renewable energies can and should be used.

The area intended as the site is widely unbuilt brown field land; with an amalgamation of, in itself, mono functional infrastructure enriched by suburban type retail premises and housing estates as immediate neighbours – in other words it is the area with all advantages for the allocation of a Green Power Plant.

This new type of urban power generation requires a new type of expression. The advantages of green power generation apart from being CO2 neutral lie in the totally different image and spatial requirements. A green power plant does not have to be secured like an atomic power plant. It does not require huge stockpiles of coal. It requires a fabric of different types of open and possibly accessible spaces – a park environment. Furthermore the green power plant can be a structuring element that can be seen as a product of which the park environment is one of the key ingredients.

But using an area the size of the site in such a strategic - and with the harbour basins cutting it in pieces also uniquely scenic - location only as a site for power generation be it green or not – would be too short reaching. In this context the landscape environment of the park plays a key role as a defining element that ties all the fragments together. It has to give meaning back to an area that has lost its coherence. This means not only the definition of the spaces in-between but - equally important – the definition of how the interface between the found fragments and the newly established environment can function properly and what potential arises for both.

The total fee will be €995,–. This will include accommodation, lunches and dinners, field trips, necessary local transport and a weekend excursion to London.

Mais informações:
http://www.avbr.nl/blog/summerschool.php