Rotterdam Open City [Architecture Summer School] concluded with five group presentations, a roof-top party, and file swapping for the upcoming Biennale.  Our work will be exhibited at the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam Open City – Designing Coexistence, which takes place in Rotterdam from 24 September 2009 to 10 January 2010, as part of the exhibition Parallel Cases // IABR@RDM.  Personally, the summer school/conference was a great opportunity for networking with other students. designers, municipalities, and professionals, and a helpful exercise in managing a group, organizing a presentation, learning more about public and collective space in this hemisphere, and verifying that the PC partition on my laptop is still operational.  It was very much a way for me to reorganize my branner/thesis arguments.

Our final thoughts on the Wijnhaveniland site

New (vertical) urban development often falls victim to patterns of mono-functionality, mute (or inactive) spaces and disconnection from surrounding context.  The insertion of collective space – a recently recognized social zone that seeks to institutionalize certain forms of public interaction – is intended to alleviate some of the social ills of high-rise living and encourage the connection between those living in the towers to activities happening on the ground (life in the sky vs. life on the ground).

This is the context of Rotterdam’s centrally located and 21^st century defining Wijhaveneiland.  In line with the city’s ambitions and intentions, we propose an extremely vertical manifestation of future projects on the island.  We seek to set an urban model for the future development of Rotterdam as an international and global open city, leveraging the notion of collective space to do so.

The high-rise city should be neither purely severed nor wholly conjoined with its surroundings, rather it should exist as a rich integration, or hybrid, of the two.  The concept of ‘3D City’ refers to the rethinking, or challenging, of the current urban landscape to create a multi-directional network of urban space.  A landscape traditionally dominated by the horizontal ground plane grows vertically and becomes a dense network of program, circulation, and public activity.  We raise program while including the street.  The street becomes the fuel to ignite the layers of urbanism above.  Through this, the vertical dimension of Wijhaveneiland retains the critical connection to the city as a whole, while retaining the strong sense of identity and individuality that distinguishes this site.

Our proposal is not a single intervention, but a series of designed and planned public and collective spaces, to be implemented incrementally as the center grows and is inhabited over time.

The city is an armature providing for the confluence of human and economic needs.  A co-existence at all levels and axis is critical to the success of this system, and architecture becomes the tangible interface.

Mid-review, Community group presentation

Studio REFUGE: Sketch models

–noun
1.     shelter or protection from danger, trouble, etc.: to take refuge from a storm.
2.     a place of shelter, protection, or safety.
3.     anything to which one has recourse for aid, relief, or escape.

–verb (used with object)
4.     Archaic. to afford refuge to.
–verb (used without object)
5.     Archaic. to take refuge.

The open city provides people with the freedom to choose how to move through and participate in the city.  (Rotterdam has an advantage of size and density in this sense.)

The majority of Rotterdam’s population is foreign born.  Essentially, we are all refugees seeking to colonize space in the city.  We have the right to public space and we have the right to refuge.  To Refuge is an act and it can be used to connect or disconnect with the public.

Rotterdam-based Zus: Gallery Space

The Team: Studio REFUGE

The Site: Wijnhaveneiland

The Tutor: Harmon van der Wall (Krill Architects)

Over the course of the next two weeks our group, Studio REFUGE, has the task of proposing future development interventions/scenarios that will transform Rotterdam’s original core into a reality consistent with the Open-City philosophy – a collective, attractive (literally, serve as an attractor), and economically strong environment.  We wanted to tap into a design pool familiar with the public spaces of Rotterdam.  We started an archinect discussion about the future potential industries.  See in-progress string here.

Our site has the potential to become the densest part of the city.  We are an island of low, mid, and high-rise development, with plans to go extremely vertical.  Additionally, it is a well connected piece of the city and within walking distance of all major landmarks, neighborhoods, attractions, and regional transit hubs.  On my first day in Rotterdam, I found myself on the island without even realizing I was isolated.  Dutch landscape architects have proposed changes to the area for years.  Why haven’t any of these open space solutions been realized?

I am finding that many threads are connecting the intentions of Open City with my own interests in new cities and new pubic space typologies.  My posts over the course of this program (the next 10 days) might be the stream of consciousness that flows around the nodes of structured studio time.

The concept of 3D city refers to the rethinking, or challenging, of the current urban landscape to create a multi-directional network of urban space.  (Rethinking the orientation of the urban landscape)

The open city philosophy encourages new and abundant activity on the street.  We challenge the traditional orientation and use of streets to activate the city center.

We reorient the city center networks of transportation, circulation, from mainly ground level and horizontal to a highly vertical and three dimensional scenario.

By building upward and outward, we blur the boundaries of building an object and link.  With an image-able vision of a new city center, we explore the possibilities of an architecture of assimilation.

Rotterdam Open City attempts to be an “attractive” city.  A attractor of people, events, activity, and public life.  Visitors in the open city feel welcome, way-find with ease, and enjoy a dynamic set of city amenities.

The investment of two industries will help fuel the transformation.  One is a technological push -to be a leader of digital networking.  The other is related to Design Tourism.

I’m sitting at the cafe of the Maritime Hotel in Rotterdam with Natalia Echeverri (2008 Branner Fellow: Neoliberal Fragments).  We have just arrived for Rotterdam – Open City, the 5th annual Architecture Summer School hosted by the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Urban Design.  It is good to already be acclimated to the city and especially good to see another familiar face.  Looking forward to the opening ceremonies and excited to meet the other students and professors we’ll be working with during the course of the next two weeks.

The workshop is structured around five themes: Collective, Community, Reciprocity, Refuge, and Squat. It will be our task as designers to produce interventions at five sites in the center of Rotterdam that address these respective themes.  I am part of the Refuge group, which will be focused on the temporary withdrawl, or finding a place of retreat, within the center of the city.  Specifically, we will be looking at the high-rise dwelling and grappling with issues and degrees of public and private space.

I am also interested in the agenda of the Collective group.  This group is concerned with the lack of public space in the city and the “kind of urbanity that prevails in most Dutch New Towns.”  This group will examine a strip of Rotterdam and propose new types of collectivism.

A [FLOATING DINNER] around the city introduced us to greater environs tonight.