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Summerschool

Periode 2009 / Project Summerschool / Opdrachtgever AvBR, dS+V / Locatie Rotterdam


Rotterdam Open City (4iabr) designing co-existence is the theme of the Summerschool 2009 in Rotterdam. Location: a typical seventies housing complex \"Hofdijk or Heliport\' by the architect Jan Verhoeven.

the community 

The idea of the open city is undermined by the existence of homogenous city quarters designed for specific groups of people. A lot of these areas were built from the seventies onwards as a response to typical post-war architecture and planning and were aimed at maximizing a community feeling.
Although in reality most of the inhabitants do not experience this sense of community the quarters are functioning as spatial enclaves that are difficult to penetrate because of their specific design. The Summer School will address this issue by looking for ways to open up these areas, not by completely reconstructing them, but by reinventing them making use of the original ideas behind the conception of these neighbourhoods.

 

Jewel in a box 

An architectural fortress with communal qualities lays hidden behind main infrastructural lines at the edge of the city centre of Rotterdam. Placed in a more businesslike area the Hofdijk Community was seen as a treasure like a ‘jewel in a box’. Passing by no one would notice the hidden qualities as told in stories by inhabitants or experienced by visiting the site at day or at night time. These stories and the future change of the surrounding became the strongest input for the approach to ‘open up the community’. 

 

Students

Joanna, Augustus, Natalia, Christina, Alba, Virgil, Tamara 

 

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