We started out at 6:30 this morning, and headed to Rotterdam. Rotterdam is the second largest city in the country.
Rotterdam was bombed heavily during the war, so had to be almost entirely rebuilt. Unlike other cities that tried to honor the historical architecture, Rotterdam just started from scratch and is a little insane.
The city also had a really challenging time 20 years ago. High unemployment (due in large part do the ports becoming automated) resulted in high drug use and high crime. They studied the crime, and found that on average, a drug user committed 8 petty crimes per week to maintain their drug use. That crime was leading to huge livability issues, which was driving a lot of employers from Rotterdam, making the unemployment even worse – leading to more unhoused and drug use, and then more crime.
The city basically engaged with the drug users – including creating safe locations for them to do drugs, and even providing drugs – in addition to trying to help them break the habit. It was a 5 year investment, but dramatically reduced drug use, the unhoused, and the crime in the community. The city simultaneously invested in landmark development, to get back on the map as a destination – and it worked.
Markthal
The Markthal was our first official stop. It’s a super funky building, which includes food, recreation, living and parking. It is a play off a traditional market square/city square, that is (you guessed it) square, and normally surrounded on all 4 sides by buildings. Their idea here was to integrate the building into the square – and as a great side effect of that, the park area (or “square”) actually winds up having some climate protection as well, which makes the public space more usable than space in the midwest, for example.
It includes 228 apartments, 1,200 below ground parking stalls, and 96 retail spaces – fresh fish, coffee, retail shopping, etc. There is also a HUGE mural – 11,000 square meters which is the equivalent of a lot of square feet.
Those squares in the mural are actually windows from the apartments, looking into the food hall.
The building facade is described as a glass tennis racket – each of the panes, though connected, are also flexible – think of a tennis ball pushing back the strings in the racket. The wall can basically move about 1 meter (in strong winds, etc)
The project was built to be “Paris Proof” which means it is designed for the economy to be fully powered by zero carbon energy by 2050 and to meet net zero emissions targets under the Paris Climate Agreement. In case you’ve forgotten, the US was in it (under Biden) then out (under Trump) then in (under Biden) then out (under Trump.) Meanwhile, the keystone pipeline had a spill today in the Dakotas, in case you’re keeping score.
The Queen even came for the ribbon cutting, which was a huge deal as the monarchy normally only attended this for public institutions, versus this private real estate project. The project now has 8m visitors per year.
SAWA
Then we went to Sawa, which is a projected located on the Lloyd Pier. It is the first 50 meter high (164′, I think, or around 12 stories?) wooden (mass timber) residential building in the area. In theory, wood is a more sustainable building product, and it is also pretty 🙂
They had to work with code officials because a number of their construction techniques were new. There’s actually gravel in between the floors, to help with stability and noise transfer. The units also have automatic CO2 sensors, which will open exterior vents if they think the air is unbalanced.
This project has 109 homes, some rental and some owner-occupied, for humans.
It also includes 140 nesting boxes – or home for birds, basically.
It also includes public space which they call “superfluous” but was pretty nice. In two years, it will also be covered in landscaping (it gets planted in about a week) so the building will literally be green. All of the solid wood blocks on the left, stepping up, are planter boxes that will be maintained by professional gardners twice a year.
They have a small amount of car parking on the base level, which is concrete instead of wood. Code will not allow electric cars to be parked in wooden garages, because “teslas are always on fire.”
They told us they assume Trump builds towers out of gold, and they build theirs out of German spruce – which is why their tower is also “Paris Proof.”
Metro 010
Last stop of the day was initially a bit confusing. I thought we were going to learn about some mass transit lines, or a cool metro stop/project. They tricked us though; it’s actually a book, which takes you through the history of the area – starting with a dam in the Rotte river, to Rotterdam become established as a port, to the bombardment (that’s how they refer to the war), and then reconstruction. The book was created by 19 illustrators, 4 poets, 2 photographers, and 4 historians. Their belief is that once you get to know something, you love it; and once you love something, you take care of it.
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