Project Details
- Project Name
- The Luchtsingel
- Location
- Netherlands
- Client/Owner
- City of Rotterdam
- Project Types
- Other
- Project Scope
- New Construction
- Year Completed
- 2015
- Shared by
- Selin Ashaboglu
- Project Status
- Built
Project Description
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
The Luchtsingel is open. Decades after their
separation, the 400-meter-long pedestrian bridge has reconnected three
districts in the heart of Rotterdam. The Luchtsingel was initiated and designed
by the Rotterdam-based architects ZUS and is the world's first piece of public
infrastructure to be accomplished mostly through crowdfunding. Together with
the new public spaces, including the Delftsehof, Dakakker, Pompenburg Park, and
the Hofplein Station Roof Park, a 'three-dimensional cityscape' has arisen.
'Based on the idea of Permanent Temporality, the
Luchtsingel introduces a new way of making a city. This means using the city's
evolutionary character and existing forms as a starting point. Therefore, we
have developed new instruments for design, financing, and planning', Elma van Boxel,
partner at ZUS, said in the release.
When, in 2011, it was announced that a planned office development in
Rotterdam Central District had been cancelled, leaving many existing office
spaces vacant as a result, ZUS decided to take matters into their own hands.
They used a former office building, the Schieblock, to develop a city
laboratory, which currently acts as an important incubator for young
entrepreneurs. With its ground-floor store, bar, culinary workshop, information
centre, and its rooftop field called the Dakakker, Europe’s first urban farming
roof, it has become a prototype for sustainable development.
Next followed the Delftsehof, which became one of Rotterdam's most
vibrant nightlife areas, and then the child-friendly Pompenburg Park, where a
vegetable garden has been landscaped next to a playground. The roof of the
former Hofplein Station is currently being developed as a green space and
events terrain. Additionally, the Hofpoort, a huge, empty office tower in the
area, will be programmed by ZUS for the coming two years. These varied and new
public spaces return this former heart of Rotterdam back to being green and livable,
with the Luchtsingel running throughout as a unifying factor. By simply
increasing accessibility for pedestrians, the 400-meter-long bridge will ensure
synergy between the various sites. It is now the norm to walk from the Station
Quarter to the North, and to the Laurenskwartier via Pompenburg. These
distinctive connections give the area a unique position in Rotterdam's urban
fabric.
'The Luchtsingel, together with the transformed
buildings and new public spaces, forms a new three-dimensional cityscape', Kristian Koreman, partner at ZUS, said in the release.
The Process
ZUS devised the Luchtsingel plan in 2011. In 2012, as co-curators of the
International Architecture Biënnale Rotterdam (IABR), the station area was
renamed ‘Test Site Rotterdam’. It consisted of eighteen interventions, all
connected by one continuous route: the Luchtsingel. For financing, the 'I Make
Rotterdam' crowd-funding campaign was started; for €25 anyone could buy a board
inscribed with their name, and over 8000 boards were sold. In 2012, the
'Luchtsingel' won the Rotterdam City Initiative, which enabled further
financing of the project.
Award Winning Design
In 2012, the Luchtsingel plan won the Rotterdam City Initiative. It was
then awarded the 2012 Green Building Award, the Berlin Urban Intervention Award
in 2013, the 2014 Rotterdam Architecture Award, and was nominated for the
Golden Pyramid and the Dutch Construction Award in 2015.