{"id":760611,"date":"2024-10-23T08:48:53","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T07:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/?p=760611"},"modified":"2024-10-23T13:32:35","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T12:32:35","slug":"how-sponge-city-rotterdam-is-adapting-to-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/buildings\/how-sponge-city-rotterdam-is-adapting-to-climate-change","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018sponge city\u2019 Rotterdam is adapting to climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the persistent drizzle, the potential can clearly be seen for the curving expanse of the disused Hofbogenlijn rail viaduct to become an elevated linear park. Before I can mention the H-word, Emiel Arends, an urban planner working with Rotterdam\u2019s municipal department, gets in before me: \u2018Yes, it\u2019s our version of the High Line.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an inevitable parallel, if here with more legs than the poor excuses for other \u2018High Lines\u2019 seen in places such as Greenwich. The 6m-wide, 8m-high brick viaduct, which snakes its way across 2km of northern Rotterdam, was originally constructed in 1908 for the first electric railway in The Netherlands but has been disused since 2006. It cuts through dense residential neighbourhoods in which it long acted as a barrier. Now what will be known as the Hofbogenpark will, conversely, be linking the area together again. Its arches and former stations have already been renovated and provide homes for businesses ranging from bike repair shops to Michelin-starred restaurants. Above, the park will incorporate a series of platforms constructed along its length that will provide spaces for community activities and events, each tailored to the needs of local residents after extensive workshopping. One will have tables and benches for working, one a water feature designed for quiet contemplation or place for reading, one a play area for children.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Map of Rotterdam’s ‘Sponge City’<\/p>\n\t

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Dirk van Peijpe, founder of landscape architecture and urbanism practice De Urbanisten, which is leading on the design, also points to its biodiversity and what he calls \u2018nature-inclusivity\u2019: \u2018I spoke with Robert Hammond, one of the originators or kind of father of the New York High Line. He said he was actually jealous of us,\u2019 he laughs. \u2018Because here the elevated element is just a part of a larger network park. It\u2019s interacting with the surrounding streetscapes, with trees planted at ground level alongside in full soil.\u2019 The project also incorporates a circular water system: rainwater is collected on the roof, naturally purified through a sand filter and then stored in attenuation tanks below ground until it is used for irrigating the plants and trees. \u2018It\u2019s designed more as a natural and ecological landscape, compared with the garden architecture of the High Line,\u2019 says van Peijpe. \u2018Piet Oudolf\u2019s designs were more about pleasing plants and nice texture: basically for people. Here a lot of the design is about what animals want. While we need benches, shade and paths, the butterfly, for instance, needs nettles to lay its eggs on. So the investment in this city project was also an investment in an environment for hedgehogs, butterflies, wild bees and toads.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

The Hofbogenpark, for all its ambition, is just one of seven large projects all focused around public space that the municipality of Rotterdam has commissioned across the city. Together they amount to an exercise in urban greening and climate resilience at a scale rarely undertaken.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Hofbogenpark (credit: De Urbanisten)<\/p>\n

The projects range from the climate adaptation and greening of major existing public spaces to the revitalisation of more marginal districts. At the inner-city Hofplein, an iconic gathering place in the way Trafalgar Square is to London, car lanes are being reduced to prioritise pedestrians and cycling. Further afield, a new tidal park is being laid out adjacent to the relocated Feyenoord football stadium on the Maas River delta. Six of the projects, including the Hofbogenpark, will form a new \u2018green axis\u2019 cutting through the city, in total representing a massive extension of its green and blue infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Of course, The Netherlands, famous for its dykes, is no stranger to large environmental infrastructure projects, particularly when it comes to land reclamation and protection against inundation by the sea. And Rotterdam, built on a delta, has always been especially vulnerable. The sea still poses a threat from rising tides caused by climate change. But, having been bombed in the Second World War and rebuilt with an excess of concrete, roads and hard-surfaced public spaces, the city is also vulnerable to flooding from the heavy rain fronts that are now becoming increasingly common.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past decade a number of initiatives in the city have sought to find ways to mitigate this risk. Most notable is Watersquare Benthemplein, which was completed in 2013, another project commissioned by the municipality\u00a0 <\/span>and designed by De Urbanisten. This piloted a concept since copied around the world. The square contains three stepped, sunken areas that, for 70 per cent of the year, can be sat around, skated, or serve as small performance auditoria. In wet months, however, these sunken areas become basins: surface attenuation tanks which hold excess rainwater run-off, appearing as water features in the square.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Sponge Garden, 2019 (credit: De Urbanisten)<\/p>\n\t

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The project also piloted a funding model, whereby municipal funds assigned to drainage and sewage could be redeployed to simultaneously finance\u00a0 <\/span>and create high-quality public space.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Another pilot project De Urbanisten initiated in 2018-19 was the creation of a \u2018sponge garden\u2019. Drawing on the \u2018sponge city\u2019 concept first developed in China, this explored how nature-based solutions \u2013 soil and planting types and permeable surfaces \u2013 could help both combat flooding and store rainwater for harvesting in times of drought.<\/span><\/p>\n

The scale of these climate-resilient measures across the city was supercharged in 2018, when Bert Wijbenga, the then vice-mayor for enforcement, public space, integration and community, challenged his department to come up with an idea to radically increase green space across the city.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Sponge city concept (credit: De Urbanisten)<\/p>\n\t

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\u2018He gave us three months to come up with a plan,\u2019 recalls Arends. The result became the Seven City Projects. \u2018The idea was not only to create nice green places, but also to enjoy the associated health benefits, climate benefits and economic benefits these would offer. We presented what we came up with to the mayor and vice-mayors, estimating it would cost roughly around \u20ac380 million \u2013 and they actually agreed!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, for once there was actually funding to back up the political will. \u2018There was a happy coincidence that Dutch energy company Eneco, of which the city owned around 30 per cent in stocks, was privatised, so there was a big influx of money, part of which was reserved for city projects,\u2019 explains Arends, who also points out that 10 per cent of the total spent on city projects still has to be financed externally, through real estate developments and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n

The emphasis on public green space was only strengthened by the Covid pandemic. What had originally been five projects became seven with two more \u2013 Alexanderplein on the north-east edge of the city and Rijnhaven, an inner-city dock, which are both linked to adjacent development land. This reflects another city priority: addressing the acute housing shortage in the city, particularly for young people. Between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of housing in Rotterdam is state-provided and the city currently has an overall target of 50,000 more units.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Rijnhaven (credit: City of Rotterdam)<\/p>\n\t

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Both the Alexanderplein and Rijnhaven projects are adjacent to metro stops. \u2018The idea is very much to cluster development around public transport to reduce car use,\u2019 says Chantal Zeegers, vice-mayor for construction, housing and climate, who, together with Vincent Karremans, Wijbenga\u2019s successor, is now leading the Seven City Projects on the City Council.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Asked about the potential for tension between environment and development that\u2019s evident even in her job title, she told the Rotterdam Central District website: \u2018The focus on renewable energy goes hand-in-hand with housing, because sustainable development is the future. We need to be thinking about climate adaptation, effectively integrating renewable energy and circular construction. My portfolios align very well, since the climate challenge extends particularly to the built environment.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

This delicate balance between environment and development is perhaps best seen at the Rijnhaven site, where an 18ha park and new city beach are currently being created by US practice Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. These are being formed by 1.4 million m3<\/sup> of sand, which is being dredged and brought by barge twice a day to be pumped onto the site. The dock will have two \u2018floating park\u2019 pontoons for swimmers besides the beach. Behind the beach, towers between 100m and 250m high will rise above an 11-storey podium block. This development will provide 3,000 homes plus shops and restaurants. New cultural venues will include the relocated Netherlands Fotomuseum, which will open at the end of 2025 in a former coffee warehouse retrofitted by Hamburg-based RHWZ Architekten and Rotterdam\u2019s WDJArchitecten.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While not exactly Dubai, the emphasis at Rijnhaven is clearly as much on new housing and commercial development as green open space \u2013 van Peijpe admits he is somewhat critical of this in terms of the funding: \u2018The two additional projects are not purely about investment of public money in green infrastructure but are really integrated in super-large-scale commercial developments. Of course, these are important for the city, but my critique would be that the development should pay for the green spaces in these cases.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

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Rijnhaven (credit: City of Rotterdam)<\/p>\n\t

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He also thinks the design of the park at Rijnhaven could have worked harder environmentally: \u2018There\u2019s a beach and a little bit of tidal nature, but the water itself is sort of a dump for all kinds of floating stuff \u2013 pontoons for swimming, etc. Rotterdam is part of a delta landscape dominated by the interaction between the sea, rivers and tide: I think you could be a little bit more radical about reintroducing original nature into the urban environment. It could have been more like a tidal park, which would be powerful and dynamic in the middle of the city.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly a world away from the Keilehaven site further down the river, where his practice has just completed a tidal park in a disused dock. Gabions made up from recycled demolition waste are already banked up with silt, sandbanks and reeds, while wild geese now settle in grasses next to the dock where once was hardstanding. The project received a Nature-Inclusive Building and Design Award this year, cited for its integration of nature into every aspect of the design and its scalability to other delta locations. \u2018It\u2019s part of a strategy to enhance the river\u2019s qualities as a central, green public space and to offer people a stronger experience of the dynamism of the delta,\u2019 says van Peijpe.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Back at Hofbogenpark, we go down a stair that pops out above a former station and get a coffee from the new caf\u00e9 below. It\u2019s a project that nicely combines retrofit and regeneration with climate-resilient features that build on De Urbanisten\u2019s previous projects: climate-adaptive public space; a circular water system and nature-inclusive planting and design features, from hedgehog bridges upwards.<\/p>\n

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Keilehaven Tidal Park, 2024 (credit: De Urbanisten)<\/p>\n\t

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It\u2019s this more granular level of design and detailing that\u00a0 <\/span>Niels de Zwart, an ecologist and director of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, sees as the key to increasing biodiversity across the city. Ideas for it are explored in an exhibition he has curated \u2013 National Park Rotterdam \u2013 at the museum. \u2018Every building should incorporate a bat or bird box and green roofs should be compulsory,\u2019 he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He sees city and planning policy as crucial for the wider aims: \u2018I think we should be adding biodiversity to the max to every development at the front of the process \u2013 not just a bit of green at the end. Every development should have to show a biodiversity net gain and there should be a system of habitat banking.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

A key question, though, is how to leverage finance for climate-resilient measures, usually seen as just added cost. It\u2019s something economist Mark Bode is exploring in the work of his organisation Rebel Flora and Fauna. \u2018We look at nature-based solutions to climate resilience and how to finance these,\u2019 he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Watersquare Benthemplein concept (credit: De Urbanisten)<\/p>\n\t

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He points out that it\u2019s not just about capital costs, but also maintenance, which often accounts for 40 per cent of the total. \u2018You need to be able to show up-front the monetisable benefits, not just the costs. It\u2019s not just the more immediate ones \u2013 water retention, cooling, drought avoidance \u2013 but also less obvious ones such as the reduction in long-term healthcare needs.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018There should be benchmarks for climate-adaptive and nature positive developments. You need to be able to show that it\u2019s cheaper to design measures in from the start.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He says careful monitoring of the Seven City Projects \u2013 post-occupancy evaluation for their animal and human users alike \u2013 \u2018will be crucial in developing a business case for how to make these things replicable\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For all the inherent tensions, the sheer ambition of Rotterdam\u2019s Seven City Projects and the linking of development and environmental agendas is impressive, if not perfect. It shows what\u2019s possible if the political will is there \u2013 albeit enabled in part by a cash windfall. It\u2019s the granular design features in the projects on site that impress, too: making \u2018immense differences from many small moves\u2019, as van Peijpe puts it, making for \u2018a gentler city\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hofbogenpark<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Hofbogenpark (credit: De Urbanisten)<\/p>\n\t

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A 2km-long city park on the roof of a former railway viaduct, designed to create a natural environment for local residents and visitors to walk, meet and relax in greenery, in added spaces such as balconies and with larger platforms for other activities. It is also designed to increase biodiversity and to be nature-inclusive \u2013 with access points and bridges up for animals such as hedgehogs \u2013 while providing cooling shade in the summer. It incorporates a self-sustaining water system, with rainwater collected and stored in attenuation tanks to help combat both flooding and drought.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Start on site <\/b>2025 | Completion <\/b>2026 (first phase), end of 2027 (full completion) | Project costs <\/b>\u20ac53.7 million (roof park), \u20ac75 million (total, including bridge over A20 road and greening of surrounding streets) <\/b>| Gross site area <\/b>10,450m2<\/sup> (total area of greenery on site) with 1,000m2<\/sup> water <\/b>| Client <\/b>Municipality of Rotterdam | Landscape architect\/designer <\/b>De Urbanisten | Planting plan<\/b>\u00a0DS Landscape Architecture | Entrances and balconies design <\/b>Bureau Van Eig <\/b>| Inspection path design <\/b>Tak Architects | Lighting plan <\/b>Atelier Light and Color | Roof construction and water storage consultant <\/b>De Dakdokters and Wavin | Advice on technical installations for ponds on the roof <\/b>HB Watertechniek | Advice on technical structure of the helophyte filter <\/b>Field Factors <\/b>| Construction of Hofbogenpark test set-up <\/b>De Dakdokters <\/b>| Main contractor <\/b>TBC <\/b>| Landfill contractor<\/b>\u00a0Boskalis<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rijnhaven<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Rijnhaven (credit: City of Rotterdam)<\/p>\n\t

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This central, previously industrial, pentagonal harbour (see top image<\/em>) is being reformed with a new 18ha city-centre park, partly on land, partly floating, and a mixed-use district. Part of the harbour is being filled in order to create the park and a city beach. About 3,000 new homes (up to 50 per cent designated social and affordable), workspaces, shops, restaurants and social facilities will be arranged in blocks between 100m and 250m tall between the park and Posthumalaan Street, with the partly floating areas of park on jetties accessible from quays. The nearby Wilhelminaplein and Rijnhaven metro stations serve the site and cyclists and pedestrians will have priority around the harbour. Cross-water transport will also be provided.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Start on site<\/b>\u00a02027 | Expected completion <\/b>2029 (park), 2040 (housing and full development) | Project cost<\/b>\u00a0circa \u20ac24 million (park, not including landfill costs), \u20ac120 million (public works) | Gross site area<\/b>\u00a058,000m2<\/sup> | Client<\/b>\u00a0Municipality of Rotterdam | Landscape architects<\/b>\u00a0MVVA (Michael van Valkenburgh Associates) with the municipality\u2019s designers | Main contractor<\/b>\u00a0TBC | Landfill contractor<\/b>\u00a0Boskalis<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Keilehaven Tidal Park\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Keilehaven Tidal Park (credit: De Urbanisten)<\/p>\n\t

<\/p><\/p><\/div>\n

This park occupies a former industrial dock on the banks of the Maas River, transforming it into an ecologically valuable area that is ever-changing, as parts of the park are accessible only at low tide. This results in a dynamic public space, which both enhances biodiversity and also offers visitors encounters with nature. Kingfishers, dragonflies, cormorants and geese are already being attracted to the increasingly rich underwater life. The park combines recreational and educational functions with circular construction practices, reusing and recycling local materials such as quay cobblestones and demolition waste for the filling of gabions.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Start on site <\/b>2024 | Completion <\/b>2024 | Project cost<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>Undisclosed | Gross site area <\/b>10,548m\u00b2 | Client <\/b>Municipality of Rotterdam | Designer <\/b>De Urbanisten in collaboration with ARK Nature Development and the City of Rotterdam<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Watersquare Benthemplein<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Watersquare Benthemplein (credit: De Urbanisten)<\/p>\n\t

<\/p><\/p><\/div>\n

This was a pilot project for a family of \u2018water squares\u2019 designed with a twofold strategy in mind: to create an attractive public space giving identity to a neighbourhood while providing storm water storage \u2013 all in one space. It has increased urban climate resilience while also piloting a new way to fund high-quality public realm, with the square largely financed by the city\u2019s water management department. The design was jointly conceived with local residents, students and members of an adjacent church, youth theatre and gym. The three stepped basins collect rain water through large stainless steel gutters but are used for skateboarding, informal theatre or just relaxing around when they are dry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Start on site <\/b>2012 | Completion<\/b>\u00a02013 | Project cost<\/b>\u00a0\u20ac4 million | Gross site area <\/b>9,500m2<\/sup> | Client<\/b>\u00a0Rotterdam Climate Initiative, City of Rotterdam, supported by Waterboard Schieland & Krimpenerwaard | Designer <\/b>De Urbanisten | Engineer<\/b>\u00a0City of Rotterdam Engineering Bureau | Contractor <\/b>Wallaard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the persistent drizzle, the potential can clearly be seen for the curving expanse of the disused Hofbogenlijn rail viaduct to become an elevated linear park. Before I can mention the H-word, Emiel Arends, an urban planner working with Rotterdam\u2019s municipal department, gets in before me: \u2018Yes, it\u2019s our version of the High Line.\u2019 It\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32845,"featured_media":761097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"ep_exclude_from_search":false},"categories":[706],"tags":[3520,2315,101351,2483,1974,6211],"yoast_head":"\nHow \u2018sponge city\u2019 Rotterdam is adapting to climate change<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Dutch city is creating public spaces that balance development with increased biodiversity. 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