Revitalisation for Brainpark Rotterdam
The design ‘Building Upon Brainpark’ proposes to revitalise the Brainpark area in Rotterdam by making the area more visible to local residents and users of the location. The design by BK alumni Kevin Westerveld, Nima Morkoç, Hedwig van der Linden, and master student Lars Kloeg was selected as a special mention in the Europan 15 x Productive Rotterdam design competition.
Europan 15 is a European competition of urban and architectural projects leading to implementation, conducted in partnership with European municipalities, local authorities and clients. The collaboration with the Rotterdam municipality focuses on the theme ‘Productive Rotterdam: new gateways to the productive city’. The ambition of the city is to transform the selected locations from monofunctional business areas to innovative urban districts.
For the Brainpark I area, contestants were challenged to present a densification strategy that unlocks the productive potential of the site. This includes setting the transformation in motion from a monofunctional business area along the motorway to a healthy, vital and interactive work-and-live milieu that is well-connected to the nearby university campus and public transport hub Kralingse Zoom. The most important challenge for this location is to provide it with a new identity.
The jury was pleased with the way in which the project by BK alumni and student Kevin Westerveld, Nima Morkoç, Hedwig van der Linden, and Lars Kloeg proposes to make the area more visible to local residents and users of the location. The design team uses the entire Brainpark area for new construction. This prevents a thick ring of buildings from forming at its edges and hiding the grounds from sight, while preserving the green character of the public space. The design was selected as a special mention out of 16 entries for this specific site. The deisgn team will continue with the project in 2020 by exploring how their idea can be implemented in practice.
Find out more about the twelve Europan winners for Rotterdam here, including the full jury report.
