Riverside Commons
2024
Location
Rotterdam, Netherlands
Area
18 hectares
Client
Verdant City Council
Services
Masterplanning, urban design, public realm, and landscape architecture.
A shipyard that sat behind a fence for sixty years is now a neighborhood. Housing, workshops, and public gardens knit the site back into Rotterdam, and the river becomes the front door again.
Context
For sixty years the former shipyard was a fenced-off industrial site that separated Rotterdam’s neighborhoods from their own river. The city wanted housing and jobs on the site, but not another private enclave with the river as a backdrop.
The site also carried history. Slipways, cranes, and brick workshops still stood, and the community had strong feelings about what should be kept.
Concept
We started by cutting streets and paths through the site so it connects with the neighborhoods on either side. Housing blocks of varied height sit behind a continuous public promenade, and the old slipways became a chain of gardens that step down to the water.
Four of the original workshops were kept and converted into studios, a market hall, and a community kitchen. New buildings borrow their brick, scale, and rhythm, so old and new read as a single district rather than a before-and-after.
Materials & Sustainability
Brick, steel, and timber from the demolished sheds were reused in the new public spaces and paving, cutting embodied carbon and keeping traces of the yard’s history visible.
Stormwater is captured in the garden terraces and slipways, easing pressure on the city’s drainage and creating habitat along the river. The district runs on a shared heat network, and cars are kept to the edges of the site.
Credits
Client: Verdant City Council
Design Team: Otlo Architecture Studio, Copenhagen
Landscape Architect: Delta Landscape Office
Civil Engineer: Maas Infrastructure
Photography: [Photographer Name]
Every Great Space Starts Somewhere.
Head Office
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Copenhagen, DK