Photographs

The square Noordplein is one of the few large, urban spaces in Rotterdam. Because of its location close to the river Rotte and the city centre the square could potentially play a more significant role in the urban life of the city. However, the square lacks life and culture due to the poor quality of its architectural borders. In the study project a series of interventions have been explored that could contribute to an improvement of the situation.

The proposals take the building block 'Het Oude Noorden' as a starting point. The large housing block arranged around two publicly accessible green inner courts dominates the western part of the square. Due to its outdated and poor architectural quality, its introverted character and its mono-functionality the block forms a defensive, suburban island rather than contributing to the urban quality of the public space.

The basic idea behind the more detailed design proposals is an underground parking garage in one or both of the inner courtyards to reduce the number of cars and allow for a different use of the public space. The next step is the improvement of the plinth of the building block in order to strengthen the relationship between interior and public space, adding more spatial and programmatic quality to the existing structure. On a third level interventions have been developed to improve the quality of the semi-public spaces along the river and the Hofdijk, the inner courtyards and the roof landscape of the building block by the addition of extra functions (villas and extra garden rooms), the replacement and the redesign of the ground floor façades and storages and the privatisation and improvement of the public green areas (i.e. private front gardens along the Hofdijk instead of a public lawn with parking spaces).