Study trip in Rotterdam
© 2017 LAST
Professor Emmanuel Rey's studio class went on a study trip to Rotterdam. This extra-mural teaching activity was an opportunity for the students to visit various modern and contemporary operations of housing, activity building and public space coming into close resonance with the issues explored within the framework of the LIVING LANDSCAPE design studio.
Architectural design is expected to play an important part in the search for alternatives to reorient urban development through densification strategies. By an approach at different scales, LAST's studio aims precisely at analyzing, exploring and experimenting specific issues to this contribution of architecture to the sustainability of urban areas.
The study trip to the city of Rotterdam was conceived in this spirit, with the objective to allow the students to enhance their reference palette. It was thus the opportunity to visit many emblematic realizations, notably the Justus Van Effen neighborhood (1922) designed by Brinkman, the Kiefhoek neighborhood (1930) designed by J. J. P. Oud, the Van Nelle factory (1931) designed by Van der Vlugt and Brinkman, the Stadstuinen neighborhood (2002) and the Müllerpier neighborhood (2003) developed by KCAP, the Kunsthal (1992) and the Timmerhuis complex (2015) designed by OMA.
The study trip was also enriched by a lecture of Prof. Christian Gilot on the urbanization in the Netherlands at the Kunsthal and a lecture of the architect Jago Van Bergen on visions about food urbanism at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI).
These multiple approaches helped to put into perspective issues of conceptual coherence, built morphology, spatiality, typology and expression with broader themes related to the urban mutation processes, which the majority of European metropolis have to face today.