Location: McEwen School of Architecture, Lecture Hall

1.5 ConEd Learning Hours
1.5 AIA LU
2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

The port city of Rotterdam has reinvented itself over the last 30 years to become attractive again for its residents and businesses. Making the city more social, repopulating the city centre, attracting tourism with iconic buildings, and changing the economy of the city was the first phase. In the second, more ambitious phase, the mostly below-sea-level city is facing challenges regarding climate change in which areas need to be rethought and transformed to be futureproof. Local architecture practice MVRDV has participated in the urban transformation and is a partner for the city today in terms of developing a software that allows the city to analyze and transform the urban landscape based on parametric data.

Learning Objectives
1. Learn about how a city can use high-quality architecture to reignite tourism.
2. Understand how Rotterdam uses temporary installations such as the Rotterdam Rooftop Walk to create understanding and support for large-scale urban transformation.
3. Understand how the temporary installations and their learnings are used as a basis for a parametric software that manoeuvres urban regulations and allows the city to develop toward a resilient future.
4. Learn why and how densification of the city is pursued and how the urban quality is maintained and improved by adding more surface and people.

Jan Knikker is a partner and director of strategy & development at MVRDV, where he drives business development and public relations efforts, spearheading a large and dynamic studio that also includes the office’s visualization capacity. Jan further leads the office’s branding efforts, and MVRDV’s expansion into new markets, by supporting the office’s ambition to generate solutions to global challenges through a multifaceted approach to architecture and urbanism. He regularly lectures at international, commercial, and academic venues in Europe, the United Kingdom, Israel, Colombia, and Australia, and has written and contributed to numerous publications and exhibitions. Jan is a member of the HNI Heritage Network, and Gestaltungsbeirat of the City of Wiesbaden; he led the online design magazine Dafne, and was a member of the International Projects commission of the Netherlands’ Architecture Funds.