New European Bauhaus Prizes 2023

Project category

Identify the award category for which this project is being submitted
Regaining a sense of belonging

Email user
annabel@rotterdamsedakendagen.nl

Basic information
Project title
Rotterdam Rooftop Walk 2022

Full Project Title
Rotterdam Rooftop Walk - experience the potential of urban rooftops

Please provide a short, catchy description of your project to be used in communication towards the public.
In one month, over 200.000 visitors experienced the Rotterdam Rooftop Walk. Stairways attached to the exterior of buildings provided access to monumental rooftops, connected by a bridge suspended 30 metres above the city’s main thoroughfare. This installation and exhibition presented an urban landscape where public space continues on the rooftop level, uncovering the untapped potential of rooftop space in Rotterdam as well as other densely populated cities worldwide.

What was the geographical scope of your project?
National

Where was your project implemented?
Member State(s) and Western Balkans
Netherlands

If relevant, insert names of region(s)/municipality(ies) involved
Rotterdam
Zuid-Holland

Does your project address mainly urban or rural issues?
Mainly urban

Does your project refer to a physical transformation of the built environment or other types of transformations (hard or soft investments)?
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)

Has your project benefited from EU programmes and/or funds?
Yes

Which fund(s)?
Creative Europe

Here you can provide more details about the name of the specific programme, strand/action line as relevant, and the year
Rotterdamse Dakendagen is part of the European Creative Rooftop Network, supported by Creative Europe 2021-2024

Has your project won an EU prize with a monetary value awarded?
No

Is your project fully completed
Yes

Please indicate a date (mm/yy)
2022-06-26

On whose behalf are you submitting the application?
As a representative of an organisation
Please provide the contact details for the project promoter (the individual or representative of the organisation authorised to represent the project)
- Name of the organisation(s): Rotterdamse Dakendagen
  Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation
  First name of representative: Nikki
  Last name of representative: Kamps
  Gender: Female
  Nationality: Netherlands
  Function: Direcotr
  Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Heemraadsplein 8b
  Town: Rotterdam
  Postal code: 3023 BC
  Country: Netherlands
  Direct Tel: +31 6 28151329
  E-mail: info@rotterdamsedakendagen.nl
  Website: https://rotterdamsedakendagen.nl
Social Media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.)
- URL: https://www.instagram.com/dakendagen010/?hl=en
  Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @dakendagen010, #rotterdamrooftopdays #dakendagen
- URL: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rotterdamse-dakendagen/?originalSubdomain=nl
  Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): Rotterdamse Dakendagen (Rotterdam Rooftop Days)
In case my project is selected as a finalist of the NEB Prizes 2023, I agree to share the name (individual and/or organisation’s), email address, website and social media accounts indicated above with other NEB Prizes finalists. I also agree to publish the name (individual and/or organisation’s), website and social media accounts indicated above next to the public description of my project in the channels of the European Commission.
Yes

How did you hear about the New European Bauhaus Prizes?
New European Bauhaus or European Commission websites

Description of the project
Please provide a summary of your project.
Rotterdam Rooftop Walk provided a month of spectacular sights in Rotterdam: from 26 May to 26 June 2022, an audience of over 200.000 people experienced how rooftops can contribute to a better future for densifying cities. The project was initiated, designed and executed by the organisation Rotterdamse Dakendagen, an NGO that (among other things) organises and curates events on rooftops as a way of promoting utilising rooftop space towards a more sustainable future in urban environments.

The Rotterdam Rooftop Walk was an installation consisting of stairs and bridges, connecting rooftops to the ground level via the exterior of monumental buildings in the city’s commercial district. The intent was for a large audience to experience the potential of flat rooftops as an extension of public space, providing opportunities for green spaces, recreation, cultural and artistic expression, sports, energy generation and water retention. It presented a tangible and vibrant vision of the future for densifying urban areas: the layered city. The eye-catching route featured a 60 metre bridge suspended 30 metres above Rotterdam’s main thoroughfare and was constructed with scaffolding and other reusable materials.

The Rotterdam Rooftop Walk told the story of a better future for cities worldwide, focussing on the wellbeing of its inhabitants and visitors. Programmed along the route, audiences experienced an exhibition of surprising, creative and innovative forms of rooftop use, curated in co-creation with designers, architects, landscape architects and artists alike. https://rooftopwalk.nl/programme-overview/?lang=en

204,000 tickets were sold for the temporary walkway, which was accessible for 32 days. The audience was diverse, local, regional, national and international. The relevance was clear to all groups, for this is not just the story of Rotterdam, but the story of the untapped potential of rooftops in cities worldwide.

Please indicate the main themes of your project with 5 key words.
Utilisation of rooftop space as untapped urban potential

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
Agency and awareness of civilians in sustainability

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
Arts and culture interconnected with other sectors

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
Cross-sectoral cooperation and co-creation

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
Urban social design

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of sustainability and how these have been met. Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context.
The key objectives in our project were awareness and engagement: letting a large and wide audience experience the possibilities of urban rooftop utilisation for a sustainable urban environment.

Rooftops offer a wealth of space that is most often overlooked because of a lack of vision, technical knowhow, policy initiatives and cultural awareness. Only through cooperation and co-creation between private, non-profit and commercial sectors can this resource be utilised on a large scale. However, this requires a sense of urgency and imagination. We must be able to see ourselves using rooftops, in order to believe it. By providing access to a usually inaccessible space and by doing so on a massive scale, we wanted to completely forgo the exclusivity that is often relegated to rooftop space when it is used. We wanted to focus on accessibility in the broadest sense of the word, lowering the literal and figurative threshold and making rooftop space public and inclusive. And while occupying this space we sought to engage the general public, in a positive and joyful way, with hard-to-grasp themes of urban sustainability and transition.

We were able to meet these objectives only through cooperation with local, national and international partners. We have welcomed over 200.000 visitors who rated the experience with an 8.7 out of 10. The press coverage was overwhelming, reaching 130 million recorded views in the Netherlands and 457 million outside of the Netherlands.

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of aesthetics and quality of experience for people (through design, positive emotions and cultural benefits) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context.
This project literally gave a new perspective to the future city. Firstly via an unavoidable eye-catcher in the city centre: a bridge connecting two buildings, high above the city’s main thoroughfare, with exterior stairways connecting the street level to the rooftops. The installation itself was a temporary architectural intervention, co-designed by Rotterdamse Dakendagen with internationally renowned firms MVRDV and LOLA Landscape Architects among others. By connecting monumental, post-war buildings de Bijenkorf and WTC Rotterdam it transformed a very well-known cityscape. The use of colour (orange) was deliberate: colour-coding to signify different forms of rooftop use is an internationally recognised practice which originated in Rotterdam. Yellow for energy generation, green for green, red for social use etc. Orange symbolises mobility: using rooftop space to create new ways to get to where you want to go. The bright colour in a concrete jungle had the added benefit of highlighting the installation, especially striking from a bird’s eye view.

It was designed to be a dynamic experience, a route with a beginning and an end: like taking a walk from A to B. The exhibition, with tangible and innovative forms of rooftop use, provided context to the visitor, while never breaking the flow of the walk. Even though the experience took place at great height, the movement was never frantic, stressful or exhilarating. The walk intentionally felt like a meandering stroll, allowing the visitor to muse, take in the sights and think about their environment. By carefully managing the flow (with time slots and constantly adjusting capacity based on the current situation), visitors were constantly entering and exiting the installation, taking a walk without too much waiting or a sense of hurry. This solidified the potential of utilising rooftop space in a casual sense, in everyday life.

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of inclusion (ranging from accessibility and affordability for all to inclusive governing systems, design for all principles or new societal models) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context.
Our conviction is that if you convince a critical number of city dwellers, inhabitants and visitors alike, of the need for sustainable urban transformation, then the architects, project developers and policymakers will follow the popular demand, democratising urban planning and turning the conventional top-down innovation and transformation on its head. Therefore we attempted to remove as many barriers as possible. We charged a very low entrance fee of 3,50 euros, even when demand became far greater than supply. We also adjusted the installation on specific days for visitors who had difficulty walking or used a wheelchair, by adding ramps and other physician alterations. Most of all we wanted to provide the audience with a sense of place, agency and engagement in changing urban environments, showing innovations and best-practice examples of sustainable transformation. But we wanted to design this process to be joyful and dynamic, engaging city dwellers at the forefront of transition instead of bringing them up to speed after the fact.

Please explain the way citizens benefiting from or affected by the project and civil society have been involved in the project and what has been the impact of this involvement on the project
A team of over 350 people, of which 250 volunteers, were involved in creating and managing the intervention. The 200.000 visitors were represented in audience research by almost 1700 respondents. 87% of them claimed that interventions like the Rooftop Walk were important or very important to their feeling connected to the city. In both groups, we appealed to a sense of community and taking pride in your living environment. Their commitment to help build and to visit the project greatly enhanced its significance, amplifying the conversation about the potential of rooftop use.

Please explain how different stakeholders at various levels (local, regional, national, European) were engaged in the design and implementation of the project. Please highlight what the added value of their engagement was.
The municipality and other stakeholders like local businesses, asset managers of buildings and project developers were highly involved in the implementation and success of the project: without their commitment and cooperation the project would not have been successful. Both regional (on the provincial level) and national (ministerial) representatives of government visited the project with delegations, speaking to local representatives and participants and exchanging ideas. European partner cities from the European Creative Rooftop Network (supported by Creative Europe in 2021-2024) provided programming input and visited the installation in an international rooftop knowledge day, meeting with cultural agents and other professionals and discussing rooftop use from their local perspective.

Please explain which disciplines and/ or knowledge fields were reflected in the design and implementation of your project. Please explain how representatives of these different fields interacted with each other, and what the added value of this process was.
Architects, urban designers, landscape architects, urban ecologists and municipal workers (monuments and urban planners) worked together in adapting the initial designs to the actual execution. Experts in energy transition, solar power, water retention, arts and culture, visual arts, heat island effect, industrial design, circular economy, construction, project development worked together in providing input for the exhibition on the rooftops. The cross-sectoral co-creation brought several complex topics together into one audience experience.

Please give information on the results, outcomes and impacts achieved by your project in relation to the category you apply for. This includes also benefits from the project for direct and indirect beneficiaries
We have had over 200.000 visitors, represented in our audience survey of 1667 respondents. They appreciated their visit to the Rooftop Walk with an 8.8 out of a possible 10. Media coverage was 130 M in the Netherlands and 457 M outside of the Netherlands.

Please provide documents showing the results, outcomes and impacts of your project
Web link
Web link
Please highlight the innovative character of the project, when compared to mainstream actions in the field of the project
The innovative character of the project was the playful engagement of a wide audience with urban development, sustainability and (climate) transition, usually discussed by experts among themselves. A positive public conversation through the medium of an urban intervention and an event with local, regional, national and international significance. Similar initiatives have been smaller in scale, simpler in execution and less dynamic.

Please describe the methodology or approach used in your project.
Our approach as an NGO (stichting Rotterdamse Dakendagen) was to bring together our expertise on rooftops and their use as temporary event spaces, with the design expertise of the creative industry and the drive of policy makers and commercial actors to embrace sustainability, social design and new forms of audience participation in urban transitions. We provided these different agents with the opportunity to work together, involving the audience through the medium of a cultural event, greatly lowering their threshold of participation, bringing playfulness, joy and momentum to this placemaking effort.

Please describe which elements of your project could be replicated or transferred to other places, groups of beneficiaries and context. This may involve for example aspects of the methodology, technology, processes, products, learnings etc.
The teachings, learnings and thoughts of this project have already transferred to other places and people. Other cities, both on the national and international level have shown interest in using similar ways of showing the potential of rooftop usage and have asked for and received advice on how to tailor such an event to their specific, local situation.

Please explain what kind of global challenges the project addresses by providing local solutions
Climate change (biodiversity, water retention, heat island effect), Energy transition (solar and wind energy) and social cohesion (providing qualitative public space and encouraging city dwellers to meet each other).
Please attach at least 6 high resolution images (or other types of visual representations, if images are not possible) to your application.
If you would like to upload additional documentation, please upload or write below
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By submitting your application you confirm that you are the copyright owner of the images provided and that they can be used by the European Commission for the purposes of promoting the New European Bauhaus on all platforms (websites, print, social media and other).
Yes

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Yes

By submitting this application, I declare that I am not related to the entities subject to EU restricted measures under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and subject to Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU)1, and entities covered by Commission Guidelines No 2013/C 205/05), which are not eligible to participate in any capacity.
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that all the information provided in this form is factually correct, that you assume sole liability in the event of a claim relating to the activities carried out in the framework of the contest, that the proposed project has not been proposed for the New European Bauhaus Prizes in any other category or strand and that it has not been subject to any type of investigation, which could lead to a financial correction because of irregularities or fraud.
Yes

By submitting your application, you guarantee that you are the author or have the rights to proceed with the application and to authorise the use of the project and that you have obtained any necessary consents, licenses or assignments from third parties and included copyright notices when necessary.
Yes

By submitting your application, you understand that all the applications that meet the eligibility requirements will be shared for the purposes of the selection processes, and notably published on the secured platform prizes.new-european-bauhaus.eu and for the purposes of the promotion of these on the New European Bauhaus website and/or other European Commission communication channels. In this sense, the applications would be widely available. Applicants should ensure that they present their projects, in such a way that they could be shared without giving rise to intellectual property related concerns. If your submission is selected as one of the finalists, it will additionally be shared for the purpose of the public vote that will take place. The European Union is granted a licence to use and share your application with the general public and the official external experts for the purposes of the selection process, including the voting. The European Union has the right to use the images and visual materials and the description provided in the application for communication purposes related to the contest and beyond. Rights granted comprise the right to store, reproduce, display, publish and communicate or distribute copies in electronic or digital format, including, but not only, through the internet. Unless you have disclosed your name, the European Commission has no obligation to share your name when using or disseminating your contribution to the public. The European Union cannot be held responsible in case any submitted project, is found to infringe third party’s rights. The European Union shall be neither responsible for the use that third parties may do of the applications or related content.
Yes

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that you read and understand that the ‘Guide to Applicants’ of the NEB Prizes 2023, available online in the website of the NEB Prizes 2023, is an integral part of this application form and that it must therefore be observed when completing and submitting your application.
Yes