Makers District

The har­bour of Rot­ter­dam moved sev­er­al times through­out the cen­turies, look­ing for places which could accom­mo­date its growth as well as the increas­ing size of ships. In the 1930s, new har­bour exten­sions were cre­at­ed on the north­ern shore in the west of the city. Most of the area served as fruit har­bour, where e.g. the orange juice sup­ply for the entire Euro­pean hin­ter­land used to be trans­shipped. In recent years, these har­bour activ­i­ties have start­ed to move even fur­ther west, clos­er to the North Sea. The Mer­we- and Vier­havens area is grad­u­al­ly chang­ing its char­ac­ter, trans­form­ing from har­bour to cre­ative breed­ing ground. Many cre­ative com­pa­nies have set­tled in for­mer har­bour build­ings. The munic­i­pal­i­ty pro­motes this devel­op­ment and facil­i­tates exper­i­men­tal projects in the area, which has become known as the Mak­ers District. 

Explore a har­bour area in full tran­si­tion, hous­ing port func­tions as well as mak­er spaces, cre­ative com­pa­nies and urban gar­den­ing projects!

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Programme: Makers District

  • Euro­point Tow­ers: trans­for­ma­tion of 3 office tow­ers into hous­ing (SOM, 1975 / Diederen Dirrix, 2018)

  • Roof park, dike and shop­ping cen­tre Dak­park (Sant en Co, 2014)

  • Fac­to­ry build­ing HAKA (H.F. Mertens, 1932 / WDJA, 2018)
  • Keilepand: from ware­house to cre­ative offices and exhi­bi­tion space (M. Brinkman, 1922 / Group A, 2016)
  • Food Gar­den M4H (Lola Landscape)
  • Auc­tion house Cit­rusveil­ing (H. Maaskant, 1955)
  • Float­ing Farm: world’s first water­bound farm with 50 cows (Gold­smith Com­pa­ny, 2020)

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