Education

Students help revamp Rotterdam’s Sluisjesdijk Pier

Taking an architectural project all the way from its initial drafting stages to a construction site is a challenging process that requires a great deal of flexibility and imagination.

A team of four current and former students from TU Delft recently had the opportunity to experience this process first hand.

When two architectural students named Pieternella Aten and Wout Kruijer spotted posters around campus advertising a design contest for a project involving Rotterdam’s Sluisjesdijk Pier in the autumn of 2013, they quickly contacted two of their colleagues. Along with Wendy van der Horst and Marieke Oostveen, they named their team Lijn 72 after a local bus stop and got to work.

The team met weekly as they worked on ideas and sketches for a new outdoor entrance and event space at the pier. After a frantic rush to meet the deadline, they submitted their proposal to Veldacademie, the urban development group that hosted the contest. It was later accepted by officials at Rotterdam’s Port Authority.

But Lijn 72’s work wasn’t finished just yet. They rolled up their sleeves and began collaborating with local experts to help make their ideas a reality. In the months that followed, they refined certain elements of their original plan in order to make it more feasible. Everything from the placement of newly planted trees to underground electrical wires required further consideration. “It went quite fluidly,” Aten said. “We got some guidance from the guys at Veldacademie and a person at the Port of Rotterdam so we weren’t all by ourselves. They helped us a lot.”

Through teamwork and collaboration with experts, the team created a refined design. Ground broke on the project last May and the finishing touches were completed earlier this month. The entrance, which officially opened to the public on 21 September, features a unique seating area and plenty of space for outdoor events.

“It was nice that the project was very hands on and practical,” van der Horst said. “It was really great that we got to design something as a team and it’s actually out there and we can see the results.”

Looking back on the process, Kruijer said that he was eager to pursue projects similar to this one in the future. “This was a really good first experience,” he said. “The process of going from the first sketch all the way to building it was something that helped me learned a lot.”

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