Placemaking Week Europe 2024 - Rotterdam

Placemaking Week Europe is the largest placemaking festival in Europe

Every year at Placemaking Week Europe, placemakers from around the world come together each year in a new host city to present expertise and ideas, share projects, discuss placemaking strategies and methodology, and work together with city municipalities to launch new placemaking initiatives in-situ. It is the most embedded urban festival in Europe with the distinct mission of creating better cities, together.

Placemaking is the approach of building communities around a place, and places by communities. People are invited to reimagine and reinvent public spaces collectively. Placemaking connects economic and social well-being, as well as, quality of life strategically. Builds on the human need for prosperity, sociability and security. The movement builds on more than 50 years of experience in more than 50 countries.

The festival’s co-host city for 2024 is Rotterdam, Netherlands!

Rotterdam is known for its harbor, lively cultural life, modern architecture and… placemaking. The extensive distribution system including rail, roads, and waterways have earned Rotterdam the nicknames "Gateway to Europe" and "Gateway to the World." The city’s nightlife is filled with diversity. Glamorous cocktail bars and classic pubs, hip and happening dance clubs and intimate concert venues. Rotterdam also has a varied architectural landscape, including skyscrapers designed by architects such as Rem Koolhaas, Piet Blom and Ben van Berkel. Rotterdam exhibits impressive examples of placemaking and sets a stage for a future of initiatives that cater to diverse groups and that address complex issues across various topics in the city.

In Rotterdam, during Placemaking Week Europe 2024, you can explore the hidden forces in placemaking and aspects of the process that are vital for innovation. Engage in inventive thinking and explore how this can contribute to making your city a more inclusive, resilient, and dynamic urban environment. In this quest we team up with local heroes who sometimes navigate beyond existing power structures to create a sense of place. Next to that we invite you to join the discussion on how to acknowledge and ensure placemaking in the systemic reality.

Join us in Rotterdam, let’s create space to make a lasting place!

Rotterdam Tourist Information | Rotterdam Info

Rotterdam is a bold, forward, and dynamic city in the Netherlands. It is Europe's largest seaport and home to people from all corners of the world. Time and time again, the city has had to forge its own path and collectively build – from rebellious creatives to legislators, and from neighborhood leaders to project developers. Everyone has played their part in creating the current vibrant city.

Rotterdam is in a constant flux, with a changing harbor, ongoing urban transformations, a growing emphasis on individual expression, and residents with evolving needs. There is also a growing call for a more balanced relationship with water, nature, and addressing climate change. This all leads to a competition for public space and a demand for an innovative and flexible approach to create spaces where people feel a sense of belonging. That is why Rotterdam is working hard to support, protect and utilize placemaking and placemakers for society and the economy.

Explore Rotterdam like a do-rist (dorotterdam.com)

This Year's Main Venue

Our home base for the week will be at The Keilepand, located in the Rotterdam Makers District of Merwe-Vierhavens (M4H) Rotterdam, is a special site that tells an impressive placemaking story:

The Keilepand has been transformed by GROUP A in collaboration with studioADAMS from a pre-war fruit and vegetable shed into an activity-based building where similar-minded entrepreneurs give meaning to a sustainable future.

The building is a cultural and culinary breeding ground, where passionate entrepreneurs from various disciplines work on their creative ambitions, in the unique mix of making, doing and dreaming that characterizes the Keile Collective.

With various activities such as the lecture series AANKEILEN and CARBON STORIES and exhibitions on themes related to the area development of M4H, the KeileCollectief connects knowledge and experience to the environment. In this way, the users of the building participate in an innovative way in the organic transition of the future living-working area and the Keilepand is the place where the M4H community meets.

The Keile Collective addresses, initiates, and participates in current spatial challenges in its own unique way and, with the Keilepand as its home base, it forms a catalyst for urban renewal. Click here to read more about the ongoing transition of the Keilepand and the surrounding area.

This year's themes:

Placemaking Europe explores transversal topics like gender-inclusive urbanism, multigenerational places, place-based economic development, technology and data, inclusive prosperity, creative bureaucracy, arts & culture.

This year's festival will focus in 4 overarching themes that correlate both with the state of placemaking in the city of Rotterdam, as well as the city's future goals, and important timely topics in the larger world of placemaking:

1. Creating Place & Making It Last
2. Climate Adaptation: Together Towards Change
3. Living with Water: The Flow of the City
4. Local Power & The Battle for Space

To read more about this year's festival and themes, visit the Placemaking Week Europe website.

Hands-On in the City

A major part of this year's festival will be incorporating visits and workshops at local placemaking site visits across the city. This will be a unique part of Placemaking Week Europe 2024 in Rotterdam - we will interweave our work and our learnings with the fabric of the city in a number of capacities. Get ready to immerse yourself in this year's festival more than ever before!

Find out more about Placemaking Week Europe 2024 - Rotterdam here!