Rooftop Walk by MVRDV is located in the Dutch capital Rotterdam, an important port city in the province of South Holland. The project consists of a walkway that allows visitors to tour the city differently.

The walkway is open for one month, coinciding with Rotterdam Architecture Month, and allows visitors to walk through an area of the city across rooftops some thirty meters above the ground.
Designed by Rotterdam Rooftop Days and MVRDV, the highlight of this installation is a bridge that crosses the Coolsingel, one of the most important streets in Rotterdam. The Rooftop Walk by MVRDV aims to give the public a new perspective on the city to citizens and raise awareness of the potential of roofs as a space for use.

The bright orange Rotterdam Rooftop Walk is 600 meters long and offers the public a fantastic view of the city for a month. In the rooftop exhibition, artists, designers, and architects show the possibilities if we use our roofs efficiently for vegetation, water storage, food production, and power generation. Rooftops are a second area that makes a city more habitable, sustainable and healthy.

Rooftop programming can help with major issues such as climate change, the housing crisis, and the transition to renewable energy; the Rooftop Walk draws attention to these problems – making visitors more aware of the possibilities, especially in a city like Rotterdam where 18.5 km² of flat roofs remains unused.
 
“In 2006, for the celebration of 75 years of Rotterdam’s reconstruction, we designed the Stairs to Kriterion, which attracted almost 370,000 visitors. That’s when the idea arose that it would be good to make a sequel to the project.

During the Eurovision Song Contest, the idea was to make a high stage to honour the winner, but that was cancelled due to the pandemic. I am glad that Rotterdam Rooftop Days have managed to achieve this, and I want to argue for a further sequel: we should not only occupy our roofs and make them greener but also connect them so that we can offer Rotterdammers a new rooftop park! For this, the orange carpet and the bridging of the Coolsingel are a nice initial test case.”
MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas.
 
Rotterdam Rooftop Walk by MVRDV. Photograph by Frank Hanswijk


Rotterdam Rooftop Walk by MVRDV. Photograph by Frank Hanswijk
 

Description of project by MVRDV

Open for one month in which it plays a highlighted role in both Rotterdam Architecture Month and the Rotterdam Rooftop Festival, the Rotterdam Rooftop Walk allows visitors to venture across a variety of the city’s rooftops at a height of 30 metres. It aims to give the public a new perspective on the city: the extensive programming should increase visitors’ awareness of the potential of roofs, which can become a “second layer” that makes the city more liveable, biodiverse, sustainable, and healthy, while the highlight of the route is the bridge spanning the Coolsingel, one of Rotterdam’s most important streets.

More information

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Architects
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Client
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Rotterdam Rooftop Days.
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Dates
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May, 2022.
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Location
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Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
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Ossip, Frank Hanswijk, Pavlos Ventouris.
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MVRDV was founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The practice engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. A highly collaborative, research-based design method involves clients, stakeholders and experts from a wide range of fields from early on in the creative process. The results are exemplary, outspoken projects, which enable our cities and landscapes to develop towards a better future.

The products of MVRDV’s unique approach to design vary, ranging from buildings of all types and sizes, to urban plans and visions, numerous publications, installations and exhibitions. Built projects include the Netherlands Pavilion for the World EXPO 2000 in Hannover; the Market Hall, a combination of housing and retail in Rotterdam; the Pushed Slab, a sustainable office building in Paris’ first eco-district; Flight Forum, an innovative business park in Eindhoven; the Silodam Housing complex in Amsterdam; the Matsudai Cultural Centre in Japan; the Unterföhring office campus near Munich; the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam; the Ypenburg housing and urban plan in The Hague; the Didden Village rooftop housing extension in Rotterdam; the music centre De Effenaar in Eindhoven; the Gyre boutique shopping center in Tokyo; a public library in Spijkenisse; an international bank headquarters in Oslo, Norway; and the iconic Mirador and Celosia housing in Madrid.

Current projects include a variety of housing projects in the Netherlands, France, China, India, and other countries; a community centre in Copenhagen and a cultural complex in Roskilde, Denmark, a public art depot in Rotterdam, the transformation of a mixed use building in central Paris, an office complex in Shanghai, and a commercial centre in Beijing, and the renovation of an office building in Hong Kong. MVRDV is also working on large scale urban masterplans in Bordeaux and Caen, France and the masterplan for an eco-city in Logroño, Spain. Larger scale visions for the future of greater Paris, greater Oslo, and the doubling in size of the Dutch new town Almere are also in development.

MVRDV first published a manifesto of its work and ideas in FARMAX (1998), followed by MetaCity/Datatown (1999), Costa Iberica (2000), Regionmaker (2002), 5 Minutes City (2003), KM3 (2005), Spacefighter (2007) and Skycar City (2007), and more recently The Vertical Village (with The Why Factory, 2012) and the firm’s first monograph of built works MVRDV Buildings (2013). MVRDV deals with issues ranging from global sustainability in large scale studies such as Pig City, to small, pragmatic architectural solutions for devastated areas such as New Orleans.

The work of MVRDV is exhibited and published worldwide and has received numerous international awards. One hundred architects, designers and urbanists develop projects in a multi-disciplinary, collaborative design process which involves rigorous technical and creative investigation. MVRDV works with BIM and has official in-house BREEAM and LEED assessors.

Together with Delft University of Technology, MVRDV runs The Why Factory, an independent think tank and research institute providing an agenda for architecture and urbanism by envisioning the city of the future.

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