(Re)Imagining Port Cities: Understanding Space, Society and Culture

Through a multidisciplinary and cross-cultural approach, you'll gain insight into the future of Rotterdam Harbour from experts at Leiden University, TU Delft, and Erasmus University Rotterdam. As a designer or non-designer, you'll collaborate with others to tackle the challenges of port cities and learn to appreciate different perspectives. Join us and discover the exciting future of port cities.

Port Cities

Port cities are special, in how they combine spatiality, economic activity and cultural values. They are often robust cities that offer opportunity, wealth and innovation to their countries and their inhabitants. But port cities also create boundaries, as manifest in the marginalisation of migrants, the exploitation of labor, as well as activities that seek or exceed the boundaries of the law. Port cities and the areas surrounding them have traditionally been places where people, goods and ideas arrive and depart, where economic development and livability both clash and can go hand-in-hand.

In this minor you will learn to:

• study (analyze and reflect on) the historical, social and cultural context in port-city areas in relation to the present and the future 
• experiment (explore and test) with possible alternative future ideas, supported by the studies
• take position as designer with regard to the future of port cities by choosing a theme or quality
• elaborate at different scale levels, such as public space, street furniture and/or an urban vision.