[The contemporary city] is at the same time thesis and antithesis. Not only the society contradictions but also the technical ones highlights themeselves in the city. So, it isn’t possible anymore to find complete forms, neither non-contradictory solutions or came by a single mind system.

 

O.M.Ungers, Pensieri sull’architettura, from Oswald Mathias Ungers. Complete work, 1991 - 1998, Milan 1998

Rotterdam acts in Europe as the challenge city that continuously changes its own identity: the harbor made it a multicultural city, rich of contrasts and inner contradictions, and influenced its urban morphology, the demographic boost and the social dynamics. For all these reasons, the analysis of the various Rotterdam’s masks leads to the definition of two themes: first, we read the city as an archipelago characterized by the emergence of urban islands strongly strategic for the city’s development, secondly we investigate the centrality of the public space, key to the reading of contemporary society and community feelings.

 

The historical but changing background of Rotterdam brings us to the discovery of a specific area in Rotterdam, the Katendrecht peninsula, characterized by an heterogeneous history. What is the design purpose in the complexity scenario, and how to plan new urban fragments without losing the space syntax of the settled city?

 

Coming from the American background, the hybrid building seems an innovative solution to many critical issues: accessibility, functional flexibility and synergy between the New settlement and the Old one. The design of a hybrid building needs a strong methodological basis in order to link and control the multiple variables, such as  the existing urban planning, the stakeholders involved and the dialogue between the different urban parts and scales. A functional hybrid has to strengthen the social interaction and the connection between functions and landscapes thanks to a renovate permeability between the buildings, a spread mix use and enhancement of the collective sphere as the place where private and public intersect themselves.