The Coolhaven waterfront area will be an urban stepping stone in the city of Rotterdam. A mix of housing, offices, commercial and retail spaces is being built as a grid within a fine urban fabric.
The concept of this urban neighbourhood is to provide an ensemble of relatively small buildings that intuitively relates to the human scale. To anchor the site in the city, existing pedestrian and cycling routes will be incorporated and the alignments of adjacent streets are respected. The interface between public and private space will be made soft and gradual by way of porches, balconies and relief in architecture.
This new urban area is a hybrid between a super-dense city block, a campus, and a village.