2.1.1 LOCATION The region at the focus of the 2020-2021 round of the Spatial Strategies for the Global Metropolis studio is the province of South Holland. The province is part of the Rhine, Meuse and Schelde delta, covers roughly 3,400 km2 (including 600 km2 of water), and has a population of about 3.7 million. It encompasses the large cities of The Hague and Rotterdam, several medium-sized cities, and a great number of small cities and villages. Students are asked to consider both, the highly urbanized and peri-urban parts of the region. Highly urbanized areas are densely popu-
lated, intensely built-up and used. Peri-urban areas lie in-between these cores and are characterized by a low population density, an intermingling of built and unbuilt features and not clearly articulated, not intense and/or obsolete uses. Students are also asked to pay particular attention to the port of Rotterdam. Its core industrial complex comprises roughly 125 km2, stretching from the historical centre of the city of Rotterdam to the shores of the North Sea. Via physical relations, everyday practices, and representations, it reaches much deeper into the adjacent region though.
30 km Indication of urbanized areas in 2005 in Southern Holland. Source: Atelier Zuidvleugel.
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2.1.2 CONTEXTUAL SPATIAL AND INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT TRENDS The thematic focus of the 2020-2021 Spatial Strategies for the Global Metropolis studio is informed by an ambitious policy agenda that the Province of South Holland has set out: aligned with objectives of the Dutch national government (Ministerie van I&M, 2016), it intends to host a 100% circular economy by 2050 (Provincie ZuidHolland, 2019b, Provincie Zuid-Holland, 2019a). Students will formulate spatial visions and strategy proposals that support this intended transition towards circularity. They will engage in the redesign of material flows that produce grave negative environmental externalities and that have therefore been identified to be in particular need of reform (see section ‘Thematic focus: Spatial strategies for a circular economy’ below). In order to properly position their regional designs, students are encouraged to consider a range of contextual spatial and institutional development trends. These are briefly indicated below. The port of Rotterdam – The port of Rotterdam - with a freight throughput of about 470 million tonnes among the world’s largest ports - is currently specialised in the distribution, storage, and processing of fossil raw materials, including crude oil, coal and liquid gas (Port of Rotterdam, 2019a). As evidenced by national and international agreements concerning the mitigation of climate change effects (United Nations, 2016, European Commission, 2019, Ministerie van EZK, 2019), a pressing need to transform such activities has become obvious over recent years. The port’s authority, a corporation between the municipality of Rotterdam and the Dutch national government, has developed a series of strategic approaches towards a carbon-neutral port consequently. Opportunities for change are seen to emerge from in particular synergetic effects be-
tween the simultaneously ongoing transitions in the realms of digitalisation, logistics, energy, and circular economy (Port of Rotterdam et al., 2019). The port’s position at a crossroad of raw material and residual flows is associated with a future international position as a ‘waste-to-value port’ (Port of Rotterdam, 2019b). Measures to foster this position concern the treatment and distribution of bio-based raw materials, recycling, and the digitalisation of logistic infrastructures and services, for instance through the ‘internet of things’, material tracking and block chain technologies. The Port of Rotterdam Authority also envisions a staged approach towards a renewable energy system, drawing on hydrogen, solar, geothermal, and biomass sources. A more efficient use of energy (e.g. residual heat) and carbon capturing and storage form early milestones in this strategy. At later stages, sustainable energy production and a circular use of materials are to enhance each other in order to form one symbiotic system. Makers industries - While the Port of Rotterdam Authority foresees the transitional change of economic sectors that operate from within its territory, national, regional, and local governments, including the Province of South Holland, employ a wider and more multi-layered imagination of a future circular economy. Building upon observations of how activities in niche markets trigger transitions, the province seeks to support not only large but also small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) that profit from linking and managing material flows in innovative and smart ways (Provincie Zuid-Holland, 2019a, Provincie Zuid-Holland, 2020b). These so-called ‘makers industries’ are productive in terms of material output while carefully considering emerging scarcities of material resources (triggered by in particular emerging renewable energy systems). They are not necessarily located within large in-
SPATIAL STRATEGIES FOR THE GLOBAL METROPOLIS
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