I’ve been lagging behind on this blog for a few days now,
but the final presentation for the workshop was on 11 December, 2013. As predefined,
the presentationpresentations took place in two rounds, with four
presentations in each round. The idea behind it was that each round will
present the solutions in four different presentations; however the combination
of the four presentations should give a full picture of the entire workshop.
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| Photo Credits: Alexandra
Tsatsou |
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| Photo Credits: Alexandra Tsatsou |
For the first round, the presentations started with the
concept of exposing a hidden identity of ZoHo. This concept elaborated on the
idea of presenting a one year calendar of food related events to continuously
strengthen the position and identity of ZoHo within Rotterdam. The next
presentation in this round, revolved around the idea of skill development with
the concept called ‘you don’t have to move out of your neighbourhood to move
into a better one’. The skills of the local people, both existing and new
skills that can be taught, would be used in this concept to bring the local
community to participate in placemaking in this area. The presentation
continued with the concept of ground floor, or ground level, redevelopment. The
concept here was that the lack of life in this area was most conceived at the
ground level and the only way to address that was to work on the ground and not
on the 15th floor of some office building. So this idea proposed
better utilization of both private and public spaces at the ground level, by
active participation from the occupants. Round one ended with the proposal for
the concept of ‘the Healthy City’, an idea that offers to exploit the closeness
of ZoHo by offering its premise to people who wish to recover through eco therapies.
This idea proposes a new identity to ZoHo as a holistic place where people
recovering from alcoholism, addiction and other illness could recuperate using
non-conventional methods such as therapy using gardening etc.
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| Photo Credits: Alexandra Tsatsou |
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| Photo Credits: Alexandra Tsatsou |
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| Photo Credits: Alexandra Tsatsou |
The second round began with the concept of ‘A Walk in ZoHo’,
the idea was to open up certain places and use elements such as light, to
present ZoHo in a more attractive ‘light’. This was a spatial intervention,
whereby the space was to be more active, simply by inserting commercial
activities in the arches below the rail line and proposing certain recurring
events to promote the place. The idea of opening up ZoHo was taken to the next
level by the second proposal of the second round which proposed the making a
student hostel at ZoHo, aiming towards bringing in students to live near the
centre of the city and with their presence bring in all other activities and
uses as well. This would in turn make the place more active. The activities
were again taken further by the third presentation which proposed a yearlong
calendar of events in their theme of ‘ZoHo Year’ with cooking/eating
competitions to cultural festival spanning an entire year to bring ZoHo in
focus. The entire workshop concluded with the presentation on creating more
awareness on the things happening at ZoHo by creating a facebook group and a
magazine, the idea was titled ‘Ik Ben ZoHo’ or ‘I am ZoHo’.
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| Photo Credits: Alexandra Tsatsou |
The most interesting fact about these presentations was
that, on some level, each of the presentation corresponded with the others and
in fact many of these ideas and their pilot projects complimented each other. Also
the presentation took place at Roodkapje, at ZoHo and was attended by
representatives of all stakeholders thus the feedback on the projects was very
interesting as well.
In the next post, I will try to incorporate the comments and
perceptions of different people, regarding the ideas presented and the workshop
as a whole. As of now, this was an extremely interesting experience, and the
final presentations not only gave the story of the week, but rather presented
our experience of ZoHo, in all its glory and all its tragedies. And I believe I
speak for everyone when I say, it was an extremely interesting experience, but
we will get more into that in later blogs.
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| Photo Credits: Alexandra Tsatsou |
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| Photo Credits: Alexandra Tsatsou |
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| Photo Credits: Alexandra Tsatsou |
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| Photo Credits: Alexandra Tsatsou |
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