Implementation of a Place Game tool in the city of Rotterdam to enhance urban resilience to climate change through placemaking

This paper aims at establishing a connection between placemaking and urban climate change resilience. The Place Diagram was used as a framework for evaluating the quality of public space in the city of Rotterdam. In addition to the conventional approach, we added a new dimension to this Diagram to incorporate the climate adaptive capacity of a place. Based on the city’s climate adaptation strategy and climate-resilience action plans we identified the most vulnerable to climate change impacts district. The urban planning characteristics and the local climate stressors of this district were analyzed, enabling us to design and implement a Place Game – i.e. a tool for participatory design processes aiming at evaluating urban interventions at the local scale. A long-term vision for the study area (Gouvernestraat street) was finally developed, which enhances urban resilience to climate change by integrating ecosystem and community-based adaptation measures in local development planning and policymaking.