Dutch high rise ability after a downtime

Rotterdam is widely acknowledged as the high rise city of the Netherlands. This is also an integral part of the urban planning. The current crisis in combination with a killing vacancy rate stopped the flow of new developments of tall buildings. Will or should tall buildings still play a role in the renewed vision. The main global rational for high rise is land use. Due to a shift of harbor activities towards new areas near the sea, huge areas within the city boundaries will become available. An opportunity, but also a need for rethinking of land use and urban vision. Students (500+) have been elaborating and producing master plans for such an abandoned harbor followed by the development (100+) of new functionality for one of the most important projects within this area, the Europoint towers established in 1974. This project combines feasibility in a broad perspective (architectural, financial, social, sustainable) within the urban situation with the ability of transformation of vacant offices and the issue of dealing with high rise heritage. The obvious limitation may be the student level. However the program and conditions are defined and the results are judged by professional public and private participants, due to the importance of acceptable solutions for all parties involved. The findings are next to numerous designs for the specific case a reflection, based on cross case analysis, on future sustainable area development with a wide range of stakeholders from urban planners to investors, from architects to developers and from clients to neighbors.