Flooding Noordereiland

Abstract

Climate is changing. Weather conditions are becoming more extreme; we are expecting fiercer storm surges, more intense seasonal precipitation patterns and, in some calculations, up to three meters relative sea level rise.
Especially the south coast of the North Sea will be affected the most. Particularly in the Netherlands, the coastal topography is shallow and densely populated.

Rotterdam is one of the lowest urban areas along the south coast and it is here where changes will be most apparent. The city is built in a natural river delta, which has been altered extensively in the last millennia to facilitate a desirable and safe living environment for its inhabitants, initiating in the 14th century by damming the river Rotte. From then on, the settlement around the lock mechanism has evolved into one of the biggest urban areas in the Netherlands. It is here, where floods would cause economic loss through property damage and therefore social disruption to the population.

My aim was to investigate into the most vulnerable residential districts of the city: Noordereiland, the sole urban river island of Rotterdam, proved itself as the first neighbourhood to flood in a case of high water levels. Not protected by dikes and lying the lowest above current mean water level, it presents itself as the most urgent district to investigate, seeing it as an ideal urban test laboratory to asses solutions to flooding in an urban environment.

Firstly, limiting myself to the extents of the urban block, my project aim was to develop a systematic of how to convert the morphology of it under the extreme scenario of flooding. The system is composed of repetitive added portal structures, which span over the existing buildings. These build the framework for a new vertical circulation system, originating in corner gaps of the blocks. The circulatory system is built up by arcades on the inside and outside facades of the block, affixed to the sides of the portals. The new system converts the individual access routes of the units into a collective one for the whole block. Furthermore, extending over the whole island, these arcades, connecting the individual blocks by bridges, provide a new three-dimensional route across the whole district, providing it with an alternative plane to the flooded ground floor. Additionally, the portal structure provides a new foundation for added structures on top of the existing buildings, which compensate for the lost ground floor level.

The project is experimenting in how the urban block could re-structure its morphology to cope with flooding. The purpose of the added structure is not to act as an autonomous piece of architecture, superimposed onto the existing fabric. However, as a supporting system to aid the morphological conversion of the block, and in turn, the whole island.