Harbours are for Swimming

Harbours are for Swimming

As a global port city, Rotterdam owes a big part of its identity to water. Yet much of the harbour landscape remains inaccessible to the city’s inhabitants, even now that the economic harbour activities have mostly moved westwards.

While the city is taking small steps to improve water quality and access, much work remains. That's why for this workshop we've teamed up with researcher and designer Martina Germanà to explore how the river Maas and its adjoining basins could once again become part of everyday urban life, not only as infrastructure, but as a shared public space for recreation, care, and collective imagination.

Structured as an intensive two-day workshop, the programme combined presentations, fieldwork, and design exploration. Participants were invited to bring their own references, personal swimming spots and inspiring initiatives as a starting point to build a shared vocabulary around urban swimming. Through lectures and discussions, the workshop situated Rotterdam within a broader international movement advocating for swimmable cities, drawing on historical precedents and contemporary practices.

A key component of the workshop was collective field research along the Maas. Participants explored selected river stretches by foot or by bike, engaging in a form of citizen science guided by experts from Drinkable Rivers initiative: observing spatial conditions, identifying potential access points, and testing water quality. These findings were mapped and discussed collectively, building a shared spatial understanding of opportunities and constraints.

On the second day, worked in groups, to develop spatial interventions, communication strategies, or speculative scenarios for urban swimming: from physical design solutions to campaigns and manuals, aimed at making swimming in Rotterdam’s harbour waters imaginable and actionable.

The workshop concluded with a collective swim, embodying the central question of the programme: what would it take to reclaim the harbour as a space not only to look at, but to be able to engage with / access?

Tutors

Martina Germanà
Martina Germanà is an Italian urban designer based in Rotterdam. She works at PosadMaxwan, where she focuses on the transformation of urban areas and the design of public spaces that enhance human and environmental health. She also co-founded FUGUE with Riccardo De Vecchi - a collaborative platform that explores how environments are perceived, used, and contested. With roots in the Mediterranean, Martina has developed a strong interest in climate-adaptive design, particularly in relation to heat, water, and the reactivation of public space.

Michelle Provoost
Michelle Provoost is part of the Independent School for the City’s dean-team, partner of Crimson Historians & Urbanists, and director of the International New Town Institute. She is an architectural historian specialised in urban planning history, postwar architecture and contemporary urban development.

Sandra de Vries
As civil engineer in water management and hydrology, Sandra enjoys implementing citizen science methods to solve societal issues. The diversity of citizen science projects and the combination of technical knowledge and social influences is what makes her heart beat faster. Using her expertise in project management, citizen science research and implementation, and connecting science to policy, Sandra leads Pulsaqua and design citizen science monitoring methods for water, climate adaptation and environmental issues. She connects partners, individuals and groups to achieve societal goals through creative, non-traditional approaches, resulting in innovative and dynamic projects.

Jorg Pieneman
Jorg Pieneman is a Dutch urban water management professional with over 15 years of experience at the Municipality of Rotterdam. Since joining in 2009, he started as an advisor on urban water and gradually expanded his work into climate adaptation through the “Rotterdam Weatherwise” program. For the past four years, he has been part of the municipal project management office, contributing to large-scale (re)development projects in Rotterdam South. While his work now spans broad urban transformation of the public space, water remains his first passion. He also leads initiatives to create new swimming locations in the city, including the latest and highly popular swimming spot at the Rijnhaven

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Course Outline

Friday 3 July 2026
10:00 - 11:00 Welcome and introduction
11:00 - 12:00 Presentation: Harbours are for swimming by Michelle Provoost and Martina Germana.
12:00 - 12:30 Conversation
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch Break
13:30 - 14:30 Presentation on citizen science by with Sandra de Vries and explanation of the assignment.
14:30 - 16:30 Fieldwork along the river Maas.
16:30 - 17:30 Presenting and discussing findings and observations 

17:30 - 19:00 Dinner break

19:00 - 21:00 Public lecture by Paul Steinbrück of Pool is Cool with reflection from Jorg Pieneman

Saturday 4 July 2026
10:00 - 10:30 Collective start of the day
10:30 - 12:00 Presentation by Marco Vermeulen
12:00 - 12:30 Explanation of assignment next step
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch break 
13:30 - 15:00 Participants develop interventions and strategies for swimming along the Maas
15:00 - 16:00 Presentation of outcomes
16:00 - 17:30 Collective swim + drinks