European Guest City / Rotterdam

16:45 - 17:15

La Centrale

Every year, Utopian Hours hosts a Guest City to widen the urban debate. For our Ten Years Edition, that city is Rotterdam: the metropolis that hosted Part 1 of our anniversary last May, and today stands as the world’s most advanced laboratory for climate resilience and water adaptation. An official delegation takes the La Centrale stage to share how to design with water, not against it.

Sitting largely below sea level, Rotterdam has turned its geographic vulnerability into its greatest source of spatial innovation. Through Water Squares (public plazas that double as storage basins during heavy rain), Sponge Gardens designed to absorb stormwater, and the systematic greening of its rooftops, the city proves that climate action isn’t about hostile flood barriers — it’s about weaving water into the social fabric of the city.

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