To determine the future challenges for a city, it is important to know why it looks the way it does. Certain patterns in the city’s structure reflect the study of the history of the south of Rotterdam. These patterns show the connections between important and distinctive projects and events which led to the current structure of the South district. These were divided and clustered according to their scale. The clusters of projects and events make up nine patters which together form Southern Rotterdam.

Fifty to a hundred and fifty years after the realization, there are other motives that play a major role in a large part of Southern Rotterdam. Many of the original reasons for having designed the spatial environment have now changed or expired. By comparing and contrasting the renewed motives and the historical patterns of the city, the past becomes the starting point for the future challenges.

We are now using this method to collect the challenges for the area of the Southwestern Delta.