Typology of the Rotterdam Service Court  

Exploring Rotterdam’s reconstruction efforts, Like Bijlsma and Hedwig van der Linden became fascinated by this service circuit, which ‘you only see when you’re aware that it’s there’. In Engine Rooms they examine the typology and changing use of dozens of service courts that, after functioning as the ‘engine rooms’ of the city centre for decades, now form a reservoir of forgotten space waiting to be redeveloped into attractive, dynamic and small-scale living and working environments. The authors’ aim is to inspire an appropriate and careful transformation of these monofunctional ‘engine rooms’ into multifunctional ‘urban rooms’.