Partner:

Municipality of Rotterdam

Date:

Sep 2017 – Feb 2018

The Project

To support and facilitate citizens’ ambitions of self-organisation in urban green, the municipality of Rotterdam came up with the idea to appoint an urban gardener in several of its neighbourhoods. For each neighbourhood, the activities, duties and responsibilities of the urban gardener may need to be different according to the ambitions of the local inhabitants, their needs and desires in order to fulfill these ambitions, as well as the neighbourhood’s particular context and dynamics. The Erasmus Governance Design Studio was appointed to design a function profile of the urban gardener for the Crooswijk neighbourhood.

EGDS activities

The Erasmus Governance Design Studio led a co-design trajectory with stakeholders from the municipality of Rotterdam, involved citizens, housing corporations and the urban gardener. Throughout this trajectory interviews, contextual observations, surveys, focus groups and creative sessions with the aforementioned actors were conducted. These activities helped establish a comprehensive view on the ambitions, needs and desires of the local inhabitants and the particular context and dynamics of the Crooswijk neighbourhood as well as design a suitable function profile of the urban gardener accordingly.