Eliane Schmid, Université du Luxembourg.
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From September 2nd to 4th, 2025, professionals and academics from various disciplines met in Den Haag, NL for the professional education workshop Creating a Vision for Port Cities. The workshop and accompanying field trips to Rotterdam and Scheveningen were taught and organized by Carola Hein (full professor and chair of History of Architecture and Urban Planning, TU Delft, and UNESCO Chair of Water, Ports and Historic Cities), Matteo D’Agostino (cultural anthropologist, TU Delft) and Léa Kayrouz (PhD candidate, architecture, TU Delft).
Scope
With attendees coming from Indonesia to Cyprus, having backgrounds in architecture, urban planning, the cultural sector, academia, and municipal and port management, the main goal of the 3-day workshop was to connect people from all over the world, to exchange about pressing questions concerning the future of port cities and the people inhabiting them: “How can port cities harness their unique characteristics and heritage to develop sustainable urban spaces and foster engaged communities? And at the same time, how can they preserve the essential needs of port-related flows?”. The workshop organizers built on the understanding that port city territories are historically spaces of resilience and thus well-equipped to adapt to challenges. Value-based approaches to design long-term (50 – 100 years) “strategies for spaces, infrastructures and institutions that facilitate sustainable environments and thriving communities” made the backbone of the workshop (cf. Course Description).
Creating a Vision for Port Cities brought together three different perspectives to provide new insights into the integration of port city territories: it connected innovative methods and tools, with careful exploration of local case studies, and hands-on investigation of the challenges and opportunities of participants’ respective home locations. The methodological approaches and tools of the value case approach helped participants gain a better understanding of the relationship between ports, cities, and territories. These are valuable hands-on tools to help understand, or even change, people’s perspectives. These activities were combined with field visits and close exploration of challenges and opportunities in the port cities of The Hague-Scheveningen, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam, which allowed participants to observe and discuss shared features and differences of port city territories.
Day 1
Day one started off with introductions: of people, ports / case studies, key terms, and concepts. Instructors Carola Hein, Matteo D’Agostino and Léa Kayrouz gave inputs on the importance of value capitals, socio-spatial and socio-cultural relations. The teaching team focused on the spatial impact of values and encouraged participants to analyze their port city territories by mapping value capitals / water values on satellite images.
The afternoon featured a guided visit to the port of Scheveningen in The Hague. Workshop attendees explored the area with Beate Begon (urban designer, Scheveningen) from the sports beach on the North side of the port, to the Harbor Control Center where they met the harbor master. They continued to the heritage building of the fish auction (Visafslag), and finally explored a family-owned iron welding company (Boeg) that had shifted its focus from maritime to broader industries.
This first day left the workshop participants full of new impressions, sparked their curiosity and triggered their critical thinking. Participants pointed out that:
One (deceptively) simple takeaway for me was to include the port city’s ‘blue territory’ when mapping, so that values and activities that are located at sea become visible too. My city Malmö has a similar 50:50 ratio of land to sea territory to Scheveningen, and it was eye opening to see what the blue part of their map revealed. (Anna Ljunggren, psychologist and politician. Case study: Gothenburg, SE)
For me, the Scheveningen case study provides valuable knowledge into how a small, human-scale port city can balance heritage, economy, and community. What stood out to me was the deeply rooted fishing industry that continues to shape both the local identity and social cohesion. The port, waterfront, and community are tightly interwoven, creating a unique, symbiotic relationship. Of course, I also acknowledge the frictions present at the port-city interface, but this was what stood out the most for me.
Unlike major global ports, Scheveningen maintains strong local ownership and governance, making it a compelling example of how smaller ports can remain resilient and relevant.
It also reminded me of similar places like Japan’s Tsukiji Market or Indonesia’s Port of Sunda Kelapa, where traditional, human-scale port activities still thrive – often out of necessity, but also due to cultural endurance.
(Ilmian Sujatmiko, architecture and urbanism PhD student. Case study: Gdansk, PL)
Day 2
Day two explored the relevance of stakeholder networks and participation. It began with presentations by Alankrita Sarkar and Paul Gerretsen (Deltametropolis Association) on the multi-scalar nature of deltas and port city territories (here specifically the Flemish-Dutch Delta). Yi Kwan Chan (researcher, TU Delft) followed with a talk about exploring “views from the inside and outside” of the port and explained how complex people’s relationships with this space are. Benno Bultink (Rijkswaterstaat) gave insights on the complexities of planning river usage that caters to the port industry, sportspeople and a public that wishes to reconnect with water.
The workshop organizers then introduced the concept of “personas” involved in port city territories. Participants were challenged to think through values, fears, and aspirations of people, animals and businesses / institutions present in the spaces of the case studies.
In the afternoon a field trip to Rotterdam included glimpses of the vast port and its industry as well as visits of institutions and creative spaces such as M4H (Rotterdam Makers District), KeileCollectief (a mixed-use hub for “improving the living environment”), Tidal Park (an attempt at reintroducing nature into the port area to accommodate flora, fauna and people), Brutus (an “artist driven playground”) and TWD (an engineering company specialized in i.a. offshore installations).
Day two sparked the following reflections from participants:
The visits to Port of Rotterdam (PoR) confirmed something I have run into in my research time and again: PoR is the largest port in Europe, and landmass-wise very present. Simultaneously, it is very hidden and fragmented. Pinning down what PoR is, does, and what it will be seems to be an impossible task even for those, who I – as an outsider – would think are part of the port (e.g. TWD).
For an outsider, there appears to be a lack of transparency, as even those who operate in the port (companies such as TWD) are not informed, and those occupying the space (Brutus) feel driven into a corner when attempting to create development. (Krista King, criminology PhD student. Case study: Rotterdam, NL)
The insider and outsider approach was showcased quite wonderfully and additionally showed that even actors that seem to be obviously port related are in effect still outsiders in practice (TWD) and remain oblivious and far-removed from most of the port developments.
(Shayer Nijman, engineer. Case study: Paramaribo, ID)
Day 3
Day three focused on exploring visions and missions for future development of port city territories and again started with a round of presentations. Ton Schaap (urbanist, Amsterdam) summarized the history of Amsterdam through the lens of the port. Maëlle Salzinger (policy analyst, TU Delft) introduced the toolset for impact assessment she co-created for Bauhaus of the Seas Sails (BoSS).
Afterwards, the participants were called to reflect on the histories of their own port city case studies and to map their findings onto a timeline. This would help them detect path dependencies and how to challenge them in future development strategies.
The afternoon concluded the workshop with individual presentations from the participants. They shared preliminary insights into what they learned during the workshop and how they could apply this to their own port city case studies. The aim was to sketch out a vision for the next 50 years, which they would develop in their final assignment.
Participant reflections from day three succinctly capture learnings from ‘Creating a Vision for Port Cities’:
The final day helped me realize the importance of history as a valuable design tool. By looking back, even to other similar sectors, we were able to identify recurring patterns, stakeholders and conflicts. This information helped shape our vision statement, which we were then able to shape into an ambition (wave), outcome (ripple) and output (drop) through the theory of change [reference to BoSS].
Shayer Nijman
I found the presentation / discussion on public access to waterfront in Amsterdam particularly inspiring, hearing how deep-seated it is in the city's psych. Inevitably this approach conflicts with those that want to realize the financial value of the waterfront, so it takes coherent long-term values to implement. For comparison, in Barbados they take a hybrid approach, where private waterfront development is permitted, but public access to the shoreline is part of the coastal zone management legislation. It's not perfect, but it backs up the Bajan value that the shoreline is for everyone.
Laurence Banyard, engineer. Case study: Hull
The last day showed once more the immense complexities of planning: we need to consider past, present, and future; we need to understand people’s needs that are so incredibly diverse while also understanding different networks at scale. The individual presentations showed how our visions not only differ due to the spaces themselves but are fundamentally based on our own perceptions of what things are most pressing and important to implement.
Eliane Schmid, history PhD researcher. Case study: Marseille
The exercises we did during the final day helped me to make important connections between my own research (looking at the history of a place and what it does to the port space and people interacting within and with it) with what I envisioned for the port of the future. While I initially did not see the connection, it became clear that the final product of my research could be a proposal for a socially sustainable port, utilizing citizen-led science to further the innovation of AI and smart technologies embedded in the ethics of care.
Krista King
By combining theory and methodology with field trips, Creating a Vision for Port Cities aided participants in building a tool set applicable to the port city territories they were connected to. Participants were taught how to develop a new vision and mission for their own case. Ultimately, the workshop encouraged and facilitated concrete actions in port and urban planning through strategies that consciously embrace the different values multiple stakeholders naturally have and render them a strong asset.
Acknowledgments
This blog post has been written in the context of discussions in the LDE PortCityFutures research community. It reflects the evolving thoughts of the authors and expresses the discussions between researchers on the socio-economic, spatial and cultural questions surrounding port city relationships. This blog was edited by the PortCityFutures editorial team: Nathan Döding.