With a radical new proposal by Danish maritime architecture studio MAST, Rotterdam’s Spoorweghaven neighborhood is poised for a transformation. In the heart of a disused dock just southeast of the city center, the team envisions a floating community.
Together with locally-based contractor BIK bouw, the prefabricated, modular project will bring over one hundred apartments supported by public green space, moorings, commercial units and a new harbor for leisure. It’s a plan informed by its local context and scaled to continental ambition, making Spoorweghaven the largest floating housing development ever proposed in Europe.
The proposal reflects the spatial pressures faced by cities throughout the Netherlands. Confronted with the need to produce a million new homes within the decade, and with little vacant land left to build on, the country is turning to its most abundant resource: water. MAST’s design responds with a flexible model for growth that bypasses the ecological cost of dredging or land reclamation. In Spoorweghaven, can expand its housing stock without erasing the harbor’s identity.
The floating community at Spoorweghaven will blend into Rotterdam’s existing fabric by bicycle and by boat. The site plan extends local cycling routes and introduces new blue corridors of transport, creating seamless links between land and water. The design incorporates bridges at both ends of the dock, enabling pedestrian access to floating walkways, public piers, and bicycle storage. These threads reweave the harbor into the city’s daily flow, restoring continuity to a once-isolated stretch of waterfront.
The project is imagined as a layered civic space. Communal gardens, floating parks, and shared roof terraces are arranged to encourage both quiet retreat and spontaneous gathering. The architecture withdraws in places to give room for the harbor to remain visible and accessible. Rather than cordon off the water, the project draws it in, inviting it to become part of the everyday social fabric.
In collaboration with Biomatrix, MAST will install over 900 square meters of floating reedbeds along the harbor’s perimeter. These islands act as natural filters, removing pollutants from the water while forming habitats for birds, fish and invertebrates. The design contributes to the city’s broader ecological network, showing how architecture on water can become an engine for environmental repair.
Once underway, construction will take shape off-site. The floating structures will be built of CLT and assembled away from the dock before being floated into place. This prefabricated method drastically reduces construction noise, traffic and material waste in the neighborhood. It also allows for reversibility: the homes can be relocated or dismantled entirely if the conditions of the site change. Such adaptability is at the core of MAST’s strategy for circular design.
The project will bring over 100 apartments with public and commercial spaces addressing the housing crisis with a water-based urban solution. The design includes floating gardens, walkways, and shared terraces floating reedbeds will enhance biodiversity in Spoorweghaven.
