Interview mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb and Arjen van Timmeren on city resilience

Delft Matters spoke with Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb and TU Delft professor Arjan van Timmeren about the city’s resilience. In the Convergence programme, TU Delft is working with Erasmus University and the Erasmus Medical Center to develop solutions to urgent and complex social problems. The city of Rotterdam serves as a living laboratory in this respect. 

Resilience has to do with a lot of things, such as adaptability, dealing with unexpected change. That adaptability doesn’t necessarily have to have spatial consequences, because the same building or space can be used for different social or functional programmes. It’s fine to use areas outside the dikes as long as you take into account that they will be flooded from time to time and plan accordingly.” says van Timmeren.

Read the full interview in Delft Matters, the magazine for the TU Delft for Life community.