2014 ROTTERDAM BIENNALE RESEARCH & EXHIBITION, THE NETHERLANDS
Field Operations, in collaboration with the Dutch design studio FABRICations, composed and exhibited a body of urban research at the Kusthal Museum in Rotterdam for the 2014 International Architecture Biennale of Rotterdam. The research responded to this year's theme with “Urban Metabolism,” offering a narrative for various invisible dynamics that shape the Rotterdam landscape. The research moves on to speculate on some strategic and programmatic design moves, suggesting and testing scenarios for the 21st-century port city. Such speculations include a subterranean urban heat network to use wasted industrial heat for residences and public spaces, reintegration of unused port slips into the Rotterdam ecological matrix, sediment capture infrastructure and aquaculture at the mouth of the Rhine, and integration of micro-manufacturing into the city through a newly articulated logistics boulevard.