From Port Area to Live-Work District: The Keile District’s Area Ambition Document

From port area to vibrant live-work district: today, the Area Ambition Document for the Keile District is being published. There is now a cooperatively developed vision for the future in which urban development is formally and explicitly connected to what has already emerged here and what has been learned. The Executive Board (Mayor and Aldermen) has now submitted this Area Ambition Document to the City Council, and it will be discussed in the BWB committee together with the previously adopted Marconikwartier.

This Area Ambition Document builds substantively on years of collaboration between the municipality, makers, cultural institutions, and (social) entrepreneurs. It recognizes the value of existing initiatives and their collective significance as a direction for the future. Notably, space is created to further develop this collaboration first, before taking the next formal, procedural step towards a master plan. In the words of Alderman Chantal Zeegers (Climate, Building and Housing):“Thanks to the unique collaborations with the parties already active in the area, an entirely new part of the city will emerge across Merwe-Vierhavens, with at least 3,000 homes for different target groups. This is truly about making the city together.”

This Area Ambition Document is based on the principles of the Spatial Framework of the larger M4H area and translates these principles into ambitions at the area level, such as:

• space for experimentation and progressive insight,

• a mix of living, working, culture, and making,

• and attention to landscape-based, social, and economic resilience.
  

With this, the Keile District positions itself not only as a development area, but as a creative and natural ecosystem in which existing initiatives have a fully-fledged place. The next step is crucial: further shaping and strengthening collaboration, among others with the Keile District Foundation. It is precisely here that the opportunity lies to translate the ambitions of the Area Ambition Document into practice, and to do so in a sustainable way.

For Katoenhuis, this document is important because it explicitly recognizes what has already been built through long-term artistic and cultural practice in the district. It affirms that experimentation, artistic research, and collective learning are integral to future development, and that collaboration with existing initiatives forms the basis for the next phase of the Keile District.

In the Keile Cooperative, alongside the Municipality of Rotterdam, the following are represented: Keilepand, Voedseltuin, SKAR, Keilewerf, KATOENHUIS | Imagining New Realities, and BRUTUS Artist Driven Playground.

Read the full document here: https://m4hrotterdam.nl/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/bijlage-1-20260113_Keilekwartier_Gebiedsambitiedocument-DEF.pdf