MVRDV wins competition for shift embassy in rotterdam

MVRDV’s reveals design for Shift Embassy in Rotterdam

MVRDV wins the international competition to design the Shift Embassy, a major cultural destination planned for Rotterdam’s emerging Waterkant district (find designboom’s previous coverage here). Conceived by the social enterprise Shift, the project aims to encourage ecological and societal change through architecture, immersive storytelling, and public programming. The architects imagine the project as a rocky landscape rising from the banks of the Maas, where visitors move through greenery, terraces, exhibitions, and public viewpoints while remaining immersed in nature.

Called Rotterdam ROCKS!, the proposal departs from the image of the isolated landmark by turning much of the building into an accessible public landscape. Seven stacked, porous volumes form a series of caves and elevated terraces that connect exhibition spaces, hospitality functions, and outdoor routes. Visitors can climb the exterior to reach panoramic viewing platforms overlooking Rotterdam, while vegetation, water, and habitats for birds and insects extend the future tidal park vertically across the facade, and attempts to weave ecological systems directly into its architecture. ‘Rotterdam has a history of embracing cutting-edge and often unusual architecture, from the Modernist post-war reconstruction led by figures such as Huig Maaskant, to idiosyncratic designs such as Piet Blom’s Cube Houses, and more recently to charismatic additions to the city including MVRDV projects such as the Markthal and the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen. Rotterdam ROCKS! reflects the city’s spirit: “Rotterdam is never finished.” It is not designed as a finished statement, but as an evolving piece of city and landscape,’ Shift founder Don Ritzen tells designboom.

all images courtesy of MVRDV

Rotterdam ROCKS! combines ecology with cultural programming

The program includes The Elysium, a 5,000-square-meter immersive experience designed to explore possible futures through art, storytelling, and interactive installations. Shift intends the experience to encourage visitors to imagine how ecological transition could reshape everyday life. Alongside the exhibition are a 200-room hotel, education spaces, venues for business events and local communities, restaurants, a food court, and an observation deck. The architecture organizes these uses into two interconnected towers that are sculpted into a series of rock-like forms, opening voids that introduce daylight, vegetation, and public circulation deep into the building.

The proposal also extends its environmental ambitions to its own construction. According to the Rotterdam-based team at MVRDV, the Shift Embassy is set to function as a testing ground for low-carbon building methods, openly documenting which construction strategies succeed and which fall short. Ritzen describes the process as ‘a public experiment in low-carbon building,’ where ‘the resulting data becomes a feedback loop through which systems can be introduced, monitored, replaced, and improved.’ The intention is for the project to become a large-scale laboratory for emerging sustainable construction techniques while minimizing its own ecological footprint throughout the building process.

MVRDV also frames the proposal around a central contradiction: the most sustainable building is often the one that already exists. Instead of presenting the project as a complete solution, the architects argue that any new building must justify its environmental footprint through circular construction, biodiversity, low-carbon materials, and long-term adaptability. Looking beyond completion, Don Ritzen hopes the project will demonstrate that ‘adaptability, measurement, and continuous improvement can be fundamental design qualities,’ while encouraging people to see sustainability ‘as a visible, measurable, and evolving part of architecture, rather than a technical label.’

Rotterdam ROCKS! rises from the Maas waterfront as a stack of planted, rock-like volumes

Shift International Architecture Competition selects its winner

The project is planned for Waterkant, a new mixed-use neighborhood on Rotterdam’s south bank that will include approximately 3,750 homes, schools, workplaces, cultural venues, restaurants, offices, sports facilities, and a new train station.

The competition attracted 80 international proposals, with five teams shortlisted for the final stage: Ecosistema Urbano, Heatherwick Studio, Mecanoo, Office for Political Innovation, and MVRDV. Following presentations and a verification process, Shift selected MVRDV together with collaborators Arup, Arcadis, DGMR, Studio Bertels, and Joris Laarman Labs. The design has since undergone further refinement ahead of a local public participation process scheduled for autumn 2026.

Rotterdam ROCKS! places equal emphasis on experience and ecology. Its central proposition is to use architecture, through landscape, biodiversity, public access, and material experimentation, as part of the message. ‘The idea is that sustainability is not hidden in technical systems, but made visible, tangible, and that we need spaces and art to inspire us that a different future is possible,’ Don Ritzen tells us.

the proposal arranges two interconnected towers into a cluster of sculpted, climbable forms