MVRDV wins competition for $250M Rotterdam ‘landmark’

MVRDV has won the international competition for the Shift Embassy, a mixed-use cultural destination planned for Rotterdam’s future Waterkant district on the south bank of the River Maas. 

Commissioned by social enterprise Shift, the project is intended to combine immersive exhibitions, hospitality, education, and public space in a building focused on themes of sustainability and societal change. 

Archinect reported on the shortlist for the project, including Heatherwick and Mecanoo, in March.

Named Rotterdam ROCKS!, MVRDV’s proposal reimagines the building as an artificial landscape composed of seven stacked rock-like volumes arranged around a series of circulation routes. Visitors will move through exhibition spaces and hospitality areas via interior “caves,” while an exterior path ascends the building’s terraces to a publicly accessible observation deck overlooking Rotterdam.

A 50,000-square-foot immersive exhibition, known as The Elysium, will form the project’s cultural core. The wider program also includes a 200-room hotel, educational facilities, business event spaces, community gathering areas, a food court, restaurant, and rooftop viewing terrace.

The building’s facade is designed with recessed niches intended to support vegetation, soil, and water retention, extending the adjacent riverside landscape vertically across the structure. According to the team, the scheme will also function as a testing ground for low-carbon construction techniques, with the design and construction process documenting the performance of different approaches aimed at reducing the environmental impact of building.

“Our first step in approaching this design was to expand the brief – we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to create inclusive spaces for people, trees, plants, for water, air, and for animal habitats, balancing the need for new built space with new landscapes to compensate our ecological impact,” MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas said about the scheme. “Our design integrates these human and natural spaces, playing with porosity to keep the project compact while maximizing its ecological value.”

The competition, launched in January 2025, attracted 80 first-stage submissions. Five finalists advanced to the second stage: Ecosistema Urbano, Heatherwick Studio, Mecanoo, MVRDV, and Office for Political Innovation. 

MVRDV’s team includes Arup, Arcadis, DGMR, Studio Bertels, and Joris Laarman Labs. The design will now face a local public participation process scheduled for autumn 2026.