MVRDV, Heatherwick, and Mecanoo among shortlist for new $250M Rotterdam ‘landmark’

Competition organizer Shift has unveiled five competing designs for the so-called Shift Landmark. The $250 million scheme is “designed to turn circular living into something individuals, companies, and organizations can feel, experience, and act on.”

The landmark is intended to be built in the new Waterkant district of the Dutch city of Rotterdam. Expected to be approximately 300,000 square feet, the structure will include a 100,000-square-foot immersive experience, a hotel, a conference and meeting center, and a sustainable food court. The organizer’s long-term ambition is to construct a network of landmarks across six continents. 

“Throughout history, humans have created landmarks — from pyramids to cathedrals to skyscrapers — to unite communities, showcase progress, and spark inspiration,” the organizers said. “Shift, a steward-owned social enterprise working to enable large-scale societal change, is advancing that tradition with a new kind of landmark for the 21st century, creating a place that makes a better, more sustainable way of living tangible, desirable, and achievable.”

The five competing designs will be judged by a jury before the winner is announced later this spring. The five finalists are:

“A Living Landmark” by Ecosistema Urbano (lead architect, Spain), Fabrications, ARUP 

Conceived as a regenerative living system, the building operates as a dynamic social organism that integrates public space, ecological performance, and civic life—actively fostering biodiversity and strengthening connections between local communities and wider ecological networks.

“Urban Reef” by Heatherwick Studio (lead architect, UK), Nudus, Ramboll, Oosterhoff, RAA, RLB

Description: "A new building for Rotterdam, built from six layers of activity that support one another like a reef‑inspired ecosystem. Influenced by natural flows of movement, these layers offer spaces that bring people together, build climate awareness and show how a building can encourage lighter, more sustainable ways of living together."

“The House of Shift” by Mecanoo (lead architect, Netherlands), ARUP, Tellart

Description: "An inspiring icon for sustainability that places bold upcycling, carbon storage, energy neutrality, and ecological integration at its core. Integrating spaces for imagination, exploration, action, play, and joy."

“Rotterdam Rocks” by MVRDV (lead architect, Netherlands), dGmR, ARUP, Arcadis, Studio Bertels, Joris Laarman Lab

Description: "Rotterdam ROCKS! is a stacked landscape of living rocks that turns architecture into a regenerative, urban ecosystem and a new landmark for the city: rocks that breathe. Strengthening Rotterdam's experimental character, it demonstrates that buildings of tomorrow can merge nature and public life."

“Planetary Landmark for the Climate Age” by Office for Political Innovation (lead architect, Spain), Kaan Architecten, LOLA Landscape Architects, iart, Pieters Bouwtechniek, Stadium Consultancy, IGG Bouweconomie, WSP, Envirotecnics

Description: "Climate Section proposes a new kind of landmark for the Climate Age: not a monument, but a working section through the world as it is becoming—a place where climate is sensed, understood, and actively reshaped, together."