The Media aan de Maas College of the Hogeschool Rotterdam is a new cluster of existing educations that are focused on the creation of new media products. This cluster will be located at a new location in 2007, in Coolhaveneiland; an area that is in transformation towards supporting the creative industry. This is the Master Thesis carried out by Arn van der Pluijm.

Media aan de Maas is looking for a possibility to use the public space surrounding the College to make a connection with the outside world. This is needed to show what the school is doing, to connect the different creative elements in the area (companies, knowledge institutions) and to improve the neighbourhood in general. The goal of this project is to come up with a concept that can be used to discuss with the various stakeholders. The concept acts as the carrier for developments in the area.

The project is started with a general analysis of the city, the area and the school. Based on this analysis, aspects that are of influence to this project are described. The design process is started by collecting all ideas that have come up during the analysis phase. Next to this a brainstorm
was held with external people. The most promising ideas are further developed into concept directions. This resulted in five directions. These concepts were all developed up to the same level of detail and then judged based on the goals that were the result of the analysis. This combination is a natural resting element, combined with displays. This provides a place where people can go to and sit. If they are interested they can see what is going on in the area. This physical concept is combined with a virtual concept. This is a website that is being developed by the Media College that provides the content that will be shown at the space. This seating element with the displays (which are virtual stages) is combined with a physical stage.

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