MVRDV’s latest public installation is underway as Rotterdam Rooftop Walk officially commenced on Thursday, Ascension Day, in the nation’s second-largest city. 

The installation is conceived of as the studio’s decades-long experimentation with urban rooftop space and commemorating the start of Rotterdam Architecture Month, the 600-meter-long (1,968 feet) bright orange walkway made its debut for the press ahead of a public unveiling of the adjacent viewing platform called The Podium scheduled for June 1st.

Located on the pergola of the Het Nieuwe Instituut space designed by Jo Coenen in the city’s Museumpark district, the installation is first accessed via a set of 143 bright pink stairs and serves as a showcase for the coterie of creative professionals displaying the capacity for such spaces to be used for greenery, water storage, food production, and energy generation.

“In 2016, for the celebration of 75 years of Rotterdam’s reconstruction, we designed the Stairs to Kriterion, which attracted almost 370,000 visitors. That’s when the idea arose that it would be good to make a sequel to the project,” Winy Maas said of one of the month-long installation's many predecessors. “During the Eurovision Song Contest, the idea was to make a high stage to honour the winner, but that was cancelled due to the pandemic. I am glad that Rotterdam Rooftop Days have managed to achieve this, and I want to argue for a further sequel: we should not only occupy our roofs and make them greener but also connect them so that we can offer Rotterdammers a new rooftop park! For this, the orange carpet and the bridging of the Coolsingel are a nice initial test case.”

Also on display is the studio's recently-completed Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, which opened last fall amidst the controversy surrounding another high-profile public installation, the dreaded Marble Arch Mound, that MVRDV will now look to put behind it as part of a transformative month of programming and exhibitions. 

The Rotterdam Rooftop Walk is open until June 24th from 10:00 to 8:00 each day. More information can be found here. Scroll through the gallery below for a closer look at this week's debut.