Day 8 was quite the energizing thrill!

This morning was pretty chill, with a laid-back 8am wake-up and 9:30am breakfast. As we had a free morning, a couple of friends and I took a tram to visit the Nieuwe Instituut (an architecture museum in Rotterdam) in Museumpark and explore local and international modern and futuristic architecture. There, we learned about a prominent Chinese architect named Ma Yansong who created multiple futuristic and sustainable building designs which won international arcitecture competitions. We explored some of his futuristic designs including the Superstar, a giant glass star that would sit in the middle of a busy city and act as another civilization within the city. For instance, one spoke of the star would serve as an Olympic area that would have many exercising facilities and competition arenas; another would serve as a residential area that would have many stacked houses to conserve space and resources; another would serve as a business district with many companies and small business in which residents work during the day; etc.. We watched a video that demonstrated the concept and practicality of the self-sustainable Superstar and I was very impressed with its design and its theoretic ability to be moved to sit in any city around the world! Additionally, Yansong also created a futuristic idea called the Floating Island which is meant to be a suspended living space above a large city, such as NYC, and which has all the facilities of a typical city with the only unique factor being its elevated position from the ground. The Floating Island is intended to mitigate the housing crisis in major cities as it makes use of city space without having to build on land space and also protects the environment by making use of more renewable energy.

In the Nieuwe Instituut, we also learned that Ma Yansong was the founding member of a group of architects called MAD who created many sustainable design concepts (mainly intended for Shanghai and Beijing, but also other cities around the world), some of which have been and are currently being implemented in locations across the globe. For instance, the Marilyn Monroe towers (actually called the Absolute Towers) in Canada were a unique design created by MAD to help reduce the housing crisis by building up to utilize more vertical city space rather than taking up spaces of other buildings. MAD has also designed many more buildings that utilize more vertical space; in Harbin, China, for example, MAD designed the Harbin Opera House which is a theater that can be adapted to multiple types of performance and that is also sustainable, not taking up much extra land space and being built directly over a road (there is a tunnel under the Opera House for vehicles to pass through) while also preserving greenery. MAD made many more designs as well, benefiting both citizens (more houses) and the environment (using more natural resources and preserving greenery).

Believe it or not, Ma Yansong and MAD’s designs only took up one floor of the museum! On the second floor, we were caught with very pleasant surprise when met with Dutch artist Jan Zuiderveld’s design for a talking, conscious coffee machine which is programmed with some form of AI that can detect the words and tone of voice of the speaker; if the machine is satisfied with the speaker’s requests, it will theoretically serve them coffee. There’s a catch, though: The machine is itself very sassy and sarcastic; it has a very low moral base and will try very hard not to serve coffee! Below, I have attached a fun video of me attempting (and failing) to get the coffee machine to serve me coffee! Undoubtedly, this coffee machine was the highlight of my entire time in the Netherlands so far! I am not sure, though, whether this coffee machine was ever actually used or if it was created with the intent of being placed in a museum.

After briefly exploring the rest of the attractions in the museum (sadly, we did not have enough time to visit the basement floor full of digital art and designs) and grabbing a quick lunch from the museum café (I had a vegan brownie served with jam, which was actually pretty good!), we took a tram back to our hostel in order to take a private bus to the Watersnoodmuseum. There, we explored the history of flooding in the Netherlands along with the progression and improvement of precautions taken to fix the dams and protect the citizens. The most memorable part of the museum for me was the collection of survival stories that I read of many of the flood survivors; I learned that many fishermen and civilians became local heroes for risking their lives to save people and pest from drowning. I was surprised and pleased to see that pets and other animals were valued enough for many local heroes to risk their own lives to save. I cannot imagine what many of these innocent civilians and animals must have gone through during the devastating floods; each experience was very jarring to read.

I learned that the Netherlands is also looking into more sustainable methods to protect its citizens without solely relying on dams such that it can also focus on improving its sustainable practices. Due to a land shortage, citizens moved into bogs made of peat (plant matter) which could absorb water. The Netherlands also made many more sustainable moves to protect its cities from the water including preserving more green space with its water blockage structures.

After visiting the Watersnoodmuseum, we rode our private bus back to our hostel. From there, a few friends and I took a tram to Papaya, an Indonesian restaurant, for dinner where I ordered the Vegan Daily Special. My meal was pretty meh, but I had a fun time hanging out!

Overall, today was an amazing day! I am super excited to visit the Delft University tomorrow!