Zuiderpark – Rotterdam, Olanda

The Zadkine College, is a Regional Training Centre (ROC) for vocational and adult education in the Rijnmond region, in the south of Rotterdam. The project is a modern multifunctional building that covers an area of about 16.500 m² and has been designed by JHK Architecten with office in Utrecht. The new location was opened on October 10th, 2012. The strength of the project is actually the togetherness of the two schools (a pre-vocational and a vocational) with the effort to highlight the common functions that “hold together” the students. ROC Zadkine’s target group is extremely heterogeneous. On the one hand, there are the students in the age-group of 16 to 18 years old, on the other hand, there is an older, also very diverse group of students that either already has a job or wants to take a vocational qualification or wants to do refresher courses or prefers to be retrained. Much attention is given to continuous learning: the aim is to reduce the early school leaving thanks to the available spaces that actively contribute to the life of neighborhood.