Developing Blue and Sustainable Port Cities

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Carola Hein is Professor and Head of the History of Architecture and Urban Planning at Delft University of Technology. Her book publications include The Capital of Europe, Rebuilding Urban Japan after 1945, Port Cities: Dynamic Landscapes and Global Networks, and the Routledge Handbook of Planning History. Among other major grants, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue research on The Global Architecture of Oil and an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship to investigate large-scale urban transformation in Hamburg in international context. She currently works on the transmission of planning ideas among port cities and within landscapes of oil and teaches a studio on Architecture and Urbanism Beyond Oil. She has developed the portcityfutures.org initiative, investigating the evolving spatial use and design of port city regions over time,in particular addressing when port and city activities occur in the same places and sometimes conflict.

Maurice Jansen, MSc. studied Business Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He was born, raised and educated with the port of Rotterdam in his backyard. Over almost two decades he dedicated his career on ports, transportation and logistics, working as a consultant at a non-asset based supply chain management company and later as the pioneering head of department of the Netherlands Maritime University at STC-Group. At present Maurice is engaged in higher education and research in particular on port strategy and port development. With his research project ‘Building ports with partnerships’ he seeks answers to the question how knowledge transfer mechanisms can foster inclusive public-private port partnerships.

Roudaina is Director and Founder of Platforms for sustainable cities and regions in London with extensive planning experiences from North Europe, the UK and the Middle East, from local governments, consultancy, NGOs and research. Roudaina is also a Lecturer in Planning and Urban Design at the University of Westminster across the undergraduate and postgraduate courses with a focus on sustainable development, strategic planning, smart thinking and innovation and placemaking at all levels.

Roudaina’s research on harbour-front redevelopment and urban revitalisation in North Europe at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Institute for Planning made a significant contribution to waterfront research, city planning practice, regeneration and sustainability, and led to her Ph.D. in 2007. In connection with this research, Roudaina was a visiting researcher at the Danish Building Research Institute and served on the Scientific Committee of International Association of Cities and Ports and as a member of its technical network of experts.

Roudaina worked in local governments in Denmark as a senior planner and project manager, including her appointment at the City of Copenhagen in 2006-2009 to lead the work on a statement report to a new thinking Copenhagen Sustainable City Development Strategy and the city debate platform on architecture and planning CopenhagenX in cooperation with the Danish Architecture Centre. She managed harbor-front projects and led the municipal working groups assessing entries to the Copenhagen North Harbour International Idea Competition based on sustainability principles.

Roudaina advised German International Cooperation in 2008-2009 on transferring sustainable development experiences and city development strategies to Syria working with 16 Syrian cities and was a high-level advisor on planning at all levels and sustainability to Syrian Presidency in 2009-2011. Roudaina has a Master Research Degree (DEA) in Urban Policy, Spatial Planning and Management from Paris Planning Institute and is an Architect from Damascus University. She is a lecturer, author and conference chair and a member of the Danish Architectural Society.