
Year
2016-2018
Location
Spangen, Rotterdam (NL)
Clients
Municipality of Rotterdam,
Waterboard Delfland
Status
Completed, in operation
Partners
Evides Water Company,
KWR Watercycle Institute,
CODEMA Systems Group
Saving drinking water
Spangen is a neighbourhood located in the west of Rotterdam, which faces nuisances during heavy precipitation events due to lack of retention capacity. At the other hand, the Sparta Stadium in Spangen, uses a significant amount of water for the irrigation of the sport fields.
The aim of the project is to collect, filter, and infiltrate rainwater in the underground to solve the need for retention capacity in Spangen, and to use the stored water to provide the Sparta Stadium with a decentralised source for irrigation.
This project is one of the pilots to implement underground rainwater storage and recovery in urban areas, within the TKI project Urban Waterbuffer. Our role within the project consortium is to design the urban water buffer system and deliver the biofiltration system.
__Identify
A feasibility study has been executed to define the technical criteria for the design of the system and to explore the possibilities of integrating the system in its urban environment.
The starting point of the study has been the accommodation and spatial integration of the different functions of the system, including pre-treatment, water storage and reuse of rainwater, without conflicting with the existing spatial functions, such as routing, parking, and greenery. The goal has been to integrate the system in such a way that it improves spatial quality.

27.000 m2
Disconnected surface
50 mm
Retention capacity
15.000 m3
Supply water
__Design
Based on the technical criteria from the feasibility study and in close collaboration with designers of the Municipality of Rotterdam and the consortium team, we designed and dimensioned the components of the system. An underground buffer was added to avoid the area from flooding during extremely heavy weather.

__Develop
Because this project is the first full scale pilot application of the urban waterbuffer, we first built and tested a smaller prototype of the bio-filtration system. At The Green Village, an innovation test site in Delft, we have been able to implement and test the performance and mechanical properties of the filter, including water flow, robustness, stability, assembly method and much more!
Check out the full-scale working prototype
__Implement
The Urban Water buffer in Spangen is completed and in operation.