The Rijnhaven Glass Crucible is a glass-making migrant integration centre located on the reclaimed urban beach of Rijnhaven, Rotterdam.

Land defines people. We associate the soil, sand and landscapes with our homes, our roots and our identity. Worsening humanitarian crises have created waves of mass exodus, with people leaving behind their land in search of another.

This project explores the idea of invisible boundaries between people and land, asking how materials and rituals can bond and forge new identities. It focuses on the heat generated by a glass furnace and how it can be transformed from waste to usable resource and into a central hearth for human activity.

By harvesting from the landscape, materials such as glass and concrete arise from sand to form more than ephemeral sandcastles on a reclaimed beach, made by and made for the people, indigenous and migrant.

Like a crucible, the building aims to be a nexus where migrant and native cultures come together, creating a new future and common destiny.