A New Space in Rotterdam-Zuid

The team behind it ran POING CLUB, which closed in 2024 two years after opening. The reasons were familiar: debt carried over from Covid lockdowns and operational costs that never came back down. During its run POING hosted Rosa Pistola, Spekki Webu and TAAHLIAH and built a reputation that clearly outlasted the space.

The visual identity, designed by Noah Verhoeff, takes the building seriously as a starting point. The animate is like something is being measured or transmitted. Set against a deep navy gradient with cross markers scattered across the field, the whole thing sits somewhere between industrial schematic and a kind of interference pattern.

The central motif is an eye or a lens. It appears across all the assets and grounds the system without explaining it. There's something deliberately ambiguous about it. It could reference surveillance or a viewfinder, or something specific to the building.

The palette stays disciplined throughout: red, navy, white, with the cross markers providing a secondary texture that ties the compositions together without adding weight. In motion the system earns its logic. The bars shift and pulse in a way that feels rooted in how the space actually works, rather than applied from outside.

Getting Shunter to this point required insulation, soundproofing, new toilets and bar infrastructure. A crowdfunder was launched earlier this year to cover the costs. Rotterdam doesn't have an excess of venues operating at this level, so I'm really excited to see what they've built.