An Urban Narrative

An Urban Narrative: Winkelcentrum Leyweg as community experience

PSARRI, OLGA (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment)

Meijers, W.L.E.C. (mentor)
Koopman, F.W.A. (graduation committee)
van Thoor, M.T.A. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Heritage & Architecture

2023-06-21

The present graduation project entails the heritage re-design of a shopping center, specifically Winkelcentrum Leyweg in the Hague Southwest. The project aims to investigate a potential sustainable future for the shopping center that would be mainly based on one of its heritage aspects. This aspect was the spatial coherence with its urban context; hence the re-design focused on creating a system of spatial relations, legible and translatable to different scales, in such a way that the shopping mall could accommodate a change of function and yet maintain its consistency with the surrounding area. For that purpose, research was conducted, following the ‘research by design’ methodology and the space syntax method, also combined with observations in order to explain functional aspects, as the people’s movement and use of space. Subsequently, a method was developed to assess and test the spatial impact of previous and potential re-design interventions and a framework was composed to assist in the re-design of the shopping center. This framework focused on the spatial aspects of the mall’s urban identity that influence the continuity with the urban fabric. Attention was also given to the shopping center’s role as the heart of the district it refers to, its spatial significance, and its social function.

Heritage & Architecture
20C Heritage
Dutch post-war shopping center
Shopping mall
Heritage re-design
Urban spatial identity
Urban spatial continuity
Spatial significance

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f9e8b477-716d-43c0-ad84-9241fc2400f6

52.04709118806475, 4.278101879315044

Student theses

master thesis

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