In the post-industrial city, storage is not physical and immobile. The increasing digital storage flows, such as data, knowledge, and information, play a vital role in determining the physical parameters in cities. Ideas, as the collective term for knowledge and information, can be stored in the digital medium. This paper addresses the topic of storage of ideas as the collective form of knowledge and information. The development of digital and dynamic storage generates new typologies, while challenging other existing typologies to transform their scope and services. In particular, the public library, traditionally devoted to storing ideas in the form of passive knowledge, is now confronted with a completely new way of producing knowledge available to people.

The personal contribution is to conceptualize a future library as a modern panopticon, particularly, the visibility in panopticon as the metaphor of efficient knowledge sharing creation activities. To achieve this, the research question is “How to translate the concept of storage of ideas into a collective building of knowledge and information?”

The answers to the research questions are derived from the relevant building typologies research, which includes cultural institutions: libraries,community centres; storage facilities: datacenter, distribution center; disciplinary institutions: panopticon.

South of Rotterdam as the testbed offers the challenges and opportunities for the project of storage of ideas. A future library’s specific design brief is constructed by analyzing three aspects, including the creative city strategy, the lack of cultural institutions, and the existing bottom-up creative industries.

The ultimate aim of this research is to create a theoretical framework for the design of a multifunctional cultural waterfront on the edge of the Tarwewijk in Rotterdam South. From this follows the main research question: How can the regeneration of a waterfront into a cultural area add social and cultural value to the Tarwewijk and Rotterdam South? There is a strong cultural division between the North and South of Rotterdam what leads into the fewer access to culture and lower demand for culture in the South of Rotterdam. Knowing this, the redevelopment of an underused unconnected waterfront in the South of Rotterdam into a cultural area can lead to unwanted social effects, like no social and cultural connection to the neighbourhood and by this it could lead to gentrification. It is important to develop a cultural area that adds social and cultural value to the neighbourhood and that this area is part of the neighbourhood (tangible and intangible). This can narrow the (cultural) gap between the North and South of Rotterdam. This happens because both culture becomes more inclusive and approachable for the local people and the population of Rotterdam South become culturally richer. In order to investigate this, The research that follows focusses on three hypothetic parts of the solution. The first one is multifunctionality. This subject will be researched through the questions: What does multifunctionality entail? How can multifunctionality benefit the cultural area? How can multifunctionality be beneficial to the neighbourhood? And how do multifunctionality and multiculturality relate to each other? The second subject is identity. The sub questions for this are: What creates this identity? How can identity benefit the museum? How can identity be beneficial the neighbourhood? The last subject is connection. In this part there will be focus on how can tangible and intangible connections can be established between the site and the neighbourhood with as main goal to integrate the museum with the neighbourhood. For every of the three subjects firstly there will be done a literature research to theorize the subject and get a grip on the main principles of the subject matter. I will research what others have done in the field of multifunctionality, identity and connection and from there I will try to come up with my own hypothesis about these subjects. After that case studies will be conducted where the aspects of multifunctionality, identity and connection will be analysed. After that site specific research will be done to form a conclusion about the information that is gained from the literature and the case studies. In this research and design I want to redefine the way cultural area’s and museums are looked upon to make them more attractive to a wider audience that normally wouldn’t visit a cultural area or museum. It aims to create an alternative to the classic typology of the museum. The research and design try to show that a museum or cultural area can also function in a more social and inclusive way. This case can then be an example for future projects.

The term interface is commonly known as a device or program enabling man to use machine, and mainly associated with relationship between users and computer. Generally it means a point where two systems, subjects, organization, etc. meet and interact. A good interface would effectively raise efficiency and improve experience of the users. In concepts it also helps to interpret museum as interface, related with question: what an art experience should be in the future? Firstly, museum should interface spectators with arts. We need to think from spectators, that they are varied from different cultural and educational contexts considering the international immigrant background of South Rotterdam. Art is abstract and sophisticated for non-professionals, who would be the major group among visitors. Thus, museum should take responsibility to interface people with different levels of knowledge in order to improve their experience when encountering art. Why is their experience so important here? Here I would refer to Rosalind Krauss’s “Late Capitalist Museum” theory. Better art experience is the demand in this consumer society, take example as MoMA. In terms of spectators’ experience, Nanette Snoep’s curating theory also helps to support my position. To improve experience, the method is to create an immersive environment, which means let spectators participate into artwork during visit. The suitable art collections here would focus on interactive art, performative art, installation art, process art and folk art. Secondly, museum should interface physical space with virtual space. It is a bilateral relationship. On one hand, the aura of contemporary artworks is descending, while their interrelation with space is enhancing. Virtuality is the basis of Minimalism’s hyperspace theory, or “the fourth dimension”, also the new demand of museum space in the digital future. What museum should do in the future is to interface spectators with this “fourth dimension” space. On the other hand, people’s life is virtualizing by new technique. Majority of communication and social interaction are happening on the Internet through smart phone and PC. Although it frees human from restriction of physical condition, it also locks human in his or her own limited space. The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating this problem. Disconnection of social bonds would impair mental health, causing loneliness, anxiety, inferiority, alienation and so on (Mendelsohn, 2020). In this sense, museum should turn from a cultural institution into a social infrastructure, dragging people from virtual world into physical interaction, like Gaillard’s installation work the recovery of Discovery.

In the South of Rotterdam there is a disconnection between the artworld and the way of life in the neighbourhood. The design of a new museum will try to attempt to reduce the gap between different segments of society in the area. Therefor a museum for Street art will be introduced. Focussing on re-wiring the museum to the neighbourhood and make art accessible again for all kind of audiences. To achieve this, the traditional museum image will change by breaking down the walls of the inaccessible museum and instead give room to the accessible and low culture form of Street Art.

For my graduation project I am designing the Neighbourhood Art Centre, which is about implementing a museum in its immediate environment and becoming part of the neighbourhood life by engaging the community to come and be an active role in the museum organization. This paper will be about how the museum of today can be designed to engage the community. It will look at community engagement models and at case studies of participatory projects with communities in museums. Additionally, it will look at the idea of the constituent museum, that puts relationships with participants central. Components of the theory of the ‘liveable city’ by Jane Jacobs will be used to imagine mixed used spaces in the museum that can increase community engagement within the institute.

The site is located on the south side of the Maas river, Rotterdam South. As Rotterdam is an international and contemporary city, I focused on contemporary technology. Technology for humans has always been a necessity, as the site has been transformed from polder to harbor by technology and it will transform one more time. Technology is more important than ever before. Artists produce provocative art works using today’s technology. Those art works seem to be hard to understand. But more and more artists become new media artists. When technology is developed, the media is changed. When the media is developed, the way of adopting arts is changed. But also it needs a suitable place to exhibit new art forms. I believe that when technology is changed, not only the way of adopting the new art forms but also the place of presenting the new art is changed for better understanding of new art forms using contemporary technology. Therefore, the New Museum aims to express new art forms in today’s technology. To do that, the New Museum for Contemporary Technology should be an unconventional museum which follows the New Media Principle: Remediation, Discrete Representation, Modularity, Variability, and Transcoding.

Environmental activism requires effective communication to a wide audience in order to highlight ongoing issues around the world. Art and environmental art in particular, can be a powerful tool to showcase this type of complex issues and can be used to raise awareness of the seriousness of the problem at hand. Museums, as trusted institutions, should be actively involved in highlighting the current environmental issues affecting the world. They must use their positions of power to inform the public about ongoing issues in order to provoke change across society. Furthermore, museums should provide public access to scientific information and policy on the environment in a format that is accessible and engaging to the average museum visitor. It is crucial to develop effective ways of displaying art dealing with environmental issues and to shape museums to accommodate these different methods of representation.

The flow of people moving daily across borders is continuously growing. Academic studies have covered a wide range of issues including economic, social, political and cultural incorporation of immigrants in arrival cities. However, few examines the role of immigrants in reproducing urban, art and cultural scenes by their practices and experience of migration. This research examines on how immigration transforms a city’s spaces and reshapes the arts and cultural scene, particularly in Rotterdam, a city of world trade and cultural diversity since the 19th century. Under post-war restructuring, Rotterdam has been an arrival city since the 1960s. With the development of harbors and port industries, rural-urban and international migration brought an influx of guest workers and families, shaping South Rotterdam into an international working-class neighborhood. While immigration has provided the city with labor force and enriched cultural diversity, it has also caused social, economic and cultural contradictions. Facing discrepancies and segregations, immigrants and non-immigrants often face challenges in associating with each other. The research aims to explore the role of a museum as a platform to foster intercultural exchanges across boundaries, so as to rediscover the inherent and multifaceted depth of South Rotterdam. Based on immigrants’ experience on migration and acculturation, the research introduces how migration practices and cultural integration process contribute to the production of art and culture. In view of problems brought by cultural differences and social segregations in South Rotterdam, the project aims to facilitate intercultural understanding through art and spatial experience in a local museum. In the age of frequent migration, the museum can be seen as a place that offers opportunities for immigrants and their respective cultures to be displayed and experienced, reflecting the heterogeneity in a city. The design of spaces are aimed to be flexible and adaptive, responsive to human movement, reflecting the migratory and transient nature of contemporary life.

On June 14 in 2017, 72 people lost their lives and hundreds of families were left homeless as the Grenfell tower block caught fire in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea within the inner-city of London. The tragedy has shaken the society, highlighting the conflict between privileged and unprivileged within the city’s society, as most of the victims were ethnic minorities living below the poverty line. The research aims to analyze and unfold the underlaying issues relating to the fire, looking at the social as well as spatial condition of the Grenfell Tower’s surrounding area. The research draws upon Charles Booth’s poverty maps from over a century ago as well as current Deprivation maps and Space Syntax theories, intending to understand the geometry of poverty in the city. Through the specific case of the Tower fire, the relationship between social and spatial tension will be addressed. Eventually, this paper also suggests an architectural intervention, in the form of a memorial on the authentic site of the fire. The design solution could hopefully bring justice to the people affected by the fire and point the society towards hope again.

Graduation work Msc3/4 in the studio Architectural Design Crossovers, 2020-2021

The graduation project ‘London Deviations’ aims to understand the ever-changing historic city with its multiple identities and experiences offered. With this it tries to find a way how one can design an idiosyncratic architecture that still fits in appropriately in the complexity of the contemporary metropolis. The city that was the case for this study is London. In its historical parts two identities and experiences were discovered: the 'obvious image' of the city, called the front (hotspots, main streets, etc.) and the backsides (alleys, backstreets, mews, hidden courts, etc.), the latter deviating from the former. These deviations were researched on their own and in relation to their fronts. This was done by studying their history, materiality (where noted if they are recurring or deviating), morphology, how they are experienced by moving through them, by their ‘rhythm’, and through sections. Underlying Themes as continuation, scale, sequence, stimulation, use of greenery, surprise effect and hidden in plain sight were discovered and recognized as ‘typically London’. They were then integrated in the architectural project. Not just by translating the urban research into the design of the building itself, but also by incorporating the surroundings into the project, in particular by creating a new deviation.

If the hustle and bustle in the cityscape of London were a movie, than the public space is the stage and the urban texture its décor. The movie would be about culture - city life - and the people who are in it will be its social actors. the different identities of the social actors makes the film heterogeneous by nature.
But there is an unbalance in this discourse and it is almost opaque due to the acceptance of it. The decorations, the forms and the infills of the urban texture are not in sync with the many communities that are present in the city. London is one of the most diverse cities in the world looking at its people and their backgrounds. Not even half of its users is British by origin. This number will probably become even less in the future due to the trend of urbanisation. If we look at the architecture and the urban texture of the city it doesn’t show an accurate representation of its users inhabiting the city.
At the same time social cohesion of neighbourhoods are depriving due to segmentation and isolation of everyday life. The gap between rich and poor is increasing, activities become more and more digitized and short term population is rising.
The determinative architecture stems mainly from the history of England and is part of its culture. that is a natural course of events and there is nothing wrong with that. However to obtain a better understanding of each other, both on an individual as an group level, it is important that people can relate oneself with someone else. Architecture is the most effective asset to make this happen.

London’s ambiguous edges have turned into an area of negligence as they are simply not considered anyone’s responsibility. Its final ends are places where allocated amenities considered as burdens can no longer be pushed further outwards. However, simultaneously, it is where Londoners take advantage of this negligence and escape the city to answer their own alternative needs and desires themselves. Together these actions result in an edge condition where we no longer recognize the city, but yet, it is the only place that confronts us with what the city really is. It is a place of both belonging and estrangement. This project explores an alternative approach to the current undirected piecemeal development that is taking place, by objectifying the conflict with London’s ambiguous edges. Thereby, the architecture of the edge becomes the physical encounter of the psycho- geographic condition, and aims to activate the heterogeneous zone through a more responsible way of building. It does not question the condition, nor takes a position in the ongoing debate about the future of it, but addresses its articulation through a series of fragmented interventions as part of an open-ended strategy.

This graduation research studies the potentials of London derelicts and the interstitial spaces as the new driver of urban transformation. The study aims to reconnect the lost socio-spatial relationship of those spaces to the surrounding context. Here, leisure is utilized as the diagnostic tool to understand the overlooked spatial quality of those spaces. Leisure also acts as the catalyst to invite the public and generate diverse activities in the interstitial spaces of various scales.
The investigation focused on the interstitial spaces juxtaposed with the transportation networks, specifically, the canals, that are derelict and disconnected from urban productive systems. It started by finding the predominant elements of derelict interstitial spaces and resulted in three elements: #Flow, #Relics, #Vagueness.
The study then continued to the site-specific context at the chosen site location: Kensal Canalside, to understand the urban affordances and the intrinsic quality of the spaces where leisure took place.
In the design project, interstitial spaces are explored as an operational tool for design intervention. Furthermore, the interstitial spaces can be the ground of hybrid encounters focusing on the usage adaptability of the space. Usage adaptability refers to the user interpretation of the space that allows various scenarios to happen.
The main idea of the design is to provide spaces that promote spontaneous interactions between people and communities. Furthermore, as a design approach, reflective nostalgia can strengthen the relics and their long-established relationships within the larger social context. Therefore, by integrating all those aspects, the site will blend itself with the buildings as an open stage, where pedestrians and visitors can become the participants, not just passer-byers. As a result, the building plinth becomes part of the landscape where interstitial spaces guide users’ perceptions.

In London street art is still formally perceived as an act of anti-social behaviour while it gains more and more acceptance and admiration by people. The fact that it remains illegal means a great wasted potential of inhabitants’ creativity and will to participate in creating public spaces. While street art may mark places that are neglected or struggling with some socio-spatial issues, it points also those where locally there is a lack of space for individuals’ self-expression. Being informal and spontaneous rearrangement of urban scape, it is a manifestation of tension between public and private in the street. It might be perceived as an argument in claiming for more democratic public spaces. The goal of the research is to learn how the socio-philosophical space is being produced and what position in the process of creating and rearranging urban places street art takes. To achieve that there were analysis conducted to gained knowledge about street art – to find places where it appears, to determine crucial material and immaterial parts of public spaces that are essential for the phenomenon, to establish relations between artworks and with other elements of the street, and finally, to recognise what are the features and individual characteristics of street art. The conclusions made during the research would be a backbone for the process of designing the architectural space in the spirit of street art. Having developed transposition of the gained knowledge into the code of architecture, there would be a proper site chosen and an architectural programme developed to fully exploit social potential represented by street art. The design might initiate re-defining the term of gentrification and make a contribution in the process of democratisation public space.

In recent years, microproduction has been gaining more and more attention. Microproduction is form of contemporary craftmanship which is focused on the local production and global connectivity. Changing consumer trends and the emergence of new technologies, in particular additive manufacturing, are starting to shape the new production economy based on mass individualisation, locality and decentralization of manufacturing. Reaserch conducted on the ongoing changes in production paradigms shows that it can have a positive impact on the environmental and social aspects. Because of it’s limitted scope and size and it’s non-invasive character, microproduction can now be embedded in urban environments. However, the conducted analyzes focus on economic and political aspects, without regulating the spatial aspects of the microproduction paradigms. It is relevant to understand the spatial conditions of microproduction embeddement concept, because it’s quality will have the huge impact on the potential social, economical and spatial benefits of microproduction. The purpose of the project is to answer the questions about the conditions of microproduction embeddement. What are the urban conditions associated with microproduction? Which programs can be associated with microproduction? What are most relevant design aspects? To clarify the design and spatial aspects of embedment of microproduction in urban areas the design concept was preceeded by and based on the typological study focused around the topic related architectural examples.

London is the product of hundreds of big and smaller cities and villages that collided, merged and blended during the course of time. Each of these places used to have its own Highstreet, the commercial and social heart of the settlement. Contemporary London now has 600 former High streets; scattered all over London’s perimeters. These Highstreets are without doubt diverse, but do share common characteristics, contemporary challenges and opportunities. Exploring these facets we might discover a new canvas for the London urbanist and architect to draw on; impacting London throughout. Highstreets are divers and most certainly every single one is different from the others. But it is possible to distinguish types. The connected high street chains many historical settlements that now form London its outer boroughs and connects them which the center of the city. These high streets have a dual character being both mobile and social/commercial centers for the city its boroughs. However, as London has grown to become the metropole as we know it, mobility increases to impede the social functionality of the connected high street. Decreasing mobility does not seem a reasonable solution. Rather, the imperfect edges, transitional areas and left-over pockets that typify high streets like the Tottenham high street can be used to reposition the high street making it a interactional and social public space.

Housing prices in cities like London, New York, Paris and many others rise to a level which most people can’t afford. Nowadays, it is not just the poor and less advantaged that are being priced out of the city, it is happening to the middle-class as well. Complete communities are stuck in poverty with little chance of upward mobility. In short, there is a social crisis in our cities manifesting itself in the increasing unattainability of living in these cities for most of the population. The central question addressed in this research is: what does the social imbalance in London look like and how can we create opportunities for those communities that are now being left behind? The conclusions and observations made in the research form the framework for the design assignment: creating a community based approach to improve the social balance in a neighbourhood through fashion. The design that follows is located in Hackney, London. It serves as a proof of concept that can be tailored to any currently unattainable city. The project combines manufacturing, education, fashion and reconnecting the community.