The architectural framework as theatre to create character and identity, and various spontaneous stages. The collection of activities becomes the staging of the MultipliCity as a theatrical assemblage of stages attracting the different layers of society. The visitor becomes an actor in a dynamic play off stages.

The intensification of the existing parameters of Morgenstond, The Hague, will increase the need of a healthy city life. The Green Cross in The Hague is a vital urban element that enhances the city experience. The public condenser is located adjacent to this axis and should therefore become an urban element in the existing urban tissue. The ribbon as an architectural element creates and defines in- outdoor spaces. This idea of architectural element is weaved throughout the park to create a continuous flow of architectural stages with an ambiguous character.

An Architecture of Enablement documents the design of a participatory housing system in the context of Addis Ababa. It represents the first application of the principles put forward in Patterns of Participation. It focuses on formulating a new standard of housing applicable city-wide, perhaps even nation-wide rather than a particular, site-specific piece of architecture. It confronts real-life issues head on, offering an alternative to the existing mode of mass housing in Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia is forecast to be the fastest growing economy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Partly due to this economic growth, the urban population is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. In the group of urban migrants, more than half comes from rural areas, indicating a large sum of poorly educated, low skilled workers as major part of the migrant group. The main reasons to migrate to urban areas is the increased job opportunities and education. These influxes of low skilled workers to the urban areas intensify the informal sector in cities like the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. This informal sector comprises those working in informal business, as well as a huge group of domestic workers, apprentices and unpaid family workers. Being able to participate in productive commercial activity is the first step to alleviate oneself from poverty. The problem is that the formal, governmental institutions reject the idea of informality in areas where government is in managerial position. Informal economies are banished from government-controlled housing areas. This is out of fear for the unbound nature of informality, while the formal intuitions main drive is to control everything. The lack of informality, be it informal housing or informal economy, creates order, stability and the ease for the government to exert oversight. However, this lack of informality would also create a vacuum of opportunities to make a living for people, as the informal ways of generating income would also be the only way of generating income for people lacking education and skills. The goal should therefore be to incorporate the informal lifestyle and usage of the low-income households into the formal planning so the informal is not only seen as a problem anymore but as a part of the solution. Through this project I hope to show the possibility that formal and informal is not just two ways of life that stand in contrast with each other, but that it can coexist and, in which low income people can make a better living for themselves.

Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa but only 20% of its population lives in urban areas. The relevance of this fact entails that traditions, economic activities and their social structure are still highly attached to the rural, which is reflected in the ‘’ruralization’’ of the urban areas, that have retarded the progress of cities according to the goals set by the government to achieve modernization. In The capital, Addis Ababa, traditional practices rooted in the countryside are part of the daily activities fostering a juxtaposition and fragmentation of land uses emphasizing the proliferation of informal economies and the unforeseen urban growth where lower and higher-income groups live side by side. In that sense, I find in these challenges an opportunity to propose an inclusive scenario enabling adaptations over time, while pretending to dignify the lives of the current residents and newcomers by granting the same accessibility to decent homes and healthy environments through the sense of appropriation for their own living environment.

As Sennett states, vernacular urbanism is looking for ways in which new forms can emerge from the old ones but still being related to them. in the same way this thesis work tries to combine today's necessities of an expanding city like Addis Ababa with the identity and the historical values of its historical city center.

Danish people have a relatively high death-rate, compared to other Nordic countries. This has not gone unnoticed. The government has been actively promoting a healthy lifestyle for quite some time now. This promotion is mainly focussed on physical health. With this public condenser project, an architectural interpretation of this healthy lifestyle is provided. Hereby, the focus is not just on physical health. Since mental health and physical health are always connected, the project addresses both subjects. On top of that, a healthcare component is also addressed within the intervention, in order to make sure that nothing is “broken”, and that the physical and mental health can be continuously developed. By taking a very contextual approach to the way that the design is created and structured, it is possible to strengthen the positive qualities of the site, whilst simultaneously tending to the aspects of the site that could be better. Therefore the project is not just conceptually integrated (by the overarching theme), but also contextually.

Ethiopia is both one of the fastest-growing economies and one of the poorest countries in the world. As its population grows exorbitantly, waves of migrants are flowing endlessly into the capital city. Such a fast pace of development brings about a hallucinated future constituted by processes driven by economic and political forces pursuing efficient outcomes. Addis Ababa wants to deliver quickly, in great quantities and as cheap as possible: there is little time for thinking! Against this background, it seems a matter of great urgency to provide the city with alternative visions. This is particularly relevant if we consider that being a federal city, Addis Ababa is geographically limited, and, therefore, it cannot expand outside of its boundaries. As a result, such a self-destructive spiral tends to move forward while erasing its traces, threatening the most consolidated neighbourhoods that struggle to coexist with the explosive growth of the city. The inner city represents, indeed, a land of high value and the inhabitants who have been living there for more than a hundred years are now under threat of eviction. It appears that the old city and its style of life could be swept away at any moment by a masterplan that does not take into consideration its value. Alongside such a tangible heritage comprised of streets, alleyways and historical architecture composing material narratives, there are human ones moulded through the structures of the longue durée. The question the intervention poses is how can we densify and reconfigure delipidated historical districts without erasing their traces, interpret their styles of life while providing a dynamic structure that can cater for the dreams of their inhabitants? Is it possible to decode decentralized morphogenetic processes and learn from self-organizing systems to design modern cities? Can architecture be something other than the imposition of a demiurge that shapes inert matter, in such a way that it turns into the acceptance of every event of life, constantly balancing freedom and control like a funambulist, not pursuing chaos but rather by being open and not reacting to it. In short, paraphrasing Charles Correa, how can we open new doors to new aspirations while drawing on existing values? Through the exploration of the current situation, complemented with oral fragments of memories and historical footages, I began to familiarize with the processes of becoming of the patterns of everyday life in the neighbourhood. The aim of the project is twofold: on the one hand, it intends to draw on the existing values and collective memory to reconfigure the narratives of historical districts; on the other hand, the ambition is to provide a structure that can adapt through time and be open to change. If the model is neither entirely taken from the current configuration nor imposed as an external solution, but rather one derived from the internal morphogenetic capabilities, a new one, then, could bridge the apparent opposition between local and universal.

This project seeks for an alternative low-cost housing strategy for the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Currently, the condominium housing scheme is implemented everywhere throughout the city. Despite the impressive amount of newly constructed dwelling units, shortcomings of this housing strategy have drastic consequences within the social and environmental domain. It disperses communities, is not inclusive for the very poor and does not respond to environmental issues. This while the natural environment, and in particular the waterbodies of the city, is already under great pressure after years of uncontrolled urban sprawl. It has led to massive decline of urban green spaces and extremely polluted rivers having a huge negative impact on the liveability of the city. Therefore, this graduation report presents a design proposal that tries to reconnect the inhabitants with the waterbodies of the city in order to create a river culture. The vision of a river culture is the guiding principle throughout the whole design and emerges on all different scales. It connects the water linked ecosystem with the urban fabric and ensures that the waterbodies once again play a vital role within the environmental, social, economic and technical domain. In this way it is interwoven in the daily patterns of life of Addis Ababa’s inhabitants. Blurring the boundaries between people and nature, and thereby contributing to a synergetic environment between the urban dwellers and the rivers of the city.

Ethiopia alone is one of the most rapidly growing countries not only in the continent of Africa but also in the whole world. The country is populated by almost 110 million inhabitants and only 20% of the whole population is living in the cities. Over 65% of the population from rural areas have started to follow the migration patterns from rural countryside to the urban settlements. The mismanaged urbanization processes create many problems that newcomers and urban poor face. The city of Addis Ababa urgently need a change in creating spaces of transition for migrants, that would sustain their lifestyle, but also offer a flexible way to adapt towards the lifestyle of the city, by providing flexible housing arrangements, where variety of socio-economic groups could dwell together, as the current attempts by the government are failing. Therefore, the project aims to create a model of a co-existing housing scheme between two lifestyle groups of urban dwellers and rural newcomers, as well as different income groups of economically weak income, low-income, middle-income and high-income people. The chosen location serves as prototype of creating a neighbourhood, where different, even conflicting, uses and users can live together and enjoy the convenience of junction. However, this work only if the variety of people are accommodated in an urban framework, that allows them to be good neighbours for each other.

The goal of the graduation studio is to research and design housing solutions that improve the livelihood of Addis Ababa’s urban dwellers. Combining analysis, planning and design, the participants of this graduation studio were challenged to use multidisciplinary research methods and tools to elaborate design proposals for the development of a pilot housing project in Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia is following the urbanization trend which can be seen across Africa. This is reflected in the population growth in Addis Ababa which has doubled from 2.3million in 2000, to 4.5million in 2020. The primary reasons for this rural-to-urban migration are education and work. We find that unmonitored overcrowded households, long commuting distances and high urban expenses pose obstacles to the progress of all Ethiopian students. This project places due importance on arriving students, as I believe that acknowledging this group as critical to the future development of Addis Ababa and Ethiopia as a whole.”

Ethiopia is going through rapid urbanization and population growth in the recent two decades with lots of migrants from the rural areas, resulting in a dramatic housing shortage. The same situation happens also in many other developing countries in the Global South, where affordable houses are demanded. By exploring an affordable housing scheme for mixed-income groups, this project is trying to find a way to create an inclusive community where different income groups can cohabit and have equal rights to participation, diversity, and appropriation. At the mean time exploring affordable housing scheme strategy in the context of Addis Ababa with the guideline of the studio. Residents could feel significant connections to their communities, and residents can shape outcomes for the communities and a sense of belonging by participating. The design will research how different income groups define places as home and to what degree private and public realm could be mixed to create coherent living quality for all income groups. World widely, mixed neighborhoods which involve complicated social ties and special combination of different income groups, are damaged by the standard, rigid planning methods, resulting in larger social segregation as well. This project can contribute to rebuilding an inclusive and resilient urban form.

Though the perils of climate change on our environment are common knowledge its mitigation through informed planning is widely absent. This research project aims to aid the architect in developing a design which has a comparatively lower ecological footprint and focuses on opportunistic utilization of renewable resources readily available in the context. Within the preview of this thesis the potential of developing a sustainable water management scheme for the Negin safari park located in the Fars province of Iran is studied.
Iran is facing a situation of drought for the past few years which has had an adverse impact on the region. One of the communities to have been affected by this are the Qashqai nomads of Iran, who have been threatened with deprivation of their freedom due to the economic woes brought by drought. The Negin safari park being developed in the region aims to uplift this community and provide a platform for them to be able to share their work and culture. However, the influx of tourists due to the development of a Safari park further increases the stress on the depleting water resources in the region. In turn development of water technologies facilitating the reclamation of waste water, conservation of water and mitigation of extreme withdrawal of resources needs to be studied and implemented.
In order to create a design which consciously uses the water resources and facilitates re-use of waste water, different water technologies have been identified and studied to understand its feasibility for installation in Iran. Once the ideal technologies were identified, a water management scheme was developed which facilitated water autarky in the park. Further on the relation of the built form with the technology was explored. The technologies which were shortlisted entailed requirements which had a direct impact on the design of the built form and its spatial organization. The final product of this thesis entails a customized set of design guidelines for the development of a Safari park in Iran. These guidelines have stemmed from the optimization strategy used in designing the Negin safari park with the intended water technologies.
Adhering to the concept of developing the park as an eco-tourist destination attention has been placed to propose sustainable technologies with lower energy requirement and maintenance. It is believed that through implementation of these technologies the added stress on water demand caused by the erection of a Negin safari park in a drought hit region can be reduced. The implementation of these technologies can also further help in educating the local community and lead to encouragement of widespread implementation of these systems. This graduation project is an attempt to develop an informed relation between resource flows and spatial design in order to enable an uninterrupted functioning of the Safari park leading to prosperity of the region and its people.
 

This research will examine a design for an off-grid safari park in Iran. During this research different passive techniques from the vernacular architecture will be discussed. These principles will be used to reduce the energy demand of the safari park, since it should be an off-grid park, in order to deliver a design proposal with an achievable energy balance. One of the buildings, the entrance building, will be used as a case study to test the design principles. The courtyard, the increase of mass and the windcatcher are the most important principles to be implemented in the building. The energy reduction achievable with these techniques is weighted against the increase in cost of the building. In the design of the entrance building, a combination of windcatchers and underground ducts is used to cool the building, reducing the energy demand for cooling with 90%. Other principles, like an increase in mass and a courtyard also reduce the energy demand of the building significantly. The use of vernacular principles in the design will increase the cost of the building. However, it will decrease the cost needed for generating energy on site and, therefore, it is still beneficial. Future research, should focus on the exact amount of energy needed compared to the additional cost for the construction of the buildings. However, this research concludes that the use of vernacular principles in the park is beneficial.

The main objective of this thesis project is to design a curved sandwich façade panel consisting of thin glass and GFRP Pultruded profiles , especially designed for applications in the built environment.

How is BIM implemented and integrated as a building process for existing
buildings on a social and organizational level? By researching the building process at Schiphol during the project upgrade Wortel g-pier and combining these results with theoretical knowledge of BIM, a hypothesis could be written with a potential method of implementing and integrating BIM. This hypothesis could then be implemented and tested for the project upgrade Wortel g-pier at Schiphol Airport. The results of the implementation of the hypothesis could then be generalized to all projects where there would be an existing building.

Increasing urbanization and climate change are encouraging architects and engineers to use water as building land, adopting floating structures as a favorable solution. Floating architecture not only could help coastline cities to develop through seas and face sea level rise, but presents many other positive aspects among which particular interest has been developed in the concept of dynamic and energy self-sufficient cities.
The main object of the research is to define whether or not floating cities can realistically be energy self-sustained and in which capacity, by the use of today’s renewable energy production systems and by maintaining the positive aspects of a dynamic urbanism allowed by the presence of water.

The water tax in the Netherlands provides the funding for all the water management in the Dutch deltas. In the US there is no such tax, this means funding big civil projects may be problematic and not so easy. Therefore it is necessary to explore smaller scale solutions for the problem of sea level rise.
In the San Francisco bay area, there are many communities which are prone to flooding in the near future. Some of these communities have a high social vulnerability for disasters like flooding. This means preparing and recovering from flooding’s(or earthquakes) proves to be very difficult for the communities. That is what this project is about, providing a small scale safe location and give the opportunity to decrease the social vulnerability in these communities.
The solution that is suggested is a terp(dutch) on with people can flee when the area is about to flood. On this hill a school and community centre are located. The school functions in times of need as an evacuation centre and provides food and drinking water to its inhabitants.

The fire safety strategy in hospitals is complex, and requires an integrated approach, because of the presence of vulnerable and reliant patients who need assistance during evacuation. The current regulations in the Netherlands seems to be outdated, and don’t fulfill the current use and the changing design trends. The design trends of hospitals are changing, shifting towards a healing environment with mostly single patient rooms.
Research into the actual disconnecting times of different types of patients is performed, to determine the total evacuation time per patient. As displayed different phases of the evacuation route are gathered and analysed. With these differing evacuation times, the design can be adapted to the required egress time per specific ward. The evacuation times of patients on a Dialysis, Intensive Care, Neonatal ICU, Heart monitoring, Recovery and a standard nursing ward have been gathered.
With an interactive design tool, the actual risk and Required Safe Egress Time calculations can be made. A relative probability calculation indicates the risk of casualties per ward, compared with a design fulfilling the maximum restrictions of the Dutch Building Decree. Together with the gathered data, specific RSET calculations can be made for different types of wards.

With the rapid development of research and production techniques, the construction industry shifts increasingly towards more demanding and ambitious projects. As a consequence, new types of use for traditional building materials emerge to create more prestigious buildings. As a relatively new product, ultra-thin glass constitutes a promising prospect in this regard due to its low weight and its ability to be bent up to small radii. A possible application is a kinetic thin glass façade, where the glass is bent to ventilate the interior. However, the realisation of this concept poses a number of challenges. These include the difficulty of achieving water- and airtightness at its bent edges, as well as the lack of stiffness of the glass and its compliance with safety regulations, requiring its lamination.

The aim of this study is to propose a possible design with the intention to tackle the named challenges. To this end, the research question is as follows: How can a kinetic façade element featuring a bendable thin glass panel be designed to be water- and airtight in closed condition? This question involves both structural and design aspects that need to be approached.

The research question is answered through a structural analysis part and a part dedicated to the investigation of possible solutions for achieving water- and airtightness. The structural analysis is performed via numerical analysis to test several glass laminate configurations under bending and wind load. The selected configuration consists of two thin glass sheets with a thickness of 0.55 mm laminated by a 0.38 mm – thick soft acoustic interlayer. The exploration of solutions for water- and airtightness is done via proposal and critical assessment of three possible alternatives, one of which is selected for further elaboration to create a final product. The selected proposal involves the use of an electro-permanent magnetic frame combined with a gasket attracting a metal strip attached to the glazing and thus creating a water- and airtight barrier. At the end, a mock-up of smaller scale is built to showcase the mode of operation of the final product.

Consequently, this paper presents a possible solution for the posed question to offer an insight into the field and to form a basis for further research for the development of a similar product. Many choices made during this research are subjective and are open for improvement or suggestions for a different approach. In addition, further research could be undertaken to investigate the possibility to create an insulating kinetic thin glass unit, which would be a step further towards the development of a product fulfilling the main requirements of a single-skin façade.