This research attempts to develop a space in the city that, outside of the dynamics of consumption, but not denying the dialogue with the city, seeks to intertwine with its overlaps, by defining the public space of dialogue and representation. On the morbidity of performance and expectation, we might say that the contemporary Utopian intent, this thesis, regards defining a potential place, and its interpretive structure, devoid of expectations
– an in-efficient place.

The project investigates Uzvaras Park (Victory Park) in Riga as a narrated urban figure, focusing on the themes of contestation and reconciliation. It analyzes the park’s role and form in the changing socio-political context and, with the means of spatial design, proposes an alternative vision for its redevelopment from a conflicted demolition site into a unifying habitat of nature and culture.

Based on conclusions taken from the research, the design method manifested itself as the selection and combination of historical layers together in a collage of spatial fictions, playing with and reframing existing dichotomies between their forms and meanings.

All layers were perceived as equally important, that way removing the former hierarchy between them, which was so characteristic of the previous approach to the park – when with each new ideology the previous layer was put into oblivion, as the regime desired to oppress nature into its image. By treating all former visions of Uzvaras Park, completed/only imagined/devalued/destroyed, as reference material for constructing the new park – the project strives for the much-needed reconciliation between these conflicting visions and allows them to coexist harmoniously in this use-wise no longer monumental space of prosaic recreation.

How can an open relation between bodies, movement and architecture lead to new ways of bodily attunement in space?

Dancing weaves Bodies and Space with the World. Social and (anatomo-)political conventions compose a foundational understanding of how I experience my former dancer body in architectural space. In my research, the moving body weaves threads between art, architecture, performance, philosophy, body politics, and everyday practices. As a designer, I perceive our bodies as intertwined actors within the spheres of art, architecture, and urbanism. As a former classical and contemporary dancer, I bring a certain sensibility to surrounding spaces, with a high resonance towards rhythms, materialities, and interventions in the built environment. Assembling both aspects, I use the moving body in the city as a tool to design.

The reciprocity between the body, movement, and architecture is historically solidified in well-established systems of power by the repressive state apparatus. (Wark, McKenzie. 2019. Capital is Dead.p.154). Differences in power, entitlement, and access to being accepted as human (bodies) make us all different from each other. The project liberates the body from the state of oppression of social, political, and reproductive regulative systems. Essentially, we are made of the same flesh – we are all bodies that express how we sense space through actions and emissions of our physical energy.

The research explores the relation between the body as a subject and its mirage in space, thus creating endless shapes of being (within) a human body. The aim is to open up a creative dialogue between architecture and bodily resonance ,paging body in space and space in body.’ (Diller, E. Scofidio, R. 1994. Flesh – Architectural Probes. p.23.) I walk, move, dance, and think with my own body as extended matter to absorb the space around me in its energies. By translating these experiences into notational drawings, collages, physical models, poetry and chronophotographic images, the moments of reciprocal attunement between body, dance and space come forth.

Design Brief
:
The floating water theater beats like a heart to the rhythm of Rotterdam’s waves. The desired design will allow new encounters between water and land, bodies and space, spectators and actors. It is a space to make you aware of your bodily potential to climb, rise, hide, run, scream, and dream. It is a manifestation of what it means to move your body in this journey of space.

This project stems from a critical reflection on the urban processes of growth that trigger the construction of new cities in Egypt, in particular the development of the New Administrative Capital (NAC) that sits 45 km to the East of Cairo.

Over the last 50 years, Cairo’s built environment has exploded onto its agricultural land, both formally and informally, within its urban fabric, and into the desert around it, in the shape of desert archipelagoes. This is clearly visible when comparing satellite imagery from 1985 and 2020. Egypt’s government promotes the new capital as the key to reducing Cairo’s urban load as a result of its explosive metropolitan population, currently at 21.3 million projected to over 40 million by 2050. The NAC is well underway with ongoing construction clearly visible on site and from neighboring cities such as New Cairo.

What is striking about the NAC, besides the scale of the development, is its architectural and urban narrative. The narrative here entails not only the discourse through which the government presents the project to the public, but also the spatial experience, architectural expression and organization of space. The city from scratch departs from its predecessor taking seemingly little to no reference from it. The government seems to have been eager to move away from Cairo altogether and start with a blank canvas in the desert, focusing on grand gestures of power reflecting notions of modernity and progress and not the needs and everyday lives of the people.

The aim of the research is to observe, analyze and reflect on the social, cultural, economic, urban, architectural, (in)-formal, and political layers of Cairo to examine the need to return to the vernacular in search for a local identity. It asks the question, how can vernacular architecture be redefined to reflect and regenerate the built environment and spatial practices of Cairo and its future urban development? The city offers an opportunity to dig deeper into its fabric and extract narratives of how people live their everyday lives and adapt their built environment to their needs. It focuses on the relationship between people, spatial practices and the built environment, from its urban core and historic centers to its desert cities and extensions.

The design proposal lends itself as an experimental and incremental process that reimagines the process of production of space as a series of vernacular spatial practices. It offers a counter program that challenges the notion of architecture that is fixed in space and time that allows for multiple possibilities within its lifetime responding to people’s changing needs allowing for a process of growth and appropriation. This approach constantly questioned the role of the architect, local materials, spatial configurations and architectural language and expression, in a forum ensuring the design stays true to the redefined vernacular architecture to find the balance between design and appropriation. The project is left open-ended, signaling a sense of incompleteness and a challenge to further pursue vernacular architecture as spatial practices in the search for Cairo’s urban identity.

Our cities are densifying to accommodate the growing urban population within the existing urban fabric. More and smaller homes are being built. This appears to be the result of an ongoing global housing crisis. Therefore, good quality public space becomes even more essential, as it acts as the expansion of our living rooms. It is the immediate living environment, where we live in, use, appropriate, and experience it together (Harteveld, 2020).
The growth of private spaces within our city limits, a reaction to the housing crises, should also lead to the expansion of our public space network. Especially if new building mass is introduced within city limits by filling up gaps, leftover spaces, or public spaces, which is then substituted by a great amount of private spaces. This ‘eating up’ of public spaces is f.e. happening with the planned projects of Kavel 6/7 and Habitat Royal, which are expanding the private areas of Amsterdam Zuid into the Beatrixpark, or Rotta Nova in Rotterdam, which is replacing a publicly used green space with a great amount of private spaces. These approaches of densification make the public space network of our cities shrink. Losing public space and not giving much more back than winning new private spaces. The logical outcome would be to reintroduce public and collective space (public interiors) as part of those projects to equal up for the deduction of public space, however, in these examples, it is not happening.
A merge of public space with private buildings as a response to densification could be achieved with public interiors. These expand the network of public space into the insides and outsides of private buildings. They are a vital component of the extension of the public space network and can become part of our everyday urban lives (Harteveld, 2014).

The master thesis "Risveglio Marittimo - Awakening Maritime Identity in Messina" answers the question of how the concept of maritime identity facilitates the understanding of existing assets and offers opportunities for the design of Messina as a port city. Through the collection of micro-narratives and their organization into categories, Messina's maritime identity was (re)discovered in following topics: heritage and culture, water and environment, threshold and transition, transformation and production, quoditiantity and symbols.

The quadrilatero site, between the Ex-Granai and the maritime station, was chosen to design a new maritime space, with the aim of fertilizing the perception and value of Messina's maritime identity. The renovation of the abandoned silos and the fish market allows to offer spaces for culinary products of the sea and the hinterland and their consumption on the edge between land and sea, creating a vibrant public space for exchange and transition at the most important traffic node bridging land and sea transportation.

This Master's thesis project is conceived in two parts.

The first part is the research project and is titled <<The Art of Acquiring Flow>> where the study assesses an architect’s ability to experience ‘design flow’, during the ideation phase, based on the type of design tool utilized. In order to test the hypothesis, I conducted a workshop with a group of MSc architecture students. The students were asked to engage in two design conditions: where they sketch with analogous tools and where they sketch with digital tools. The comparison of these two conditions was based on an EEG and protocol analysis. The results indicate that the use of analogous sketching tools led to a ‘richer’ and prolonged ‘design flow’ experience that was non-tool focussed. The study provides insights into why analogous sketching is an essential activity during conceptual ideation and why it should be emphasized as a tool in design education going forward.

The second part is the design project and is titled <<A Living Lab for Flow>> where the design thematically focuses on the notion of flow in the emerging context where creativity and working deep have become the most valuable skill sets in our society. We spend, on average, more than 90% of our time indoors and with that being the case, the psychological and physiological impact of spaces on our well-being are critical aspects that can be explored. Thus, the design project is conceived as a neuroarchitecture research center where research is conducted on how spatial settings can feed and nurture the brain.

Research: Transportation of food, meat consumption, land use for agriculture, and food waste significantly impact our environment and climate change. This paper proposes a co-housing community that produces its own food on-site in Amsterdam. A plant-based diet is taken as the basis for crop selection. Different urban farming methods are described, and the most efficient ones are chosen for growing crops in the proposed building. The impact of this is analysed in terms of land use, CO2 emissions, Water use, Energy demand and Architectural, Social and Educational impact. The proposal positively affects all of the mentioned subjects except for energy use. The use of energy is increased by 7%. That can be compensated by sustainably harvesting energy. The proposed community can have a positive environmental effect and could become a new main housing typology.

Design: Globally we will face water and food stress. The agricultural industries contribute 26% of all greenhouse gas emissions. 4 sub categories of these emissions are land use, meat and dairy consumption, transport and supply chain, and crop production. Besides this, food waste contributes significantly. I therefore propose to eliminate the supply chain by designing a building that produces food and houses the people that consume it. The design consists of a Plant Factory, 4 glasshouses and 100 housing units that house about 200 people. The building is self-sufficient in water, food and almost self-sufficient in energy consumption. Shared spaces are added to provide residents with a space for gathering, and learning about food production, consumption and preparation. A market and educational center are added on the ground- and first floor so that the building can become an attractor for neighbors. Here they can also learn about the value of food, and how to become self-sustaining too. Lastly, the green roof is added for additional leisure activities as well as learning about healthy and sustainable food growth practices.

The project, while focusing solely on the example of the Nadodrze district in Wroclaw, is trying to call attention to a much bigger problem present in a plethora of other cities. The deprivation caused by long years of imposition of a new order, a new architectural identity and a plan to unify the individual in a collective are still distinctly visible in many urban structures. Leftovers of past changes touch upon both spatial and societal aspects.
The main question investigated in this project was exploring to what extent a spatial experience is capable of altering social behaviour, social patterns and the perception of self in a collective. By focusing on relations between people and aiming to trigger and enhance the formation of the local community and its new urban rituals of dailiness, the project is trying to address aforementioned problems.
The design process does not aim to provide a ready solution, it is rather focused on exploring and investigating the current situation in hopes of forging a tool. Furthermore, it aspired to introduce a background for the various behavioural patterns and opportunities that might surface in the community of the Nadodrze district by attempting to provide a multiplicity of experiences.