Urban mixed-use development has been a popular subject in both research and practice. In recent years, stimulated by sustainable development and land shortage, Trendy Mix has emerged widely in Europe, especially in the Netherlands. Trendy Mix is a type of urban design with special form and function. It often adopts the architectural form of Plinth+Tower, where light manufacture and logistics are placed inside the plinth, while the tower is used as living and office.
Though having technical advantages like renewable water, energy and transportation systems, Trendy Mix is not socially sustainable for two reasons. First, its architectural form determines its expensive construction cost, which increases the cost of living and working here. That is, only groups that have received higher education or have more money can establish life there. Second, the traditional noisy industries are pushed towards the city boundary when working and living are combined. This increases the living cost of factory workers as they now have to spend more money and time on their daily commute.
Starting with reflecting Trendy Mix, this project aims to design a socially inclusive urban mix that integrates living and working in a creative and diverse way. The site is Merwe-Vierhavens (M4H), Rotterdam. M4H is a port and manufacturing area, part of which has been transformed into makerspaces for innovative industries in recent years. It will become a Trendy Mix according to the local municipality’s plan, therefore, this location is selected for the project.
The methodology of this project is research-and-design synergy. This project conducted multiple designs, each having a different focus. For example, the first design aims to list all possible working and living mix models; the second design focuses on testing feasible mix models in terms of living-working ratio and connectivity. From the third design onwards, the project focuses on maximizing social sustainability through public space and programmes.
Research is distributed before, during, and after each design. The research has two purposes. One is to provide the theoretical basis and suggest potential design directions. The other is to analyze and evaluate whether the result has achieved the design goals. This alternating design & research approach produced the results and findings of this project.
The conclusion of this research is two-fold.
1) The project provides a sustainable mix design for M4H, including masterplan, section, zoom-in, and rendering. The main spatial measurements are a combination of living and working typologies, public space network, and a gradient landscape.
2) Through design, this project summarizes three values essential for a socially inclusive mix development: creating beautiful neighbourhoods, enhancing connectivity among communities, and providing diverse work, live, and amenities to everyone. Furthermore, the project concludes six vital principles for the values to be realized in design. These include mixing living and working horizontally, introducing nature into urban districts, and a gradient transition from public to private, etc.

In an era marked by pressing environmental concerns and the urgent need for sustainable solutions, our project embarked on a transformative journey, envisioning a future where nature-based strategies not only combat climate change but also foster economic prosperity and social justice.

With CO2 emissions reaching alarming levels and posing grave threats to the environment, human health, and global stability, conventional approaches to combat climate change often fall short in addressing the intricate interplay between social, economic, and environmental factors. Our research sought to tackle this challenge towards a just transition to a low-carbon economy: “How can we design a circular economy of carbon storage focussing on nature-based solutions?"

Grounded in the principles of sustainability and equity, our approach initially focused on proposing nature-based solutions to reduce CO2 levels. However, recognizing the need for a holistic transformation, our methodology evolved to integrate bio-based economy concepts and community-centric design principles. This involved a rigorous examination of existing policies, spatial analyses, and stakeholder engagement to develop a comprehensive strategy.
The overarching goal was to present a visionary blueprint for transforming land use, emphasizing nature-based solutions as central to carbon mitigation efforts while fostering economic development and social resilience. This entailed the creation of green corridors, the establishment of productive communities, and the promotion of collaboration within the bio-based economy.

Through our research, we identified forests and wetlands as beneficial nature-based storage methods for the Netherlands, with significant potential to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. Despite spatial conflicts and implementation challenges, investing in the bio-based economy, particularly in construction using bio-based materials, emerged as a promising avenue for economic growth. Our phased approach to implementation outlined pathways for achieving equitable CO2 reduction while maximizing environmental and social benefits.

Our work extends far beyond environmental conservation. By presenting a transformative vision that integrates nature-based solutions with socio-economic considerations, we offer a roadmap for policymakers, businesses, and communities to navigate the complexities of climate change mitigation. This matters because it signals a paradigm shift towards sustainable development, where the preservation of nature goes hand in hand with economic prosperity and social equity, ensuring a resilient and thriving future for generations to come.

The Earth is experiencing an increase in global surface temperature due to a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions, mainly caused by the production of fossil-fuel-based energy using non-renewable resources. The heavy industries, predominantly comprising refineries, are the primary contributors to these emissions. As the primary source of energy for these industries is also fossil-fuel-based, the European Green Deal emphasizes the need for an energy transition. However, renewable energy production requires a large area, and the current energy grids are overloaded due to the lack of energy storage possibilities. A potential solution to the storage issue could be the implementation of green hydrogen. As refineries are expected to be decommissioned soon, hydrogen plants could be established in their locations, repurposing the existing infrastructure of pipelines and storage facilities. These plants would enable circular energy systems, converting hydrogen to energy using the green hydrogen production method of electrolysis, and vice versa, using fuel cells. Moreover, these redevelopments could be implemented on a larger scale, resulting in the creation of a hydrogen backbone in the Eurodelta, connecting the industrial clusters within this area and making the energy system more resilient. For the execution of a hydrogen energy system in the Netherlands, a strategy has been proposed that involves a centralized main hydrogen production and storage zone in the Port of Rotterdam, including new industries with hydrogen input and future high energy-consuming industries. Renewable energy production would be installed using offshore vertical-axis wind turbines and onshore horizontal-axis wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, and biomass. This approach would also allow for the introduction of additional green areas, improving working conditions and air quality for the re-educated industrial workforce. In addition, a second strategy involves the implementation of a decentralized energy system in an agricultural landscape in the Municipality of Zutphen. These exemplary areas can be used as models to implement this idea in similar regions across Northwest Europe. Future research could focus on technological innovations, economic feasibility, and additional limitations of the introduction of hydrogen energy systems, ensuring the return of industries as new green hubs.

The rapid upsurge of the platform economy is producing profound changes to the way in which urban areas are functioning. With digital technology putting roots down in the fields of public transport, hospitality and the service industry, it opened up possibilities for new platform economy companies to nest themselves within the activities of these traditional public services. In some occasions serious disruptions of existing systems occur, while in other cases it may unveil opportunities to improve the functionality of public life in cities. Where (local) governmental organizations seem to grapple with policy making to effectively balance the interests of corporate platform organizations and the public good, it is important to critically explore the implications of inadequate regulation vis-a-vis the novel platform economy and the commodification of public space and services. This thesis is an extensive multi-facetted analysis, providing insight in the externalities of flash delivery platforms, as they claim their place in cities and influence urban planning practice. Furthermore, it shall offer design-based interventions to generate synergies between platform services and the traditional functionality of public services to provide creative solutions where policy instruments will fall short. As a result, a more thorough understanding of platform urbanism is acquired and new ways of using platform economies to enhance the lived experience in cities are being presented.

The globalization that we are facing completely transformed the world as we knew it fifty years ago. The historical era we live in today is cha- racterized by the use of technology, which is one of the factors that made globalization possible. While some time ago it was possible to define and identify the “center” of powers, of cities, it became more challenging today. Nowadays different types of centralities exist, ranging from the new transnational networks of cities to electronic space (Sassen, 2001). The urban question addresses the cities as the main places where the activities that arose from globalization are focused and they are characterized by different degrees of virtuality. Finance is one of them, probably the most virtual, thanks to the liberalization that happened in the eighties of the last century (Harvey, 2007). (Sassen, 2001) proposes a challenge to the archi- tects and urbanists in this sense: are we able to study and imagine projects for the places of intersection between the global, mostly virtual dynamics, and the local realities? The research that is explained here wants to take up this challenge. It focuses on the topic of the global commercial networks that have been developing in the last years. Such corridors aim at creating new con- nections between cities around the globe, by building new infrastructure in strategic points, among them harbors too. The practice of allowing den- ser flows between these areas is less virtual than the activities of finance, for instance. Every commercial corridor needs to take into consideration the question of logistics, mobility and consequently infrastructure whose physical implications are tangible. Similarly, some of the flows that pass through the hubs are flows of very tangible objects such as containers or liquids. Along with the concrete passengers of the commercial there will be the unofficial ones, whose presence is intrinsic every time there is an exchange of goods: the knowledge and culture from the places connected by the new economic corridor. Just like in the case of finance, explained by Sassen (2001), there is a variety of other activities and spaces that emer- ge along with it. This research wants to address the ones that emerge and could emerge from the development of harbor cities in the current logic of globalization and growth of global flows.
This research wants to underline that the answer is not in the obedient ac- ceptance of the conditions that the global powers dictate. That is why, the outcome of this thesis wants to be a new method, and a new lens through which we can all choose to look at the urban paradigm of harbor cities.