The site of the project is in Anderlecht, Brussels. The design proposal including two parts: urban proposal and architectural proposal. For the urban renewal, I re-allocated the arrangement considering the programs, the new buildings groups follow their counterpart one by one, several inner courtyards acting as the spine of the site, connecting those groups. The architectural proposal is a manifesto of how it is possible to treat old houses. The three adjacent industrial buildings become my design target. I keep most of the ordinary architecture elements we could found in this task as the spolia. The programs have transformed from industrial space to a community center including a local food market and a daycare center, in between would also be an inner courtyard enclosed by two small pavilions.

Parkstad is planning to power most of its electrical grid by solar energy, resulting in an intermittent power supply. One of the methods to solve this intermittency is to create facilities for energy storage. The landscape differs from the rest of the Netherlands by its hilly profile. The most important difference is presence of a large subterranean infrastructure which is a relic from the mining past. This vast infrastructure holds potential for energy storage. Energy storage demand exists on three levels. Daily storage demand, inter seasonal storage demand and incidental storage demand could benefit from energy storage among other solutions. The actual methods to achieve this energy storage are mechanical, electrochemical, chemical and thermal. For Parkstad compressed air storage, underground pumped hydro and gravitational storage hold potential.

Families are leaving the city of Amsterdam, mainly due to a lack of safety, child friendly outdoor spaces and affordable and appropriate size housing. Yet many of them do want to stay in the city, and the city wants to maintain them too, as they are important for the whole circle of city life. The notion of ‘family’ though is rather general, and usually implies traditional families. However, the amount of ‘modern’ families, such as single parent-, co-parent- and patchwork families is growing. They have even more specific needs than traditional families, due to their often complicated household configuration. The main task of this project is to provide suitable housing for these modern families, thus housing that is: child friendly and adaptable to changing household configurations.

The design of this family friendly building complex in the city center of Amsterdam is the result of the Dutch Housing graduation studio, Stronghold Amsterdam 2017 - 2018. This project focusses on the city living of Amsterdam, where high density and future orientation are very important.

There is an increasing amount of young families that leave the big cities. In this Amsterdam has the highest number of all cities in the Netherlands. The main reason for leaving is the extension of the family (or plan to), which results in new requirements for the house and living environment. Most families want to stay in the city but can’t find a house that meets the new requirements. They look for more space, a safe environment for children to play and for an affordable price. This is not possible in the housing market of Amsterdam.

To provide a living environment for these young families in Amsterdam the research reviewed the needs of young families and investigated which design solutions could satisfy them on the scale of the neighbourhood, building and dwelling. These design solutions are obtained from literature and six case studies and combined in a scheme. The main aspects that are important for the living environment of young families are: safety, facilities, playing and interaction, supervision, space and identity. All the design solutions are divided into these aspects.

A personal choice of some of the design solutions from the six topics provide the focus of the design. The design creates affordable housing and a safe living environment in the city center of Amsterdam, on the Tweede Weteringsplantsoen. To provide this the design expends the living space of the residents towards the collective space of the building. This consists out of a court-like raised square and a new street level on the fourth floor of the complex with a gallery and small squares. These open spaces at the top provide the characteristic form of the building and a strong identity. The dwellings are orientated towards the collective spaces of the building, to allow for supervision of the children playing outside. Children of different ages can slowly expend their range of action from the safety of the shared spaces of the building towards the city. The layout of the dwellings provides flexible use of the rooms and the possibility to create more rooms.

In less densely populated areas and cities (like Maastricht) of the Netherlands vacancy is a social issue. Vacancy is caused by a decrease of demand for
shrinkage), creating an excessive offer of, real estate. This ´spatial shrinkage´ is related to the demographic and economic shrinkage that is characteristic of our times; a ´new reality´. Our strategy of spatial development however is still based on speculation of an old reality with self-evident demographical, (thus) economical and spatial growth. The built environment of our times still have cities that grow while their inner cities become vacant.

Vacancy causes damage to the livability of the built environment and undermines the (historical) structures like public space that hold the city (socially and spatially) together. Continuity of the built environment can be restored by filling the gaps and adopting a new strategy of spatial development; flexible
development in small steps affirming a reality of permanent temporality.

Heritage based design is well equipped to address this issue. It endorses the importance of historical structures and their continuity in both time and space. Moreover it´s core business is redeveloping buildings that have lost their usefulness while maintaining and stressing its (cultural) values. These values extend well beyond the economical; an insight that is of the essence to move beyond our contemporary way of spatial development.

The Guesthouse TU Delft is a project built upon the idea that a new institution to be built is able to provide the urban environment of Delft with a new variety of academic activities, which normally stay at the campus. These activities are to be participated by many people, whether he’s from the university or not. In the making of this institution I borrowed lessons and inspirations from some of the excellent precedents that fascinate me, and these ideas are applied at specific places of the project, with some variations to respond to the specific urban setting of Delft.