This research focuses on the renovation and densification of post-war neighborhoods, often characterized by a monoculture in both housing and green spaces. These areas lack variation and connectivity, which not only limits biodiversity but also reduces the quality of life for residents. The main research question is: Which regenerative design principles for the renovation and densification of a post-war
building contribute to the densification of biodiversity within the ecologies of the urban fabric? he aim is to demonstrate that urban densification does not have to come at the expense of biodiversity but instead offers opportunities for synergy. To answer this question, methods such as literature review, case studies, and ecological analyses were employed. By studying urban biotopes and the dynamics between humans and nature, design principles were developed to integrate biodiversity into existing urban structures. Key guidelines include location-specific design, introducing more variation and strengthening connections, or disconnections. The research shows that cities are not inherently detrimental to biodiversity but possess their own ecology where flora and fauna adapt. By applying regenerative principles, cities can be transformed into living environments that support both human well-being and biodiversity. A focus on natural habitats, such as nesting opportunities for birds and bats, makes buildings an integral part of the ecosystem. The conclusion is that urban densification offers an opportunity to combine biodiversity with human needs, provided that flora and fauna are included as key actors from the start of the design process. This research highlights the importance of regenerative designs that redefine cities as dynamic ecosystems. Recommendations include developing methods to measure biodiversity in urban projects and involving ecologists and residents in the design process. This research provides valuable insights for architects, urban planners, and policymakers striving for sustainable and biodiverse urban development.

This thesis, titled "Inviting the Public," explores the design and transformation of the Public Library in Stockholm, encompassing the monument of the Asplund Library and its three annexes. The project addresses contemporary needs for public libraries to serve as multifaceted community spaces beyond their traditional role of housing books. The research investigates several core questions: How can the Asplund Library be fully public and barrier-free? How can neglected access routes be revitalized into inviting public spaces? How can the annexes be preserved and repurposed to form a cohesive campus with the main library?

Through thorough analysis and design iterations, the thesis proposes expanding the annex buildings and transforming existing access routes into interconnected spaces that promote both passage and leisure. This evolution aims to enhance the library's role as a center for lifelong learning and community engagement. Case studies of modern libraries in Oslo and Helsinki provide additional insights into integrating diverse functionalities and flexible usage of space. Ultimately, the project envisions a Public Palace that caters to evolving societal needs, fostering an inclusive environment for learning and community interaction.

With the help of information technology, people can not only store the massive knowledge formed over thousands of years in various network databases but also present the process of knowledge production in different spaces at the same time. At this time, education will present a new ecology that can be learned everywhere and all the time. The physical boundaries of peer communication, work, and learning become blurred or even disappear completely, and the fluidity of educational space arises at a historic moment. It can be seen from recent experience that the traditional model of space and ownership (space owned by colleges and departments) is changing to a more diversified and flexible shared space. Success depends not only on the type of space provided but also on how to connect different types of space through circulation and create interactive activities.

This project, Google Computer Science Faculty, based on Google's plans and ambitions to enter the higher education market, tries to create fluidity in the next generation of educational spaces by focusing on the design of circulation areas.

The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept which seeks to enhance social sustainability by improving accessibility. In this master thesis accessibility in Amsterdam Nieuw-West is explored to better understand the link between the 15-minute city concept and social sustainability to answer the research question: To what extent is the 15-minute city able to enhance social sustainability? Empirical research is conducted to identify the indicators that truly affect accessibility. Literature regarding the subject has pointed out two scale levels which affect accessibility. The macro scale relates to accessibility of the infrastructure network and availability of facilities while the micro scale relates to the indicators affecting the accessibility of a place. There where also two categories of accessibility indicators defined. Physical accessibility indicators experienced directly because of the built environment and social accessibility indicators experienced because of the behaviour of people inhabiting the built environment. This creates an interesting dynamic of the designed physical accessibility and the social accessibility resulting from it. After the initial literature review, three research methods were used in the case study in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. First two project mangers affiliated with the municipality were interviewed which alongside case study documents aided the framework of known accessibility indicators in Nieuw-West. Thereafter, the way accessibility is experienced was studied on both scale levels. The macro scale by interviewing residents about their decision making process regarding their routes and destinations utilising mental maps and the micro scale by street interviews with users of Osdorpplein. The findings show that the 15-minute city concept is not applicable as a one size fits all solution for urban development as that would be discriminatory because of the different desires and capabilities of inhabitants. However, indicators of the 15-minute city on their own are able to improve accessibility and thus social sustainability.

Due to the NECP, many homes are in need of renovation. In 2016, the Netherlands had 799,956 apartments built between 1906 and 1965. A large part consists of porch houses. The houses are poorly insulated due to hasty and savings in construction. This research focuses on walk-up apartments built after the Second World War. The aim is to define how to improve the renovation process of walkable apartment buildings through a modular facade system generated using computational design. This is done by connecting new facade elements to the existing building as a second skin. While preserving the existing typology of the buildings and emphasizing the current rhythm and small ornaments of the portico houses. The script tries to implement different sizes, because then it would be useful to renovate several porch houses at the same time. This creates more variation within the different facades and makes the total renovation time shorter and more cost-efficient. The script could potentially display the total number and dimensions of the various new facade panels, which would speed up the fabrication and assembly process.

People’s perceptions change over the years. People’s needs and interests are also changing. As designers, we have to be flexible in thinking and design to adapt to the wishes and standards of the current eras, we have to evaluate ourselves in an innovative sense. This in turn is reflected in spaces where people come together and do activities in company, or rather: ‘public buildings’.
I find it interesting how we as designers, through architecture, adapt to today’s society with regard to public spaces on different scales. In addition, I am looking forward to looking at solutions to somewhat bring people together in extreme cases such as the COVID19. These kinds of extreme events can lead to certain perspectives that we as designers have never thought about. My vision is therefore: limitations lead to creativity.

In order to approach a public building in an alternative and innovative way, the functions are not linked on the basis of function, but on the basis of sound. For this, each layer of the building gets its own sound cluster, namely: 'vibrant', 'harmonic' and 'silence'. The various functions are subdivided into the sound zones in which it fits. This ensures that the building is perceived with a typology that deviates from the 'standard' what we are used to.

Exploring the possibilities of the future ambition for Binckhorst in The Hague, a key music venue is set to integrate a modern high density residential neighborhood as part of the city centre.
However, contemporary music buildings functioning as catalysts for urban development are often focused on urban connectivity. As a result, they tend to forget the true function of music, which is to provide a mental escape for the audience. Therefore it becomes paramount for future projects to consider a migration from an exterior iconic character to an introverted oasis for musical performance. This notion establishes a degree of transposition in the experience of a visitor, a passage between the public realm and the specific main function of the building, which can be referred to as liminality. Layering phases of separation, transition and incorporation can be used as a strategy in architectural route design to construct a liminal odyssey. Finally to conceive the greatest sense of escapism within the musical oasis, parameters of intimacy and visual relations play a significant role. Nevertheless, other parameters can be used, depending on audience personality, which is related to musical genre.
Another aspect of designing for escapism is to create a world specific to music. To achieve this, the architecture should be a complete opposite to the organisational and contextual rules. In spite of this contrast, the building will still have to respond to the surroundings in a way that is characterised by its own architectural language. Only then will it become a fluid visitor route free of all limitations, purely based on the people and their liminal odyssey in anticipation of attending a concert.

The river Rhine is Europe’s economic powerhouse. Without the Rhine, the Ruhr area and the port of Rotterdam wouldn’t have developed into the economically leading industrial regions they are today. The economic power of the Rhine comes forward from the ability of humans to control the river. By rectifying and canalizing the river and constructing dams and locks, the ships’ ability to navigate the river increased. This focus on economic development has caused critical environmental problems. Floods, droughts, and pollution are the most notable environmental threats to humans. This is intensified by climate change as extreme rainfall events and periods of drought will become more severe. Our current paradigm in flood risk management tells us to endlessly keep heightening our dykes, which is not a sustainable path to deal with flood risk. Heightening dykes also leads to shifting the problems elsewhere. If a river is not given space to flood its natural floodplains, it is forced to flow downstream more quickly, leading to a higher peak water level and potential floods downstream.

This master thesis introduces the concepts of socio-ecological symbiosis and clearance as means to improve water safety, the connection between humans and water, and the natural habitat. The central question of this research is: How could water safety downstream be supported by upstream design interventions in the Northern Upper Rhine Valley, based on methods in which socio-ecological symbiosis and clearance are central? As upstream water management strongly influences the downstream water safety, design exercises are executed in the Northern Rhine Valley with the goal to improve the water safety both downstream and locally. Three typological design exercises are set up which together form the proposed future water management strategy of the whole Rhine Valley.

Within the European context, the Hambach region manifests conflictual and dialectical relationships drawn upon a territory transformed from a constellation of rural villages interrupted by Markwalds - common forests - into a territorial machine shaped by the rhythms of the lignite extraction. While ecologists' movements occupy the remaining forests, the voracious expansion of the mining operations has led to a continuous displacement of many villages - then rebuilt in generic and prefab modules at the minimum cost - while the "abandoned" towns have been re-populated by migrants. A floating solar park, an artificial yet idyllic lake, a void kept as-it-is as a perverse touristic attraction; as the coal phase-out is approaching in 2030, the many proposals for the redevelopment of the region can be read as a collection of ideologies - techno-fix, nostalgic, techno-romantic - which all fail to account for the multiple and diverse conditions of the site. Instead, the thesis investigates how to mediate a relationship with the very site of those conflicts: the soil. Beyond productive purposes and idyllic representations, the soil is understood as a civic milieu - a laboratory for new forms of life. The project addresses the aforementioned issues in the form of a constellation of interventions: a multiplicity of narrations rather than ever-fixed and replicable solutions. An occasion to reflect on and question the implicit power of architecture-as-media that traces relations and to wonder about the quality of these relations as a possible field of agency as an architect: to affirm architecture as a tool in staging the multiplicity of the real.

Residents typically have a negligible impact on their living units spatial layout in mass housing projects. Building industry lacks tools for users to create space tailored to their needs. The purpose of this work is facilitate co-creation by providing a pre-configured and engineered set of spatial units corresponding to human activities, in order to lower the technical threshold for participation in the design process. This set provides an accessible search space for modular solutions allowing for free aggregation of space by people without an architectural background. The methodological approach used in this work was Design Science Research.

Families are an important factor in the liveability of neighbourhoods. As more and more families are leaving Amsterdam, innovative ideas are needed to reverse this
trend. In this graduation project a residential tower is proposed, an uncommon building form in the Netherlands, especially for this specific target group. With the alternative typology presented in this project, relatively more families will be able to stay in the city.

Port-city interfaces have grown apart over the last few decades, resulting in a disbalance between ports and cities. This thesis focuses on finding an approach to reuse and remediate unused industrial sites in sensitive port locations while making them ready for a post-carbon era. The project uses phytotechnologies for remediation of polluted soil on an old refinery site and the construction of a series of laboratories that are made from reused materials and productive phytoremediation landscape around the old refinery installations and are hosted by the old refinery installations,.

Amsterdam is currently experiencing a period of significant growth, demographically as well as economically. It is becoming more international, more affluent, but also more crowded. In the process, the city's status as 'werelddorp' is changing into that of a metropolis. Such a scale change requires a rethinking of what it means to live and dwell in Amsterdam. As such, this graduation project investigates what constitutes a contemporary metropolitan living and dwelling environment, within the scope of housing design. Having defined this as a high density high-rise living environment, the design focuses on creating a high-rise building that accommodates a contemporary metropolitan lifestyle.

A living environment designed for elderly people and elderly people with dementia. If the residents, the elderly people, gets dementia they will be able to continue their life in the same, trusted living environment, without moving to other living environments.

Families are the center of society. They bring life to the neighborhood and the city as a whole. Children play a crucial role and turn the city from a place of mobility to a space of activity. However, not every child grows up in the social setting we are familiar with. More and more children grow up in a modern type of family in which they need to deal with rapidly changing social circumstances. Architecture can offer solution to help these families finding their place inside the city. Prioritizing the children in the living environment and the support for parents and stepparents offers the baseline of a design for modern families.
These two key points shape the base of this graduation project focused on both the modern and traditional families. Because every family deserves a home and every child needs the opportunity to be child without paying the price for the social circumstances in the family.

In recent years, Mumbai has experienced rapid urbanization due to its economic growth. This large influx of migrants, who are looking for opportunities in the city, has led to an issue of overpopulation. It has been estimated that the population will grow to 28 million within the next few years. More than 40% of these people live in informal settlements in extremely poor conditions while two-thirds of the population lives on only 5% of the total area of the city. A clear separation can be seen between different income groups within the city of Mumbai, as well as in the rest of India and the global south. This social polarization is not beneficial for the city nor its inhabitants and current housing schemes don’t provide the tools to tackle this problem. In Nalasopara the same issue is at hand where a city is divided into two part: the eastern area where most of the low-income lives while in the west more and more large towers are being constructed for the middle and high-income groups. This problem has only increased in the past 20 years. This increasing social polarization and a widening income gap lead to spatial and social inequality in Nalasopara and Mumbai. This contributes to unfairness between the rich and poor, unfairness in upward mobility, harsh borders between different income groups, different accessibility to public space and ghettoization of certain groups. Which leads to a disconnect between the city and its inhabitants. This project aims to design and create a framework where all income groups have access to accessible urban spaces & affordable housing. While softening the boundaries between income groups but maintaining the qualities, individuality and opportunities for each income group. Which in turn will encourage diversity within this framework to re-connect the people with each other and with the city. Thus creating an example which will stimulate the development of socially depolarized, sustainable urban settlements in the global south.

The manipulation of the delta landscape in the Rotterdam region, to meet the economic desire of society, resulted in a degradation of ecosystem services. Each eco-based design, such as the case-study ‘the River as a Tidal Park’, is subjected to a wide range of environmental, societal and political risks. Considering the extremely uncertain projected risks for increasing sea levels and more extreme river discharges after 2050, the river does not provide the flexibility the future demands. After the implementation of relatively short term and local scale initiatives the projects are still subjected to these uncertainties, which makes the long-term values uncertain as well. Therefore, it might result in a loss of capital for partners as the project appears to be unsustainable. Accordingly, the thesis aims for ensuring the project provides the desired ecosystem services for 2100 and costs and benefits are distributed more evenly among stakeholders through time and space. To bridge the gap between time and space, the thesis considers the concept of seeing and working with “Nature as a New Economy’ as a starting point. This concept focuses on the development, preservation and regeneration of nature to obtain most values from it. The thesis approaches two scenarios for 2100. The Rest Scenario considers moderate climate change and socio-economic decline and the Steam Scenario investigates extreme climate change and socio-economic growth. The research follows in a search for value synergies among both scenarios to find ‘no regret’ measures for the short term. To guide decision-makers in the process between short term investments and long term needs, an adaptive framework is developed. This framework provides guidelines to take action when specific tipping points in time are reached. The hypothesis is to what extend the value of ecosystem services can be inverted in time to use it as a design instrument in relation to decision-making processes. The research question which leads the thesis is: "How can the concept of ‘Nature as a New Economy’ be used for the development of an adaptive design for the spatial transformation of the fluvial zone of the Nieuwe Maas considering the uncertain future?" The thesis’ results show that, with the proposed adaptive design, most ecosystem services increase through time. This results in increasing interest and a model of revenue for stakeholders, which makes sure that the project can be extended until 2100. The concept of ‘Nature as a New Economy’ is providing decision-makers with a language to give insight in the benefits for them on the long term, is increasing the financial support for the project and will reduce the risks for future generations. It makes decision-makers aware of the value of nature and that it could go beyond economic growth. It can be seen as an inversion of the concept of nature: nature is no longer seen as something we have to fight against to strive for economic growth. Nature can now be seen as an economy itself which is the new value for producing economic growth.

I did my graduation project at the master track Dutch Dwelling, Architecture. The studio focuses on the future city and its densification.

Amsterdam has a shortage of affordable houses for starters. During the crisis Amsterdam has hardly built new dwelling projects. At the same time Amsterdam has become increasingly popular in recent years. Therefore, the demand for housing is enormous. Due to the overheated housing market, it has become almost impossible for starters to find an affordable property in Amsterdam. Also private rent has risen enormously. In addition, there is no progress in social housing. The position of the starters is getting worse and that does not benefit diversity for a 'socially healthy' city. Densification of the city and more efficient living are the solution for a future liveable city. Therefore, one must think about the efficiency of a dwelling. With the high square meters price in Amsterdam, compact apartments could be the solution to create affordable houses for starters.

This graduation project focuses on these affordable compact apartments and the common facilities that come with it. The project has a strong urban context in the inner city of Amsterdam, at the Groenmarkt. This is an area with a high potential with a quay along the Singelgracht and space for a new beautiful square.