This graduation is part of a double degree for the master Architecture and the master Construction, Management and Engineering. Research has been conducted into the field of circularity and specifically on design for disassembly as a way to minimize building waste and on improving implementation of circularity by studying the building process and the actors that are involved or should be involved. By relying on case study research including interviews, conclusions were made that circularity is befitted by separability of layers, homogeneity of materials, standardization of dimensions, and fit to different life times. In general, circularity should be aimed at reducing, reusing and recycling building components and materials at both the start and end of a building’s life time. Regarding the improvement of circularity in practice, the following was concluded. Implementation of circularity is benefitted by early on involvement of the following circular-related actors: transformation agent, circularity expert, reclamation expert, dismantler, and legal officer. In order to increase their influence on decision-making these actors should become part of the project team, or at least be taken seriously and offered room to influence decision-making. Especially, if traditional actors lack knowledge and resources for implementing circularity. Moreover, contribution of their resources regarding circularity is facilitated, if these actors are involved early on. Thus, involvement of circular-related actors and traditional actors with circular-related resources early on and subsequent ability to influence and contribute to decision-making, facilitates implementation of circularity in the building process. This is especially of concern nowadays, since circularity has not yet become part of common knowledge of (all) involved actors. Based on findings from these theses a design has been made which concerns a transformation of an existing office building in Buitenveldert, Amsterdam into dwellings. The design demonstrates how circularity principles – such as demountable connections, standardization, prefab, separability of layers, etc. – could provide freedom to generate multiple types of apartments in which residents has the freedom to adjust or personalize the apartment by introducing freedom to change certain layers of the building.

In contemporary society, a large part of the housing stock for people with autism focuses on living with house mates and in-house support (Berger et al., 2005). It seems, through several extensive questionnaires, that 65% of those individuals seek another housing situation, namely independent housing of some sort (Begeer et al., 2013). Design of these types of apartments should be done with great care, since individuals with autism can suffer extensively from ill-designed surroundings (Schrameijer, 2013; Alexa, 2017). Nowadays, most housing that is available, still feels very institution-like and is scarely furnished. For this research, the following main question will serve as guidance: Which architectural elements can increase the well-being of people with autism within their home environment? The research focuses on three elements: literature study, typological research, and questionnaires/interviews with residents and personal tutors. The results deriverd from this research, are divided in problems and solutions, which then are further categorised in themes: sensory, social, and spatial. As a conclusion, I have strived towards creating conclusive guidelines for design. I have applied these design principles in my graduation project which contains a new modern little courtyard, as well as the transformation of an old school building. In these designs, I aim to show how the principles can be applied in several ways: more rigorously in the new development, while being more restrained and subtle in the transformation project. Firstly, sound appears to be the most disturbing factor in housing situations: this notion kept reoccuring in the research. Other annoyances were: glare and reflection of sunlight; abundance of darkness during the night; an unlogical routine space; lack of personal space; feelings of unsafety; forced social interaction; problems with wayfinding; lack of personalisation opportunities. To solve these problems, several solutions have come up during the research. These solutions have been summarised with addition of design suggestions, including: application of a high amount of sound insulation materials; use of matte finishes; providing a spatial layout that supports (and creates expectations for) routine; design fully equipped houses with addition of common rooms in the building; allow for social interaction, both planned as well as accidential; create opportunities for personalisation; design transitions thoughtfully. These research elements have resulted in the design of a modern Dutch little courtyard (e.g. 'hofje'), where the design has been adapted to the residents through all scales: from urban to interior level.

Anytime, anywhere, anything your heart desires is just a few clicks away. Online shopping has surged over the past decade, whilst the shopping area around the corner is dealing with vacancies and decay. Consequently, the appearance and livability of cities decline with the dilapidation of what should be the heart of people’s public life.

The problem of retail vacancy has been addressed by multiple actors in retail, real estate, and management branches, which all agree that leisure and experience play an important role in the revitalization of these shopping areas. Shopping is not just about the purchase of products anymore, it is about the full leisure experience it provides, from arrival to departure —and beyond.

This research approaches the subject from a designer point of view. The design of the environment plays a large role in the experience of a place. By observing people using, and interacting with, their environment in Dutch inner city shopping areas, it explores which spatial aspects influence the shopping/leisure experience. The resulting framework is used in the redesign of a shopping area into a space for leisure.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality have the potential to enhance the capabilities of the architect. This thesis explores the implications of the integration of these technologies intothe architectural design process. It provides a theoretical framework by discussing what VR & AR would mean to the architect’s workflow, and to his workspace. In doing so, VR& AR are not regarded solely as tools or media, but also as a potential design environment. This is reflected in the main research question: “What are the implications of using VR & AR as the workspace in the architectural design process?” As a conclusion of the theoretical framework a personal view of a possible virtual design environment is argued.The thesis also provides a practical framework in the form of a comparison between the ‘traditional’ design process and the ‘augmented’ design process, which is based on a set ofVR & AR experiments done during the design process of the ‘University Forum for the TU Delft’.The underlying function of this thesis is to kickstart the discussion on VR & AR in the architectural design process.

Being ill, treatment at health centres causes anxiety and stress with children. This has a negative effect on their wellbeing, healing process and more important, their cognitive, motoric and social development. The goal of this thesis is to describe a set of generic properties for the built environment to reduce this negative effect by stimulating the imagination of children, aged 3 to 6 years. The generic properties are derived from the analyses of spatial elements, present during activities, in which the imagination is active: playing and perceiving art. Through play they develop their motoric, social and cognitive skills, including their imagination. In addition, not all children in healthcare institutions are able to play, therefore also perceiving art is studied. Through observations at different play areas and the (spatial) analyses of these areas, playgrounds (designed by Aldo van Eyck), fantasy worlds of children and different artworks a set of properties is determined; a place which stimulates the imagination must be created by the composition of different elements. In this composition their scale, number, variety and interrelationship are taken into account. Each of these elements can be described by their properties: height & planar differences, contrast, whether they can exists of loose materials, can be manipulated or that they support enclosure. The composition of these elements and the abstraction of their shape creates a framework of information. Certain aspects are visible and other aren’t. This results in the stimulation of the imagination. These results are translated into a design tool and forms the starting point for the design of a treatment and prevention centre for obese or overweight children. Obesity is a problem which has increased the past few years and probably will become bigger. This centre is located in Zuidwijk, Rotterdam. The percentage of children with obesity is higher in this area than in other parts of Rotterdam or The Netherlands. This centre exists of a treatment centre, sport centre and restaurant. The centre doesn’t only focus on the treatment of children, but also on the prevention and the promotion of a healthy life style of the children, their families and the neighbourhood

Scattering and mixing their roles, tools, space and knowledge, letting them interact with the environment, and translating it into a spatial intervention.
This graduation project is about merging together two of my interests and passions and making an architectural project out of it. But also much more than that.
Being involved in Theatre and Architecture as two distinct fields has led me to the point I wanted to merge the them to allow the possibility of fueling each other from different backgrounds and points of view.

The common description of the configuration of stuff in a room, one of order (tidy) and chaos (messy), fails to explain the phenomenon that artifacts create structures around people and activities in a space, with both functional and cognitive properties. This form of organization, that is recognizable on various scale levels, emerges spontaneously in the system, without the conscious intention of ordering. Following the growing insight in different disciplines that a theory of complexity can more adequately describe real-world phenomena than the classical causal-mechanistic model, a theory is proposed in which a third state, one of self-organization, is added to the order-chaos dichotomy. Stuff systems are considered complex systems, whose global patterns and properties unfold in time, generated through local interactions between the parts. When projecting models that describe complex system dynamics on stuff systems, much of what we observe in a house can be explained, such as the rise of order parameters structuring the parts, life cycles of accumulation, growth, restructuring and renewal, and interdependencies across scales.

The problem here, is that the constant reconfiguration of stuff can only be explained through interaction with human beings, but does not solely follow a path of top-down design. A theory is proposed that links the self-organization of stuff to action identification theory. This theory from psychology explores the cognitive construct of the action (“what one thinks one is doing”) as an order parameter filtering incoming information and thus structuring behavior. Action identification and affordance creation act in parallel and can be considered a doubly complex system creating and created by the self-organization of stuff.

Because of the process through which it emerges, this form of order is functionally optimized, cognitively logic and endlessly more complex than could be designed by drawing lines on paper. Architecture is always about order, while this order comes completely for free. The proposal following this theoretical explanation is therefore a house that uses these network-like structures as the organizational pattern of the design, instead of the traditional orthogonal ‘grid’. Three designer tools that are created following the research and a simulation through agent-based modeling in Netlogo are used in the design process to make this possible.

While cities densify, and fill up with building mass, it is of great importance to pay high attention to good quality public space. People should feel at home not only inside their private dwelling, but also outside the building - in the city itself. Architecture has to provide possibilities for people to establish social contacts and on the other hand offer shelter and intimacy. This is one of architecture’s twin-phenomena. Richard Rogers states, that we as architects always have two clients: the people who use the buildings and the people who pass by the buildings, for whom the buildings form outside space. They have different ways of looking at things. “Public spaces - our streets and squares, parks and pavements - are the stages for public life; the public realm is at the heart of our life as social animals.” It is this ‘twin-phenomena’ of architecture - the phenomena of public and private - that interests me.

Towards 2030, the amount of single households of 65 years and older will double to 40 percent. Due to changes in the political environment elderly can only move to a nursing home if the demand of care is high enough. Consequently, there will be a bigger group of elderly that needs to live longer independently in their urban neighborhood. In the current urban structure, there is still a lot to improve and develop to make the neighborhood a place for all generations, where people can live their whole life. As the physical range of activities and social network of elderly are becoming smaller over the years, they often experience feelings of loneliness. They will become more dependent on the availability of informal care in their near social network. The stimulation of contact with other people and especially other generations could increase the social network of the elderly. This leads to the main question of this research; what architectonic elements enhance contact among elderly and between elderly and other generations in an neighborhood in the city of Rotterdam?

The design assignment comes forward out of the result of the research of the (changing) needs of ‘city-elderly’ and the research of the elements that enhance contact within the neighborhood. The design can be seen as a case study in which a new perspective on the typology of independent elderly living is given, in combination with a program and functions that can enhance contact between generations. The design consists of a cluster of buildings within the existing city structure with a combination of living for the elderly, welfare, care and neighborhood functions.

Water scarcity and unequal distribution of water to different social groups is a problem around the world - mostly in arid and dry climatological conditions. In Israel and the Palestinian Territories water is used as a territorial tool in what I call 'spaces of conflict and opposition'. What could the role of e.g. an architect be in spaces of conflict and opposition through the spatial embodiment of water? This master thesis elaborates on the relevancy of the relation between water and architecture; the architectural embodiment of water systems in coherence with the creation of spaces for mixed flows of people from different social groups.
The building design - the Temple of Water - tries to find an architectural expression in the provision of sufficient water to the city of Hebron, while being a place for all different people to enter, meet, gather, and understand the importance of water as the source for life. The Temple of Water aims for the generation of curiosity and unpredictability in order to be a continuous source of fascination and mysteriousness. Water is the key element and is embodied in different ways, as it also expresses itself through different media e.g. sound and air humidity.
The Temple of water dresses the problems of territorial water management while providing the city of Hebron of water and being the platform for social cohesion and de-segragation through architecture of water.

With the constant urge for progress that characterizes our society, there are bound to be some casualties. Disused and forgotten by the people not immediately involved with them, post-industrial areas are often left vacated and are quickly falling into ruin. Old factories, empty shopping malls, abandoned villages and creepy hospitals litter the urban fringes of many cities. They form an eyesore for developers and city officials and indeed many have fallen to the sledgehammer. Derelict areas like these, however, prosper in natural life and create a safe haven for people living in the margins of society. Insubordination, informal activities and people, plants and animals of all sorts can roam freely through these areas, creating an in-between zone of both material and psychological value.

My project, the forgotten railway line circling the outskirts of Paris, is one of these invaluable territories of human and animal transgression, an oasis in the urban jungle. With impending formal development of the ring, these values could be lost forever. However, my design celebrates these intangible values, without falling into a lethargic laissez-faire. I focus with my interventions on the in-between state of abandonment and development, guarding the line for future generations.

My project could be used as an example for future development not only on 'la Petite Ceinture', but on a much broader scale of the fringe and the urban wildscape.

Housing supply in Sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by self-help housing in informal settlements as a consequence of rapid urban population growth in the absence of sufficient formal housing supply, bringing forth sub-standard housing conditions. Government housing strategies have not been able to halt the informal production of housing, as according to UN-Habitat currently in Africa over half of the urban population (61.7%) lives in slums and by 2050, Africa’s urban dwellers are projected to have increased from 400 million to 1.2 billion. This thesis revisits the ideas of John F.C. Turner who in the 1960s argued that successful government housing strategies in this context, depend on the alignment of government action with the priorities and forces of popular settlement. To meaningfully address the insufficient housing quality and urban sprawl resulting from the informal production of housing, the main objective of this thesis is to produce design guidelines on the typology and housing strategy that best addresses the priorities of the main actors in informal settlements; the inhabitants and the government. Therefore the rationale behind the proliferation of the informal construction of housing is first introduced, clarifying the problematic. Then the theoretical background of existing housing strategies of the provider and enabler paradigm are discussed, while deducing from housing strategies the architectural typologies. To connect the strategies in a narrative, the priorities that form the criteria of a evaluation framework are presented. Evaluation of the strategies against this framework results in a decision making tool that schematically portrays the tradeoffs in priorities and the interconnected consequences of the housing strategies. Applying this tool, a case is made for the strategy of assisted informal multi-story housing; negotiating government priorities of reduced urban sprawl and increased housing quality, while allowing for the inhabitants priorities recognised in the informal production of housing. Case studies of prototypes of this housing strategy are undertaken with the aim to specify the benefits of the informal production of housing and identify solutions for an improved housing quality and urban density. The produced set of generic guidelines on the design of a strategy of assisted informal multi-story housing, informs the redesign of the typical Urban Swahili Housing in Dar es Salaam. This redesign provides an alternative scenario for informal urbanisation in Dar es Salaam: increasing housing quality and urban density.

Urban populations in coastal contexts suffer increasingly from both environmental and spatial risks. Major flooding events, storms, fires, landslides and earthquakes coupled with the unorganized urban fabric located at the locations most at-risk to these hazards render millions of people extremely vulnerable. The externalities in terms of economic opportunity, environmental safety and infrastructural stability are particularly evident in major urban agglomerations where the urban poor suffer from lack of housing, sanitation, clean water, and legal status.
Specifically in Manila, a third of the city’s inhabitants are considered urban poor and live either in slums or in informal housing conditions. The city is an exemplary case of a developing metropolis with multiple water features and geographical conditions which faces the mentioned urban failures and risks in parallel with natural hazards on a yearly basis.
New typologies and solutions need to be sought to understand how to deal with issues of urban land, infrastructure, housing and sanitation, and improved
resilience. As land and flooding are the two core elements which effect all other conditions faced by the urban poor, the design asks how can new land that does not flood be designed as a floating module for a self-sufficient community in the flood-risk context of Manila, Philippines, in order to provide the urban poor population with the means to improve their lives through a more resilient
spatial environment.
The design needs to include strategies both constructional and typological, as well as infrastructure of waste and water management and energy production, so that it will offer an economically and feasibly comparable and sufficiently developed alternative to current practices.

Hoewel met de piek in asielaanvragen in Nederland sinds 2015 is gebleken dat vroege integratie veel voordelen heeft, is de architectuur van Nederlandse asielzoekerscentra daar nog niet op aangepast. In de sociologie zijn veel onderzoeken gedaan naar voorwaarden voor de facilitatie van integratie, maar deze zijn nog nooit toepasbaar gemaakt voor architectuur en architecten. Op basis van een literatuur- en praktijkonderzoek is een toolbox opgesteld voor architecten, met voorwaarden op het gebied van schaal, programma, doelgroep en gebouwkenmerken, waaraan een gebouw moet voldoen om integratie te faciliteren.