This thesis explores methods to enhance the usability of vario-scale maps, focusing on user interaction, cognitive load, and overall satisfaction. Vario-scale maps, based on a continuous zooming approach introduced by Van Oosterom and Meijers, aim to reduce visual disruptions by allowing smooth generalisation of geographic data in real time. The research highlights their potential to merge precision and aesthetic clarity wxhile advancing beyond the conventional snapping behaviour inherent in multi-scale interfaces.
A mixed-method approach was adopted to investigate whether vario-scale maps could improve navigation and user satisfaction. Data were collected through a pilot web-based usability study, followed by a laboratory eye-tracking study designed to capture detailed behavioural and cognitive processes. Quantitative metrics, such as fixation counts and scanpath lengths, were analysed to determine efficiency in map-use tasks, while think-aloud protocols and questionnaires provided qualitative insights into participant preferences and frustrations.
Findings indicate that vario-scale and multi-scale maps offer similar levels of efficiency based on objective eye-tracking metrics. However, participants generally reported higher satisfaction with vario-scale maps, citing smoother transitions, less visual interruption, and a more intuitive zooming experience. The pilot study underscored the importance of user familiarity with Cartography, the careful placement of icons, and task complexity as influential factors in map usability. These insights informed the final study, which showed that vario-scale maps align more closely with user expectations for modern digital interfaces.
By emphasising controlled task design, participant comfort, and iterative refinement through pilot testing, this thesis demonstrates how vario-scale maps can be optimised for enhanced usability. The results further suggest that leveraging cartographic principles—such as appropriate symbol density-plays an essential role in maintaining clarity and facilitating user orientation. Through comprehensive analysis of both objective metrics and subjective evaluations, this thesis provides evidence that improving vario-scale usability is both feasible and beneficial. Future research with broader user demographics and extended usage contexts is recommended to validate and refine the proposed design strategies, ultimately supporting a wider adoption of vario-scale technology for interactive and dynamic mapping applications.

This urban design project addresses the critical issue of homelessness by bringing it to the forefront of societal discussion and professional design consideration. It asserts that homeless individuals should not be rendered invisible but actively included in urban planning. There is a growing and very pressing issue of homelessness in the Netherlands, specifically in Rotterdam, where homeless people are often ignored by the public and pushed into invisibility. The project focuses on the spatial and social dynamics of homelessness in Rotterdam, aiming to understand and visually depict these complexities. It seeks to answer the question: ‘How can an urban transformation in Rotterdam promote recognition of the homeless population and create awareness of their presence and needs?’ Through literature reviews, analytical research, and ethnographic fieldwork, particularly focusing on rough sleepers and women in shelters, the project identifies movement patterns and spatial dynamics of the homeless. It advocates for a network approach on the neighbourhood scale, specifically in Oude Westen, using two key squares to design spaces that meet daily needs while balancing privacy and exposure. By opening up a broader discussion through both its research and design outcomes, this project marks a significant step towards the spatial inclusion of the homeless population.

Due to the ongoing housing crisis in London, a significant number of low-income families at the risk of homelessness and displacement are currently placed in insufficient temporary accommodation while simultaneously autonomous developments like the ‘financialisation of housing’ and the ‘sharing economy’ result in an increasing number of vacancies. Thus, this graduation project aims to improve the availability and quality of temporary accommodation by developing an integrated housing system inspired by informal practices that utilises currently unavailable vacant buildings.
Therefore, different types of informal housing practices and their advantages and disadvantages were compared, and useful outcomes were transferred for the development of the integrated housing system. The system consists of a framework of policies and regulations which operate in different ways and on different levels. Additionally, the situation of low-income families being at the risk of homelessness and displacement was analysed with a mixed-method approach using both quantitative and qualitative data to gain an understanding of their needs and requirements regarding temporary housing solutions. Furthermore, an investigation based on literature as well as statistical and spatial data of vacancies, their indicators, and location in London, has revealed two main types. In order to determine the suitability of the different vacancy types a multi-scalar set of indicators was developed based on the three concepts of livability, meaning of home, and social safety. Based on the previous analysis a catalogue of spatial interventions that enhance the suitability according to the three concepts was created as a guide for both the public and private sector. Lastly, through an exemplary design in the case study area, the different spatial changes are visualised.
In summary this graduation project offers a combined solution for the presented problem by introducing the integrated housing system and providing a guide for related spatial changes.

One of the main results of Cyprus’s contemporary conflict is the Cypriot refugee identity creation. The thesis focuses on the Cypriot refugee settlements created from 1976 to 1991, unraveling the formation of the Greek Cypriot refugee community through space. The thesis project questions how community-led spatial planning allows the Cypriot refugee settlements to be transformed into livable environments while preserving the memories of their initial inhabitants. Additionally, the project expands on how the planning process builds a community in a conflict environment and how the right to remembrance is spatialized conceptually while considering the spatial factors which influence the right to remembrance seen in theoretical notions.
Through the analysis of the spatial footprint of the Cypriot refugees, the refugee settlements, aspects of their liveability state, and remembrance of their past are depicted. The refugee community’s and refugee settlement’s current image are illustrated through quantitative and qualitative analysis. These areas’ social consistency, and spatial characteristics, are combined with the actors and stakeholders involved, contributing to constructing and reconstructing the refugee identity. These elements have been used to form the spatial patterns that describe urgencies and critical features of the refugee community building. Moreover, the degree of place attachment of the refugee settlement residents and the factors responsible for their decay and embody the potential to contribute to community building are identified and used for the pattern language.
The spatial patterns formed through the analysis of Nicosia refugee settlements and global reference patterns dedicated to community express the socio-spatial characteristics of the social group, the refugees, their living conditions, and how the life histories of the first generations have or can be imprinted through space. The patterns created represent starting points for synergies and cooperation among actors towards a socially conscious community’s future at the refugee settlements. Spatial patterns related to the remembrance of the refugee community, combined with liveability aspects, aim to summarize the key elements that enable a community-led strategy, resulting in the landscape memorialization of the refugee settlements.
The complexity of the Cypriot refugee case, primarily because of their internal displacement, the unclear future of the refugee properties, and the de facto division of the island since 1974, make the Cypriot refugees a unique, extremely complex, particularly interesting case.

With the progressing housing shortage, there is a need for affordable and accessible housing to accommodate the vulnerable population whose number steadily increases every year. Post-socialist urban residential neighbourhoods, an outdated and neglected but culturally and sentimentally significant typology, has the potential to become a solution for this. If regenerated in a considerate way, those have the potential to become not only areas offering affordable housing and comfortable living conditions for the vulnerable population, but places which feel like home and provide the support to help the residents become less vulnerable and grow further socially and financially. Informed urban regeneration of the public spaces of post-socialist urban residential neighbourhoods with focus on the accumulation of social capital would accommodate the need for both housing and community, while helping the neglected typology become a place that truly feels like home and a place to belong. Essentially, the goal of the project is to argue that having a home is not only about ownership, because the notion of “home” goes beyond that: home is also our social capital, and the possibility to create or maintain social capital needs to be facilitated accordingly in urban residential neighbourhoods.