The protagonist of this year’s graduation studio is the Stockholm City Library. It was deesigned by famous Scandinavian architect Erik Gunnar Asplund (1885-1940) and opened in the spring of 1928. It is a modernist building located in Vasastaden, a very diverse neighbourhood on the Northern Island of Sweden’s capital Stockholm.

The graduation studio, organised by the group Interiors Buildings Cities, started on the premise of two failed competitions that were written out for the Stockholm City library. The project aims to reintegrate the Library into the urban fabric and the city life of Stockholm. It does this by bringing the Bazaar into the building, creating a public, inviting route on the level of Svaevägen Street, and connecting this central city axis to a lowered square that finishes the route throughout the building. While following this public route, the visitor can go up to more focused areas within the library and discover its beautifully kept reading room and Rotunda centrepiece.

The aim is to create a library that not only allows for the individual consumption of knowledge but also facilitates the exchange of knowledge between the inhabitants and visitors of Stockholm.

The Flemish Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA) is an institution strongly rooted in the existing fabric and socio-political framework of Antwerp South. The museum is located on the outskirts of the city, which has undergone consistent urban development and urban planning as the city grew into one of the most diverse metropolitan areas in Europe. In this development, the Antwerp Museum of Contemporary Art gradually sought to evolve with society and make way for a larger institutional purpose that pushed the museum agenda towards a more formal and generic interpretation of art spaces and how they are interpreted in light of the current zeitgeist.

In my final project, I revisit the meaning of art presentation in relation to cultural building by reconnecting with MKHA’s historic approach of capturing the essence of conserving and presenting contemporary art, an identity and genesis of an institution that has curated its growing collection between less conventional building layout and architectural fabric.

My design proposal is based on the sustainable idea and design language of reusing existing building tissue, specifically the former courthouse building which is assigned for the new developments of the M HKA or at the time entitled: Vlaams Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst (VMHK). A building typology that exists of two prefabricated office towers that are connected by a low-rise structural addition and entrance.

Here, the practice of preserving and exhibiting art in an anti-museum condition becomes relevant again through the presence of existing structure and building layout, which, in resemblance to the former MHKA building, reinforces this familiar identity in which exhibiting art bears the title ‘symbiosis between’ anti-museum condition and institutional purpose.

Smart City forms the new urban imaginary of the recent era. It primarily emerged from the West and has a wide set of definitions that revolves around the use of technology for urban development. With the concept’s growing popularity in the Global South, countries such as India have adopted it as a national program called Smart City Mission to guide the growth of its cities. However, it fails to address one of the crucial urban challenges of Indian cities - informality. This development model has created urban smart enclaves with aspirations to become a global city and has caused further fragmentation, segregation, and inequalities. The current informal area upgradation is essentially a top-down process seeking change by recognizing people’s needs and empowering them to transform their quality of life.

The graduation project, ‘An alternative smart paradigm,’ explores the possible shift in approach towards an inclusive and just smart city in India by integrating informal areas in planning and governance. The thesis explores redefining the word ‘smart’ through the lens of the local knowledge of the community. Peter Marcuse’s critical planning theory is used as a guiding theory to structure the research. It acts as an operational platform to institutionalize local voices and form a co-production system to recognize the passive actors as smart agents of change.

In order to overcome the shortcomings of the current policies and processes, a ‘Smart Slum Upgrading Program’ is envisioned which converges the existing agendas and is activated using a strategic framework. It is formulated as an evolutionary process of change that revolves around the idea of co-creation and enabling people to become smart citizens. A strategic framework based on people’s values and daily systems is expressed through the design of a spatial framework and finally operationalized using phases of transformation. A collaborative stakeholder engagement is developed to provide the right to the city for the marginalized groups. This project presents a people-centric approach towards informal area upgradation to integrate them within the smart city model and achieve socio-spatial justice.

The Xingu River Basin sits within the Amazon Biome and integrates its deforestation belt. It is home to a multitude of endemic species and indigenous nations which are now threatened by the disruption of the river’s water pulse caused by the construction and operation of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam. As we face our planet’s ecological collapse due to resource based developmentalism, life on a planetary scale is increasingly threatened. Under the Anthropocene, urbanization networks have expanded beyond the traditional concept of hinterland. Planetary urbanization theory (Brenner & Schmid, 2012) unravels how untouched regions are now operationalized and incorporated into global resource networks.

The project explores the possibilities for mediation between natural and local-social systems with the demands of development brought by modernity to the river’s basin, specifically to the areas directly affected by reduced water flow caused by the dam. Traditionally, Amazon rivers are spaces that allow for shared occupation. By considering water as the meditative space, forms of shared occupation are proposed which can enable a reconfiguration for coexistence and forms of life in the Xingu River according to varied worldviews. This sensitive approach towards local existences looks for a type of urbanization different from that of the modern project. In order to identify potential synchronicities between worldviews, a framework for reading worldview alignments regarding the systems in question was developed.

This thesis questions the limits of urban practice in such territories, posing a question that possibly cannot be answered with the tools we have at our disposal. If our field intends to position itself within such territories, we must begin to propose an alternative paradigm which can adequately territorialize cosmopolitics. Would Cosmourbanism be achievable?

Brenner, N. & Schmid, C. (2012). Planetary Urbanization. In M. Gandy (Eds.), Urban Constellations (pp. 10-13). Berlin: Jovis.

This research project aims to understand the spatial and procedural implications of planning and spatial justice in conditions of oppressive power and conflict. Ambitions towards spatial justice amongst marginalized ethnic minority populations are at further risk if liberal notions of government and planning continue to operate under the ethnocratic state regime. This demands an alternative approach and perspectives that are context-specific to which can engage with the realities of marginalized populations towards the quest for justice. The research framework is steered by an exploratory research approach that suggests an organic process to contextualize the preconditions of spatial justice as the research begins to unveil the marginalized areas of North-Eastern, Sri Lanka. The project aims to understand how spatial planning (planning and design) can unlock conditions to support the quest for spatial justice, self-determination, and liberation of Eelam Tamils in Sri Lanka's North-East.

This research project focuses on how to provide the necessary infrastructure for citizen participation systems and encourage the inhabitants to get involved in the decision-making process in the communities by developing an alternative strategic framework, which offers a step-by-step community activation system. The main location of this study is Tarwewijk, a problematic neighbourhood in Rotterdam south with a super-divers context.

The scope of this graduation thesis is to examine up to what extent nomadism as a way of life and human existence can inform spatial planning and landscape design concerning risk mitigation and adaptation to the uncertainty of the future, and eventually, reconceptualise the resilience framework within the spatial context of the Wadden Sea Region. The thesis starts with an inquiry around the very notion of nomadism, outlining the figure of the nomad in relation to the territory, as a habitat and as a field of knowledge. Nomadic territories are distinguished by co - habitation between human and nature systems accompanied by a synchronized performance of natural and anthropogenic agents. The nomad is fully embedded with the territory and its nature, meaning that he or she is not only aware but also part of the biophysical cycle. The ex ante of Sámi contributes to the establishment and definition of the nomadic paradigm and simultaneously supports the previous argument. A hypothesis transition moves the scope of the study from Sápmi to the Wadden Sea Region, aiming at testing how the nomadic paradigm could trigger a shift in the way sedentary civilization, currently based on permanence, stability and over – exploitation of ecosystems carrying capacity, values the landscape. The analysis and diagnosis of the multifaceted pressures related to climate change and human activity in the Wadden Sea Region highlight the urgency for a new balance between economy and ecology, based on co - habitation and de – growth. A shift towards the nomadic paradigm, thus, seems extremely relevant. Following this, an evolutionarily adaptive strategic framework is developed and applied on Texel Island which becomes an “in situ” experiment. Here, the strategic actions turn into place specific (plug in) design interventions. The living lab of Texel is an iterative, robust, open innovation ecosystem, where water management, land use and human activity are reprogrammed through design, in a way that mitigates risk, enhances the island’s adaptive capacity, activates awareness and participation of permanent and temporary actors, towards a sustainable development that will set a (neo nomadic) example for the Wadden Sea Region as a whole.

The phenomenon of ‘globalisation of water’ (A. Y. Hoekstra & Hung, 2005) talks about the importance of recognizing the adverse effects on local freshwater resources from a global perspective. The trade of water through the export and import of products results in ‘virtual water flows’ (Arjen Y. Hoekstra & Mekonnen, 2012), which leads to many counties externalizing their water footprint with serious consequences leading to water stress, scarcity and pollution elsewhere. Lenzen et, al. talks about the trade of scarce water through water-intensive crops and their consequences on water stress in exporting regions (Lenzen et al., 2013). This leads to a vicious circle of water stress which has several impacts on the environment and society. However, the extent of these impacts is not fully researched. This thesis hopes to investigate the spatial, socio-economic, and environmental impacts that are associated with the virtual water trade of cotton from India, and how they can be improved to obtain a sustainable and balanced water footprint in water-scarce regions.

This project is an attempt to bring back play, from the mere simulation it is now, to a creative force that it once was. It questions whether the entertainment park is still relevant in contemporary society and whether it can be reimagined and transformed from a scripted to a more unscripted arena of action. The aim of this project is to create an environment that is not just consumable but also productive and transformative, transforming life rather than an individual. A life that is valuable and made out of zest, beauty, wonder, and adventure; life as something that is lived for its own sake; something that is a value in and of itself, in the unexchangeable currency of experience. This project is not a ‘thing’ (an object, space, a building, or a site) but an assemblage of different components, scales, actions, potentials and practices working together to produce play. More than anything, it is a method, a principle that can be transferred and applied elsewhere.

The thesis departed from the problem that is the lack of integration between theories like Regenerative Development and Design (RDD) and planning practices. Theories like RDD take a systematic approach towards bringing sustainable and adaptable solutions to the built environment. Theories like this are highly relevant because they embrace cities as the complex systems that they are. The thesis used the case study of the Metropolitan Area to answer to the question of how to integrate then, RD, and planning practices. It used the working hypothesis that by integrating the geodesign framework as a methodological basis and the Social-Ecological Systems Framework (SESF) as a theoretical/analytical basis, the previous could be achieved. The SESF was used to address the use of social-ecological systems, governance, and multiscalarity, while the geodesign framework was mostly used to achieve transdisciplinarity. The report then presents the methodology that was used to explore such issue. As the hypothesis indicated, the research integrated the SESF as a structured language into the geodesign framework. The SESF language helped to answer the questions that the original geodesign model asked. Throughout the process of developing the methodology, the geodesign framework was adapted to enhance its use of multiscalarity, which it actually did not possess, and its use of transdisciplinarity.
The first modification improved the use of multiscalarity in the adapted framework by dividing the Resource System in two different types of scales: into system and subsystems, and into an assessment and designing area. It also developed the selection of the criteria, the methods to model and the modelling of the Macro-scale of the Resource System before than the rest of the framework The second and third modifications aimed to enhance the use of transdiscplinarity by 1) enhancing the designing amongst the stakeholders and co-designing between the stakeholders and the designers by 2) using an anticipatory-agent based modelling method in the Process Model, )and by integrating the Change Models of the stakeholders and geodesign team rather than selecting from them.

Perception and relation of people towards water in Bangkok have changed through time, from a way of living to threat of lives. Growth of urbanization from adaptive water-based society to land-based mega-polis has led to a major shift of urban infrastructures changing lifestyle and perception of people. Water is currently perceived in form of flood threatening various land-based developments by the interruption of daily systems. To reinforce the growth of land-based urbanization, Grey infrastructure solutions are heavily promoted, protecting the city from flood, in the same time, water get devalued and separated from people life. The indigenous socio-ecological living with water is vanished from the urban society and water, as valuable natural asset, is in the stage of decaying socially and ecologically. In the rapid climate change era, on behalf of continuing to avoid and live against nature, Bangkok and the inhabitants are challenged to adapt reliving with water once again. The paper mainly focuses to transform the existing
grey infrastructures into hybrid flood adaptive and performative resilience system of Bangkok, reducing flood risks and provoking socio-ecological transformation with water-based identity.

My thesis explores on how to reproduce life inherent in the musical form with architectural composition. The beauty of music attributes to its high degree of life inherent in its holistic form, which is affective, adaptive and generative. In my research paper I approach the quote "I call architecture frozen music "by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe in a metaphysical way. Relationship between form, composition and phenomenal experience are explained in terms of “flow” and “Bodies”. Space and time are understood in terms of virtual flowing force acting on bodies, that they are actualized as sounds in music and “frozen” as materialistic objects in architecture, affording our sensational experience. Composition, is understood as synthesizing of individual bodies with order into a holistic body, in which tensions are created by the differential relationship of its constituent bodies. Music, is the transitional interactions between our human bodies and the musical body actualized. While in architecture, “audiences” set their bodies into actions, empathizing with the frozen transitional form through time, synchronizing the physical body experience with the inner mental experience.
My thesis design reflects on the shift of architecture experience from existentially plastic and spatial experience, to mere time-compressed striking visual image, with the loss of experiential depth, under the information age. As an inverted version of “allegory of the cave”, my building functions as an immersive labyrinth with ambiguity and mystery hidden beneath ground, affording a retreating experience to urban wildscape explorers. It fulfilled the timeless task of architecture as stated by Pallasmaa – “understand and remember the shapeless flow of reality and, ultimately, to recognize and remember who we are.” The building situates itself in Paris, at the intersection of the abandoned La Petite Ceinture, an urban wildscape experiencing the transition from ruin to regeneration, and the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, where the histories of underground mining hidden beneath. The memories of two places intertwined at this counterpoint and synthesize into a frozen melody, as the body of the labyrinth. Though her body the labyrinth brings collective memories to present individual explorers. The spatial variations embodied promotes sequences of scenarios and potentials. Me as a composer, imagines different scenarios and interactions involving individual urban explorers as “audiences” or

Urban flooding is a problem faced by many mayor cities around the world nowadays. That is the case of several areas of the Greater Miami Area. Rapid urbanization and the depletion of natural buffer zones that used to storage rain water, added to climate change effects, specifically the increase of heavy rainfalls and sea level rise have only aggravated the situation during the past two decades. This thesis focuses in the necessity to provide new types of resilient and sustainable landscapes for the cities of Hialeah and Miami Springs in order to deal with this issue. There have been and still on the going, numerous urban regeneration projects throughout the Miami Dade County. However, most of these plans don’t contemplate the use of landscape as a mean to deal with water management problems like floods. The goal of this graduation project is to improve the current and future social and ecologic needs of both cities through new types of urban landscapes that will also contribute to water management solutions for the area. The purpose of the research is to gather information to understand the problem and the site in order to establish a comprehensive set of design principles and strategies to guide the design. The key concept of the theoretical framework is the implementation of landscape as water infrastructure through the transformation of existing underused public space and urban infrastructures, as well as future areas for redevelopment within the sites. The expected result is to achieve responsive socio environmental local solutions to create an evolutionary landscape in the cities of Hialeah and Miami Springs.

Climate change and other challenges such as energy transition and social transition in Bergen mean the urban structure and spatial qualities would be influenced and the lifestyle of people might also change. In order to sustain or improve the current level of livability of the city, certain policies and interventions through spatial planning and design would be necessary. This project firstly redefines the new livability of Bergen in 2030 and related strategies and goals that could adapt to the main challenges. Then improvement of the urban structure and systems is designed to allow developments that confirm with the requirements of the new livability. Design options and guidelines are provided to support the system design.

Reversed risk
With more than 80% of Thames River banks transformed into concrete storm walls, with the Thames Barrier in place since the 70s, the dynamic tidal force is persistently causing storm surge flooding and flash floods throughout London’s dense urban areas, putting the UK coastline as a priority area among the North Sea adjoined territories – both from the point of view of event frequency but also of prospective impact. Based on this assumption, one might consider the flood adaptation strategy as a priority point on the governance list, however, the Environment Agency’s funding for maintaining flood assets has fallen by 14% nationally. Recent press investigations undertaken by The financial Times quote John Pettigrew as he raises a pressing point on the British investment agenda - ‘It is important that the UK is seen as a place that is attractive to inward investment. In terms of the energy sector, a lot of infrastructure needs to be built in the UK over the next few years. Post-Brexit, it is important that it is coming in.’ Looking further into the matter, while flood defence seems to lose importance on the hierarchical chain of monetary distribution, current trends in the energy field are attracting increasing capital in the UK’s national strategy. As a consequence and if inundated, the Greater Thames Estuary region which currently contains 1 million properties would suffer direct damage of at least £ 97.8 billion at 2003 prices.

Surely, the planning focus shift Is justified as the North Sea is facing an era of fossil fuel depletion and the overpriced electricity bills urgently demand the transition to clean, renewable sources. In this matter, the UK is a leading power with the most extensive exclusive economic zone coverage, with intensive fossil fuel extraction platforms that are currently being transformed into energy farms throughout the continental shelf, creating a new ground for exploring a projective dimension for productive landscapes triggered by the ocean dynamics, a possible paradigm for extraction that focuses on the potential of the contiguous maritime zone as well as the territorial sea as main generators. Additionally, the focus of the thesis supports another conceptual shift – from the recent focus of sustainability in the advancement of human development (Keenan and Weisz, 2016) to the necessity to change current behaviors in favor of a conscious awareness of the externalities of society’s unrestrained consumption (Bowen and Hepburn, 2014) – or in simpler phrasing, a new paradigm focused on the sustainability of resources and raw materials to be allocated to the promotion of resilience of the status quo and the adaptation of societies, economies, ecologies ( Keenan and Weisz, 2016).

Already shifting the focus of energy production to the maritime territories that engage in exchanges with the land, we are discussing implicitly coastal flood strategies. From a theoretical point of view, there would be a clear interdependency between the particularity of the territorial sea hydrodynamics and the coastal adaptive response to risk. However, the UK planning system regard these issues as separate entities, under separate departments, directly subordinated to Her Majesty, The Queen. From the central government level, to the regional, county and village level, flood risk and energy efficiency run parallel under the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy [ BEIS ] and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [ DEFRA ], while spatial planning is addressed through a different branch - the Department for Communities and Local Government [ DCLG ], thus making any communication hard if not unlikely.
On this note, the thesis is trying to converge these fields into a coherent, integrated new approach – flood risk and energy transition pressure – putting forward a strategy for extraction in estuarine waters, that would require a control body to involve the highlighted departments and ensure the pairing up between policy, investment and the department in charge. Thus, this thesis looks beyond the 2030 effective lifespan of the Thames Barrier and explores an alternative system of hybrid infrastructure that can reverse the flood risk factor towards a profitable tidal energy source, creating a protection/production cycle, simultaneously defending and “fuelling” the city as well as retrieving its original investment. Practically, understanding natural forces value, paired with adaptive capacity patterns builds up towards the gradient of spatial and performance suitability. This creates a system of critical intervention areas directly supporting and conserving their anthropic activity within the urban system. A coherent spatial assessment framework which results in critical location identification and a paired governance implementation model, followed by a design approach zooming into a transitional system – from restrictive, regeneration urban area, to natural protected landscapes. As a result, this hybrid approach to protective infrastructure boosts the regional economy through the overlaid programme pairing, promoting an agricultural transition to aquaculture and energetically self-providing urban district.

Rome is a city that has always been described as an eternal city. This eternal character can be found through the many traces that Rome contains of former states within its physical environment. When researching these traces, an interesting conclusion can be drawn; almost all physical elements have either fallen into decay or have continuously moved with the city to meet the needs of new social structures. But nowadays with the declaration of the city centre of Rome as one large monument, this is no longer possible. While at the same time the current social structure is crumbling. This is particularly visible with all of the Roman churches. Christianity is losing relevance fast and these church become nothing but museumpieces in the city that are no longer contributing to the current social structure of Rome. That is why this thesis proposes a radical move; to provide space in the city center for new architectural experiments by moving 10 of the 400 churches to a new location outside the city center. With the collection of 10 churches also a grand experiment will be conducted, creating a gigantic second hand religious market, using the historical logistical character of the new location. Continuing Rome is about giving the city the impulse to restart the layering that makes Rome great and to give Rome back to its own citizens for a new eternity.