This project takes place in Friedrichshain, Berlin, Germany and presents the design of a Public Condenser along the Straße der Pariser Kommune named ’Bau(m) Berlin’. The project is part of the Public Building Graduation Studio and looks into the topic of designing a ’new urban lounge and commons’ through the process of Research by Design.

Through field research and urban analysis, three issues came to the forth in the Friedrichshain area; A disconnection between residents, a missing framework for social (re-)integration and low quality green space. These issues consequently led to choosing the project site along the Straße der Pariser Kommune and forming the following research question:

”What if there could be an architecture that pushes interaction so that the social gap between people could be bridged whilst functioning as
a platform that helps people to (re-) enter society?”

In order to tackle the pre-described issues, the project takes the notion of ’building’ and dissects it into ’Building the Future Commons’, ’Building Connections’ and ’Building Things’. Together they describe and result into the project Bau(m). The ’m’ in Bau(m) entails the notion and concept of Multiplicity, e.i. the idea that a thing, in this case a public building, can be used in multiple ways, for various programmatic functions, throughout time. For me, this meant seeing architecture as a framework that allows for adaptable use of a building.

Consequently, the building is designed as a pavilion within the park stretching along the Straße der Pariser Kommune and has one big roof supported by a grid structure column repetition made from timber. The columns are bended so that together, they form an arch-shaped pattern. By seeing the building as part of the park, the park is equally redesigned into a park of higher quality with an urban route that stretches through the building and connects the Ostbahnhof train station with the Karl-Marx-Allee further North.

The main function of the building is a workshop space for various crafts, amongst which furniture making, as it uses the method of making as a way of bringing people together and getting those in need back on into society. This workshop space stretches into the basement and thus forms the substructure of an urban square that exists in front of the building.

Anonymity in cities and a lack of architectural identity are some of the social-architectural challenges of our time, with profound consequences for urban life. Not only does architecture have a major impact on how we experience cities and buildings, it also has an impact on our health, wellbeing and behavior. The aim of this research is to find out how residential architecture can create identity and positively influence the mental and physical health of its inhabitants. This involves architectural design principles that can respond to users‘ conscious and subconscious needs to their living environment.
An extensive literature search in the main areas of architectural psychology and active architecture provides insights into these issues. In addition, an analysis of case studies illustrates these issues and how they can be implemented spatially.
The results show the great influence that architecture has on large parts of our lives. Among other things, it influences emotions, behavior patterns, health or the way people interact with each other. On this scientific basis, residential architecture can be designed to exert a positive influence on social, private and public life.

It is the year 2019 and the Dutch economy is flourishing. However, the retail sector is still in a ‘re- inventing phase’. The popularity of e-commerce is increasing and Dutch shopping districts are continuously changing. This affects the profitability of both retailers and retail investors. Considering that the Dutch population is aging, people live longer independently and elderly people like shopping centres as places for spontaneous encounters it seems clear that an increasingly important target group for Dutch neighbourhood shopping centres are the elderly people. If our neighbourhood shopping centres are not tailored towards the wishes of the elderly consumers it can have both a social and financial impact. First of all, the elderly might not be able to buy the goods they need for an autonomous live and they might not like the physical environment of the shopping centre as a social meeting place. Besides this, it can lead to missed financial opportunities for retailers and shopping centre investors. The main aim of this research is to gain insight into solutions / measures that make existing neighbourhood shopping centres future proof in aging societies such as the Netherlands. The emphasis in this study is on analysing the wishes of elderly visitors with regard to the characteristics of the shopping centre.

Low-cost air quality sensors can fill gaps between the sparse measurements done with high-quality national monitoring grids and might contribute to creating a more complete understanding of air pollution in an urban area. However, until there is no agreement on what degree of sensor accuracy is acceptable, the sensor data quality should be validated before governmental bodies use it as input for decision-making (Lewis2017).

This research proposes a method to assess and improve the data quality of low-cost air quality sensors measuring Particulate Matter (PM). To answer the research question "How can accuracy and precision of Particulate Matter measurement results from a low-cost outdoor sensor network be improved by using a correction model, using data from reference sensors and additional sensors measuring inferencing phenomena?" an experiment setup with sensors operating under real-world conditions is applied.

Two low-cost sensor nodes, both containing a microcontroller, two low-cost PM sensors, and a temperature and humidity sensor, are placed at two locations in the city of Rotterdam. At those two locations, they are placed next to a high-quality air quality monitoring station from the environmental agency of Rotterdam. These monitoring stations provide benchmark data for the low-cost sensor nodes. A third data source provides data on air pressure and wind speed for the whole city of Rotterdam.

The data that originates from both sensor nodes and monitoring stations are matched and correlated with each other. Subsequently, the measurements from the low-cost sensor nodes are evaluated. Correlations and cross inferences of PM with other independent variables such as humidity, ambient temperature, wind speed and air pressure are investigated. Thereafter, utilizing the Stepwise Multiple Linear Regression method, various correction models are created that take various combinations of external variables into account. The correction models vary with respect to the amount of included external environmental variables and the polynomial degree. From all those possible correction models, the best correction model per location is selected by evaluating the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of the corrected dataset.

Consequently, the results of the chosen correction model are validated. It is found that the best performing correction models are those that include only the original PM data and the effect of adding more independent variables is limited. The best correction models for the four low-cost PM sensors are able to decrease the RMSE of the observations: the original normalized RMSE ranged from 0.0918 to 0.1249, while the corrected normalized RMSE range from 0.03110 to 0.03759. So, it is possible to improve the data quality of low-cost PM sensors with the stepwise MLR method and setup as shown in this research. However, including parameters for independent variables humidity, temperature, air pressure or wind speed does not improve the data quality significantly.

Besides, when an extra sensor node is placed in an air quality monitoring network as described in this research, it is necessary to create a correction model for that specific sensor. Like Castell (2017) and Mukherjee (2017) also found, it is necessary to calibrate each individual low-cost sensor before adding it to an air quality measuring network of the type as described in this research. Namely, it is found that for each low-cost PM sensor in the network different correction models are created.

Airport has been labelled as a non-place by the French anthropologist Marc Augé, with its place as a limbo filled with a mass of isolated individuals which response to non-human mediations such as boarding screens and signages. Consider together with the automatic trend of mobility as well as the social health trend of non-real life conversations thanks to technology, there is a diminishing of human element within Schiphol. Nevertheless, a lack of cultural amenity on the landside for non-travellers. Consider together with the growth of Airport city, a theatre is proposed to be installed for not only landside users but also the potential of a human element added for travellers who spend excessive time idling.The Schiphol Theatre locates at the centre of Schipholterminal, which lies on one of the main axis within atransitional cityscape. It contains a multicharacter essencewith functioning as a public lounge, a public space, as well as an event space for not only classical performaces, but also public entertainments. This thesis project exploresthe possibilites of redefining Schiphol anemity experience,providing flexibility for World events/daily activities, VIA emphasizing on publicness, togetherness and cohesiveness of amenity.

There is a rich history of mankind’s relation with nature which is still used as a framework in today’s architecture. The framework is built on the fact modern structures are still able to awaken emotions from the past. In ancient times survival has been different compared to modern times. Man survived with whatever it could gather in the direct environment to create shelter, causing structures to be built on different principles. Modern technology allows to create structures with new techniques and mimic structures of the past. Combining these techniques with techniques to make pop-up structures adds an extra dimension to the design objective.