This research paper aims to explore performative dissident practices within the context of Madrid, focusing on how architectural practice can gain insights from these practices to inform the design of interventions or conditions that foster empowerment, particularly for vulnerable communities. The intention is not to provide a socio-political critique, but rather to advocate for the significance of these urban battlegrounds as pedagogical instances that can enrich architectural discourse. Therefore the research seeks to answer the following question:
How can architectural practices, focused on contested urban environments, draw from the dissident practices manifested in the built environment and thus foster resilience for the vulnerable communities?

In the rising action of the research, the paper first constructs a methodological and theoretical tapestry, developing a lens through which to conduct a site analysis. This is done by employing architectural analytical drawings, as well as narration and experimental writing, to highlight the more latent, experiential aspects of dissident practices. The climax of the research applies this lens to three squares within Madrid’s most vulnerable neighborhood, Embajadores/Lavapiés. In the falling action, the research delves deeper into the site of choice and its significance for the project and expands on the conceptual framework that can be applied towards a design of conditions.

It is certain that cities must prepare for densification in the coming years due to urban population growth. High-rise buildings as urban housing have long been seen as a solution to address housing shortages. This typology efficiently utilizes limited space, allowing a relatively large number of urban residents to settle in the urban area. Now, the urban built environment is reaching the point where social and societal problems are also experienced in this typology. Residents of high-rise buildings struggle with feelings of loneliness and are unable to anchor themselves in the urban community. It seems that our urban designs have led to increased anonymity and a loss of social contact in high-rise living. The lack of social engagement within a community or social isolation has adverse effects on mental health, resulting in dissatisfaction, stress, and poor public health. Ultimately, this societal problem will also influence the urban developments negatively. As a result, the characteristic structure of high-rise buildings must be studied and reconsidered for the sake of the mental health of the urban population. The built environment must come up with solutions to encourage social interactions through design interventions in high-rise buildings and focussing more on public interior spaces.

At the heart of diverse, thriving inner-city areas are the community gardens, impromptu skate parks and self-managed community centres where residents can build intercultural connections, and achieve a sense of belonging. This thesis defines these as ‘Open Third Places’: public areas whose disorder generates spontaneous encounters and unexpected vibrancy.
Open Third Place can be found in the El Laboratorio squatted social centres of inner-city Madrid. The gentrifying, inner-city neighbourhood of Lavapies has historically hosted a diverse variety of outsiders, ranging from international immigrants to Spanish activist groups. Where their needs were not met by costly governmental regeneration efforts, El Laboratorio group used the act of occupation to explore the creation of low-budget, user-led social centres, free from bureaucratic constraints. These spaces became valuable hubs for coexistence in an otherwise fragmented community, despite financial and legal constraints.
Therefore, this paper examines how El Laboratorio diverged from mainstream building conventions, to demonstrate where such disorder is crucial in the formation of Open Third Places. This analysis is structured by three divisions, or ‘thresholds’, which exist in the formally planned city, but were blurred within El Laboratorio centres: ‘spatial thresholds’, ‘designer-user thresholds’ and ‘temporal thresholds’. Using archival visual and written material from the social centres, the paper suggests a connection between the conviviality of El Laboratorio and their bridging of these thresholds.
In this way, the thesis reveals possibilities for architects to similarly work with these thresholds, when designing for the community of Lavapies. Despite this, it concludes by foreseeing difficulties of translating ideas from the ‘disorder’ of a squat, to the ‘order’ of a more formal design scheme, outlining potential conflicts in the application of these ideas.

This thesis explores the interplay between urban underground spaces and the concept of time, aiming to transform our perception and use of these hidden areas. Beginning with an extensive mapping of Madrid's underground, the research reveals the often-inaccessible nature of these spaces. Through typological studies and philosophical exploration, the thesis reinterprets these spaces as temporal phenomena, emphasizing their dynamic potential.
The theoretical foundation is grounded in concepts such as Bergson's duration and Bakhtin's chronotope, which highlight the entanglement of time and space. The design project proposes a shift from place-based to operation-based design, focusing on the temporal dimensions of space. It envisions a flexible art hub in Madrid, adaptable to various activities and extending beyond its physical boundaries, reflecting the concept of Urban Uchronia—a utopia of time that challenges existing temporal norms.
The manifesto envisions a network of interconnected underground spaces across the city, forming a system of Urban Uchronia. This vision integrates subterranean environments into the urban fabric, transforming how we engage with these spaces. The thesis concludes by reflecting on the transferability of these concepts, offering innovative strategies for urban regeneration and architectural design in diverse contexts worldwide. By reimagining underground spaces through the perspective of time, this thesis proposes a new paradigm for urban development.

Casa de Campo, Madrid’s Field of Play, has yet to fully integrate into the city's everyday life and ecology. This forest, rich in archaeological and natural heritage, is nearly forgotten, with its playgrounds sitting empty and unused. This project takes an infrastructural approach, creating directed fields where both human and non-human activities can unfold. The design lays the groundwork for future events and building activities, operating flexibly in the division, allocation, and construction of surfaces, while also engaging architecture's ability to communicate through its imagery.
The research identified multiple sites within Casa de Campo to become a series of interconnected yet diffuse elements. These elements are intended to induce movement, create new atmospheres, and establish visual connections and ecologies between the park and the city. Site selection was based on factors such as accessibility, proximity to roads and trails, viewpoints, and archaeological significance. The networked imagery of these architectural elements fosters new associations and movement patterns between city dwellers and their playground, Casa de Campo.
Key research methods included mapping, drawing, navigation, and walking, all of which helped to immerse the project within the context of Casa de Campo and Madrid. These tools revealed the site's suppressed and intangible qualities. Some maps were playful and internal, while others were systematic, helping to address the complex implications of the proposed intervention. Operational mapping, used as a design tool, allowed for the exploration of functions and possible outcomes over an extended time frame. This approach balanced structured, fixed elements with more flexible, negotiable ones. As a result, the urban strategy aims to create a flexible system rooted in ecological and infrastructural thinking. Time and process are integral to the landscape's growth and microbial activity, connecting air, surfaces, substrates, and rhizomes. The architectural design materializes these anticipated event scenarios, and the construction process is made visible to the public, embracing the messy realities of urban building rather than concealing them.

Current waste management practices pose a significant threat to humans, animals and our environment, contributing greatly to environmental pollution. Furthermore, the speed and the way we consume and dispose of things is changing rapidly, leaving us with little time to react to this global issue; particularly in urban centres, seeing that the cities have become the centre of flows and exchanges. This thesis investigates how architecture can enhance these networks in order to enable necessary economic, environmental and social transformations. It challenges the linear production-consumption-waste model driven by capitalism and explores the potential for creating resilient, self-sustainable cities through circular network flows.
Focusing on Madrid, the project proposes the reintroduction of urban manufacturing within the city to establish sustainable (textile) material flows. By ‘weaving’ this new program into the city's existing urban and material fabric, and reclaiming the former industrial site, the project envisions a space dedicated to textile innovation. With the intention of extending to other industries in the future, fostering cross-industry synergies and potentially acting as a catalyst for broader sustainable practices.
Architecture has a potential to serve as a catalyst of the change, by embodying the principles of sustainable production, rethinking the flows of material and embracing the interconnectedness of systems, communities and environment. Considering the industrial history and context of the site, the project reimagines the underutilized area as an innovation hub, contributing to a more resilient urban future.

‘Back to the User’ addresses a critical issue in contemporary architectural practice: the dissociation from the user. In the software industry, 10% to 40% of a project’s budget is allocated to ‘User Experience (UX) Research’, which focuses on assessing and fulfilling users’ needs and experiences throughout the entire design process. This investment not only doubles sales but also nearly triples user satisfaction. Despite its proven value, UX Research is significantly underrepresented in architecture. This paper explores how to better integrate and utilize UX Research in architectural practice, proposing a new methodology.

The methodology closest to UX Research in architecture is ‘Post-Occupancy Evaluation’ (POE), but only 5% of architectural firms in the EU offer (and even fewer conduct) it during the design phase. Architects may talk closely with clients, but not with users. Additionally, most UX Research involves 1:1 prototype testing with users to ensure that the design meets its intended benefits. In architecture, ‘prototyping’ usually consists of 2D plans, visualizations, or scaled models, which are often not comprehensible, accurate, or immersive enough. While constructing a full 1:1 prototype is possible, it is not economically, spatially, or sustainably feasible for large projects—or is it?

With the rise of Virtual Reality (VR), we can now test virtually unlimited 1:1 designs, leading to more objective, evidence-based conclusions. This paper explores this approach through participatory qualitative sessions using VR, where multiple design variations are tested and rated by users based on their satisfaction levels. The data collected informs design decisions, resulting in a final proposal to address the challenges of post-Soviet, concrete-prefab panel construction in the ‘Jižní Město’ district of Prague, Czech Republic. This ‘Back to the User’ methodology, is in fact a practice’s step ‘Back to the Future’.

Understanding the societal construction and utilisation of space is paramount today, especially as urban centres face escalating space scarcity, intensifying societal disparities. The intertwining of architecture and politics is undeniable, given architecture’s power to shape spaces and influence social dynamics, necessitating architects’ acknowledgement of political implications.

This research delves into how sociopolitical factors impact urban spaces and in what ways architects could critically counteract them, using neoliberalism as a case study. Neoliberal policies in London, particularly under Thatcher’s leadership, significantly affected social strata and urban landscapes.

Neoliberal ideologies created disparities, unfettered markets, commodified public spaces, and exacerbated social divides, leading to spatial segregation and gentrification waves. They emphasised on the need for alternative approaches focusing on fairness, sustainability, and community welfare. Examining evolving neighbourhoods highlighted spatial segregation patterns due to neoliberalism’s aftereffects, manifesting as urban loopholes and boundaries.

This study recognises cities as arenas reflecting and challenging neoliberal ideologies. It identifies the root causes of urban disparities in social stratification, globalisation, and gentrification and calls for a shift towards long-term social sustainability in urban planning.

This research takes an approach by integrating social engagement into urban planning, acknowledging that city development is influenced by multifaceted factors beyond architectural planning. Drawing from diverse fields, it proposes strategies embedding social engagement within spatial contexts. These strategies aim to combat societal disconnection by promoting meaningful social interaction through spatial design.

At the heart of this exploration are eight spatial agencies or design principles aiming to revitalise social engagement within urban spaces. These principles advocate constructing situations over objects, fostering diverse social interactions, bridging social stratification, and restoring the existing character. The research strongly urges architects to adopt socially conscious approaches and open their spectrum to cross-disciplinarity. The main goal is to underline architecture’s integral role in societal wellbeing and emphasise its potential to create inclusive and equitable spaces.

Rapid and uncontrolled urban growth has resulted in fragmented cityscapes, leading to the loss of a sense of place in cities like London. The relentless march of modernization and compulsive development has given rise to illegible spaces, where once-distinctive landmarks are being replaced by generic high-rise buildings and shopping malls. This research gives an urban and architectural framework on how to deal with this phenomenon by drawing on the revalorisation of its identity.

Places such as Romford have seen an enormous growth turning a rural town into a metropolitan area in less than 100 years. This results in a fragmented urban landscape where small historic fabric collides with large infrastructure orientated typologies tied together forming one blurred cityscape. This graduation project presents a potential solution to this contemporary challenge, which involves strengthening the identity of a place while accommodating contemporary paradigms.

The proposed strategy involves the preservation, refurbishment and addition of urban elements that reinforce the identity of the place, thereby enhancing its overall legibility. By embracing the interplay between historical and modern architectural elements, it aims to create a harmonious and distinctive urban environment.

This research not only offers practical insights into Romford's transformation but also presents a broader perspective on how cities can retain their unique character in the face of uncontrolled growth. Moreover it contributes to the ongoing discourse on urban development and offers tangible steps towards reconciling the past with the present, creating cities that are both visually captivating and deeply rooted in their historical identity.

Throughout the course of time, there has been a progression starting from the preservation of buildings and sites, to the conservation of specific elements of these landmarks, and now shifting towards adaptive reuse where the goal is to maintain cultural heritage through values and attributes. According to Aldo Rossi, there is no guarantee of effective continuity, and it is crucial to understand the process of transformation and determine how to act in such situations (Rossi, 1982). While numerous industrial buildings have been repurposed and given new functions, it remains a subject of debate whether they have succeeded in conserving the identity and historical essence of the structures.
This thesis aims uncover the significant and possibly forgotten or overlooked layers of an architectural product to then synthesise and integrate them into a new narrative, using an interpretation of the concept of collage as a tactic in architecture. In exploring the concept of complementarity, the thesis will delve into the idea that the integration of contrasting elements or ideas can create a harmonious whole. Similarly, a collage brings together disparate fragments to form a cohesive composition.
Emphasizing the concept of complementarity, similar to a collage, architecture reveals evidence of time and its process of construction, a work of architecture contains accumulated history as it is lived and engaged rather than observed” (Shields, 2012). An architectural piece is “rarely experienced in its totality, […] but as a series of partial views and synthesise experiences.” (Holl, Pallasmaa, & Perez-Gomez, 2006).
By embracing complementarity, architecture can establish a dynamic relationship between the existing context, the proposed interventions, and the emerging necessities, ensuring that the. essence and significance of the original structure are upheld while allowing for meaningful adaptation and transformation. Therefore, the essay will explore concepts such as collage and the notion of complementarity in terms of research and design within an architectural framework.

This research paper is the research that will be comple- mentary to the mobility hub design made for Architectural Design Crossovers Graduation studio. The aim of this research is to find out which urban design interventions are needed to move the city of Lon- don out of the car and get them to walk, cycle and use public trans- port. First several concepts are discussed that form the theoretical framework. Then the research starts with positioning within literature about design handles for implementing cycle infrastructure. After, the future of mobility is discussed and several precedents where the car was removed in favour of pedestrians and cyclist are analysed. The findings are then bundled and implemented at the design site in Il- ford, London. The result is an urban proposal for the area, with a focus on slow traffic and the transfer to public transport, which the design of the graduation studio will build further on.

Hong Kong is known for its skyline and urban context, interpreted through colonial history. However, its past, present and future are entangled with that of almost 700 villages scattered across the New Territory land and preceding the current Hong Kong population. With recent proposals to further develop the currently ‘rural’ northwest of Hong Kong through the Northern Metropolis proposal, the tangible and intangible dimensions of the village society might be sacrificed to accommodate for a growing population and political interests.

The study aims to examine how traditional society is being reinterpreted in the face of change and loss, particularly in relation to the shifting notion of a village and its role within rural society. It seeks to redefine countryside conservation strategies in the context of the northwest New Territories by moving beyond the cataloguing of the past and embracing progressive, future-oriented practices. The research proposes a framework for self-managed design processes that actively protect community values, offering an alternative approach to the current revitalization strategies limited to eco-tourism and open-air museum projects.
The proposal accommodated for needs of both indigenous and ‘new’ residents, at the same time maximizing the use of existing developed land, and protecting the surrounding natural context. The possibilities of inter-village collaborations suggested through the project encourage the wider application of local skills and the protection of local businesses. Together come to be a strategy for the active preservation of rural cultural heritage, allowing for the change to achieve continuity.

This study explores the role of community food initiatives in addressing social cohesion and structural issues in London and other cities outside of the United Kingdom. The study examines the relationship between food and social cohesion, current community food initiatives, and how thoroughly they align with the concept proposed by Levkoe and Wakefield to enhance social cohesion. Understanding the impact of food on social cohesion, analysing current community food initiatives, and examining their alignment with the concept of enhancing social cohesion comprise the three sections of the research. Through case studies and analysis, the study aims to establish a position and concept for a community food hub that can serve as a foundation for the design process. The findings emphasise the significance of community involvement, cooperation, and the design of physical spaces in promoting social cohesion and sustainable food practises. Community food initiatives can play a crucial role in enhancing social cohesion and addressing the underlying structural issues in urban areas by addressing social challenges and utilising food as a tool for interaction and participation.

This thesis explores the potential of difference and disruption as a productive ground for approaching gentrification in London. Multiple forces are driving the process of gentrification, the focus lies on the aspect of postmodern consumerism. A cultural change in which the individual, through a variety of choices, can meticulously stage their own identity. This causes an erosion of cohesive norms and values. Moreover, the cityscape is changing into enclaves whose coherence with the bigger scheme of the city is diminishing. While the original urban experience, with its complex and uncertain character, is essential to form interfaces between people from different walks of life and therefore truly address intricate problems.
My research is a search for possibilities for an open society in which architecture becomes a medium for negotiation, a domain of confrontation. Approaching this angle requires a critical approach to the reciprocal relationship between architecture and the social. Moreover, in search of differences, places of juxtapositions are derived through selective mapping and research. To fully understand the difference in experiences of the same places and find opportunities for concurrence. Unfortunately, during the research, it turned out that there were too few leads. As a result, the design shifted from wanting to bring together different target groups, to a more activist direction. Namely, providing agency for displaced residents.

Nowadays with the continuous development of the metropolitan cities, the city is getting more and more packed. The land of cities like London is very precious, land is scarce, every inch counts. Therefore, the decision of what to do with space is crucial, the highest bidder often gets the land. However, how to deal with space that is wasted, like residual space and disused spaces? The research started with this fascination of residual spaces and the lack of space in London. In the search for lost spaces in London, it is discovered that there is plenty of disused infrastructure. From these structures new groundscapes were born; on the ground, above, under and the in-between. These spaces are rarely translated into productive and meaningful spaces, even in the context of London where every square metre counts. The result of new groundspaces created by layering infrastructure would be the main topic of my research, because of the potentials it contains to revive space in London.

As cities densify around the world, the quality of city spaces increasingly shows its importance, influencing citizens’ mental health. Loneliness has become a normal phenomenon in the city along with its development and can affect every person for different reasons and cause serious problems. This research targets Amsterdam and argues why a well-being city such as Amsterdam also suffers from loneliness, aiming to explore the relationship between loneliness and architecture and find architectural solutions to reduce loneliness in Amsterdam. The existing research has shown that belongingness can act as a way to reduce loneliness. Thus, the main research question is:
How can architecture create a belongingness environment to alleviate and heal the feeling of loneliness in Amsterdam?
This research focuses on the theory of human relationship belonging, the place belonging, and the construction of belonging, searching for architectural strategies that can alleviate loneliness. Further analysis of Amsterdam and Amsterdam southeast’s city space answers the question and raises the opportunities to improve and solve the problems. Creating a belongingness environment with architectural strategies, based on the research, in city public venues provides a way to heal this unpleasant loneliness in Amsterdam and leads to a better well- being future.

With the introduction of High-Speed Rail, many transportation hubs have been redeveloped to include this transport. However, these stations are often neglecting important aspects related to the quality of the public space and the connection with the surrounding. To improve the quality of the space, the station needs to be adapted in several days. To start, the areas are to monotone and need to be more diverse. Furthermore, the stations are currently not integrated with the surrounded context. Integration can be split up into functional, spatial, visual, and mental integration. However, each of these aspects is currently lacking. All these aspects need to be addressed to prepare the stations for future expansion and transformation. These aspects and other lessons learned are then applied during a redesign of the most problematic areas of Brussels-South Railway Station

The “traditional” high street that was once a distinctive element in the city’s historic urban fabric, is now slowly declining. This decline is further intensified by the insensitive development of its nearby leftover lands and the lack of investment in the public realm. This research is meant to support a new interpretation for the contemporary high street in the basis of urban interstices and it aims to emphasize the importance of considering the high street and its community in the future city planning. For that reason, a number of urban and architectural placemaking interventions are studied, using a precedent analysis in order to explore possible urban regeneration strategies as an attempt to reconnect the high street to its surrounding urban fabric and functions. Eventually, through specific case of Shoreditch district, this paper seeks to establish the development capacity for the high street, in terms of the available development sites and their potential relationship with the existing infrastructure and services.

Urban foodscapes project addresses issues concerning the food supply chain in London. It aims to combat problems created by current agri-business practice such as long, complex logistical chains, food waste, carbon emissions, wasted water, energy, labour and land scarcity. Foodscape, being both global and local, lies on the intersection of multiple material and immaterial flows, therefore the problems it creates cannot be solved by one discipline alone. The research unfolds the most pressing issues concerning the food supply chain and proposed urban strategy attempts to find ways to improve the system by integrating social and technological aspects to close food-related material and immaterial loops by looking into urban synergies to limit the waste of resources and create new social opportunities that will constitute a framework for the future projects of this kind.

Despite being relatively novel, generative adversarial networks (GAN) have already been appropriated for application to several problems within the field of architectural and urban generative design. However, the preceding GAN based models for building massing generation make use of only simplified and two dimensional representation of the built environment.

This work improves upon the existing deep-learning-based methods for generation of building massings and building group layouts, by fusing high accuracy three-dimensional building models with site context derived from cadastral and topographic data, sourced from openly available datasets in the Netherlands. Pix2pixGAN implementation in PyTorch, trained on existing massing data encoded into images as heightmaps, is used to generate building massing geometry. Two methods for geometry extraction from heightmaps are introduced, voxelization and vectorization. The goal for the model is to maximize similarity of morphological traits of configurations generated by the model to the ground truth training data. The effects of multiple proposed training configurations on the resulting massings generated by the model are evaluated, together with visual assessment, using their Spacematrix mappings.

Three distinct models with specific goals are presented - parcel infill model, street block infill model, and urban fabric infill model. All three models show a capability to learn spatial traits of existing building configurations and transfer them into new situations not encountered in the training data, which is confirmed by the distribution of Spacematrix mapping of the generated results being similar to the distributions of the ground truth data.

The proposed methodology represents a novel approach to generating building massing configurations by autonomously inferring the rules of their composition from existing urban areas. The resulting models could be used to provide initial states in optimization-driven design approaches, or as smart massing suggestion engines, assisting architects and city planners during the early building design process.