Canal du Midi, a revolutionary man-made waterway and trading route from the XVII century, is one of the oldest canals of Europe and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since when 1996 (UNESCO, May 12, 2022). The waterway was initially created to strengthen the king’s power and to stimulate the economy, by creating a connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic. In the second half of the 19th, the competition from the railway, followed by the impacts of WWⅠ and WWⅡ caused the decline of the trading role of the canal. Finally, at the end of the 1980s, the freight transport on the canal definitively stopped.
“The South Canal is clearly an exceptional example of a designed landscape” (Heritage, 2022), says UNESCO World Heritage, this grant water system shows the most innovative water management achievement of the time. The construction of the canal combines ingenuity and aesthetics by taking advantage of the natural water flow and the geographical and architectural elements of the land it crossed. Next to that, a wide range of specialized knowledge from Roman tradition to the latest scientific development was used in its construction. The project had brought enormous benefit for the region and the whole country of France. Today, the canal provides a unique perspective to review the relationship between artificiality and nature, modernity and the past.
However, the canal faces difficulties to adapt to its role of a landscape icon that attracts worldwide tourism and has difficulties to keep its role as a source for irrigation. In fact, the Canal du Midi is a rigid, long, quite narrow water structure, with many waterworks that need constant maintenance and have limited accessibility. Therefore, to overcome marginalization, it is essential to identify its values; “aspects of culture which are inherited by the present and which will be preserved for the future” (Upen, Oct 18, 2018).
The thesis proposes a discussion from the perspective of landscape architecture, if and in what way a large-scale historical site can become the spill of a sustainable landscape transformation. Central to the research is the use of the concept of the landscape narrative: Narratives are there in landscapes, intersect with sites, accumulate as layers of history, organize sequences, and inhere in the materials and process of the landscape (Potteiger & Purinton, 1998). And to envision the canal as an element, that can create a more adaptive and robust network to stimulate the sustainable development of the region by using three narratives: water as culture, water as infrastructure, water as nature.

Context: As a result of the human behavior of the past century, in which linear approaches were used, we’re facing environmental challenges due to global warming. Since the awareness of climate change, planning departments are focusing on sustainable development in which the social, economic and environmental dimensions are combined. In the Netherlands, the naturally polluting building industry is designated as one of the critical sectors that need to change to a more circular way of working. In 2050 the Dutch government wants to be 100% circular. Circular urban area development can contribute to the achievement of these goals. Objective: This research aims to define the concept of circular urban area development by identifying and explaining the factors of circular urban area development and the management tools that can be used to apply them in Dutch practice. The research question that is answered: “What are the factors that contribute to the development of a circular urban area and how can these factors be managed in practice?”. These findings are summarized in a circular urban area development guideline. Methods: This research is divided in two parts. First, a literature review is done providing an overview of the physical components of a circular urban area development. Second, the circular urban area development factors and their management tools are investigated by conducting explorative interviews, case study analysis and an expert panel. Results: To define the concept of circular urban area development the concept of ‘adaptable buildings’ by Brand (1994) can be combined with the ecosystem approach of van Bueren (2012) creating an overview of the physical components of a circular urban area: (1) adaptable buildings (2) public space and (3) industrial flows: energy, water and materials. Further findings state that sustainable urban area development is closely related to circular urban area development. In the Randstad area, urban areas are being redeveloped because of the housing shortage. In these developments the concept of circularity is used as a condition for sustainable development. When special focus is set on implementing circularity, the development can be called a circular urban area development. Conclusions: Out of this theoretical and empirical research, six factors of circular urban area development can be distinguished that can be divided into two different cycles: building -and use-cycle. In the building-cycle the focus is on the lifecycles of building components and materials that are log and have long lifecycles. In the use-cycle the focus is on resources and products used on a daily-basis by the inhabitants of the urban area. These resources are characterized as volatile and have short life-cycles. The factors that are part of building-cycle are: (1) circular building material cycle and (2) spatially adaptive urban area. The factors that are part of the use-cycle are: (3) efficient energy system, (4) closed water-system (5) re-use, collection and logistics of waste and (6) stimulating the local economy. Applying these six factors in Dutch practice can be organized by the use of different management instruments. For every factor several possible management instruments found that make it possible to apply these factor in Dutch practice. These management instruments can be divided into four different groups: (1) legal instruments, (2) organizational instruments, (3) financial incentives and (4) design tools.

The studio generates future scenarios in Amsterdam, 2050. The disconnection between the fasting growing business area Zuidas and the tranquil residential area of Oud Zuid, and the lack of amenities raised my concern about the living quality and sustainability of development in the future. My project will be a swimming complex in Oud Zuid, as a part of the public sports and leisure network in the city. Dutch people are the 4th most active among EU. 80% people in Amsterdam Zuid exercise at least weekly. There are already a lot of sports facilities in the Oud Zuid Area but more than half of the sports facilities are private, and the traditional sports club system is obstacles for the poor, the newcomers to the city or people do not belong to a certain social group to enjoy them these sports facilities. Apart from getting physically healthy, the face to face accompany of friends or even strangers will be very crucial for the future digital world to enhance mental health. Our appearances and the form of swimming itself also break down some barriers between different social groups. In the smart but probably also very expensive and crowded Amsterdam in 2050, I believe the primitive kind of leisure will have even bigger meaning to the city than now.

In the Netherlands - and indeed most of the Western world - the prospect of a shrinking population and decreasing economic growth appear to be the most pressing issues. Town planning can greatly contribute to a more sustainable world, and the means it needs to do so are at the heart of the discipline, in the form of rational zoning, that is, the design of urban patterns that minimize the need for traffic. "Densification" is often promoted as a means to achieve this - though, obviously, everything depends on where it occurs. Besides, in the future, the employment policy will be changed. More and more people will work more flexible especially the female employees and the elderly. Zuidas acting as a business district has to face the challenge of the transition of employment policy. And how is the old historic district like Oud Zuid going to change in the future under the change of employment policy? Under such circumstance, how to design a complex based on the city fabric which is more suitable for the future lifestyle is what I want to solve in this graduation project.

My project is to change an historical residential house into a living-working complex, providing public service like retails, library, exhibition, working space, etc. It is providing a possibility to solve the future problem: a growing number of people will become independent professionals and the urban nomads. Besides, it’s a trial of historical building’s renovation. I hope it could benefit to explore the means to reuse the heritage to meet the future demands.

Zuidas, terminal, station, Amsterdam 2050

Discussions about bicycle never stop in Amsterdam. After all these years’ theory as well as practice, it is generally accepted that in such a compact and flat city, bike has been and would remain the best way of mobility in the next few decades.
However, according to statistics, though bike has been the best appreciated mode of mobility for Amsterdamers, public transports and cars that are less convenient in the city are still the first choices for visitors of Amsterdam.
So in promoting bike as a sustainable and applicable way within the city, there’s still a huge potential in visitors who constitute 1/3 of the whole population, to raise their awareness and finally raise their choices for bike when transferring on the edge of the city.

The central goal of the project was, initially, to understand the existing role of DATA within our current society; how we use data, how we store data, what we know or do not understand about this highly prominent resource.
With this understanding gained in the initial research period it was then possible to attempt to consider how this prominent aspect of our 21st century lives might be used, housed and better understood in the future, considering how one might integrate something considered to be so far removed from the architectural realm into an architecture for the people of Amsterdam in 2050.
The projects thus acts in many ways as a polemic against the existing data storage trends:
The culmination of this research and architectural consideration manifested in two major moves, one societal and one architectural.
Socially I predict and move against mass anonymous data storage to a decentralised and highly, socially integrated system of storage, access and governance through a re-organisation of existing ownership of data, democratically placing the person back in control of where their data is stored and to whom they allow access to. The integration of data + urban context was also important in this democratic shift, I would hope that the once ‘removed’ topic of data storage could become part of ones daily journey within the Oud-Zuid.
Architecturally; I predict this decentralisation to manifest in the creation of a series of spaces from the more practical spaces of the Bank of Data (storage), University space (research) and Data Library (access) to the more symbolic space of the Data temple in which we can predict an ‘end’ to ones data post-mortem. These spaces together could be considered to be the future element of out local municipal architecture further attempting to humanise what we now see as a very un-human activity.

The following thesis is an architectural and urban design for the expanding Zuidas area in Amsterdam for the year of 2050. It is a social and economical experiment of different social classes living together, and taking advantage of the interdependence they have on each other.

Amsterdam faces a problem common to many historical metropolises of Europe – how to maintain constant transformation of urban fabric in a changing world while preserving its heritage at the same time? Pushing new investments outside the borders of historical areas create a risk of transforming a living organism of a city into an artificial open-air museum, with no relation to new districts that are becoming standalone cities on their own. In Amsterdam this process is visible especially in the south, where a new financial centre, Zuidas, is becoming an isolated island of international corporations, detached from the rest of the city and nearby Oud Zuid that, on the other hand, lacks public and cultural functions.

In my project I attempt to improve urban environment by creating connections over the borders and effectively breaking isolated clusters, maintaining continuity within the city and between the districts, as well as enhance life quality and environment between the buildings. The project is a landmark, a reference point in a new network of walkability that introduces a concept of a new typology of a public function for Amsterdam 2050 – a climate centre. Its aim is to multiply green area ratio and purify the air, effectively improving local climate as well as offering a new activity space for locals and an attraction for tourists outside their cluster within the central city.

‘Een kamer in de wijk’ is een project over het vergroten van de ontwikkelkansen van jongeren en het verminderen van de overlast door jongeren in de wijk Feijenoord in Rotterdam. Aan de hand van literatuurstudies en veldwerk zoals observaties, interviews, en workshops zijn deze onderwerpen verkend en onderzocht. In het onderzoek komt naar voren dat er een conflict is tussen de oplossingen om kansen te vergroten en overlast te verminderen. De conclusie is dat er een balans gezocht moet worden tussen de tegenstrijdige oplossingen die enerzijds bijdragen aan de ontwikkelkansen van jongeren en anderzijds overlast door jongeren verminderen. Dit kan door zogenaamde kamers toe te voegen in het publieke domein van de wijk Feijenoord. Het ontwerp en de patronentaal die zijn ontwikkeld voor het project laten zien hoe met deze kamers kan worden ontworpen om bij te dragen aan de kansen van jongeren en het verminderen van overlast.

Proposal for a new neighbourhood in the city of Eindhoven, with a particular focus on one of its residential blocks.

This thesis challenges the overly-simplistic (and economically-driven) responses to urban loneliness offered by convenience-oriented modes of co-living, and responds with a workable alternative that seeks to embed a more-intuitive hierarchy of values. Spaces not just for pro-social activities, but also for passive interactions (“soft edges”) and personal privacy are therefore embedded in the design from its earliest stage. At its heart, the project celebrates and provides a framework for the development of user-appropriated, restorative environments. This is achieved through creating a mosaic of "pockets" of space; a fixed patchwork of varied characteristics designed to “kick-start” the process of user-appropriation. At the centre of each dwelling, the ornamental embedding of architectural “hardware” empowers its users with a customisable layout; to exercise choice and control in how they wish to connect or withdraw from fellow residents. In material terms, each central unit also acts as an “identity anchor”; providing each dwelling with its own powerful sense of individuality. Applied at larger scales, this combination of general coherency and individual identity, ingrained within a wider mosaic of varied qualities, establishes the forms of space required for successful “opt-in” interactions. Through this, the project seeks to invert the commonly-accepted narrative of scrutinised solitude and forced togetherness to one of restorative solitude and wilful togetherness.