Modern cities are often characterized by their fast paced environments and levels of sensory overload. Consequently, these environments often pressure individuals and can create feelings of (emotional) detachment. These feelings of detachment call for interventions that enable people to connect to the full scale of their emotions and reconnect to their surroundings. Art and architecture have the potential to offer environments and encounters that can stimulate this (re)connection. Therefore, this research investigates the architectural principles and embodied visitor experiences of objects in (semi-)public spaces.

An overview of design principles and accompanied visitor experiences is created. The main types of experiences that have been identified are: contemplation, experiment/play, movement, surprise/wonder, and (unexpected) social interaction. Useful architectural tools to achieve these experiences entail, among others, the use of material, play with light, the relation (or disconnection) to place and its history, shape, sound, and perspective. Lastly, it is important to note that experience is rather subjective, even though these architectural principles can guide the experience. Therefore, urban planners and designers are encouraged to thoroughly investigate the case specific context to determine the most fit design.

These findings have been used to create three interventions following Kostverlorenvaart, a body of water located in the city of Amsterdam. By using the history of place as an additional guiding theme and incorporating a flexible structure that can be adapted to temporary needs, three pavilions have been created to help (re)connect city inhabitants to their direct surroundings. The project outlines a blueprint for urban interventions that can be implented in other cities to help counterbalance these fast paced environments.

During the time of industrialization, the city became methodologically constructed from a repeatable pattern based on a grid. A methodology that leads to design from the large scale towards the small scale as the grid as an outline of property. Through this the industrialization of the house brought a specific kind of representation forth. A house as a machine for living that shapes the nuclear family as the diagram on which society is based. The family apartment is still what developers are trying to provide to the market where all our habitual habits are being standardized to specific commodities. One of the issues is the fact that the home is a kind of neutralized entity that we take as common sense.
Within this infrastructure, the home/apartment is viewed as a relationship from the urban condition. From this we tend to that the outline of the house/apartment, outline of the property, is the first engagement with the city. Within the borders the home is perceived as a private domain, away from the public. A space outside time, politics, and economy. Through this the home/apartment is a composition of functions with a possible range of different configuration that follows the logic of the grid.
Within this configuration of function its inhabitants can decorate the home/apartment as a form of representation of someone who lives inside the home/apartment. Which is a range of selection of objects that fits within function of the room. The décor of the home/ apartment is widely understood as a sort of memetic representation of its inhabitants, despite the obvious falsity of this. In other words, the home is a particular genre of space theoretically an infinite array of possibilities laid out, but this becomes the same through cultural appropriations.

This paper investigates the factors that can be utilized in the redesign of public buildings to achieve vibrant, sustainable, and social public spaces. The research identifies and examines ten aspects, which are categorized into social and sustainable aspects, following regulations, standards, and recommendations formulated by organizations such as LEED and BREEAM. The social aspects include Human Health, Bio-Diversity, Public Spaces, Accessibility, and Visibility, while the sustainable aspects include Energy, Water, Nature, Materials, and Climate. The paper examines four case studies to demonstrate how these aspects can be used to create vibrant areas within public buildings. The case studies reveal the importance of factors such as ease and diversity of accessibility, biological diversity, and climate control in creating dynamic public spaces. The research aims to provide a guide for designing green and vibrant spaces within public buildings and suggests that future research could focus on developing new strategies for integrating sustainable and social aspects into public buildings more effectively.

Tempelhof has become an oasis of leisure in a city that never sleeps, where the unplanned and spontaneous can take place. Its worth as a park, however, is always put against its land value. As Berlin expands, its demand for real-state grows as anywhere else in the world, and “the large green spot” in the center of its urban fabric always draws unwanted attention/ However, any alteration or improvement in the field is currently prohibited by the "Tempelhof Conservation Act", a law inacted by concerned citizens that fear for the park's existance and destruction. This very act, that was meant to preserve this area, has also prevented it from developing and responding to the needs of the very people who treasure it. “Craftscapes” is a playful attempt at reaching a consensus between this community, city and the vibrant nature that has found refuge in this retired airfield through a series of small timber interventions that culminate with a school for arts and crafts.

The Untapped Potential of Video in Architectural Design is a research and design project that explores the application of video-based techniques in the architectural design process. The project started with an experimental and applied research phase diving into video-based techniques at different stages of the design process, followed by my own design project where I could further apply and test these techniques. Due to the time-intensive nature of video production, it turned out to be difficult to use video at certain stages of designing, specifically the phase of generating and developing design ideas. In other phases, such as at the beginning and final representation, the use of video was very fruitful. The same pattern emerged when I continued to use video in my own design process; the application in the earlier research phase and the final representation phase of my design project, worked well. The use of video in the intermediate phase of generating and developing ideas less so. All of the videos that I made throughout the project, including most importantly the Research Film containing all of my research compiled together, as well as my final design videos, are available on my YouTube channel at the link below.

This research thesis explores the transformation potential of different types of shops in the Netherlands. The outcome is a typology, of which one type was developed into a design project.

It is well known that materials in architecture are essential for structural purposes. The use of materials is not only about meeting constructive criteria. It is also about creating a look and feel to a design or space. This article examines the relationship between the physical and spiritual realms in architecture. The results of interviews with nine people reveal how people experience the material and immaterial worlds in Design. In particular, the context and appearance of an object plays a major role in the experience of Architecture. Every detail affects how Architecture is experienced.

The outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 took a huge toll on Wuhan. The community in metropolitan areas has played a key role in China's pandemic control as a key battleground for closed management and become the focus of society under the pandemic prevention and control.
However, its exposure of weak coping capacities makes building community resilience from an outbreak perspective urgent and critical. Besides, there are many inadequacies in the existing research on community resilience in China. Therefore, it is urgent and valuable to explore community resilience in the context of the Wuhan pandemic perspective.
This project aims to establish an integrated strategic framework to improve community resilience and achieve a liveable and smart urban environment in Wuhan in the long term.
This project is developed from the main research question: What can we learn from the Covid-19 response in Wuhan to enhance community resilience in the long term by adopting planning strategies?
Taking the community response in Wuhan under the pandemic as a departure point, this project explores a framework for increasing community resilience in the long term, using spatial planning, governance, and human capital as measures, and proposes a toolkit of corresponding strategies: including temporary planning, urban renewal, digital transition, and public engagement, hoping to realize a vision of a liveable and smart future.
Next, the Strategy Timeline provides an overview of four main stages with stage milestones, strategies, and key actions. Then the project-specific upgrading goes through four steps: deep analysis and data gathering, co-design, implementation, and evaluation. In the evaluation part, the rules guide the user to test the quality of the project by combining objective site-specific assessment and subject public feedback.
At last, a diverse range of typology sites are selected. Through local design, the community resilience schematic frameworks and strategy toolkit are examined on the ground.
In general, this project focuses on urban upgrading with the theme of community resilience, using the new crown as a starting point. It is hoped that it can give more insights for later studies, including the resilience evaluation framework, the strategy toolkit, and the mechanisms of community planning to design implementation.

This Master's thesis project is conceived in two parts.

The first part is the research project and is titled <<The Art of Acquiring Flow>> where the study assesses an architect’s ability to experience ‘design flow’, during the ideation phase, based on the type of design tool utilized. In order to test the hypothesis, I conducted a workshop with a group of MSc architecture students. The students were asked to engage in two design conditions: where they sketch with analogous tools and where they sketch with digital tools. The comparison of these two conditions was based on an EEG and protocol analysis. The results indicate that the use of analogous sketching tools led to a ‘richer’ and prolonged ‘design flow’ experience that was non-tool focussed. The study provides insights into why analogous sketching is an essential activity during conceptual ideation and why it should be emphasized as a tool in design education going forward.

The second part is the design project and is titled <<A Living Lab for Flow>> where the design thematically focuses on the notion of flow in the emerging context where creativity and working deep have become the most valuable skill sets in our society. We spend, on average, more than 90% of our time indoors and with that being the case, the psychological and physiological impact of spaces on our well-being are critical aspects that can be explored. Thus, the design project is conceived as a neuroarchitecture research center where research is conducted on how spatial settings can feed and nurture the brain.

Within architecture, design is not always inclusive. This research looks at how a safe space can be developed in Rotterdam, in the neighborhood Coolhaven. To achieve this, a feminist community-based design approach is applied. In this method one designs together with the community, looking at the residents of the neighborhood and what their needs and wishes are. The research shows that the people who have mixed feelings about the neighborhood indicate that this is, because they feel unsafe in the neighborhood. By tackling the unsafe areas and getting the residents more involved with each other and the neighborhood, presumably more people will start to feel good about the neighborhood. This can be done by improving visibility, atmosphere, and the liveliness of the street. In addition, physical, safety, and social indices will improve when residents become more involved with each other and the neighborhood. This could be achieved by placing more community facilities. A modern community center can, therefore, be the translation for the development towards a safe space in Coolhaven.

In the Netherlands, there is a large amount of buildings that are outdated according to today’s standards. Those existing buildings represent about 70% of the building stock in 2050. Updating these buildings in terms of functionality but mostly in terms of sustainability is therefore a highly relevant task at hand. To quote Prof. Mauro Overend in one of his lectures: “The most sustainable building is the one that has already been built”.
Among those buildings, what we could call brutalist buildings from the 1970’s and 1980’s represent a large part of our cityscapes. Those buildings are mainly built of concrete, are in general structurally sound, but although they are not to everyone’s taste, would cost a lot of energy to tear down. What’s more, due to poor insulation and dated climate systems, their energy efficiency is generally atrocious.
One good example of those brutalist buildings is the Academic Medical Centre (Academisch Medisch Centrum) in Amsterdam. Built at the beginning of the 1980’s, it is a concrete megastructure, Europe’s largest at the time of completion.
This graduation project is approaching the AMC building as a case study of how the brutalist buildings of the 1970’s and 1980’s could be renovated in a sustainable fashion.
The project has two components of sustaianability: the spatial design aims to introduce a social aspect to the layout of the research facility of the AMC ; the climate design introduces natural ventilation as a means to make the building more sustainable.
The education in the field of medicine has received new insights as to the advantages of exchange between researchers of different specializations. The current research facility is however not at all fit for such socializing. Where the official meeting rooms are already scarce, the informal meeting spots are practically inexistant. The spatial design of this project addresses that issue by creating informal meeting spaces, re-thinking the work floors’ layout and offering an inviting route to connect those spaces.
The climate system of the AMC, an all-air system with central air handling units, generates a high energy demand. By exploring the possibility of retrofitting natural ventilation couple with passive thermal treatment of the air, this design aims to show that very sustainable solutions are possible for apparently very un-sustainable buildings.

Design op open school in Agadir

In this research light earth building is assessed on its possibilities to be applied in a more urban manner. Through literature studies and key performance indicators a view on which light earth building methods could be applied on larger scale development is established. Also, the possibilities of harvesting the resources in the region of Amsterdam, through provisional services of the Amsterdam wetlands and the residual earth flows of the city, is investigated. Through literature studies and an interview, a quantification is given of an annual, regenerative number of facades that could be filled with different types of light earth mixtures.

People make mistakes. But how does society treat them when they do? For archi- tecture to be involved in this process, is to be at least called arbitrary, as it frames the spaces in which we punish and reform. For architects to design prisons is a paradoxical task because of the conflicting interest and changing goals of its design. Spaces of imprisonment deprive people of freedom, whilst at the same try to create a healthy humane environment that is helpful for the detainee to rehabilitation. So how should architects intervene in such spaces? In what way should view spaces of punishment? How could we approach prison design in such a way, that it creates humane spaces of confinement? This project tries to answer this question in the form of a humane prison design that focusses on interaction. Framing the everyday within in a confined space, the prison forms a the platform in which prisoners can act and display they action. Giving them a place in society where they ability able to show their ability to be good.