The increasing popularity of the city of Rotterdam has resulted in a number of spatial and ecological challenges. Public space is already scarce north of the Nieuwe Maas, with demand increasing due to densification, and the large amount of paved surface results in heat stress. Despite harbour functions having shifted from the city centre towards the North Sea, quays within the centre remain paved; creating a hard boundary between people and river. Additionally, main city boulevards are intersected by the traffic barrier of Westblaak-Blaak, which contains eight lanes of car traffic and subsequently results in dangerous and unattractive intersections (e.g. Eendrachtsplein). Furthermore, natural habitat loss has resulted in a biodiversity crisis affecting the entire ecosystem.

This research project, Rotterdam as Urban Tidescape, explores the potential of exploiting the unique tidal characteristics of the Nieuwe Maas within an urban design for Westblaak-Blaak, Rotterdam, with the goal of transforming it into a resilient and dynamic public space for people and animals alike, whilst contributing to the mobility transition and restoring biodiversity.

Through the design process, researching an integral solution to the aforementioned challenges, it was found that incorporating tidal nature within the urban area would benefit people in a variety of ways (e.g. providing healthier public space, creating unique experiences, and reducing heat stress). Natural gradients as a result of tidal cycles provide an array of animals with more and unique (tidal) habitats, which contributes to countering the biodiversity crisis. By adding to the mobility transition of Rotterdam through a significant reduction of (the surface for) car traffic, the resulting freed up space can be transformed into a healthier urban environment - from rooftop to underwater.

With the unique tidal habitats, the migration of animals, and the increasing salinity of the river water over time, Westblaak-Blaak has the potential to become a resilient and dynamic hotspot which evolves along the day, throughout the seasons, and over the years. Key findings have been collected into an Urban Tidescape Toolkit for reference within similar urban landscape design assignments, and an overview of essentially endangered red-listed and icon species along with their respective habitats has been enclosed.

The project envisioned a social-ecological resilient waterfront for Rotterdam. By focusing on the outer dike area of Rotterdam, it aims to protect the port from flooding ,and at the same time create more nature habitat for biodiversity. With creating a resilient river, it can re-realize the role of industry and reconnect them into resource flows, in the end, it will formulate a healthy and liveable social-ecosystem at New River Mass. The vision of the River Mass is firstly to restore the riverfront as the place of ecological importance and also aplace for working, living and recreations. It should be a place for people to come and meet together. In order to achieve that, it implies four strategies including protect, restore, reconnect and grow. Stadhaven is the programmes for applying proposed strategies. In fact, the stadhaven is an area in transition. Over the coming decades, new links between the city and port will be constructed in stadhaven to bridge the port and city, at the same time, develop the economy. It is vulnerable to high water levels since it is part of old harbour complex. The area is on the water which is subject to tidal dynamics and could have transition between River Mass and inner city distcit. Based on that, the systematic strategies could start from the aspects of Nature(sedmiation), densification and open space and access.

This thesis redefines craft as a social action anchored in play that intervenes in existing material and immaterial flows. A circular and sustainable architecture follows naturally from this definition. The architectural project operationalizes this new definition to rewild the old industrial site of the Lea Bridge Waterworks in London. The project is a glass blowing workshop, greenhouses, and rewilding research facilities which act as a catalyst to transform the site to connect with a larger green structure, as well as support other craft activities in the valley.

This project answers the research question “How can we design with climate adaptation measures in existing neighborhoods in the Netherlands while respecting other aspects of sustainable development?” The methods used to carry out the research are mixed methods. Both deductive and inductive research is done. Theory describes the problem, and existing solutions and methods used, to do research. Through research by design, site specific problems are offered solutions. Later on, by linking the specific sites to the general theory, more general solutions are formed based on the design. This approach is chosen, because, by combining deductive and inductive research more general solutions can be found in a design on a small scale. This is necessary for this research because the problem is too big and very site specific to be solved from deductive research only. Lessons learnt are needed from practical examples to take steps towards answering the research question as a whole.
The project location for the research by design is the Abtswoudse polder in Delft. It is a diverse polder with many different neighborhood types. For the design part, one neighborhood selected based on the climatic and liveability problems and neighborhood type. One design location is worked out, due to the potential of the location because of the liveability and amount of public space. The research is set up in such a way that the method and selection used can be transferred to other locations in the Abtswoudse polder but also to other locations in the Netherlands. The designs are guided by general design principles based on the three main design tools in this project: climate adaptation measures, liveability criteria and sustainable development goals.
The answer to the main research question is: by setting up a framework with design tools that consist of the components: climate adaptation, spatial design and sustainable development. By using the tools to find the overlap between them, and make general design principles to make insightful how they have influenced the design interventions, we can design with climate adaptation measures in existing neighborhoods in the Netherlands while respecting other aspects of sustainable development.

Social participation plays an important role in the process of urban landscape renewal and maintenance. Embodying broader social participation can facilitate the equitable distribution of green infrastructure, increase the capacity of landscape management roles, form multidisciplinary teams and implement precise actions. The theme of the project is therefore how spatial design strategies can stimulate wider participation of urban residents in the enhancement of the urban landscape and living environment.
The case study area is the Pendrecht neighborhood of Rotterdam, which is a city in transition. The post-war reconstruction area is at a turning point in terms of safety and quality of life, having experienced a downward spiral of pollution, violence, crime, and social segregation for decades. In this context, the project hopes to activate the enormous potential of the community and empower residents to regenerate themselves. The project, therefore, wants the nature-based solution to be seen as a catalyst for space, not only advocating for the public to use NBS to activate the use of public space, but also to combat social isolation, build a sense of place, increase
employment opportunities, attract investment, visitors and new residents, and together create a more sustainable and liveable city.
The project has three tracks to create a participatory landscape. They are: in the first track, transformative place-making to increase social awareness; in the second track, motivation to participate through public policies, design tools, and the improvement of infrastructure systems; and in the third track, community empowerment through strategies such as the transfer of power and responsibility, the creation of garden operating organizations, phased development and the breakdown of responsibility zones. The project hopes to provide spatial planning and design strategies that can be used as a reference for similar areas and urban regeneration to transform into eco-cities.

In this thesis report, research and landscape architecture design are integrated to formulate guiding principles to combat environmental and social issues in urban areas through the case-study of Lombardijen, a neighbourhood in the south of Rotterdam.
In the recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’ climate report, the overall expectancies of climate change is expected to increase worldwide, with temperature rise as main pillar to cause intensifying weather conditions, sea level rise, draught, ocean acidification and flooding. These negative consequences of climate change are found to have an often amplifying effect on already existing inequalities based on asymmetries in power, showing great inequality in the levels of preparedness and ability to deal with climate change effects.
In the city of Rotterdam problems with flooding, draught and biodiversity loss, as well as problems with social inequality, a lack of social cohesion and a high demand for new houses put pressure on existing spatial structures. The neighbourhood of Lombardijen, in particular, is one of the cities post-war extensions based on garden-city principles. A once loved neighbourhood is now suffering from poor housing quality, lack of social integration due to fast changing demographics, large underused green spaces due to a lack of programming, poor ecological value due to monotonous vegetation and problems with water management. With the added demand for densification and the development of new houses, a new strategy needs to be made to bring the neighbourhood towards a holistic future.
Through the application of agroecology principles, possibilities are created for the improvement of environmental and social issues. Agroecology is an approach for the design and management of food and its production, as defined by Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. It integrates ecological and social concepts, and seeks an optimization between plants, animals, humans and the environment through the diversification of landscapes, efficiency in the use of re-sources and the formation of strong community links that ensure possibilities for collaboration.
By introducing the model of an agroecological farm, the neighbourhood of Lombardijen gets the opportunity to receive direct valuation of its public space and communal infrastructure. Farmers hired by the municipality take on the responsibility to care for the public spaces in collaboration with the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. The integration of food production benefits self-sufficiency, social cohesion and mobility for humans, as well as biodiversity through the ecological principles of agroecology. Also water management (through habitat creation), alternative food production and spatial quality are improved due to programming, activity and feelings of ownership. The design of the neighbourhood and the overall strategy is based on the hierarchical structure of the original design of Lombardijen garden city. The application of agroecology and the elaboration of the aforementioned model shows the possibilities for the improvement of social and environmental issues through public spaces design.

The Dutch coast is facing many changes shortly to keep up with the increase in tourism, wind farms, housing, and sea-level rise. To preserve the coastal place-identity under these changes, it is important to research what elements constitute the place-identity of the Holland Coast. Place-Identity, in this paper, is defned as a combination of landscape features, build features and the space these feature result in. The history of the landscape is described. The history of coastal settlements is explored along defning moments that impact how these places look today and the type of buildings that came to be. Through
analysis of historic and present-day photos, the architectural identity is formulated, based on three themes. Firstly, the positioning in the landscape, secondly an elaboration on the transition between inside and outside, and thirdly a focus on materials that come from nature, like wood and brick, materials that show natural forces, like textiles, and bright colours and reflect the abundance of sunlight associated with the coast. This theory is validated by seeing these elements protected by the aesthetics regulations (Welstands normen) of several municipalities.

The project is situated in Parkstad, South Limburg, an administrative region consisting of 7 municipalities, formerly known as the East Mining Region. Deindustrialisation completely transformed the region, making it the first shrinking area of the Netherlands. Shrinkage commonly refers to a shrinking economy, shrinking population and increased urban vacancy. Deindustrialisation also caused serious aftermaths in terms of social problems. Many new urban park projects have been initiated to replace vacant housings and plots, these new parks also become ways to combat urban decay, poor social condition and crime rates. This huge need for parks is however seemingly difficult in a city that is already facing economic shrinkage. In the short run (or long run) where no new investment or residents can be expected in a shrinking area; parks rely only on government funding and appear as a losing investment or a financial burden. On the other hand, Parkstad faces an upcoming environmental threat of groundwater nitrate contamination which would not only impact drinking water and biodiversity but again, also lead to further financial burden for the government and for local residents. Nitrate problem is hard to tackle in the presence of intensified agricultural practice and Parkstad's signature soil type (Loess). The project questions the values of park, and more specifically the meaning of park in a shrinking city. It explores the possibility of marrying social restoration and nitrate remediation - two pressing needs of Parkstad, in the form of an urban park. The resulting design is on one hand a model of social-nitrate synergy through azolla (water fern), and on the other hand a park cooperative facilitating the azolla industry and the operation of an urban park. As a water-remediation and azolla-park prototype the project will also gain additional funding from research institutions, innovative start-ups and the water company. The designing of the Azolla City Park is an attempt to deliver such coexistence of the social layer and the functional nitrate-remediating layer of an urban park. It also aims to bring these multi-layer rhythms to life. The collective identity of the past is juxtaposed with the site's new function and identity. Azolla is the new coal, you may say. In the way coal mining used to give Heerlen its pride, businesses, social life and culture, so would the proposed azolla-city park create ripples of possibilities in the urban fabric of Heerlen.

Semarang is one of the biggest cities in Indonesia under the process of urbanisation, which threatens the underdeveloped capacity of the city. Street vendors booming is an evident phenomenon of urbanisation, it is a new way of urban living to survive in the urban capitalist growth circumstances. Being the majority of the informal sector, street vendors are highly resilient but they also bring environmental impacts to the city and other urban dwellers. The thesis is a process of design by research, research by design to explore urban landscape intervention that facilitate and manage street vendors with an incentive building approach for an inclusive future development.

The thesis is under the Shared Heritage Lab which explores the shared history between The Netherlands and Indonesia in terms of cultural and architectural heritage. It is also a cross disciplinary research between heritage architecture, architectural engineering, landscape architecture and urbanism, collaborated with Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) and Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Ergoed (RCE) of the Dutch municipality.

Waste has always been with humans, and its amount will increase drastically, along with rapid urbanization and globalization. Improperly treated waste causes problems such as water pollution and disease, impedes living quality. Developing countries suffer more because of their hysteretic economic and social development. Landfill, as the predominant waste dealing measure, struggles to handle the current situation due to the gap between the waste amount and the land it requires. How to establish decentralized waste management should be examined to adapt to the inevitable future of living with waste. Semarang is the fifth big city in Indonesia, also the capital of Central Java Province. Its unplanned city expansion since the last century fails to equip the city with effective waste infrastructure and leaves no space for people and nature to interwave. Consequently, it creates an unhygienic and unattractive environment and undermines the living quality. This project looks at Kampung Kranggan as the test site in the light of its commercial importance, strategic location, and rich culture. The design explores how waste flows can be integrated into daily life activities and empower the locals in building their living environment. Landscape interventions help to contribute to a healthy environment and, more importantly, create social and economic impacts, meanwhile become the starting point of mindset and behavior change about waste.

This thesis tackles the described issues through the design of the energy transition of Parkstad Limburg, located in the south of the Netherlands. The region has been the main energy production area of the country during the previous energy period, characterised by coal mining, but with the transition to natural gas extraction it lost its role and has been facing a constant shrinkage, thus a drop in social economy, identity, employment rates and wealth.

t seems that urban shrinkage has become a very 'normal' stage of urban development process in Europe. Starting in Germany during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and then slowly but surely spreading across most of Europe (Bontie and Musterd, 2012). Nearly half of Europe's cities home to one-third of the continent's population- are shrinking in one way or another. Shrinkage is a very diverse and complex process in urban development, but one of the most intuitive phenomena is structural population loss, constant and considerable. Whether the reason for shrinkage is deindustrialization or postwar politics, urban lifecycle is the spatial effect of economic circular development (Martinez-Fernandez at el, 2012).In a shrinking city or more generally, a shrinking area, social problems and economic problems are eventually affecting local residents' life, causing decrease in security, amenity, comfort, social vital ity, etc., reducing economic circulations and putting the future of the region into worrying uncertainty. Parkstad Limburg, in south part of Limburg Province in the Netherlands, has a long history, and experienced rapid urbanization and development in 20th century due to mining industry. However, after shutting down of mine sites, this region has been facing shrinkage even till now. Before Industrial Revolution, Parkstad has an agricultural-based history since Roman time; although urbanization and expansion reduced farming area significantly, there are still many heritages of ancient natural landscape and agricultural production existing in Parkstad. The unique hilly landscape being found nowhere else in the country also makes the region a really popular tourism destination for visitors from home and abroad. Currently Parkstad is undergoing economic restructuring in this post-mining period and it's looking forwarding to a sustainable regional economic development using its tourism resource which has great potential. Shrinkage has brought challenges as well as opportunities to Parkstad. In this post-industrial era, with the background condition of shrink age, how to promote economic circulation and social vibrancy using local material to trigger new types of spatial programming? This landscape architecture design project, taking Parkstad as an example, proposes reintroduction of agricultural landscape elements in order to reproduce the idyllic beauty and attract tourists. In small scale, a typical South Limburg farmhouse is transformed into a green care farm for the elderly with traditional agricultural elements such as high-stemmed orchard. How reintroduction of agricultural landscape elements can improve attract tourism and investment in a regional scale is also explained. This project is hoped to explore how adaptive reuse of landscape heritage especially agricultural heritage can improve living quality, boost economic activities, stimulate social vitality to present Parkstad with a regional development of positive circulation

This paper gives an insight in strategies for implementing, processing and producing Miscanthus x Giganteus, or Elephant grass as it is mistakenly called, on a mid-large scale in the Parkstad Region. The area is rooted in agriculture because of fertile löss soil. There have always been a tight bond between the villages and surrounding land. This connection was distorted when mining started in the late nineteenth century. The miners coming from everywhere were housed around the mines. The region thrived, until the mining industry stopped in the 60’s-70’s. Massive unemployment followed. Now fifty years after the closing of the mines Parkstad is still dealing with the consequences of a monoculture. Parkstad has accepted the shrinking as status quo and is now looking for new perspectives with a diverse sustainable economy. Miscanthus x Giganteus, a so called C4 grass, has made a march in the Western world in the last few years. The high yields need little maintenance, while it feeds on the abundant CO2 coming from the fossil fuel industry. The plant, like the floating houses in Iraq, can be used as simple and effective building material. However the western world’s interest in lignocellulosic biomass lied until recently primarily in creating biofuels like bioethanol. Due to new insights in biorefinery, the potential for Miscanthus x Giganteus seems much larger. Lignin a substance of the Miscanthus x Giganteus is for instance likely to be a building block for carbon fiber and currently in R&D stage. Once this is sorted out, it could provide in the need for reducing CO2 emissions by making lightweight cars. Of the large area in Parkstad, grassland with 5000 Ha seems most appropriate for growing Miscanthus x Giganteus. Grassland has a low CO2 intake of only 3-4 tons per Ha and there is plenty unused grassland in and outside the urban area, like Industrial plots, empty urban plots or alongside highways. However the majority of grassland is dedicated for livestock. But it will become more and more available since livestock will shrink eventually do to emission legislation and farmers needing to find ways to make their land profitable. Via a grid, pixels of 1ha, just like on your screen, can be turned on and off to spread the impact of the Miscanthus x Giganteus in the entire region. This will work as a large time machine that harvests CO2 from the air and brings a sense of eternity to the people of Parkstad.

This graduation thesis aims to reactivate an old axis connecting two different parts of the city of Mostar. The choice of this particular corridor has been adopted not just because of its strategic location - it crosses the city from East to West, two sides that have been rebuilt after the Bosnian war without a coherent urban strategy - but also because every street, square, park and building along it belong to a common heritage, which after the Bosnian war is lost. Therefore, this axis ( I will name it Axis Rondo-Old HIT Square-Musala Square, due to the main squares that it crosses) is ideal for a design strategy, which will have a dual nature: renewing three degraded areas facing the axis and, at the same time, introducing into those spaces one of the most important, natural and partially forgotten heritage: the Neretva River. The use of a natural, dynamic and “memory keeper” element – the river - to connect those three spaces, in particular two squares and one ruin of a terrace garden, could represent the link missing in the Axis and create a new social use, enhancing a sense of responsibility for a common heritage that nowadays is mainly used as a public dump.

Taiwan is located in the Circum-Pacific Seismic Zone; therefore, this island nation is destined to encounter recurrent cataclysmic earthquakes as what has been witnessed in the previous centuries. Taipei City, which is recognized as the most populous and densest city of Taiwan, has a series of push factors which lead herself standing with massive quakes. Besides, with old buildings, disordered urban pattern and lack of open space not only makes the city expose in an extremely dangerous situation but an uncomfortable living environment. Based on the descriptions above, the research objective of this thesis is focused on the following main question: “What are the landscape interventions that can create a safe and livable city?” As a result, in this thesis, it is mainly developed into two layers, emergency and living quality layers, and then combine them as a complete landscape design in Taipei for a safer and better living quality environment.

The emergent issue of Parkstad is shrinkage of the city in results of the transformation from an industry city to its new developments. In contrast to the economic downturn and the decline in total households, the growing number of older people is particularly conspicuous. Aging society is remarked as a worldwide problem especially in Europe. There is 30% of the population in Parkstad is elders and it will grow and stay in 50% in the next coming 15-50 years. Most of the elders(94%) in the Netherlands lived without any caring helpers. Therefore, to explore what kind of place is more suitable for the elderly to become an important question. In the general stereotype of the public, the city is more suitable for youth rather than elders because of the fast lifestyle. As a shrinking city, Parkstad offered new possibilities of a place or lifestyle: lived between urban and rural.
In this Project, the Caring Strategies have two layers: Caring landscape on site for senior elders living environment and a green infrastructure on the urban scale for the ageing process of all-ages residents.

Disaster prevention and coastal protection of Otsuchi have affected the livelihood and the daily pattern of lifestyle of the regular Otsuchian. This work represents the alternative to a typical top down prefectural level demand for a line based infrastructural solution to disaster prevention and creates the required importance of livelihood, culture and identity of a place over the protection structure. While in the design of such critical areas it is important to place protection of the citizens at a high level, it is also a necessity to understand the situation of each city as different from each other. In this way, the genius loci of a place is founded. Along the San Riku coastline where the tsunami and earthquake hit the hardest due to the landscape features and the proximity to the epicenter the government has set a list of top down governed structures that have impacted the urban fabric of the city, This document looks at one of these towns “Otsuchi” and how alternate solutions based on the historical and landscape features of the district can help create landscapes of livelihood for the citizens. Otsuchi among many other Japanese cities faces the issue of a shrinking population due to a lack of economy, a lack of education in the rural areas and a lack of opportunities. The design document also looks at how Identity crisis in a Rias coastline/ Aditya Athreya Rao/ TU Delft 1 landscape can create a set of cyclical opportunities for the people to develop their town responsibly and sustain-ably as they see fit. Landscape design seeks to provide opportunity to the stakeholders to further create, it provides the platform for this creation and the thesis looks at ideas and solutions on ways this can be done. Keywords: Landscape Infrastructure, Identity, Contextual Design Genius Loci, Landscape Design, New landscapes

Parkstad Limburg is a conurbation of eight municipalities in South-Limburg in the Netherlands. It’s a typical post-industrial city on the coal mine belt which crosses Belgium, Netherlands and Germany. Due to the stop of coal mining this region lost its pillar industry and now is facing a series of problems of shrinkage in economy and population. In the past 40 years, the region has been continually seeking ways to transform and revitalize but the situation doesn't change. A more flexible strategy should be used to deal with the uncertain future of the region. When the future development is uncertain, use strategy to maintain the value of existing land, maximize the benefits of the intervention to prepare for the future. Increase potential rather than tap and consume the potential of this area. Now as a shrinking region, the population is declining, a large number of houses are vacant, people no longer need so many urban areas, whether they can replace these urban areas with natural systems, giving wildlife more space and opportunities. Consider the entire natural and urban system as a large ecosystem, the project aims to create a new balance between nature and urban systems to add the ecosystem value of Parkstad Limburg to prepare a resilient future. The thesis did the test design in different scales to answer the question of how to reorganize the urban and natural system and give a variety of possibilities to enhance biodiversity. The proposal does not only serve human, but also for other flora and fauna, improving the living quality of all kinds of users in Parkstad.

Addresses questions social isolation, privatization and individualization of urban sprawl. Focuses on existing boundaries fences, walled estates, commonly
present in contemporary gated society. Enables negotiation of limits between neighbors, houses, possessions and streets. Introduces human proximity to nature and other neighbors by transforming a wall of suburban possessions. Provides an instruction for porosity and density in built environment and new plans. Questions urban regulations and functional constrains which shape alleged freedom of suburban citizens

Office vacancy is an ever dominant problem in the Netherlands and abroad. While there are still a lot of issues unresolved, we might be overwhelmed with ideas, concepts and suggestions on how to tackle this vacancy. This graduation project tried to give a different perspective on this vacancy by introducing the concept of OPEN BUILDING and link this phenomenon with the mid-income housing shortage situation. The project will stress the problem with a design strategy in steps. In the first initiative part, the architect will work together with the developer or housing company to assess the transformation possibility to find a matching target vacant office building. The target building’s location characteristics and physical building characteristics will be assessed.