‘Measuring urban capacity’: Towards a systematic measurement of capacity for intensification of dwellings and industry

Under the topic of compactness, strategies for intensification of dwellings and activities are high on the agenda. However, it is necessary to first locate and evaluate the potential locations for intensification of each program or mixed uses. This project introduces a systematic approach to measure the capacity for intensification, its program...

Tracing Scopes of Action: Design Principles to Approach the Complexity of the Urban Block: Along Case Studies in [Paris]

Facing growth through permeability: 120 projects for Caracas

The accelerated growth that Caracas experienced during the twentieth century resulted in a superimposition of different urban patterns not always in proper dialogue between each other. The irregular political structure was supported by an increasingly powerful new economy which generated growth promoted by two opposite extremes. From above, the...

New town modeling: Reviewing Dutch new towns via quantitative methods to provide appropriate tools and strategy for accelerating Chinese new town development, using songjiang new town as the test case

China turned to the Open-Policy in 1978 and began its rapid urbanization process. To handle the urgent demand from working migration and reduce the problems triggered by congestion in mega cities, decentralization and new towns are widely accepted by Chinese urbanists and politicians. However, new towns in China lost their urbanity in the...

Shifting Gravity

The aim of this research is to find an answer on the question of how we should deal with situations where there has been a very large expansion -which results in a shifting gravity point- and we have to search for densification opportunities within existing urban areas. In these situations the new basis of the housing area at the edge of the...

Intermediate Rotterdam: Urban regeneration in time of crisis

The thesis is developed around the concept of the “intermediate city”. In fact, during this precarious phase set by the economical crisis and worsened by the shrinking condition of the city, it is necessary for Rotterdam to work in an “intermediate dimension” in several terms: of scale, time, financing and also location, focussing more on those...

Child Friendly Cities: The Case of Wroclaw in Poland

Like many other cities in Europe, Wroc?aw in Poland aims to improve the livability of children by implementing sustainable urban mobility measures, but fails to be successful. Due to an ongoing outflow of families from the city to the periphery and region, a vicious circle of an ongoing increase in car use has occured which increasingly...

Framework for Flexible Planning: An urban strategy to support slow network oriented self-organization

This graduation project offers an alternative to the tradition in top-down planning in the Netherlands. The test-case for this strategy is the transformation of former industry area ‘Schieoevers’ in Delft. Both a spatial framework and a policy framework are created to support bottom up development of this project location. The spatial framework...

Barcelona: Energy + Urban Form

Contemporary cities, established largely around stable supplies of materials and plentiful access to energy sources, will be seriously affected by sudden changes in supply - particularly if technology cannot cater for consumption demands. This thesis explores energy consumption and energy dependency, framed in terms of urban density, using the...