Boosting Urban Soil: Commons of Post-human urbanisation - Architecture, Materiality, Synergies

The ecological question is symptomatic of our time and a multi-disciplinary problem. The material manipulations produced by the architectural and urban design disciplines interfere with essential ecosystemic processes by introducing disruptive materialities and machinery. This work aimed to participate in shaping a solid foundation for the...

Biodiverse Resilient Playscape: Design of an ecological TU Delft campus which is adaptable to climate change through playful design

With rapid urbanisation and urban sprawl, biodiversity in Netherlands is rapidly declining with 70% reduction of species since the 1900. TU Delft campus is part The Hague-Rotterdam metropolitan region and an important green-blue connector with the surrounding forest-meadow-river landscape. However, there is limited opportunities in the human...

Symbiotic Urban Voids: A Resilient Ecological Framework for Rotterdam through its Urban Voids

The Rotterdam urban fabric is built in an area of amalgamation of very interesting landscape conditions surrounding it. Defined by the rich natural and cultural history, this structure has been home to different habitats for a variety of flora and fauna. However, the urban core disconnects these areas due to the lack of diverse ecological green...

Future Primitive: A Common Landscape

In today’s cities, global urbanisation has created a fragmented, unresponsive and socially divisive landscape. Intensifying agglomerations to urban centres across the globe due to the displacement and mass migrations of large populations has increased the pressure of organising a dense urban habitat. In its dominion over nature modern life was...

The New Green Cross: A public condenser for social and ecological enhancement

The abundant public spaces in The Hague Zuid-West lack certain qualities in order to stimulate social cohesion and wellbeing in the district. These public spaces - well over the city’s average - are largely concentrated in a large central park called the Green Cross. The park is mainly used for sport activities and allotment gardens, and offers...

Production Biospheres: A new production space in Hembrug

The project named production biospheres created a process design aimed on the adaptive reuse of the Plots In The Woods site on the Hembrug terrain near Zaandam. The landscape and urban design for the site is based on methods used by landscape architects and ecologists based on the three terms cultivate, stage and set up, not just creating. The...

Habitat and Architecture: Disruption and Expansion

Introduction of the book and historical overview of the subject of Habitat in architecture, with references to contemporary practices.

More than just a Green Facade: The sound absorption properties of a vertical garden with and without plants

Up to 44% of EU residents are exposed to noise levels that are detrimental to health. In this context, vertical gardens could play an important role in architectural acoustics, where the main absorber material is the substrate soil. Plants have a beneficial effect for higher frequencies when planted in a large density. In this paper a vertical...