Towards Circular Port–City Territories: Rotterdam and the Port Back to the City

Port and city authorities all over Europe and beyond are striving with finding solutions able to combine sustainability with economic growth. Several global urgencies in fact, such as climate change, energy transition, the exponential changes in the scale of ports and ships and last but not least the economic and health shock related to the...

Circular area development: Recommendations for creating a circularly functioning area

Problem statement – As a result of the increasing world population, use of raw materials and energy, scarcity of the raw materials and the pressure on the environment, a transition to the concept of a circular economy has become more urgent. Since the Dutch government has the ambition to be fully circular in 2050, the concept of a circular...

Experimenting with Circularity When Designing Contemporary Regions: Adaptation Strategies for More Resilient and Regenerative Metropolitan Areas of Amsterdam and Naples Developed in University Studio Settings

This paper aims to demonstrate how ‘research by design,’ which is an approach bridging research, design, and planning, can help unpack the complexity of today’s metropolitan challenges by considering the resource flows and processes that were omitted by traditional ways of planning. This is crucial for circular developments. By reporting the...

Facilitating circular economy in urban planning

A shift towards a more Circular Economy is crucial to achieve a more sustainable and inclusive built environment that meets future demands. Circular Economy is a promising concept for industry and society. If implemented well, Circular Economy can deliver environmental benefits and economic advantages for which innovation is essential. To...

Circular Area Design or Circular Area Functioning?: A Discourse-Institutional Analysis of Circular Area Developments in Amsterdam and Utrecht, The Netherlands

The hypothesis of this paper is that the circular economy (CE) has the potential to (re)balance the conflict within urban spatial planning between ‘place as a location’ and the ‘organization of space’. The former dominates the latter following a shift from a Fordist towards a finance and real-estate driven regime. A consequence is that existing...

Beyond wastescapes: Towards circular landscapes. addressing the spatial dimension of circularity through the regeneration of wastescapes

Wastescapes are the result of unsustainable linear growth processes and their spatial consequences within the context of urban metabolic flows and related infrastructure. They represent the operational infrastructure for waste management and include Drosscapes, generating complex relations with the servicing and surrounding territory. In...

Rethinking Waste: Urban integration of waste collection and treatment systems based on circular concepts; Recommendations for Amsterdam

The worldwide trends of depleting natural resources and increasing generation of waste create challenges concerning the development and growth of our cities. Urban growth is enforcing these trends, resulting in growing problems and reaching limitations to the growth of our economies. In this thesis, these worldwide trends will be challenged in...

Bottom-up policy support: Using a construction materials model to identify and quick scan circular opportunities

Although the need for a more circular economy is supported by diverse people in both politics as well as in the scientific community, implementation of circular principles in reality is rarely occurring. This study shows how quantitative models can help to develop new policies for enhancing circularity in the construction sector. By means of a...