What to Bid and When to Stop

Negotiation is an important activity in human society, and is studied by various disciplines, ranging from economics and game theory, to electronic commerce, social psychology, and artificial intelligence. Traditionally, negotiation is a necessary, but also time-consuming and expensive activity. Therefore, in the last decades there has been a...

Hidden landscapes: The metropolitan garden and the genius loci

This thesis aims at the landscape architecture of the enclosed garden as an expression of the genius loci: definition, analysis, typology and transformation. The process of metropolisation tends to eliminate, or at least hide, the underlying landscape. The research addresses the question of how the genius loci can be made accessible in the...

Suburbs and super-nature: How the Wasserkrater exposes an invisible landscape

What bearing can the expression of ‘place’ have on the ‘placeless geography’ of the suburban metropolis? Unravelling the design of the Wasserkrater garden, designed by Agence Ter between 1997 and 2000, points towards a possible reconnection between suburban metropolis and genius loci, the essence of the place.

Articulating the Site: The Reflection Garden as a Condensation of the Genius Loci

The term genius loci—“the prevailing character or atmosphere of a place,” as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it—has long been used to interpret landscape characteristics. Lately, however, it is being used, and abused, as a justification in just about any discourse. For spatial, aesthetic, and ecological discussions and social, cultural,...