Guardians of the seabed: Nature-inclusive design of scour protection in offshore wind farms enhances benthic diversity

In the past, a large part of the seabed of the southern North Sea was covered by hard substrates, including oyster beds, coarse peat banks, and glacial erratics. Human activities, particularly bottom trawl fisheries, led to the disappearance of most of these hard substrates, resulting in the loss of its associated diverse benthic life as well...

Urban Rooms: Nature inclusive library in Bressoux

Exploring Opportunities for Rewilding the Built Environment through Nature-Inclusive Design: Case Study Boerhaavewijk, Post-War Residential Neighbourhood in Haarlem, The Netherlands

With the worldwide biodiversity decline and cities that should adapt to climate change, rewilding the built environment to restore biodiversity and increase the degree of natural areas is necessary. Yet, there is currently no established overview of potential rewilding strategies for urban environments. This study explores various opportunities...

Ruins and Regeneration

The loss of global biodiversity poses a significant threat to ecosystems and human well-being. The growth of cities has played a substantial role in the 70% decline in global biodiversity since 1970. This decline can be attributed to the failure of cities to balance their rapid land take with the preservation or creation of urban vegetation. The...

Nature meets the human soul: The nature-connected redesign of the neo-gothic Augustinus church

This thesis explores the potentialities of neo-gothic churches’ preservation and redesign in order to re-connect people and nature. It aims to identify elements of neo-gothic churches that are compatible with a biophilic and nature-inclusive mindset. At the same time, it reflects upon incompatibilities and how these can be overcome in order to...

Towards a more nature-inclusive and climate resilient built environment: A framework and tool for the economic valuation of the costs and benefits associated with the implementation of vertical greening systems on buildings

The application of vertical greening systems (VGS) onto building envelopes constitutes an innovative way to implement more green in the living environment. Especially in dense urban areas, where only limited space is available to integrate more horizontal greening at ground level, VGS have the potential to contribute towards creating a greener,...

Capture Nature: Exploring emotional attachment towards nature with a photographic walking tour for a nature-inclusive redesign of two former warehouses in Faro, Portugal

This graduation project explores emotional attachment toward nature in the city of Faro, Portugal. A photographic walking tour had been used as a participatory method to identify values and attributes that are related to the community’s emotional attachment. The research resulted in a values-based redesign of two former warehouses at the...

Physical Evaluation Of The Hydrodynamic Stability Of An Eco-engineered Armouring Unit

ECOncrete®‘s Coastalock is an ecologically designed armour unit, providing an alternative and/or a complement to traditional armour layers with ecologically enhanced armouring that provides shoreline stabilization, while also creating well-defined local ecosystems that mimic natural rock pools. The 2D physical model tests performed at TU Delft...

Factors favouring vegetation in quay masonry walls: A pilot field study

Walls overgrown with plants can have a positive impact on urban comfort and contribute to biodiversity in the city. In particular, quay walls, thanks to their close contact with water, have the potential to be ecologically engineered to encourage the growth of herbaceous plants. Different factors can affect growth of vegetation on walls. This...

Growing up: An open air school in a former paper factory

The project is situated in the Sphinxkwartier in Maastricht, positioned in-between <br/>the inner city and the urban hinterlands. Underneath the fast pace of the city and factory, nature moves slowly, cascading down from the lock at the Maas river towards the fortification park, ever growing through the cracks.This project for an open air school...

Nature Inclusive Design: A tool for degraded urban areas and climate change mitigation

At a fast pace, the urbanization level is increasing worldwide and the projections indicate that 2/3 of the population will be living in urban environments by 2050. This implies many concerns, more population and urbanization, nowadays, are directly translated to more consumption counting to the inflated orb that lingers all the climate changes...

Architecture of care: Creating the fair bank of Belgium

The Graduation Studio of Interiors Buildings Cities (2021-2022) investigates the possible future of the National Bank of Belgium, located in the city of Brussels. The bank as a collective system has been recently scrutinized due to persistent climate change. As Brussels is working towards a Doughnut Economy Model, the National Bank of Belgium...

The Symbiotic Heart: A design strategy for a nature inclusive building

This thesis is a qualitative thesis depicting the way a design strategy can be constructed for a nature inclusive building by giving an example case. By first doing a set of case studies of projects describing themselves as nature inclusive and looking into their design strategy, then applying this to a case location together with the help of...

NURTURE. RESEARCH. HARVEST. REPEAT: The Kruytgebouw as a biodiversity open lab-farm-hub

The deprivation and loss of biodiversity is one of the most alarming environmental problems of today’s, threatening precious ecosystem services, animal, and plant existence, as well as human welfare. This project attempts to create a win win situation between human and city animals. Ethical farms like guano, feather, worm, and insect farm are...

Humboldt: Living with nature in Sloterdijk

Biodiversity is declining, urbanization is increasing, and the pressure on urban greenery is rising. Nature inclusive design can provide a solution. The research paper investigates the current trend of nature inclusive design, the architectural interventions that can be used in nature inclusive design and urban ecology in the Netherlands, to be...

The 8th Mountain of Nijmegen

This is an architectural master thesis with the chair of Urban Architecture. The project analysis the city of Nijmegen with a special focus on its topography. In the design part, a new urban plan is suggested for the project location. One of the buildings was chosen and the newly introduced function is a Museum that offers spatially different...