Beyond the palimpsest: Traditions and modernity in urban villages of Shenzhen, China

This study uses the palimpsest analogy to explore the interactions between traditions and modernity in Chinese urban contexts. Chinese megacities including Shenzhen have undergone continually radical and dramatic transformations. The palimpsest notion, a layered, overwritten surface with traces of earlier content, enables us to unravel...

Stitching Palimpsest - Revitalising the former Maranathakerk in Castricum

This thesis explores the use of the palimpsest as a theoretical framework for adapting a heritage building. The research studies the former Maranatherkerk in Castricum, Noord-Holland. Set against a backdrop of ever-increasing secularisation in the Netherlands, the former Maranathakerk characterises the struggle faced by many decommissioned...

NEW MANNAHATTA 2100: Re-interpreting the Urban Patterns in Manhattan island, NYC

New York City is one of the most densely populated megacities in the world and specifically Manhattan one of the metropolitan areas with a constantly rocketing population growth. The delirious urbanization is mainly the result of mass migration both internal and international thus forming a society of diverse economic and cultural backgrounds....

Urban Fallows: Architecture as a catalyst for regeneration of marginalised urban land

In the face of rapid urbanisation, population growth, and environmental degradation, there is an urgent need to rethink the design and construction of urban spaces. The thesis investigates the potential of architecture as a catalyst for the regeneration of the area surrounding the Abbey Mills Pumping Station in London, UK. The process is...

Tbilisi as a Palimpsest: Patterns, History, and Perceptions, in the Formation of a Reactive City

There are places you have never been, yet you learn about them once you are there. There are also places you have never even dreamed possible, yet even after visiting them, your imagination never limits. One of these is Tbilisi.<br/>Persians, Byzantines, Ottomans, Russians, and Soviets all contributed to the construction of the image of Tbilisi...

The solutions are under the soil: Activating the UNESCO archaeological sites of the Lower Germanic Limes in Nijmegen by creating sustainable places for the cultural memory

Around 19BC the Romans established their military camps on the hills of Nijmegen in their conquest of Germania. After a huge defeat the Roman Empire decided that the great Rhine river would be the per-manent border of the empire. From that moment on The Lower Germanic Limes was fortified in stone to protect the border from the tribes north of...

The Geology of Landscapes: Times, rhythms, palimpsests of the Rhenish crater

The Rhenish crater is one of Europe’s largest and deepest open-cast coal mines. Humans have transformed the landscape to the point of giving life to a new geological era. The mine is the symbol of humanity’s power over territorial, environmental, and climatic transformations at impressive levels of scale and scope.<br/>This contribution sums up...

Heritage as part of the Palimpsest: Rethinking heritage at risk In London through an approach that is driven by the context

This research aims to develop en apply a new approach towards dealing with heritage in the built environment. By taking the Royal London Hospital area and the Former Outpatient Department within this domain as a case study, tools to connect to specific layers of the context that were found in the research are implied. This is in contrast to the...

Bridging the Past and the Future: a New Palimpsest Layer for the Heritage Landscape of Hof te Dieren

Heritage landscape as a dynamic system that bridges the past and the future, on the one hand tells the history of an area and contributes to the identity of local people, and on the other hand need to meet the contemporary demand and deal with future challenges. In that case, apart from traditional strategy of isolating cultural heritages from...

Landscape as common ground

This research design project aims to reconnect the landscape with its local users. The landscape has many components, but in this research design project is focussed on the relation between human practices and the landscape, since this relation has been broken in (recent) history of the city. Landscape as common ground operates on different...

Landscape Architectural Perspectives as Agent for Generous Design

Landscape architectonic compositions that draw on the underlying landscape structure can function as a carrier for changing programmes, cultures, processes, etc. Precisely such an explicitly spatial design is required to foster the inclusive city, one that is not only socially just but also sensitive to the environment while allowing for and...

A New "Square Deal": For the "Soul" of East Harlem's Social Housing Projects

New York is currently going through a construction boom as developers try to take advantage of rising land values and rents caused by economic growth, resulting in a lack of affordable housing available to middle-income families. The current Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, has made it a priority to meet the demands and challenges of the...

Contested heritage, memory and metamorphoses: Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana

The Italian fashion brand Fendi moved their headquarters to the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in the end of 2015. This iconic building, also known as the square Colosseum, is not only famous for its frequent appearance in movies, but also as one of the most important examples of architecture during the Italian fascist regime. The building was...

Villa Huisduinen - A Place for Retreat - Palimpsest in Architecture

I am intrigued by buildings, landscapes, objects and the relationship between them. I am also interested in the transformative processes of time and history. One of the beautiful and poetic theories that captures the continuity of history is that of the palimpsest. The project is two folded in the sense that it consists of a research and a...