Are good intentions enough?: Evaluating social sustainability in urban development projects through the capability approach

Social sustainability is a multidimensional concept sensitive to the contexts of its application. This study explores how it is interpreted and applied in urban planning practices in which general social sustainability goals are translated into specific urban design interventions. Building upon Sen’s Capability Approach (CA), we analyse the gap...

Reterritorializing Zuidoost: Towards sustainable, livable and just assemblages in Amsterdam Zuidoost

If we denounce neoliberal ideology and the capitalist order of today’s cities as value generating machines, what would the new order be? An integral part of Amsterdam’s emergence as a just city was the interaction between radical resident movements and national housing policy that was designed to solve the housing shortage through massive...

Towards Fossil Free Cities—A Supermarket, Greenhouse & Dwelling Integrated Energy System as an Alternative to District Heating: Amsterdam Case Study

The municipality of Amsterdam has set stringent carbon emission reduction targets: 55% by 2030 and 95% by 2050 for the entire metropolitan area. One of the key strategies to achieve these goals entails a disconnection of all households from the natural gas supply by 2040 and connecting them to the existing city-wide heat grid. This paper aims to...

Stranded sustainable mobility initiatives: Lessons learned from cases in Amsterdam

Cities inhabit the most people per unit of land surface, and all these people have the need and desire to move around. On top of that, vast amounts of goods are transported into and within these cities. The extensive transportation of people and goods causes a negative influence on the environment and a transition to sustainable mobility is...

Data driven sustainable mobility analysis in the city of Amsterdam

This research focuses on the analysis of Floating Car Data (FCD) data to understand sustainable transportation behavior in the area of Amsterdam. Using data collected by mobile devices, trips are analyzed by their distance and transportation method. Sustainability is a relevant factor to the social and scientific community. With increasing...

Planning degrowth: An explorative study into the value of a degrowth approach for sustainable urban planning in Amsterdam

Sustainable urban planning aims to decrease the ecological footprint of cities while maintaining or increasing social welfare, however it does not consider limits to economic growth and therefore undermines its own ambition. The upcoming field of degrowth offers a theoretical answer to this dilemma but the degrowth lens has only scarcely been...

The Fertile City: Raising Food Awareness Through Architecture

Cities are attracting people increasingly because of the work opportunities, universities and wide range of facilities. It is estimated that the world population will grow up to 10 billion people by 2050 with the majority living in cities. In Europe 80% of the population will live in cities by that time (Food and Agriculture Organization of the...

From landscape to mindscape: Spatial narration of touristic Amsterdam

The cultural attributes of architecture in touristic cities are vital to city image building, city branding, and rebranding, as well as generating more economic profits for sustainable urban development, and protecting cultural sustainability. However, many studies on this theme focus on the singularity of architecture referring to its...

NeighbourFOOD: Raising food awareness in the future city

The studio that I chose to participate was ‘Dutch Housing: Stronghold Amsterdam’. The topic of this studio as mentioned in its studio manual concerns problems with ecology, climate, overpopulation, mass-migration, a shifting global power balance, changing demographics, etc., cities like Amsterdam will face in the future. But the question is: how...

Prevent the Flood: Creating multi-lateral solutions for a storm water resilient Amsterdam

This graduation project is about the storm water resilience of Amsterdam. The effects of climate change and urban growth, like extreme weather conditions and a larger paved area, cause undesirable conditions regarding storm water resilience of (Dutch) cities. Water nuisance and sewage overflows caused by heavy rainfall occur more and more often....

Smart Small Living at the Groenmarkt

I did my graduation project at the master track Dutch Dwelling, Architecture. The studio focuses on the future city and its densification.<br/><br/>Amsterdam has a shortage of affordable houses for starters. During the crisis Amsterdam has hardly built new dwelling projects. At the same time Amsterdam has become increasingly popular in recent...

Towards a simple complex

The current interpretation of sustainability is rather ego centric. We tend to view sustainability as a tool to merely satisfy our own needs for esteem while the bigger picture is often placed in the background. This unconscious and unintended (mis)usage of sustainability is completely wrong and should be changed. Sustainability should become...

The food producing city of tomorrow: Food production versus city living

I did my graduation project at the master track Dutch Dwelling, Architecture. The studio describes the graduation assignment as following: “The task in the Dutch Housing Graduation Studio is to design a housing project that fits in a scenario of your own making for the future of Amsterdam. Behind the brief for an apartment building lie the...

Energy Academy: Power to the people

With technology dependent on electricity increasingly pervading our everyday life the access to energy becomes a driver for our general development and wellbeing. While the access to energy seems as something trivial there is a growing number of people which are unable to pay their electricity bills and are disconnected from the energy grid....

The conservation of modernist urban ensembles: Case studies from Amsterdam

Urban conservation, notably in Western Europe, grew from a reaction to the large Modernist monofunctional sub-urban expansion projects and programmes aimed at rationalising messy multifunctional historic cities. Conservationists responded reactively by celebrating the diversity and multi-layered character of the historic city. In the Netherlands...

'Food For Thought'

The DGS will be transformed into a culinary educational center. This center is place for the school childern (and neighbors) to share their passion for farming and cooking with others. The culinary center will contribute to the awareness of pure and healthy food.

H2 Architecture

Hydrogen Technology integrated in an architectural design.

Sustainability and within use office building adapations: A comparison of Dutch and Australian practices

Local Authorities worldwide are encouraging adaptation as a means of reducing building related urban energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The City of Melbourne is promoting the retrofit of 1,200 CBD properties before 2020 with sustainability measures as part of their policy to become a carbon neutral city. Australian cities date from...