The Shape of Healthy Lowland Metropolis: Urban Forestry as Landscape Architectural Approach to a Healthy Environment in Rotterdam- Den Haag Metropolis

Owing to the unique landscape characteristics of Dutch lowland, forests in Randstad region are found being the result of the interaction between historical development and natural conditions. As cultural influences are genetically embedded in forest formation, the landscape approach to urban forestry provides a novel and wholistic lens looking...

Linking cooling by nature and urban drought reduction to irrigation measures: Tackling the urban heat island and droughts simultaneously

To reduce the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect Green Infrastructure (GI) is seen as a key measure. Though, often the need for water to evaporate is neglected. This study focuses on showing the effects of irrigation and increased soil moisture contents on GI within urban areas to reduce the UHI-effect. ENVI-met, a micro-climate model, is used to...

Green Infrastructure and Flood Resilience in Fatih, Istanbul

This thesis focuses on the challenges Istanbul faces due to extensive urbanisation and global warming. The metropole has become vulnerable to climate change, especially to the increasing threat of floods. As a result of urbanisation and poor city planning, the green spaces have decreased considerably in Istanbul, which reduced stormwater...

Barriers and Drivers for Private Investment in Nature-Based Solutions: A Transdisciplinary Analysis of Private Investment in Nature-Based Solutions Using Bayesian Belief Network Theory

A lack of understanding of ecosystem-related projects and scarcity of natural capital reimbursement mechanisms leads to passive involvement and hesitation from the private sector when investing in nature. This study conducts a systematic literature review, furnishes a database of the relevant barriers and drivers for the private investment in...

Mindscapes & Healing Gardens

Mental health issues are becoming ever-more common in contemporary societies as urban landscapes are over-stimulating and stress-inducing. Studies suggest that lacking access to green infrastructure may be a fundamental factor. In post-industrial cities and health care systems, nature’s healing abilities are however commonly neglected and have...

The Green Loop for Active Ageing: The Caring Landscape Design in the Shrinking Parkstad

The emergent issue of Parkstad is shrinkage of the city in results of the transformation from an industry city to its new developments. In contrast to the economic downturn and the decline in total households, the growing number of older people is particularly conspicuous. Aging society is remarked as a worldwide problem especially in Europe....

Co-creative platform: A neighbourhood hub for co-working and collective habitation in 2050 Amsterdam

The creative economy has grown fast these years because of the advanced science and technology. Employees have more flexible working schedule and environment. Co-working spaces rise because of creative economy and digital economy. This project concerns a building that hosts a neighbourhood hub for co-working and collective habitation in 2050...

Residents' willingness to participate in green infrastructure: Spatial differences and influence factors in Shanghai, China

Green infrastructure (GI) plays a fundamental role in achieving urban pluvial flood management, mitigating urban heat island effect, and improving living suitability. Residents' participation is the main driving force of GI implementation. Based on semi-structured interviews, GIS spatial analysis, and multiple regression, we investigated...

(Up)lifting the ground level: Recreational green rooftops as integrated part of the cities green infrastructure

Many large cities in the world have an unhealthy stressful urban climate: air pollution, lack of water retention, lack of biodiversity, urban heat island effects, etc. There is also a lack of space in the urban environment and predictions are that urbanisation and densification will increase (United Nations, 2007). Urban green is regarded as big...

Harbin thermal park: transforming an abandoned thermal power plant into green infrastructure

My research goal was to explore the possibilities of post industrial sites to transform them into green infrastructure by multi-scale approach, making them not only benefit the ecology system in city scale, but also urban environment in local scale, while remaining the industrial beauty of the site.

Kintsugi: Revitalizing the expressway zone of Tokyo

Though often successful in geopolitical and economical terms, the tendency to engineer infrastructures for ‘single purpose’ often resulted in disrupted landscapes and erasure of cultural and natural values (Strang 1996). Besides this, Tokyo deals with a wide range of problematiques, from the threat of earthquakes destroying its expressways and...

Regionalist principles to reduce the urban heat island effect

Scientists, climatologists, and urban planners have started to recognize the importance of nature at two very different scales: the global (metabolic) and the local (liveability) scales. The regional scale is the one at which these macro and micro approaches overlap. Future predictions foresee an increase of more than 2450 million urban...

Adaptation Planning Support Toolbox: Measurable performance information based tools for co-creation of resilient, ecosystem-based urban plans with urban designers, decision-makers and stakeholders

Green is the New Black: In search of an alternative vision for eco-city development in China

The world’s population is set to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 – up from 7.2 billion in 2012 (UN News Center). That global population will be a vastly urban one. The increasing demand for supplying the future urban dwellers and the threatening climate change have posed the question about our current urban development model. Our urbanization has...