Restorative ruins: How can the brownfield-urban forest bring forward restorative qualities for human nature?

Brownfields can bring forward unique spatial qualities in the urban environment: spatial exceptionality, re-usable infrastructures & imperfection that could bring forward the experience of being in a whole other world, while being in the middle of a city. However, these sites are often deconstructed, because they lack a direct financial or...

Architecture for Human Nature: The quest for embodied resonance in the Modern Habitat

From a biological perspective, I have researched how our bodies have evolved in the biosphere for millions of years and therefore we are wired to have an incredibly rich diet of sensory stimuli. I have distinguished some of our intrinsic needs, and accompanied them with the latest design tools from the field of environmental psychology and neuro...

Designing for Flow: How to Enhance Learning in Individuals

The educational industry is just starting to respond to the developments that have been occurring during the digital revolution. An important issue that is prominent in a classroom, gradually adapting to the new digital environment, is that the focus is placed more on the technology then the individual. The theory of flow, as introduced by...

In the Minds of People: Port-City Perspectives, The Case of Rotterdam

Following the geographical ‘Any-Port Model’, urban design has stipulated and enforced the disunion of port and city over the recent decades. In conjunction with other disciplines, the emphasis has laid at dislocation of production activities in favor of logistic-productive dynamics. At the same time, professional focus was on the urban areas...

Public space privatisation: are users concerned?

Academics have decried the erosion of public space under the neoliberal practices that have taken root since the 1980s in cities around the world. However, it is unclear whether users are concerned about the ownership of the urban spaces they use. To find out, this study surveyed users and observed their behaviour in three types of public...

Slowing Down in an Impulse-Permeated World: What we can learn from people diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder regarding the design of (semi-public) spaces

There are more diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder and the world is more and more demanding of our directed attention. This can lead to Directed Attention Fatigue which leads to heightened arousal. Per the Yerkes-Dodson Law, heightened arousal lowers performance in simple and especially in complex tasks. People who are diagnosed with autism...

Towards a Digitised Era

We have entered a new époque, transforming our societies from the mechanical to the digital. This unlocks a lot of new opportunities and abilities, but also results into big societal and behavioural changes, which need to be addressed in our built environment. Architecture seems to have disappeared on the background, while technological...

The Self Observatory

Citizens in 2050 will face a scala of mental health problems. Future unemployment caused by automation of jobs will evoke the lack of feeling a purpose or feeling useful for society. This will especially be the case for the lower-educated and less wealthy part of the population. Living in a city that will get denser and denser, the population...

IAmMyHome; Designing homes with meanings: Construction of a design tool based on human values

Houses were among the first structures that were built, and remain the most common type of building today. The design of housing has been the subject of architecture, while from a psychological point of view the meaning of home has been a major subject of research. These two different viewpoints are combined in this research to provide a tool...

Architecture for the re-socialization of forensic psychiatric care: Building for the insane criminal

Architecture for forensic psychiatric care is about the fitted architecture for a specific target group which is in need of security AND a treatment environment. The research, partly literature, partly design, is focused on finding the best environment for these patients. The contracts between being locked down and feeling at home plays a...

Measure, understand and improve cities: Visualizing pedestrian flows to improve inner-city quality in Delft using GPS-tracking technology

We all have walked on a street when suddenly someone comes over to you asking for directions. Sometimes, people do not know where they are and they do not know how to reach their destination. They are lost. However, people should not depend on others to find their way. The urban fabric should be legible enough to find one’s way. The problem...