By using Amsterdam as a living laboratory, graduate students, researchers and teachers of the architectural design chair of Complex Projects at the Department of Architecture at TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment have been interested in seeing how ‘growth’ and rapid ‘changes’ – growth of numbers of inhabitants and tourists, and change of energy, mobility, health and leisure concepts - will affect the City of Amsterdam on a time horizon 2050. How can innovations be introduced to the domain of architecture and urban design? The creative exploration presented in this publication aims to understand today’s structure of the City, to explore possible future scenarios and to speculate on new architectural typologies new technology and ways of living may construct.

Complex Projects teamed up for almost two years with Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions and the municipality of Amsterdam, to focus on the theme AMSTERDAM 2050. The book is a systematization of the work of more than 80 graduate students and 6 tutors with the input from researchers and invited critics on a case study on 9 different locations in Amsterdam. The research-through-design process of documenting and analysing the present urban conditions of the City of Amsterdam and investigating various trends directing future urban development resulted in design solutions and visualisations of the predicted development of these locations.