Urban public spaces are one of the priorities on Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations (2015), in the target 11.7, on universal access to safe, inclusive, and accessible green and public spaces. Urban public spaces provide opportunities for people to meet and interact with the community, contribute to the connection between human and nature and have multiple benefits to human and environmental health. With a rising global population and the largest human migration in history, more than half of the world's population currently lives in urban areas. According to the Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, this rapid and uncontrolled urbanization can often lead to the loss of public space. Contributing to the loss of public spaces, the digital and technical developments result in increasing mobility and remote patterns of work and consumption. These changes in user behaviour threaten historic urban areaswith loss of population, vacancy, and eminent building degradation that may result in loss of cultural identity. To adapt historic cities towards a sustainable future, it is necessary to focus on the total experience of its users, including the routing and accessible and attractive public spaces. This research aims at developing a methodology for designing user experience-based public spaces as a process to reactivate vacant heritage. It focuses on the case study of the vacant department store V&D Haarlem, built in 1934, and listed as national heritage in the Netherlands. The methodology includes historical analysis, urban analysis, and field observations of the 12 quality criteria for public urban spaces defined by Jan Gehl. The results provide guidelines for integrating user experience in the redesign of public spaces, preparing cities for a sustainable future while conserving its valuable heritage.

Spatial planning and façade design in relation to public or private functions are factors that are considered within every design project. While this applies for newly constructed building projects, it can pose a significant challenge in redesign projects, especially when heritage values and a potential shift from an originally private function to a public function are considered. This study focusses on the approach of spatial planning and façade design by delving deeper into the topic of transparency which herein relates to openness, visibility, proportion, connection and materiality. By conducting a spatial analysis following the space syntax framework of Bill Hillier (2007) and by looking at several literary sources regarding the psychological aspects of façade transparency and transparent materials, the study concluded with an optimalization diagram. By looking at the case study of the redevelopment of the Koudenhorn police station, the study shows how several interventions can be made based on an optimalization of spatial relations, façade transparency and conserving heritage values.

The past year I have delved into field of built heritage in the context of my graduation project which consist of a redesign of a vacant police station and a related research. The redesign of the police station is part of a larger reorganization within the police. In 2013 the police was reorganized to form a national police force and currently they are adapting their real estate to this reorganization. As the police is dedicated to sustainable real-estate development the Atelier Politiebouwmeester has asked the Vacant Heritage studio to study the future of these buildings.

The studio focusses on the role of vacant heritage for a more sustainable future. Within this studio, the Touch & Feel research line, studies the materiality of buildings and the essential values these material attributes represent, in regard to the possibilities for adaptive reuse. With this approach in mind, I started my graduation project with a focus on the possible heritage values the police station conveyed. An extensive study into the work and influence of the architect of the police station, Berghoef, substantiated the heritage value of the police station (see ‘Understanding Berghoef’). The subsequent value assessment of the station showed which attributes of the police station most clearly convey its value.

Various building and site analysis indicated that a possible future use of the police station was education. The ambition of University College Roosevelt to expand, meant an interesting opportunity for a new life for the police station. The required program however, did not fit within the existing building. This encouraged to look beyond the initial project scope and see how the adjacent vacant supermarket could be incorporated in the design. It resulted in a plan where the redesign of the police station is a driver for the redevelopment of larger piece of city as small-scale campus.

It meant that a large part of the plan would be new buildings. To find out how to link them to the existing building of Berghoef, an inventory of existing redesign strategies, several case-studies into redesigned Berghoef buildings and many design experiments were performed. Simultaneously I explored how the police station is an example of many modest valued buildings in our country and how to redesign them for a sustainable future. The conclusion, as substantiated in the paper: ‘The quality of modest valued buildings’ is that when redesigning unlisted twentieth century buildings, three factors are of equal importance: Heritage value preservation, meeting contemporary demands and sustainability. By preserving the attributes which most essentially convey the heritage value of the building, and taking more freedom to do interventions which allow a sustainable new use, this can be achieved. A side note on this conclusion is that this approach worked well for this building because the heritage attributes were the façade and floors. These are elements which are easy to preserve in case of a new use. Other attributes are perhaps more related to functionality of a building. In this case the new use has to find ways to adapt to this.

Our knowledge of precast concrete facades is becoming more relevant each day.
Buildings with precast concrete façades are relatively new in relation to monument listing, due to architectural and constructive innovations being related to these façades. However, these buildings are also next in line for demolition due to their age and Brutalist architectural expression. These precast concrete façades were commonly used after World War II due to their quick and easy assembly, together with the material being easy to obtain. From the 1960s and onwards, advancements in technology resulted in a combination of aesthetics, structure and function for these façades. This research aims to create a better understanding as to why precast buildings of the post-WWII period are in many cases physical evidence of a construction history that was innovative and revolutionary, by showing the development of building and material technology in case-studies with precast concrete façades. The results reveal that Schokbeton played an important transformational and transitional factor in the history of precast concrete, which led to advancements in technology, such as the creation of the loadbearing precast concrete façade. These results lead to a stronger determination of the values connected to precast concrete façades, which are essential in order to come up with a good redesign strategy. The main case-study for this research is the police headquarters in The Hague, due to the presence of two different types of precast concrete façades: a Schokbeton façade and a later built loadbearing precast concrete façade. Historic research together with case-study research was used to collect information on these different types of façades.

Window openings allow communication between the interior and the exterior, but they are also elements that allow the user to control several aspects such as the light, sound, air, and privacy. Although people spend a great time inside, windows do have a strong relationship with the outdoor space and can influence a building’s openness or closeness. This relation has changed during the years with the introduction of new window opening types. (Orvell & Meikle, 2009). When referring to openness it cannot be thought about as visual transparency alone. In fact, it is related to all senses. It can be seen as the medium to regulate the functional between interior and exterior.” (Ayoub & Koba Yashi, 2001). This paper is part of the graduation studio Revitalising 20th century Heritage, aims to research the
process of assessment of the role the window openings present in the three buildings of the Rotterdam Harbour Police station play in defining the building’s openness or closeness. This research is positioned in larger research on how window openings help define a building’s openness or closeness towards the surroundings and creating a helpful ‘design options palette’ when having to intervene in a building’s openness or closeness. The research concludes that most of the windows present in the oldest building present a high openness, as well as in the 1994 building. On the contrary, the 1940 building presents window typologies with a high closeness. However, this research needs to be further developed in relation to other elements.

Concerning the built environment, some spaces in and around buildings symbolise the edge and intercommunication between two opposites and are therefore difficult to define. These so-called in-between spaces represent a threshold between polarities, such as inside and outside or private and public. The Harbour Police Station in Rotterdam consists of three buildings and has multiple inbetween spaces, which include several entrances, doorsteps, windows, dormers, balconies, and a fenced perimeter. Since the new program will be more publicly oriented, the in-between spaces of the redesign need to attract passers-by, rather than obstructing them. Based on literature, archival drawings, personal observations and questionnaires, the influence of the materiality on the perception of in-between spaces is analyzed. Accordingly, the human perception of a building façade, entrance or window that attract passers-by can be expressed through perceptive descriptive qualities such as friendly, inviting, and pleasant. The research shows that this is influenced by the warmth, openness, and lightness of the in-between spaces. A warm materiality is perceived as pleasant and comforting and it indirectly excites to go inside. Furthermore, either big or many openings will create a more transparent building, that matches with public functions. Namely, the function should be clear on the outside. In line with this, an open façade and enough lighting contribute to a better visibility and draw attention to the building and its interior. Accordingly, it is particularly important that one can easily understand where and how one can enter. In summary, the materiality of the inbetween spaces contributes to the experience of the appearance and the perceived function of the building. In the case of attracting buildings, the inbetween spaces should be represented by clear accessible entrances, multiple or large windows, and warm colours, materials, and lighting.

This project explores sustainable redevelopment strategies for vacant heritage. It explores the opportunities for stakeholder participation in heritage activities, the importance of which is stressed by, i.e., UNESCO, the Faro Convention, and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. The project experiments an innovative systematic approach for heritage façade redesign, filling the academic gap between participatory design approaches and heritage building redesign. It employs a combination of methods structured by sets of divergent and convergent phases. Innovative methods of cognitive mapping and 2,5D model game are tested in the research respectively for inquiry and design testing, the two key participatory stages. The research outcomes include locals' initial perceptions and remembrance of the site. The key findings are the common ground and reasons in their scenario preferences, which lead to the final redesign on creating Sensitive Surface, Inclusive Core, and Attentive Home. In this way, the redesign meets locals' functional, spatial, and psychological demands, thus being well perceived and inteprete by them. Locals would like to come to the site, meet others, and enjoy themselves. The isolated building would then be transformed into a great joint in the community, maximising the social and community values.

A more inclusive perspective on heritage management regarding sustainable development becomes an important aspect in understanding and reflecting on heritage buildings or sites. The cultural significance they convey, such as attributes and values attached to them, are not only represented by physical assets, but are also reflected in people’s meanings, experiences, and perceptions that derive from the interaction between an individual or collective and an (urban) artifact. The interest in the notion of sense of place in assessing cultural significance of heritage buildings grows, and participates in the identification of these inherited values and attributes, and gives direction to the reasons underlying heritage conservation. This paper aims to investigate the role of collective memory as a design tool for sense of place in the adaptive reuse of vacant heritage, using the vacant heritage building of the V&D Leiden as a case study. Furthermore, it introduces a method to explore a new type of repository, the social media platform Instagram, in which people’s individual memories are shared and reflect similarities between them. The theory of Montgomery (1998) is used to connect these collective memories to the components of sense of place, defined by form, activity and meaning, in order to acknowledge and show that collective memory can be of great importance in sustaining and creating a sense of place.