Onderzoek naar een urban farm in de wijk Feijenoord in Rotterdam. Hoe een urban farm een bijdrage kan leveren aan de duurzame leefomgeving in Feijenoord.

Social housing associations play an important role in providing affordable, adequate, and safe housing to their tenants. This requires constant maintenance of the real estate in their portfolio. There are different types of maintenance, but in this research, the focus will be on repair maintenance. Repair maintenance is carried out in response to complaints from tenants. Although housing associations often score satisfactory in the Aedes Benchmark for tenant satisfaction in the field of repair maintenance, in practice situations occur where housing associations struggle with carrying out and/ or managing repair maintenance, which leads to dissatisfied tenants. So, there are opportunities to maximize tenant satisfaction and investigate repair maintenance. The main research question of this study is, therefore: What contributes to tenant satisfaction at housing associations in the field of repair maintenance and how can this be improved? Based on literature research, analysis of benchmark data, case studies, and interviews, data will be collected to answer the main question. The study aims to gain insight into factors that contribute to tenant satisfaction and to create recommendations from this that can help housing associations in making choices to maximize tenant satisfaction.

In recent years, population ageing is becoming more and more of a challenge for cities to prepare for. Improving facilities for an all-age-friendly city can provide a healthy and supportive life for both the young and the old living in cities. One of the cities of interest in this is Amsterdam. Amsterdam has been exploring sustainable and healthy city development, such as garden city in the 1920s. In Amsterdam Noord, a central area of Amsterdam, the post-industrial IJ bank and the attached garden villages currently need renovation. Amsterdam Noord is the potential site for an all-age-friendly development. Amsterdam Noord was built with the concept of garden city, where urban forest is used mainly as green buffer and formed entities from industrial nuisances. However, since the industry is moving out, the existing urban forest becomes barriers for connectivity and undermines the dike-polder landscape of Noord. Thus, this project takes urban forest as a key element to renovate Amsterdam Noord and aims to explore an urban forest framework for Amsterdam Noord to be all-age-friendly and to develop the Noord identity as a dike city and a garden city. Firstly, theoretical study is executed in topics of urban identity, all-age-friendly city, and urban forest to conclude a theoretical framework of restorative and identity-narrative green network. Secondly, based on the theoretical framework, site study is executed in topics of urban fabric, site visit of the dike, and urban forest tradition. Thirdly, these studies provide site-speci c strategies to build Amsterdam Noord with a restorative and identity-narrative plan, to develop the all-age-friendly-ness and its identity. As the result, this project proposes a multi-scale plan for Amsterdam Noord. In city scale (L), Amsterdam Noord is divided into 3 zones, with different urbanization plans, to integrate into the expanding Amsterdam center as well as preserve and develop its identity. In green system scale (M), a multi-functional and restorative urban forest network is designed with the old dike as its spine, to improve connectivity within and beyond Amsterdam Noord. In green space scale (S), urban forest places are designed to offer sensorial experiences related to identity elements, as well as provide all-age-friendly space and program for Noord. The results of this project will provide a new view about how Amsterdam Noord can be developed into a future garden city, which is all-age-friendly, green, and related to its own identity as a dike city.

The exploitation of resources and minerals from the earth’s surface for the benefits of mankind is a common practice all over the world for many decades. Usually, the excavation of mines and quarries is regarded as a purely economic process. There is no consideration about the way in which the excavations are changing the landscape spatially and the anticipation to an afterlife is not taken into account. Several countries are slowly realizing that such processes are detrimental to the landscape and have started thinking about rehabilitating the destroyed areas. This landscape architecture design project is an attempt to explore excavation principles that adapt to the characteristics of the site and to “choreograph” a sand, clay and gravel quarry with the intention of facilitating ecological and recreational development. The park proposes routes and activities in which the experience of the unique spatial typologies formed by the excavators is at the center. The design is inspired by the spatial-visual experiences one gathers when one is at the top, in and around the vast space and its sections. In the tradition of European park architecture, loose organic and formal axial structures are combined to build up the scenic quarry choreography. Various minimal interventions capture the essence of a sand and clay quarry, creating curiosity and awareness about the landscape development of the site. This approach also helps to propose future possibilities for the part of the quarry which is yet to be excavated. The design is a result of applying multiple excavation specific principles which can be tweaked to be applied to other quarrying sites as well. But because local geography and context heavily influence the application of these principles, they should be examined, questioned and translated into custom-made design. Once the land is exploited for its resources, it is very easy for a developer or any organization to further subject the land to economic exploitation without any consideration about the challenges and potentials the space possesses from a landscape perspective. However, the function(s) being employed on the land for economic viability must be carefully evaluated and a sensitive reading of the landscape can ensure an appropriate future usage. It should therefore be imperative for excavation companies to involve a landscape architect before the exploitation.

In a world that is becoming more virtual by the day, there is a longing for physicality that yearns to be fulfilled. This thesis explores the potential of architecture to evoke diverse behaviors and emotions, drawing from the idea that individual perceptions of space are subjective and influenced by the memories and knowledge ours bodies have absorbed from our unique lived experiences. With Budapest as a dynamic testing ground, the thesis focuses on activating the Danube waterfront. The proposed project consists of a retreat that transitions the people from Budapest to the water fostering a more symbiotic relationship between the urban community and the river. The project comprises two parts. The first is a private bathhouse facility, nestled within a once-concrete expanse in a park and sheltered within a public layer. The result is a building that outwardly serves the public, while inwardly housing an introvert private bathing facility. The second is a public floating structure, paying homage to the evocative reminiscences of old pontoon pools with a purpose of re-activating the historical legacy of swimming in the river. By sewing these two worlds together in one area, while bridging the community physically to the river, the proposal becomes a revitalisation of the waterfront. The goal was to craft an architecture that delivers spaces capable of leaving a lasting impression on the mind and bodies of those who engage and experience them. Architecture is the set for life to happen, and we, as set designers, choreograph and orchestrate different scenarios and environments for different users to engage with - and the play plays out.

The institution in this case is the Delft University of Technology, which will make its appearance through a building to be situated in Delft’s historical center, suggesting the university’s physical return to the city after a hiatus of some eighty years. The agent of this return will be a complex of 'spaces of collection' for the accommodation and display of artefacts in various university collections. An opportunity is seen to provide an elaborated place of social and intellectual contact between the university and the public, affected by objects and realized through students, citizens and visitors.

The research focuses in the city of Altamira, in Brazil. The municipality is located in the margins of the Xingu river, affluent of the Amazon river, and has been facing intense socio economic transformations, mainly through the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant - third biggest in the world, in generation capacity. Over the last 10 years, the local municipality estimates that the population inflated from 100.000 to 140.000 inhabitants (FOLHA, 2013), as a consequence of the jobs related to the dam and its construction. On the one hand, the implementation of the project has brought heavy investments in public infrastructure, following the compensation and mitigation guidelines established by the national environmental agency, providing the inhabitants with public amenities completely nonexistent before the dam. On the other hand, the intense transformation of the built environment resulted in new social challenges, including increased violence, prostitution and drug consumption, adding pressure on the limited infrastructure and public equipment. The project - heavily criticized by local and international media - is almost concluded and is already in partial operation. This research investigates the next steps following the conclusion of the construction, suggesting strategies capable of promoting sustainable development in the region. The focus is not only to look into the urban transformations triggered by the installation of the dam but also to explore possible future scenarios once Belo Monte is concluded.

You can find them in almost any major cultural city. Combinations of museum-clusters and public parks: museum-parks. What are the (urban) advantages of these cultural clusters in the middle of the city and what role does the museum-park play in the urban fabric? In this architectural study of museum-clusters, Sophie Kugel dissects four museum-parks on different topics, such as spatial composition, route and architectural representation. By creating drawings on different scales for each case study, all four museum-parks can be well compared in order to answer the research question: What is the interaction between the museum-park and the public space in the city and in what architectural way makes the museum-park use of the advantages of museumclustering?

The development of the landscape around the national border, a usually “unreachable” space due to mentality issues and practical difficulties, is the subject of this graduation project. Enhancing inner connections, literally and symbolically, has been the key to preserve and celebrate the unique qualities of the borderland. A combination of structural continuities and punctual interventions was proposed, with the natural landscape acting as the base upon which connections and boundaries –physical, mental, soft, hard- are at a constant dialogue. Being multi-scalar in nature, with a regional perspective as well as local elaborations, the project envisions a development of the borderland in all aspects –ecological, economical, cultural- that will attract people’s attention and trust and, hence, turn this landscape from edge to core.

The aim of this exploration is to reinterpretate and revitalise underused areas in the modernist urban fabric of Rotterdam. Since Rotterdam was bombed during the Second World War, a whole new modernist city could arise. The Reconstruction plan can still be seen as a manifesto of modern architecture and urbanism. Main focal points were the separation of functions, space for traffic and the suppression of residential functions. The organization of traffic and the aim of separation of functions are in shaping the plan, with main traffic routes, pedestrian shopping streets, mixed traffic/shopping streets and expedition courtyards and streets. The main traffic routes were executed as boulevards, with separate traffic lanes and wide sidewalks. In the Reconstruction plan of 1946 by Witteveen’s successor Van Traa, the concept of expedition courtyards have been translated in a purely functional manner. The plan is clearly hierarchically set up with main streets, an alley and an expedition street accessible through an entrance gate. Expedition streets and courtyards form an important part of Rotterdam’s reconstruction city. In the centre of Rotterdam they are found in all sorts of sizes. The expedition streets were once the system for supply of shops and companies, whereas they went through change in use over time and this development of the expedition courtyards has resulted in numerous unused spaces. The inner city of Rotterdam is on a turning point of becoming a more residential place. Converting underused spaces into defined places. Shaping the public space can be conceived as an important contrast be¬tween the traditional European city and the modern city. In the traditional city, the facades of the buildings define the boundaries of the public space and thus become a series of cavities in the urban fabric. While the public space in the modern city becomes an open space with detached objects, modernist buildings. This design proposes a structure in which the public, semi-public, collective and private spaces are shaped. This structure is related to the surrounding modernist building and creates various places with different degrees of publicness. The following research questions are formulated: How could the identity of the Rotterdam perimeter expedition block Sint-Janshof be updated in a sustainable way, fulfilling the current demands of densification and qualitative public space? What are the spatial and functional characteristic qualities of the Reconstruction period? What is the identity of the expedition building block and what are the potential values of the identity of the Sint-Janshof? The hypothesis is formulated that a sustainable reinvention is a critical revision of the architectural typology confronted with contemporary programmes and conditions. This approach guarantees the architectural and urban identity will live through. This design speculates on the future of the Rotterdam expedition building block. The design proposal engages in a retroactive densification of the inner city. A typological study of the expedition streets as urban artefacts has been made.

A graduation based on evidence based long-term design principles, translated into contemporary context and beyond. The design principles are used to create a neighbourhood in a gentle way: letting people participate in the design and development proces, keep housing (forever) affordable, to think beyond short-term effect by creating social impact.

The theme of the studio is ‘Space of Collection’. The aim is to design a type of space embedded into the context of Delft’s city centre through research and experiment, which is not only to solve the problem with a place for the collections of TU Delft, but also to build interactions between university and historical city as an ‘Urban Institution’. Therefore, there are two keywords for the project, one is ‘Collection’, the other is ‘urban institution’.

Before you lies the graduation project ‘Tree-Ways for Water Issues’. This project is made within the Urban Forestry Lab as part of the Flowscapes Graduation Studio of the master track Landscape Architecture at the TU Delft. This graduation project for Zwolle investigates how the revision of the tree and blue structure, necessary for climate change, can be used simultaneously for a number of future spatial challenges for the city as a healthy living environment. The motivation for this is the demand for more space for water storage and the improvement of greenery by adding and transforming it in conjunction with landscape and urban challenges. Based on the morphological analysis of the entire city, current policy documents, research into water issues, and the landscape architectural concept of Urban Forestry, an Urban Forestry Plan has been created for the area enclosed by the city ring road, with a detailed plan for the neighborhood Kamperpoort, where greenery, traffic, urbanization, and water challenges converge. This report presents a literature study, site research, and a design proposal for a new tree structure in Zwolle. The purpose of this project is to showcase how a potential forested structure in an urban environment can help alleviate waterproblems.

The Dutch housing market has a shortage and especially a shortage in its middle-segment between, low-income, social housing, and higher-income, homeownership. Because of this, municipalities have become more active in creating middle-segment housing, but most Dutch municipalities have few land positions which has urged them to create middle-segment housing in developments with no or low municipal landownership. The so-called passive land policy. However, this has proved difficult as there no longer are extensive national housing plans which were used in the past. In addition, Dutch municipalities do not have much knowledge on creating more middle-segment housing in developments with a passive land policy. Therefore, this thesis asks what land-use instruments exists in the Dutch passive land policy to create more middle-segment housing and how successful these instruments are in creating middle segment housing. The passive land use instruments are within their relative typology the regulatory minimal percentages and eternal land lease, stimulating by anterior agreements, and communicational means by policy documents. When analysed it was found that these instruments are more often used in combination with each other. So, in implementation, this meant that some regulatory pressure was given on a developer to make them negotiate with the municipality. After this, the municipalities used stimuli to help create a financially feasible project with middle-segment housing and gave permits or sold (small portions of) land. Moreover, the policy documents were used more in advance to let any market party know what conditions were necessary to make the municipality cooperate with a plan. Dutch municipalities thus influence the amount of middle-segment housing made by the passive land-use instruments used. Therefore, the municipality negotiated with market parties on projects in a context to create an agreement that is possible. In this several factors and actors played an important role. Most important for the agreement were the financial feasibility and the gaining of permits. The procedure for the permits started after the negotiations and the financial feasibility would be reached through the negotiations in which the municipalities stimulated in kind, by lowering other requirements, or by lowering taxes. The context could also play a role through an abundance of social housing in the area, political will, or land positions. There also seemed to be a correlation between more regulative instruments and less trust or a more strained relationship between the municipality and the developer in the network.

Society is stuck in daily routines, led by social norms and conventions. Often we are unaware of this, while life can be much richter if we would subvert from these routines every once in a while. These routines prevent us from seeing everything that there is. Our expectations need to be subverted. Usually it is reserved for artists to make people look at the world differently. But precisely because architecture is much more common, much more everyday, than art, it is architecture that has the possibility to subvert our expectations and make our lives richer. In my research I’ve researched this moment, how you can do this, and how to apply this. 
 I created a digital collection of more than 120 exemplary architecture and art projects. Each project was analysed and tagged on their effects on people, the senses and elements that were used and the type of project it is. Furthermore I tagged them on more binary aspects: size, placement, timeframe, kinetic, relation and color. This made it possible for me to easily analyse them further, sort and compare them with a few clicks. From this collection I’ve found 8 methods how to subvert one’s expectations: confusion, curiosity, disruption, humour, imagination, play, provocation and wonder. From the research I found that public space is good place for the subversion of our expectations. As it is a place where people adapt themselves most to social norms and conventions, but also a place where much freedom and beauty is to be found. Furthermore I found that subverting ones expectations has a certain expiration date, after a certain while an intervention is not unexpected anymore. Thus it needs to be temporary. As carrier and test site for these ideas, the design brief was a temporary public toilet. 
The toilet is located in the city center of Rotterdam, on Steiger, an expedition street; a back alley that is barely used. By subverting our expectations we become more aware of the public space surrounding us, and it motivates us to make use of it. The public toilet is an experience in which almost all of the subversive methods are used. From spectator to participant, from the route towards the toilet to the actual peeing itself. Your expectations will be subverted, your life will be richer, and the location will be activated.

For millennia, humans have lived, constructed, and cultivated along the banks of rivers. Rivers are the genius loci of these riverside cities, embodying the spirit of the place and its people. Rivers have been the source of life upon which civilization was built: providing water, power, and transport, but are also spiritually deeply meaningful for many cultures and religions around the world. It is within this context that my graduation project focuses on the urban landscape of the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary, exploring its spiritual significance. Despite being a daily presence for the city's inhabitants, the connection between the people and the river has been lost over time due to infrastructure and urbanization. This project aims to relink the people of Budapest to the river, fostering a deeper spiritual awareness, and appreciation for the river as a living, breathing embodiment of Budapest's past, present, and future. Just as human bodies embody the imprints of traumatic experiences, so does the river retain the memory of the place. By viewing the river as a body of water, like the human body, the river keeps the score of the city, as a repository of collective history. Religion is understood not only as the institutionalized systems of beliefs that operate in the world today, but also with the origin of the word. Its etymology, derived from the Latin "religare," meaning "to put together what has previously been separated," captures the essence of this project's objective, throughout all scales. The program consists of a museum and a chapel: the first being a place for the muses, a place of revelation and (re)discovery; the latter as a sanctuary of contemplation. Their purpose is to reveal, to show again, the river's significance from different perspectives. The museum is situated perpendicular on the riverbank of Óbudai Island, revealing the river flowing alongside the city against a backdrop of the mountains. The chapel, located on the tip of Margaret Island, reveals the diverging river as part of the horizon and the sky. The route from one to the other acts as a filter of the river, alternating between moments of covering and revealing, sharp and subtle contrasts. From the flowing river to the majestic mountains, from the vibrant cityscape to the expansive horizon and vast skies, the journey offers a series of panoramic scenes. This design proposal aims to be meaningful for the collective of Budapest in re-evaluating our relationship with the nature from which our city originated. Its essence is religious, in the linking of the islands, of two buildings, of materials, and of the humans with the landscape. The project reveals the outward landscape of the city, abstracting it in the architecture; allowing the human to empathize with it, and with our inner selves and place on this earth.

The Netherlands has a long and fascinating history with water to keep its land safe and dry. Recently, when the country is exposed to a changing climate, it is at the turning point to shift from defensive water control to adaptive and integrated management. Landscape design has a role to play in endowing water and water management with new values and enabling the water as well as its related natures are adapted to be more resilient for the future. The study area Baakse beek has a rich context in which the prominence of water greatly decides the water management and the landscape and also exposes the area to the challenge of climate change. Hence, one aim of this study is to review the local historical water management approach and take values from them to bring back wetness conditions and water balance. The long history with water also means there are many opportunities (ecology, aesthetic, and cultural heritage) in the area, but the difficulty is how to weave together ecological function and spatial experience in landscape design. So, the second aim of this study is to find ways to communicate ecological function through spatial design. Through exploring the history with water over time, three categories of local historical water management approaches are summarized and they are adjusted to different water retention and ecological principles to formulate design strategies involving stream re-naturalisation, water retention, and water purification. For design, the core is to provide human with pleasure from the landscape appearance that involves beneficial ecological functions. landscape design needs to communicate ecological function and to conform to our cultural expectations of naturalness. This is achieved through two approaches, spatial modification, which gives an overall framework of landscape experience and cue to care, which gives hints of maintenance and neatness. The design explorations take place on various scales and locations. Selected design principles are assigned to the most suitable locations in the Baakse beek catchment area to preserve and strengthen the landscape characteristics of each sub-area. Two landscape ecology models and two design options for spatial experience are built in the Medler-Wiersse cluster, estate landscape, to test various ways to bridge the gap between the environment and spatial experience. Combinations provide design possible options towards alignment between landscape ecology and spatial experience.

The Yuanyang Rice Terraced Fields are located south of Ailao Mountain in Yuanyang County, Yunnan Province, China. They're at the core area of the Honghe Hani Terraced Fields, stretching for more than 166 square kilometres, and a wonder of terraced farming civilisation created by generations of Hani people using the steep hills of the unique geographical conditions. The villages within the Yuanyang Terraces bear witness to this long history. Under the background of rapid urbanisation and tourism development in China, the rice terraces' beautiful scenery and unique culture have gradually attracted many tourists. However, these traditional villages are not prepared for tourism development. Unfortunately, many villagers give up the conventional way of life. However, modernisation is at the cost of destroying historic buildings and their culture and the activities of tourists contribute to destroying their living environment. Furthermore, the region is affected by rapid climate change, causing a shortage of water resources, making the situation worse for the villages. Lower rainfall means less water for irrigation, which leads to a decrease in the rice yield, affecting the farmers' income. The gradual disappearance of the paddy fields also means the disappearance of the thousand-year-old terrace culture and landscape. Traditional farming cannot provide villagers with the economic source to survive in modern society. To reactivate the traditional villages, many things need to be considered: how to make the Yuanyang terraces ecologically sustainable and appropriately introduce modern technology and rural tourism into the farming civilisation and improve villagers' living standards. The project takes Azheke Village, one of the most intact traditional villages, as an example to illustrate the possibilities of coping with the dilemmas of tradition versus modernisation, the climate crises and increasing tourism by design solutions. The design discusses the economic, ecological, and cultural development of Azheke Village by introducing a research station to experiment with new crops, which might increase the farmers' income. In terms of ecology, the problem of water and energy shortages is solved by building reservoirs and using renewable energy. In terms of culture, landscape elements such as forests, canals, terraces, rivers, buildings, roads, crops, etc., are enhanced to strengthen the landscape narrative potential of the site and emphasise its cultural value. In terms of economy, inhabitants' income could be increased by selling tickets, planting new cash crops, and selling agricultural products. The sustainable ecological environment and unique human landscape could make Azheke Village more competitive in terms of eco-tourism. This design therefore can bring new ecological, social, and economic values to the Azheke Village, which help the villagers to stay and be proud on their landscape.

The project takes its basis in a concern for the future liveability of European cities in regard to public space, public buildings, and public life, looking specifically at the capital city of Budapest in Hungary. Studying internal migration patterns within Hungary, it is clear that while the Budapest conglomerate region have grown in population over the last 30 years, there has been a negative net migration to the Budapest inner city. The urban population is choosing to a larger degree to move to village suburbs in the conglomerate region, mainly due to the access to nature and recreational space that these places offer, suggesting that the city is failing to supply an attractive alternative for the local living environment of the inner city. Though large efforts and funds are already dedicated to address this, my research and design questions the impact current developments in the city have on the perceived recreational value of the living environment within the local city block. The project investigates the core concept of “publicness” and the separation of public and private realms, aiming to challenge the ways public space and public buildings are configured and realized. The investigation resulted in a design for a multifunctional building and an urban green strategy which aims at addressing the “everyday” aspects of public space and public lives. The focus lies on ways in which public buildings to a larger degree can offer spaces for everyday activities rather than curated experiences and ways which these spaces can become appropriable for users to utilise as they please and in the ways they see fit. The specific mixite of functions and the configuration of program around loosely programmed “in-between” spaces has been crucial to achieve a degree of ambiguity in terms of use and purpose of space, something which becomes a driver for appropriability and the perception of public space as an extension of the private living sphere.

This book is the result of the research conducted in the P1 phase of the graduation studio ‘Positions in Practice’ of the chair Methods and Analysis in the department for architecture and the built environment, TU Delft.