My graduation project explores the relationship between memories, perception, and Soviet-era architecture. The project site is the former "Turist" foreign currency shop in Tallinn, built for the 1980 Summer Olympics. As a Soviet-era building aimed at those with foreign currency, it symbolizes the inequalities of the Soviet regime.
Despite years of trials, the government has failed to secure heritage protection for the building. An architectural competition plans to replace it with a high-rise, which would cause a significant loss to architectural heritage and additionally intensify Tallinn’s existing issue of constructing without regard for urban context and human scale.

An alternative to the current demolition plan is proposed - preserving and transforming the Turist shop while honouring the past, present, and future. Memories and perception in architecture serve as a foundation for reimagining the space and for guiding the design proposal, transforming the former shop into an inviting community centre. The form, scale, proportions, materialization and detailing of the new extension contrast that of the communist monument, maintaining a balance that avoids overshadowing it. This is achieved through a composition characterized by rhythm, simplicity and a strategic interplay between closeness and openness. An atrium between the two buildings is the heart of the project, where the past and the present exist together.

This research focuses on the transformation of the Groningen gas field region, which has transitioned from a symbol of national pride due to its vast natural gas reserves to a region grappling with the significant impacts of gas extraction. With the permanent closure of gas production, the region faces ongoing challenges such as land subsidence, earthquakes, and socio-economic shifts. This study aims to explore sustainable and commemorative landscape-based transformation strategies to address these issues and redefine the identity of Groningen.

The research identifies two primary areas of concern: the existing gas extraction sites and the broader landscape affected by environmental changes and social disruptions. By analyzing the current state and potential of these sites, the study proposes design interventions that integrate industrial heritage into public spaces and enhance regional resilience.

Three representative sites—Slochteren, Ten Post, and Noordbroek—are selected as case studies. Slochteren, the first gas extraction site, is considered for its potential to become an open-air museum, akin to the Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park in Germany. Ten Post, located in the most seismically active and subsidence-prone area, and Noordbroek, one of the first sites undergoing cleanup, offer insights into how design can mitigate environmental impacts and foster a sense of place.

The theoretical framework incorporates principles of landscape architecture, the concept of guilty landscapes, and post-industrial landscape transformation. These theories provide a systematic approach to understanding and addressing the multifaceted issues associated with the Groningen gas field. The goal is to create a cohesive strategy that connects these sites to their surrounding landscapes and communities, turning them into meaningful public spaces that reflect the region's history and identity while promoting sustainability and resilience.

This research contributes to the broader discourse on post-industrial landscape transformation by demonstrating how integrated design approaches can address environmental, social, and historical challenges. The findings aim to offer a replicable model for other regions facing similar transitions from industrial heritage to sustainable future landscapes.

This speculative project named “Bridging Heterotopia” is named as such because it draws from the guiding principle that is juxtaposition in real space, of many spaces together that would normally be incompatible. This principle materializes through a bridge which will be a facilitator for different cultures in Rotterdam to find a common space. In this project, the identity of Rotterdam is explored through architectural entities connected to the city’s social and economical history and a future vision is materialized into a living, changing bridge to reverse the current disintegration in the society. To illustrate the inner workings of the design, three cultures were selected. The architectural components of these cultures were then dismantled based on historical importance and current identifiable values that they represent for the members of these cultures. The ties between the common denominators of these seemingly far apart cultures, both architecturally and socio-geographically, were analyzed and represented within the continuous feedback loop between architecture and cultures of societies. The project builds upon the state-of-the-art technology that is available at the time of its conception by analysing the core principles and reflecting the plausible advancements onto the future realm of possibilities.

Circular building has been increasing in popularity over several years. The idea being that we should not use resources only once and then discard them, but continue using them in new products. The construction industry has responded to this by designing 'circular' buildings that can be disassembled at the end of their functional life. This leaves the question open of what to do with the current buildings stock. Since the building stock only grows with approximately 1% a year, the lion's share of buildings that will be demolished in the next 50 years has already been built. This research explores five cases that are trying to solve this issue in different ways. The case studies are used as a basis to identify drivers, barriers, and opportunities for circular demolition and component reuse. The main drivers are environmental, societal, and behavioural in nature. Whereas the main barriers are economic, behavioural, and governmental. Opportunities for entrepreneurs and governments have been identified to overcome these barriers.

Facing to the conflict situation in Urban Village, I was trying to use the computational and parametric design method to establish the symbiotic system and to improve the quality and possibilities of the life in urban village.

The problem adressed in this text is the fixation of capacities to interact by laws, which limits the realization of valuable transformative potential in the built environment. The purpose of this text is twofold: First to uncover the processes behind such fixation-through-laws for the built environment and; Second, to propose a different (Deleuzean) attitude towards power which argues for a release of this fixation and urges the limitations of such laws to be opened up. To this end, Chapter 1 elaborates how a prioritisation of interests contructs a dominant collective mode that excludes alternative tendencies. Chapter 2 elaborates on the fallacies incorporated in the process of abstraction to come to such a priority of interests for a collective. Chapter 3 suggests an alternative, Deleuzean, attitude towards power which promotes differences over their abstraction. Chapter 4 then applies this Deleuzean understanding of power to a housing block in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The advice is to start with opening up the most blatant fixation of use and form in the municpality’s place-specific ‘Bestemmingsplan’ law. Afterwards, chapter 5 concludes that by steering away from fixated hierarchies constructed through abstraction, we arrive at a post-humanist, flat ontology. Using it, we can apply a strategy of promoting new understandings constructed by experimentally opening up, or ‘speculative loopholing’, and thereby delimit transformative potential in our built environment.

In dit artikel wordt ingegaan op de positie van grondexploitatie in het debat rond overheid en marktactiviteiten. Er wordt ingezoomd op het Besluit begroting en verantwoording provincies en gemeenten en de betekenis van de recente wijzigingen. Daarbij staat de vraag centraal of gemeenteraden nu beter grip hebben op grondexploitatie.@en

Dit onderzoek maakt deel uit van het onderzoeksprogramma Woningmarktonderzoek aardbevingsgebied Groningen’ dat wordt uitgevoerd met een subsidie van: Dialoogtafel Groningen @en

Dit onderzoek maakt deel uit van het onderzoeksprogramma ‘Woningmarktonderzoek aardbevingsgebied Groningen’ dat wordt uitgevoerd met een subsidie van: Dialoogtafel Groningen.@en