This project is situated within the context of Groningen and Drenthe, regions in the Netherlands with a long history of extractive economic processes that have left deep scars on both the landscape and the daily lives of residents. In response to these long-term impacts, the Dutch government introduced Nij Begun, a 30-year plan aimed at building a better future for Groningen and North Drenthe. The plan focuses on areas affected by decades of gas extraction and recurring earthquakes, which have caused severe damage to buildings as well as economic and mental harm to local communities.

Within this context, the project addresses the village of Ter Apel in southeast Groningen, where the assignment is to develop a new tourism hub aligned with the ambitions of Nij Begun. Ter Apel is nationally known for its asylum seeker centre and the challenges associated with overcrowding, resulting in social tension and unsafe conditions for both asylum seekers and the local community.

At the centre of the village stands the only surviving rural monastery in northwestern Europe. Historically, the monastery functioned as a place of sanctuary, contemplation, and community, embodying a long tradition of hospitality and refuge. In its current role as a museum, however, it largely functions as a static representation of the past.

This project explores how Ter Apel’s monastic heritage can be reinterpreted to redefine the meaning of refuge in a contemporary context. By moving beyond the monastery’s current museum function and integrating tourism with social hospitality, the project proposes a new tourism hub that responds to both local challenges and regional ambitions.
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Contemporary public buildings are increasingly required to mediate between competing spatial demands rather than to serve a single fixed programme. Ter Apel, a small Dutch village that functions simultaneously as the national asylum-registration hub and as a Cittaslow heritage-tourism destination, presents this challenge at exceptional intensity: permanent residents, transient asylum seekers, and prospective slow tourists generate triadic spatial friction at a documented scale. This graduation project, The Spatial Mediator, proposes a hybrid public building at the future Nedersaksenlijn station node that mediates these conflicting flows. The design is grounded in primary, data-driven research: a participatory workshop conducted with twenty-four asylum-centre residents across five language groups, supported by a purpose-built digital tool that allows the resulting programme-preference data to be filtered and compared by country of origin. The building applies Habraken's Open Building support-infill principle through a permanent steel cruciform structural grid serviced by an overhead crane, within which infill modules are reconfigured across a five-phase transformation spanning 2027 to 2075. A parametric roof of pyramidal photovoltaic modules drives the building toward a carbon-negative hundred-year lifecycle. The project demonstrates a transferable methodology for designing adaptable civic buildings in high-friction spatial contexts. ... Read more

Ter Apel is a small Dutch village that faces high social tension because it hosts 24,000 asylum seekers every year. Due to long waiting times and a lack of activities, many newcomers face extreme boredom, leading to loitering in public spaces. At the same time, highways and fences physically separate the asylum center from the village, preventing positive contact. This graduation project proposes 'De Smeltheuvel', a shared community building that brings residents and newcomers together. Based on the concept of 'Solidarity Tourism', the design creates a neutral place for meaningful exchange. The building's architecture represents time—past, present, and future—to stay neutral and welcome everyone. Programmatically, it includes a community garden, a museum, a theater, and a restaurant. Through a volunteer system, asylum seekers can get professional training while helping the local economy. Ultimately, this project turns a zone of friction into a safe space that restores social cohesion. ... Read more

Global mobility is increasing, diverse temporary populations, like tourists and asylum seekers often create friction with local communities. This thesis explores how architecture and infrastructure can actively mediate global flows. The Nedersaksenlijn transit hub in Ter Apel is used as a primary case study. By analyzing flows, data and user perspectives, the research uses spatial strategies to create coexistence among locals, tourists, and refugees. The findings showcase that integrating daily activities and scattering tourist functions throughout locally owned public spaces creates benefits and negates negative effects of global mobility. Crucially, the project unveils that prioritizing locals creates strong public spaces and strategically designing infrastructure humanizes refugees, prevents over-tourism and shifts the image from crisis to coexistence. Finally, this project argues that global flows are inevitable, and clashes between populations cannot be avoided. However, infrastructure can direct these movements to mitigate their negative impacts, transforming mobilities into opportunities for spatial equality. ... Read more

Society is getting more inclusive by the day. Both in terms of race as well as gender, sexuality, religion and so on. This trend of inclusion should find physical correspondence in the design of public spaces that are more accessible to a wider audience with different lifestyles and cultures. The studio of Public Building offered a platform to dive deeper into this subject and to create a prototype to facilitate this important trend. By designing a public condenser people will be brought together that may normally not have crossed paths with each other.
These public buildings are important to the neighborhood and even the whole city as they can become the heart of communities. A safe space where people of all ages can go to and meet each other, learn from each other, and play with each other. A building that will regenerate its neighborhood and the social life of its inhabitants. Without such buildings these interactions between citizens would be greatly inhibited.

The building uses a form of Commons as a way of creating a building that is more inclusive for people, moments, and cultures. It will be a way to lower social thresholds and bring the private and the urban closer to each other.

The problem of the scale gap between private space and the urban surroundings is not one specifically bound to Friedrichshain or even Berlin. In almost every big city you can find the same problem. With this graduation project a solution has emerged that can either solve or soften this problem with the use of a public building. In this way the project could be used as either a baseline or a reference to projects in other cities dealing with the same problem. ... Read more

An architect should deal with social and political problems. Nowadays, politicians have the power to "solve" common problems. However, how reliable is a politician, or a journalist in the society? The choice of this Studio consists in exploring how a "Public Building" functions differently from how we are used to seeing it. An alternative model, which may become an example for the current society we live in. ... Read more

This architectural project focused on designing a public building that challenges societal norms surrounding sex, desire, and gender. The goal is to create a space for open dialogue and exploration of diverse sexualities and boundaries, fostering understanding and respect. By acting as mediators between different perspectives, public buildings can drive social change and improve social life.

The project is situated in Berlin's Friedrichshain district, known for its contrasting attitudes towards sexuality. The Public Condenser aims to bring together individuals from diverse backgrounds and sexual preferences, creating an inclusive environment for discussion. The multifunctional design accommodates various needs, promoting dialogue and addressing the importance of these topics.

Internally, the Public Condenser includes spaces that facilitate the exploration of sexuality on three levels: the body, the brain, and relationships. These spaces encompass a bathhouse, a dance/sports hall, an interactive gallery, an auditorium, a library, rooms for therapy, and workshop areas. The design emphasizes sensory experiences to create transformative encounters.

The design process involved extensive research, utilizing the "research by design" methodology. Case studies, interviews with residents and professionals, and visits to sex-positive clubs and cultural events informed the project. The design proposals integrate feedback and insights from potential user-groups and sexuality professionals.

By establishing a physical space for open dialogue and exploration of sexuality, the Public Condenser project aims to disrupt normative coding of sex, desire, and gender. It seeks to drive social change and foster an inclusive society. The study highlights the crucial role of architecture in shaping experiences and challenging societal perceptions. The project in Friedrichshain serves as a model for future architectural interventions promoting sexual education and understanding in contemporary societies.
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The need for adaptable buildings as a response to climate change is known. Repurposing existing structures and building materials are significant means of reducing the environmental impact of space making. This process of users appropriating and adapting the built environment, overwriting past functions and meanings with new ones, is prevalent within the urban fabric of Berlin and has become part of the identity of the city. Two terms which shaped the early explorations were loose fit architecture and hackable buildings. This research proposes a typology between these terms which provides the scaffolding to allow and encourage users to alter the space to suit the changing needs placed upon the building. The primary aim of this typology is to reduce the initial resource input into buildings, increase the longevity and resiliency of the structures, and help form more meaningful relationships between people and spaces they inhabit.
Berlin, like many cities, is experiencing the effects of gentrification as property prices continue to rise. The area of Friedrichshain currently boasts the second highest housing expenses in Berlin, despite an average income under the city average. Segments of the population heavily affected by these changes are young families and those in creative fields, many of whom require shop spaces and studios in order to do their craft. In many urban areas the trend of coworking spaces, collaborative workshops, and makerspaces can be observed in response to this. These spaces leverage the increased density and shared resources to make creative spaces more accessible. Such a function would allow residents who may otherwise have been forced to move to other parts of the city to stay in their neighborhood and social networks.
The prototype that is the subject of this graduation project would also provide a platform for the exploration of hackability and selfbuilding as tools for developing more local and self-reliant communities. ... Read more

The turmoil history of Berlin is a history of clashes between ideologies. This created a divided city not only from an architectural point of view but also from a socio-political background. The initial fieldwork research in Friedrichshain (and in Berlin as a whole) has shown diverse people with different and sometimes extremely opposing ideologies congregating in the same public space. The ideological background presented by the inhabitance is the result of the combination of share beliefs regarding religious, cultural, and societal self-identification. This difference plays a crucial role in the formation of each individual’s worldview, which forms their ideologies. The various social groups observed in the analyzed area show almost no interaction, with each group discussing their ideology and social problems internally. This leads to polarization in the local society. ... Read more

The building aims to use water to address issues on two levels. Firstly, on a local level, it is a public condenser aiming to provide family resources and water recreation activities that are lacking in the neighbourhood of Friedrichshain, Berlin. Single child families make up for the majority of households in Berlin which leaves the bulk of peer-to-peer socialisation of children outside of the home. On a wider level, the building addresses water as a public right and a threatened resource. Public consciousness of water issues in Germany may not be prevalent as Germany enjoys high-quality drinking water all year round but with the recent droughts and effects of climate change, this is projected to change in the coming future. Furthermore, my fascination with using water as a design device lies with how water has always been a gathering point, a place to meet, socialise and relax. The dynamic state of water presents numerous opportunities for it to be used as a spatial tool both indoors and outdoors. ... Read more

All places change over time; however, the extent and availability of alternatives are essential. Friedrichshain is an example of a neighbourhood where the transition to a high-income society can have significant consequences for low-income and elderly, who have fewer choices and fewer opportunities to travel for recreation and socialising.

The design of a public condenser in Friedrichshain will form a new heart between the existing and upcoming neighbourhood and their society. The public condenser will blur the division between neighbourhoods and enhance inclusivity and diversity.

A public function that facilitates different generations' recreational and intellectual needs is a library. Today's libraries already have a social function in addition to the intellectual purpose. Adding social functions to current services ensures that the existing and new cultures and societies reinforce each other. Moreover, bringing different socioeconomic groups together reduces conflicts and disorder and enhances collective security.

This design expands the standard library with other media forms to anticipate the future. So there are printed books in the building and devices on which users can read digital books, listen to audiobooks and communicate via multimedia. In addition, the media library will contain extra functions that activate the brain's left (intellectual) and right (creative) hemispheres.

The different media types connect the thinking and doing activities in the building through a guiding routing. The guiding routing serves as an extension of the public street and is designed for stocking books and other media types, the media library.

Finally, there will also be space for leisure and gathering in addition to activities for thinking and doing. Traditional formal functions associated with a library are transformed into more informal spaces with room for the individual and the collective. ... Read more

This design is a graduation project of the public buildings studio called "Music Marvel". It deals with designing a public space within an area, Binckhorst, that is switching from an industrial to a residential district. The increase in density has consequences on the existing buildings resulting in demolition and thus a loss of identity. According to Aldo Rossi the evolution of a building is the user experience. But what happens with the demolished parts of the evolving process? Could they be re-used and relocated while transferring part of its former identity? This project explores the re-using of parts of the hidden beautiful concrete structures found in the former auto halls in Binckhorst. These parts are relocated to a new area near the only green space in Binckhorst, the cemetery zone. This area feels isolated and the design aims to open up this park. The new music venue aims to make this public space more accessible. And by giving the historic artifacts space in the new music venues, they will contribute in the musical experience of visitors. Each venue will have demolished pieces of the auto hall organized in a different way to create a different experience for each venue. ... Read more

Waiting outside in a long line in front of a music building is not always pleasant. Sometimes concert visitors stand in line for hours and even in the rain. This waiting time and experience are related to the overall experience of the concert night. Therefore, the waiting time should be reduced and the waiting should become more pleasant. To achieve this, research has been done into the entrances of music buildings and the public outdoor space, that function as waiting and reception area, around music buildings.

In addition, attention is given to crowd control and fire safety. At large events, order and security around crowds are extremely important. Therefore, it is essential to have a clear understanding of how people can leave the building in a structured way, especially in case of an emergency. With crowd control, it can be ensured that the number of people never becomes too large. And fire safety requirements, such as certain dimensions that doors, corridors, and staircases must meet, ensure that the flow is optimal and that no congestion occurs. ... Read more

The final conception of my music marvel is to create a binary musical community center with auditorium and rooms for music therapy/school purposes but also creating a space for urban “flaneur” the wanderer of the city that can visit accidently and still have memorable experiences through seasonal exhibitions and pop up shows. The space will be divided into active and passive spaces, in which the active space will consist of an auditorium and acoustics insulated rooms for musical activities, and the passive space with an amphitheater in an open space with possibilities to enclose or create exhibitions through ephemeral structures such as scaffolding. The two spaces will be “divided” through a sphere roof structure creating a “surreal” different experience both from the outside and in the inside. The dome will also help with the passive climate system making the center more sustainable. Although defined, the active spaces also can be flexible as they will have modular adaptable structures that can become the desired size.



“Form does not follow function. Function follows vision. Vision follows reality.” ( Kiesler,1949)



As Huizinga states in his book Homo Ludens, it is essential for humanity to maintain the play element for the development of society. As a result, the Music Marvel initiative may benefit society by adding a layer of that playfulness to the urban environment. More than just playfulness, it will be a place where music will be boosted to reach the guests’ unconscious thoughts and assist them escape the stresses of everyday life.
The structure will serve both as cultural hub and an artifact, with the goal of assisting in qualifying the city by inspiring discussions that go beyond the architecture but as a vehicle and instrument for change. A mental curating center through music.
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As part of urban redevelopment and in order to densify and create a new city centre, the Binckhorst, an industrial area and business park in The Hague, The Netherlands, is the design location for a public building for a music venue. With this project, research was done on a fundamental aspect of architecture: form. Analyses of the design location and several case studies were done in order to define how architectural form can contribute to the experience of a music venue. Next to that, the concept of a festival was explored. The idea to see the venue as a festival originated from research on the site. With this, the design was treated as a public space where visitors are able to explore in all directions and where activities are happening everywhere.

This project was a research by design process where the two topics, form and festival, served as direct input for the design of the music venue. The final design can be described as a vertical festival of forms. It is characterized by unique and recognizable forms, supported by a modular system. As is the case with a festival, visitors of the venue will experience a lively and complex space. Through architectural appearance and through it’s program, the building responds to the wider context and it amplifies the Binckhorst and the experience of going to a concert.
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The relationship between architecture and music can be used as an extensive source of inspiration within design. While both disciplines deal with different media, both have the power to move people emotionally and to carry across different messages. In addition, similarities exist within the practices of musical composition and architecture.
Located within the Binckhorst area in The Hague, the project focuses to question in what way the identity of the Binckhorst area can be articulated through the musical and architectural expression of the designed concert building.
Within this project, five key principles from musical composition have been identified and used as tools for designing a concert building for symphonic music. Based on the principle form of a classical symphony, the four movements form the zones through which the visitor travels on the way towards the concert hall. The principles of key and harmony, structure, melody and instrumentation are translated into their architectural counterparts and used to design the four separate zones created within the building. Through interaction with the building’s surroundings within different zones, the visitors are encouraged to “listen” to the Binckhorst area in new ways. ... Read more

Music Kathedraal is a new cultural hub in Binckhorst, The Hague. Current waste processing facility was repurposed into a music building with strong supporting public program. The variety of functions is expanding the scope of target users creating a complex, more attractive building. It contains two halls for music performance, a big hall – Kathedraal, and a small one – Chapel. Big hall is versatile and able to transform in order to host different genres of music. Rest of the time, when music is not performed in big hall, retractable seating and stage allow it to quickly change into a conference room, fashion show venue, cinema, etc.

Exterior aesthetics of the existing building designed by Jan Brouwer in 1995 was preserved because of its specific appearance and importance as an exemplar of high-tech architecture. The most prominent part of the building is wavy roof with pointy, tower-like construction. Majority of the façade is opened in order to make this, now closed to public, building attractive and inviting. ... Read more

Embodied cognition suggests that human beings are emotional machines whose experience of the world lies on the interaction between the body and the environment. This can be seen as the echoing of the twentieth century philosophers such as Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Guattari that breaks from the disembodied concept of mind. The research elaborates on architecture and music as domains of immersive experience. The study borrows from recent developments in musicology and cognitive neuroscience, specifically embodied music cognition. This framework is used to address the irreducible multiplicity of the experience of music as cerebral, corporeal, emotional, sociocultural and contextual. Thus, the architecture of musical experience should incorporate all these dimensions. The Binckhorst, a post-industrial area in the Hague, will be treated as the dance floor where spaces can be activated through the movement of bodies. Through the cathartic release of immanent properties of the site, local sub-culture and industry will be preserved. Unpleasant characteristics of the area will be reevaluated as emotionally moving musical elements, such as discordance. Without any preconceived architectural program or concept, similar to a musical arrangement, these elements will be reformatted and played back to the crowds. ... Read more

The thesis studio concerns music making as a public event and how one can engage architecture with performing arts as an important part of civic life and urban milieu. The brief is to design a music complex in Binckhorst, a former industrial site on the outskirts of Den Haag.
Following the problematization of the architectural type and the built environment, a perceptual approach has been proposed to challenge the static image of present-day concert halls and the stereotype of Binckhorst as a mere transitory zone. Built upon empiricist theories, the project acknowledges the role of sensation in shaping our spatial experiences and works with one's movement in space to bring about variations in the perception of both architecture and the urban setting.
The result is a a series of processional sequences stretching across two perpendicular axes in close proximity to a major trunk road. They serve to defrost the rectilinear volumes that house musical performances, augment and restructure the sensorial anchors in the vincinity in order to renew visitors' impression of the monotonous streetscape. The change in atmospheres along the promenade is not only a visual construct but also defined by the aural qualities of the building ground. ... Read more

Architecture often manifests itself for a multitude of decades in the built environment, as something that is static. It is in itself an end-result, often designed as a seamless whole, specifically applicable within the design of music venues. These are often iconic objects within city fabrics, sometimes only accessible by one specific target group. The spatial configuration and experiences within the building are staying the same during its lifespan. If our cities, environments, technologies, economies and even our own ideas, activities and (musical) preferences change constantly, why do we construct and design architecture still as something that is fixed, rigid, pre-established, and permanent? Can we create architecture which generates freedom and is open for interpretation, therefore responding to unforeseen activities? For the design of the music building, a framework is designed, which is indeterminate in its functions. The framework derives from a characteristic crane rail located in the Binckhorst, The Hague (Netherlands), which functions as the ''backbone'' of the whole project. It can be appropriated and used by different groups and (sub)cultures and host various activities. The framework is flexible and can grow over time in which there is not one particular end-result created. By doing this, the building is more resilient towards future societal changes. ... Read more