Once, the Haydarpasa Railyard in Istanbul was a key link for railway traffic between Europe and Asia and a gate to the Turkish hinterland and Middle East. After the opening of the Bosphorus-crossing Marmaray Tunnel, it has lost its function and became abandoned. Taking into account the various historical layers as well as the place of the site in the public memory, the design project proposes transforming the site into a park. This park is defined by the loop, a walkway on the path of a former sidetrack that defines the perimeter of the park and connects its different zones. Along the loop, several interventions related to the different historical layers of the site and the inherent nostalgia are introduced. One of them is the ensemble of a panorama on top of an old turning disc as well as an existing ruinous locomotive shed, together forming a catalyst of nostalgia at the entrance of the new park. Now, after the train-traveling has stopped, this new Eastern gate to the park enables travels in time.

On a journey, most functions of daily life have to be paused or improvised. A few items used for the most essential of all the various activities that are normally taking place in one’s home environment are condensed in the traveller’s luggage. These items are the only available material for improvisation in addition to the spatial possibilities in the traveler’s immediate, unfamiliar surrounding. This also applies to religious and spiritual practice. The traveller who seeks a moment of reflection has to either engage in an act of space-making and establish the sacred within the ordinary, or use sacred wayside spaces. A visual analysis of different kinds of such sacred spaces embedded in travel infrastructures shows how old traditions found their way into modern times and which transformations they underwent on this way. As a marginal and low-key form of sacred space, the typology has adapted flexibly to the new conditions of modern travel environments. This thesis is a study of the typological evolution of sacred spaces in travel environments and of the connection between spirituality and travelling from an architectural point of view.

The Caritas Psychiatric Center (PC Caritas) in Melle, Belgium, is a clinic campus consisting of about a dozen buildings embedded into a park. Sint Jozef, named after the priest Petrus Jozef Triest from Gent, Belgium, is one of the remaining villas built in 1908 and centrally located on the campus. It was initially used as a treatment center for so-called “hysterical women” and has experienced multiple changes of functions over time. Like other buildings on the campus, it was considered not to meet today’s requirements anymore and therefore decided to be demolished. Thanks to the research collective BAVO, the demolition was halted midway, and competition to start a second life of the ruin was initiated. The experimental concept presented by architecten de vylder vinck taillieu was chosen and developed further together with multiple participants, including doctors and clinic staff, patients and visitors, and others. The project was then renamed Kanunnik Petrus Jozef Triest Plein, in short Triest Plein (Triest Square).