This thesis addresses the challenge of designing architecture which fosters student communities while integrating with a wetland landscape. It explores the environmental and social implications of transforming the peat polders of Midden-Delfland in the Netherlands, which are subsiding and emitting significant amounts of CO2. The thesis builds on the masterplan by the architecture firm ZUS, which proposes converting these polders into a green buffer zone, combining productive landscapes with urban parks and wetlands to halt subsidence and CO2 emissions.

The primary research question is: “How can architecture create a place for student communities that connects to, and protects from, its surrounding wetland landscape?” This is divided into two sub-questions: one focusing on the design of student community spaces and the other on integrating architecture with wetland environments.

Through literature review on student housing, different urban concepts and the preferences and needs of students in student housing are defined. With case study analysis of projects that have a close relationship with a wetland landscape, the thesis identifies design strategies that protect and connect architectural spaces to water landscapes.

Key findings suggest that there are two main urban concepts for student housing, college, and campus design. For students housing proximity to school complexes are important, as well as dwelling floorplans that are practical and mix private bedrooms with shared facilities and common spaces. Creating raised living planes and incorporating landscape features into design can effectively protect residents from and connect them to changing water landscapes.

This research contributes to the broader understanding of sustainable architectural practices in wetland areas, providing insights into how to design adaptive and resilient community spaces.

In the summer of 2023, heatwaves became quite prominent in the south of Europe. Due to the extreme heat, the health of those citizens was affected. The Netherlands Meteorological Institute predicts an increase in heatwaves in the future for the Netherlands as well. The main research question is how to propose a strategy for a liveable environment by designing public spaces while mitigating heat stress for vulnerable target groups in the context of Bospolder Tussendijken in Rotterdam. This research questions also how a reproducible tool could help identify heat stress and test design interventions in Dutch cities. The research included a literature review, expert consultations, scenario planning, modelling of the urban environment and mapping techniques.
Comparing the heat stress software reproducibility, computation time, possibility to test design interventions and the scale of modelling were important. Improvements in the reproducibility of the PET map of Koopmans et al. (2020) are made by creating an open-accessible QGIS plugin applicable to Dutch cities. This helps urban designers to indicate and test their design interventions. Refinement of the wind calculation contributed to speeding up calculation times of the wind for neighbourhood and city scale areas. Future research should focus on some refinement in PET calibration to work properly, and advanced wind modelling is required for urban design practices.
The application in the Rotterdam test case study emphasizes the importance of maintaining liveability now and in the future. By enhancing social liveability and physical liveability within a network of heat-mitigating interventions liveability is guaranteed. By revealing the vulnerable groups and their social interactions on a summer day, the most frequently used routes are qualified for refurbishment. Based on the current quality of social space and walkable environment, ownership and degree of open space on the street level, the interventions are chosen for the situation.
The research emphasized the importance of identifying heat stress in public spaces and the need for urgent action to maintain the quality of life in the future. By integrating informed strategies from multiple fields like Geomatics and Urbanism a climate-adaptive and healthy environment can take shape.

This graduation thesis looks at the possibilities of
densification in the city without having negative effects on the thermal comfort in the micro climate. During warm periods heat stress arises in the micro climate. Heat stress is the stress on the human body caused by a large heat load. People suffering from heat stress experience
discomfort, health problems and in some cases death as the core temperature rises due to more heat being
absorbed than given off (McGregor & Vanos, 2018).
Due to the high pressure on the housing market, more space is needed, but in the cities there is a lack of space. This often goes hand in hand with more surfacing, causing more heat stress. Due to climate change, heat stress will become more common and to prevent this, the thesis will address the question:

How to densify in The Hague in order to mitigate and
prevent heat stress and the urban heat island effect to improve the livability of the city and the health of its
inhabitants?

Through targeted research and analysis of heat stress, densification and the test location The Hague, more insight is gained into the problems and solutions in Moerwijk. By using the Pattern Language the analysis is linked to the design.
In this way the solutions can be transformed into patterns. The results of this thesis is a toolbox of heat patterns and densification patterns that can be applied in different ways and be used flexibly in a city. Also the translation step is made to an implemented design whereby the district Moerwijk is taken as an example. Ultimately, a maximised situation for heat stress and densification is created, which also takes the livability and ecology problems of the
neighbourhood into account. The design focuses on
different scales from neighbourhood to street level,
applying different patterns at each scale.

Keywords: Densification, heat stress, the urban heat island effect, micro climate, The Hague

Most contemporary cities are currently unable to adapt fast enough to the constant change in demands. Rapid technological advances have significantly altered the way humanity interacts with its surroundings – with a sedentary lifestyle becoming more common – while climate change and ecological degradation threaten to do unrepairable damage to our urban ecosystems. These trends will – without drastic change – ultimately lead to increased social isolation, more people living an unhealthy lifestyle, an uncomfortable urban microclimate, and a lack of resilience regarding environmental shocks and stresses.

This study aims to determine how urban green – with its different qualities and attributes – can be applied to mitigate these potential future effects and develop a future city that is more liveable, resilient, and biodiverse. In this context, urban green can be defined as all urban land covered by vegetation of any kind – irrespectively of size, function, and ownership.

To effectively research the diverse benefits of urban green, a case study approach was applied, in which the city centre of Schiedam was selected. Additionally, the following research question was chosen: ‘’How can the implementation of urban green in the inner city of Schiedam contribute to resolving issues related to ecological degradation, climate adaptation, social isolation, and vacancy in an integrated and inclusive way?’’

Literary research and case study reviews were conducted to assess the different ways urban green can be implemented, with their subsequent benefits. Furthermore, spatial analysis was conducted to gain a better understanding of how the aforementioned problems are manifested in the case of Schiedam, together with how the literary findings can be implemented in a real location.

The research showed that a multiscalar development strategy is required in order to utilise the concept of urban green to its full potential. On the scale of the inner city, five distinct types of pocket parks were developed that each focus on a specific target group. The goal of these park types is to minimise the barrier for people to come outside – giving them a high-quality social green space for whatever purpose they need within a five-minute radius. Furthermore, pocket parks contribute to creating a continuous ecological network, as well as provide environmental benefits.

On the street scale, an objective evaluation method was developed, which can be used to assess the current social, environmental and ecological quality of any street type. Additionally, an intervention toolbox was developed that provides the necessary tools to redevelop the street types accordingly.

By utilising the different potential qualities of urban green through a multiscalar development approach, the future inner city of Schiedam will become a rich, biodiverse urban territory that promotes social interaction and a healthy lifestyle – all while being resilient and climate adaptive.

This project is an adaptive-reuse project on De Knip, the current tax administrative building in Sloterdijk, Amsrerdam into dwelling complex for starters. It is a house to rekindle our innate, physical sensitivity towards our environment, which has been slowly eroded in the mass standardisation in architecture. The interventions are added in modest, archaic or non-canonical approaches to challenge the conceived idea of comfort and home, materialised in reeds & relevant complementary biobased materials.

The building consists of 3 programs mentioned above and each program works as a bridge. The goal of the marketplace is to be a cultural bridge by providing interaction between people including locals and immigrants. To achieve this, a routing system of Katendrecht street was introduced that connects the inside and outside of the building, draws people with diverse background deep into the building, links them to the history of the building and expands their understanding of the multi-cultural world. To make the Fenix ensemble legible as a historic entity again and include street connecting Wilhelmina pier into routing system. Despite the recent changes to the Fenix 1 building, the market place will be extended to lower part of Fenix 1 and become huge cultural area with Deliplein. In addition, the lost part on quay-side will be restored to restore weakened connection between water. Above the marketplace, there is an education center for immigrants and both spaces are interconnected. By doing so, locals and immigrants can communicate in many ways and this space will be social bridge. The migration museum links above two programs as a historic symbol of the building. It also links past and present, users to history and shows the root of the building.

A green-blue roof consists of a water storage layer with on top a substrate layer covered with vegetation. Due to the presence of the water storage layer, a green-blue roof is better capable of retaining heavy rain events. A movable valve makes it possible to manage the amount of water on the roof and the timing of drainage from the roof to the sewer system, while in addition the stored amount of water is made available to the vegetation layer via a passive capillary irrigation system. This could potentially result in a higher evapotranspiration rate and therewith a reduction of the sensible heat flux compared to green roofs. Because of its qualities, green-blue roofs have been added to the list of measures that contribute to mitigation of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect and pluvial flooding. However, during dry summers a third climate related challenge arises namely drought. The question arises whether it is sustainable to increase the amount of vegetation in cities, as this increases the water demand during droughts. During long dry spells it can be challenging to store enough water for vegetation and cooling while keeping sufficient empty storage available at the same time. A conflict in water related functionalities of the roof is the result. It was the aim of this thesis to investigate how implementation of green-blue roofs can be made climate resilient by defining its strengths and weaknesses regarding temperature management and water consumption and come up with possible ways to improve the roof system. By conducting a measurement campaign in the summer of 2020, it was investigated if the presence of a water storage layer indeed enhances the cooling effect of a green-blue roof on the indoor and outdoor environment. Thermal fluxes at a green-blue roof and a conventional black roof were analysed, as well as two situations with either an empty of full water storage layer at the green-blue roof. Furthermore, a bucket model was designed to study the climate resilience of green-blue roofs for the climate scenarios of the KNMI for 2050. Based on the results, it is concluded that additional adaptation measures are required to make sure green-blue roofs can still contribute to a better and more resilient urban area towards the future. Several measures are available to improve the performance on water retention and drought resilience, like valve management, enlargement of the storage capacity on the roof or on ground level and irrigation. Closing the water cycle locally is important to make green-blue roofs self-sustainable in water consumption, which reduces the risk on conflicts on water use during droughts. Only regarding UHI mitigation, other measures like creating shade could be more efficient as the enhanced cooling of the urban area due to unlimited water availability is small, unless largescale application of green-blue roofs.

The active museum of art: During this Graduation project I search for a new way of positioning an art museum in the 21st century in Rotterdam south Tarwewijk. An Art Museum changes the local environment of its surrounding area. It can have a positive influence by developing neighbourhood assets but it also can lead to gentrification and displacement. To increase these neighbourhood assets this graduation research search for an active museum that integrates art in the daily lives of people and local neighbourhood by focusing on theme of participation and interaction. Creating an inclusive public space for a dynamic collaboration between the art, artists the audience and the environment. Where the design concept results in building a connection between Rotterdam south and the rest of Rotterdam. Reflecting the city structure and history. Merging art disciplines, building as performance (active building), openness, transparency, porosity, strong centre point for encounter and free choice of routing.

Katoenveem is a former cotton warehouse in the Merwe-Vierhavens area of Rotterdam. As a harbour heritage site it has a high cultural and historical value due to its unique past function and the systems that were installed for the transshipment of cotton, but also for the innovative construction method that was used and the resulting overall architectural setup. Unfortunately, after the building lost its function about five decades ago, it has not been maintained and therefore has deteriorated significantly. The aim of this graduation work is to propose a possible solution for the question on how the building can be adapted in order to implement a cultural program, while preserving the buildings' historical narrative, as well as maintaining the possibility to adapt to future needs. The resulting design is a proposal of the architectural interventions needed to adapt Katoenveem. In the design the focus is on the short term perspective in the process of future development of the building, implementing a adaptable, demountable and therefore reversible modular system to create ateliers for the makers, innovators and creatives to be attracted to the location.

To limit increasing heat problems in cities, green areas are being implemented in the urban context. Since space is often scarce, an opportunity lies in the use of green facades. This research has investigated the cooling effect of natural green facades in the form of He¬dera helix. Both the effect on thermal comfort inside and outside buildings was investigated during a five-day heatwave using a model approach in ENVI-met. For this purpose, energy labels and the urban heat island effect were used as heat exposure indicators to determine ur¬ban hot spots in Amsterdam. One study area was selected for which dwellings were simulated for four different orientations, namely facing north, east, south and west. The results demon¬strated that green facades could account for small decreases (<1 °C) in air temperature and outdoor thermal comfort. This cooling effect was more pronounced for indoor temperatures, where the insulating function of the greening led to a maximum cooling of 3 °C for the sou¬thern oriented buildings within the first 24 hours. After a few days, the indoor effect appeared to fluctuate, resulting in lower temperatures during the night and higher temperatures during the day compared to a non-green facade. In conclusion, this research has demonstra¬ted that green facades can reduce the heat accumulation of buildings as they function as an extra insulation layer. Further research may be necessary to determine which accompanying measures can optimize the cooling effect of green facades to limit urban heat problems.

In recent years, with the deepening of the urbanization process, high-density urban development models have led to a series of climatic problems such as poor urban ventilation and air pollution. Urban morphology forms a unique microclimate in the city, which has an important impact on the diffusion and distribution of pollutants inside the urban boundary layer. Chengdu, as a large central city in the southwestern of China, has developed rapidly, with numerous sources of atmospheric pollution. At the same time, its basin topography and climatic conditions make it difficult to dilute and disperse pollutants. In this thesis, the background of Chengdu was introduced, and the severe trend of urban development and air pollution was stated at first. Secondly, further understanding of the relationship between urban morphology, urban microclimate and air pollution will be involved. And a city-scale risk assessment was conducted to define the most vulnerable areas. Thereafter, it is possible to evaluate the microclimates represented by the wind and heat environment in these areas. Then integrating pollution abatement and microclimate design into the urban design process by using a maximization approach. From the aspects of street canyon morphology, surfaces and urban trees, proposing wind-heat coupled optimization solutions to reduce air pollution. The guidelines and design method are aimed at improving the scientificity of urban design and providing a reference for the creation of sustainable and healthy cities.

Delta cities all around the world are under pressure from different forms of climate change effects. Soil subsidence as a result of peat oxidation, and anthropogenic loading of the soil. The soil in many of the heavily urbanised deltas around the world is subsiding faster than the see level is rising as a result of climate change. Few people are however aware of the problems that soil subsidence can cause and the threat that it poses for the cities and their hinterlands, in Delta regions. Soil subsidence has been going on for such a long time that few people seem to realise that it can pose a threat in the nearby future. Delfland is a part of the Dutch delta that has been polderized and it has been subsiding ever since these polders where created. The purpose of this thesis is to research what the spatial and strategical requirements are, to make it possible for Delfland to deal with soil subsidence, and its effects within the region. There is however no certainty about the future impact of soil subsidence or the which actions are required to counter soil subsidence and its effects. The dynamic adaptive policy pathways (DAPP) method is used to deal with this uncertainty. This method has been developed to be able to plan for an unknown future. This is done though the development of dynamic pathways that function as a plan that can change, depending on future developments. This makes it possible to deal with uncertainty within the soil subsidence problem feld, as well as, external uncertainties. For example uncertainties from climate change, economical changes, or political changes. The strategical impact, of dealing with soil subsidence and its effects through the use of DAPP, is reviewed by taking a closer look at how decisions are made within the DAPP method, and how these same decisions could be made on a regional scale for all of Delfland. This requires knowledge of the possible stakeholders and their role and influence within Delfland and in relation to soil subsidence and its effects. The spatial impact, of dealing with soil subsidence and its effects through the use of DAPP, is reviewed by taking a closer look at the pathways that could be chosen when using the DAPP method. Spatial reflections of different pathways, on the Delfland region, offer an insight in the possible spatial outcomes of different pathways and the actions that are taken within these pathways.

Netherlands is a coastal country with a typical maritime climate such as mild summers and cold winters but the intensity, duration and frequency of heat waves has been observed increasing since 21st century. The elderly, as one of the vulnerable groups of continuous hot weathers, are the first to be affected by the heat waves with regard to increasing mortality and morbidity while the aging population combined with uneven distribution of the urban heat risks is exacerbating the situation and placing challenge to the public. Public health interventions have been applied in the past few years which have been proved to be effective but the overall effect for the future scenario is questionable. Strategies from urban planning have been focusing on the mitigation of urban heat island and adaption to extreme weather conditions but the effect should be expected in a long term. Since the urban heat island and the uneven distribution of heat risks have strong interaction with physical environments in the urbanized areas, the thesis is seeking for the solutions to intervene within existing urban settings to reduce heat stress for the Dutch elderly through urban design approach to fill in the gap between public health and urban planning interventions. The thesis, by analyzing and researching in The Hague as the test field, introduced an approach to uncovered the causation of the uneven distribution of urban heat risks among the public and evaluate the heat risks level among the elderly from large scale to small scale. The further research on the courtyard block dwellings in the study areas reveals the potential heat risks from the perspective of building configuration and several interventions have been applied within the blocks to reduce the heat stress for the residents.
The design outcomes consist of strategies and temporal spatial interventions, ‘Cooling sheds’, and urban microclimate design following the instruction of strategies has been applied in the study areas to the test effectiveness of the strategies. The combination of the application of strategies through urban microclimate design process and the placing of cooling sheds on neighborhood streets could work as a network on various scales to reduce the heat stress for not only the citizens and healthy elderly but also the elderly with restriction of movements in different times in The Hague. The ideas behind the research and strategies could also be applied broadly in the urban renewal process from the microclimate perspectives in the Netherlands to reduce the heat stress among the public.

The subject of this graduation project is the energy transition within urban environments. This is pursued through, firstly, gaining an understanding of the fossil dependency and how this has affected our cities and practices. In order to overturn this effect and open the way for the urban energy transition, urban design needs to become more responsive to the climate in terms of buildings’ energy use and to incorporate renewable energy technologies. In this direction climate-responsive and energy-active urban design is introduced as part of sustainable urban design, and the steps taken in the project contribute in its implementation within existing residential areas, and more specifically dutch post-war neighbourhoods. Because apart from facilitating the urban energy transition there is a need to sustain the rapidly growing urbanization rates in a different way than the one followed in the post-war era. The illusion of free space is no longer in place and densification needs to take place first and foremost in post-war neighbourhoods. Their open space and inherent unsustainability makes them an ideal case for climate-responsive and energy-active urban design to be applied. Therefore the knowledge gathered in this project in order to review the practice of urban design is combined with the morphological qualities of post-war neighbourhoods to provide with design solutions that act on three levels: lowering energy use, generating energy locally and offering the potential for densification. In the end the steps taken are combined in a design method that can contribute in developing climate-responsive and energy-active urban design.

When thinking of air pollution, most of the people refers to Asian countries such as China or India where the air is often unbreathable. However, despite the common believes, air pollution poses the single largest environmental risk in Europe today (EEA, 2015) and, among all the countries, Italy has the highest rate of deaths related to air pollution. The city of Turin, as one of the four most polluted cities in Italy, has been facing high rates of air pollution concentration for several year. Despite several attempts by the municipality to improve the quality of the air, the situation has slightly changed in the past years and the urgency of the issue calls for alternative and more concrete solutions.
The graduation project, by discovering and analyzing the relationship between air pollution, built environment and urban design, aims to propose a thorough interscalar approach able to mitigate air pollution in the city of Turin. The form and the nature of the built environment are in fact critical to air pollution concentration: street orientation and width, building heights and several other urban features play a key role in air pollution dispersion.
The design proposal focuses on three design interventions which are characterized by different scales of action: from the micro scale of a single public space to an entire neighborhood. Seen together, they form a comprehensive system for mitigating air pollution whose basis rely on the discipline of urban design.
Overall, the graduation project substantiates the relevance of urban design when assessing air pollution in cities. It offers valuable, effective and alternative solutions able to support the already existing urban policies in the city of Turin.