The thesis explores design methods to integrate social-ecological and morphological relationships of the peri-urban areas into one network by using existing altered systems on site. The course of the research is mainly focused on the questionable relation of these in-between landscapes with the urban and rural realm and their future perception considering the case of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area as the main context. The main context is being analyzed through a series of scales to identify the relationships that contribute or not in the creation of the network. Furthermore the design framework considers research by design tools such as the use of exploratory mapping, mental mapping , cross reference mapping, narrative mapping, images and interviews. The design process is inspired by a series of design principles related to Landscape ecological approaches and Landscape urbanism theories enhanced also by the utopian visions of both fields such as the works of Frank Lloyd Wright ( The Broadacre City ) and Geoffrey Jellicoe (Motopia). The project starts with the multi-scalar analysis of the three peri-urban areas of the Lisbon metropolis by identifying the networks that occur and connects them as being part of a larger system. A continuous explorative process that tries to understand the relationships between the urban and rural and the reason of social and ecological detachment within the peri-urban areas and the core of the city of Lisbon. A historical analysis is also used as a main perspective in order to understand the complexity of the context as well the administrative perspective in order to to reflect on the diagnosis.The fact that we perceive these areas as two distinctive landscapes pushes forward the aim of this research, which is to develop design principles that can re-envision these in-between landscapes of the metropolitan region of Lisbon as a network of social ecological and morphological relations. The creation of a hybrid landscape where these processes interact with each other and behave as one network , that characterizes the continuum . The final design project highlights 3 areas of exploration, where the new image of the territory is unveiled . Going from the rural to urban the gradient is reshaped. The new cultivated landscape reveals the pottentials of the network’s main elements aiming not only to re-attach social and ecologiclal processes, but also to contribute to the sensorial exploration of the visitors and residents. The new landscape promotes new uses derived from the actual pattern of the topos. Finally, reaching the core of the territory, the village of Malveira, the left over spaces are highlighted as dynamic tranzitional zones , that contibute to the ecological continuum, as well as to the creation of interchanging landscapes. The creation of meaningfull places out of neglected spaces. Places that are prominent to changes , always in the process of becoming, reflecting the social and ecological needs, promoting a new consideration of the dynamic flows, not as distinctive ones, but as a complexity that characterizes the new cultivated landscape.

The main intention of this thesis is the proposal of a new approach of the landscape that takes into account the local context in a different way. The complete and holistic understanding of the local character of the area and the interpretation of it with contemporary means will create a basis of a self-conscious design. Time-resistant structures accompanied by peculiarities of the specific place can be the answer to our fragmented urban landscapes avoiding the overimposition of direct solutions on top of them. In such a way, the creation of a place derives from the physical characteristics of the area and its significant historic structures which restore the connections between the variant landscape patches. Considering Poldervaart as a time-resistant structure for healing the fragmented landscape of the area between Schiedam and Vlaardingen and from the Schie to the Maas, this project proposes its reinforcement as a backbone structure that will act as a connector and a generator of connections in two scales. In a regional scale the monumental axis of Poldervaart establishes a connection between the area of Midden Delfland to the river Maas while on a local scale the canal receives the role of generating connections between urban fragments, city parks, allotment gardens, and parts of historic cultural landscape. By focusing on three areas-nods along Poldervaart, the project promotes and safeguards the continuity of its axis by re-establishing connections and creating the conditions for unique unifying public spaces. Together with that, smallscale interventions along the canal shield its coherence and readability and offer conceptual connections and noteworthy experiences that reveal the cultural aspect of the landscape. This action if repetitive can inform a strategy that acts against fragmentation as a more situated approach for connecting and restoring a fragmented urban landscape, by taking advantage of time-resistant structures that exist along it.

The world is changing, and the impact of climate change is becoming increasingly apparent. in our daily lives. The need for people to change their unsustainable behaviours is clear, particularly in vulnerable neighbourhoods where the effects of climate change are most pronounced. Not only are environmental vulnerabilities being exposed within this context, but social vulnerabilities as well. That’s where this project comes in. The aim is to take an eco-social approach to urban design, creating purposeful and sustainable interactions within these neighbourhoods to help achieve a more inclusive and sustainable future. The influential role that the physical environment plays in shaping our behaviours needs to be recognised. It can either facilitate or dismiss specific actions, particularly in relation to sustainable behaviours. Encouraging sustainable behaviours in public spaces requires a comprehensive approach that encompasses community awareness, everyday decisions, and recovery and protection behaviours. To effectively promote environmental actions, it’s crucial to tailor interventions to the needs and capabilities of the local population, considering factors such as affordability, feelings of safety, and cultural backgrounds. With this in mind, the project proposes design interventions that gathered in a pattern language. By considering local capabilities and sustainability behaviours, design propositions are made for four places within Bloemhof and Tarwewijk - each representing a different approach in terms of scale and functionality. The final designs represent a future in which a strong community practices sharing and repairing within a balanced and natural streetscape.

Venice and its lagoon are a place where the imaginary and the legends of man and water are thriving. It is a place of profound history of cohabitation and victory, where time and movement have a different definition for people than in other parts of the world. It is the urban and landscape archetype of close co-existence between the domain of inland and seaward territories. People, culture, and traditions always remembered and respected the legend of Venice and its creation, understanding the delicate boundaries and the frontiers of encounter between inland and seaward, preserving the reached balance between them and the population sustained on it. Nevertheless, it is possible to notice that at a certain moment, the urge of becoming modern prevailed on the equilibrium between the two domains. The need for civil society and a global view on what cities should be, brought distance between inland and seaward while letting people forget the legend of Venice. We could say that Venice always retaliated its own identity to itself and the rest of the world, modifying its description from maritime independent power, to artistic cradle of revolutionary ideas, to petrol-chemical industrial force, to mass-consumption product. Its definition came always from within, while now, with the approach of the climate crisis, for the first time Venice must deal with powerful externalities which are going to consequently redefine the Venetian identity from the outside. This research by design tries to remember the legend of Venice of co-existence and adaptation to its landscape, finding new possible anatomy based on the binding of Inland and seaward pressed by the climate crisis worst-case scenarios.

This thesis builds on the proposition that the ocean is both an urban and social space. Therefore, marine planning needs to consider socio-cultural risks and opportunities to be deemed sustainable. This reconceptualisation is especially relevant for the Barents Sea, where retreating sea ice leaves the ocean more accessible to marine traffic and resource extraction every year. However, the current practice of marine spatial planning (MSP) responds predominantly to geopolitical and economic demands for resources like gas and oil - only the monetary value of the ocean is considered. It fails to provide an understanding of the ocean as a space of cultural values, memory, and meaning. As a result, the socio-cultural impacts of offshore development remain alarmingly unmapped and unknown. As an interplay between research and design, urbanism can understand human-sea relations and employ this understanding in spatial interventions, where MSP cannot. Following this hypothesis, I aim to approach the Barents Sea as an urban and local project. What does it mean to be at sea, to be changed by the sea, and to change it in return? How is the local economy of life dependent on conditions of marine space? And how can urban designers use this knowledge to affect change. In the first place, this is a theoretical work. I hypothesize what offshore urbanism should entail, propose entrances of design, and compose design principles in the Barents Sea. The theory is tested in a case study: the coastal community of Hammerfest. The current network composition of the Hammerfest maritory shows a system that is overdependent on petroleum activity. The project proposes two pathways of change towards a future where Hammerfest depends on a variety of alternative marine industries. As such, the community becomes more resilient to changes in offshore petroleum. Particularly after 2035, when the current production fields are depleted and extraction moves seaward, away from Hammerfest. Network analysis forms a key point of entrance for the maritorial design. The project regards ships as islands that are inhabited, occupied, and built by humans. They are urban nodes at sea. The maritory can thus be read as an interdependent network of nodes (islands, platforms, pipelines, ships) connected by the movement of goods and people. I use marine traffic density data to analyze the nodal patterns of movement. From it, we can read the organization of marine uses and their spatial relation to Hammerfest. I then select one node from the current network, the island Melkøya, to redevelop as the root of the proposed transition. The prospected departure of the gas industry established on Melkøya provides an opportunity to repurpose the island. Through the act of deconstruction and rehabilitation, the gas processing island is repurposed as a public port, harbouring local marine industry and recreation. From the island Melkøya, a new economy of life is allowed to grow seawards. Ultimately, the purpose of this research is to actuate academics and urbanists to use design as a means to inform and inspire MSP, and to open the discourse on offshore urbanism.

Urban foodscapes project addresses issues concerning the food supply chain in London. It aims to combat problems created by current agri-business practice such as long, complex logistical chains, food waste, carbon emissions, wasted water, energy, labour and land scarcity. Foodscape, being both global and local, lies on the intersection of multiple material and immaterial flows, therefore the problems it creates cannot be solved by one discipline alone. The research unfolds the most pressing issues concerning the food supply chain and proposed urban strategy attempts to find ways to improve the system by integrating social and technological aspects to close food-related material and immaterial loops by looking into urban synergies to limit the waste of resources and create new social opportunities that will constitute a framework for the future projects of this kind.

As an archipelagic territory of 7,641 islands, the Philippines is dealing with multiplicities of identities, resources, and risks that are pressured by a centralized and homogenizing development paradigm, fragmenting critical socio-spatial landscapes that further creates a hyper-vulnerable state in the face of the climate crisis. The project touches on uncovering the dialectics between indigeneity and modernity in space, and revealing critical values that traditional and indigenous knowledge systems have that are potentially made for evolutionary resilience with identified river basins traversing critical biodiversity corridors as sites for exploration and understanding. These critical zones - The River Interface - encompass megadiverse complex social-ecological systems, coalescing frontiers of pristine Philippine biodiversity, ancestral domains, urban domains, and the rivers that tie them altogether. Framing the River Interface Unit’s pattern from The Source, The Confluence, and to The Mouth, with its embodied values of Extraction-Interposition-Consumption, respectively over the riverscape, then prompt envisioning of futures to be tackled more deeply and how these can be formed from cycles of memory that are present in practices of care as well as the biophysical phenomena shaping this, opening up which adaptive capacities can be enhanced and enabled. Where these cycles occur in space are then identified to see opportunities as to how they can be guided by principles of a decolonized process, embedded recognition of pluriversality, and implemented socio-spatial justice through a renewed form of governance. These shall then guide the making of space and allowing care to be the mode of an evolutionary and adaptive riverscape fabric. Projects for each part of the River Interface Unit system are then developed through a process of nostalgic envisioning. With the identification of ‘Memory’ as the key adaptive quality that the indigenous hold, the use of Nostalgia as a design strategy aims to envision collective climatic futures through the River Interface’s capacities for memory, consciousness, and organization. These capacities are then enhanced by Nostalgia’s ability to reinforce self-continuity in moments of struggle and crisis undergoing the processes of assimilation, accommodation, and co-evaluation. Hence, this can establish through space, multiplicities of culture with a core memory system, embedding in long-term memory an evolutionary resilient and truly adaptive way of life. In the search for a solid archipelagic identity and its significance in the response to the urgency of climate change and its effects, the project aims to offer clarity and freedom for a country longing to know who it is, its potentials, and believe in its true worth. From the accumulated identities of Exoticism, Exhaustion, and Helplessness, we turn to the true and beautiful nature of our group of islands of a nation we call home that is clearly Delicate, Diverse, and Dynamic.

Transitional territories such as lagoons are among the most impacted and delicate environments, threatened by the combined effects of climate change and human action. This Master thesis in Landscape Architecture examines the Venetian Lagoon in North of Italy as one of the most endangered and critical cases, as the last extreme flooding event of November 2019 demonstrates. The thesis aims to address the Venetian Lagoon hydromorphological sufferance, the state of neglection of its secondary islands, and the over-engineered flood defence design as crucial issues. From the research conducted, emerges clearly the need for redefining the role of the entire Venetian Lagoon in the next future, shifting its role from passive, being exploited and consequently damaged, to active, able to sustain resiliently the rest of the territory. In order to do so, the main strategy to be pursued is to reinforce the “barene” landscape, the brackish marshlands, fundamental for the hydromorphological and ecological survival of the lagoon. These brackish marshlands are able to limit tidal and wind impact, favour water exchange and act as an expansion vessel, but, from 20th century onwards, 70% of their surface have been lost due to anthropic actions. Therefore, the goal of the thesis is to employ the agency of “barene” to mitigate the impact of anthropic and natural threats, acting as a nature-based flood defence (function), to recover hydromorphological sufferance (flow), and to support the cultural, ecological and productive heritage (form), making the Venetian Lagoon function as a sustaining landscape infrastructure. The “barene” act as pivotal means to achieve a comprehensive vision for the Venetian Lagoon where functions, flows, and forms are implemented and designed as part of a unique co-operating system. The central area of the Venetian Lagoon is chosen as project site, being the most damaged hydromorphologically. Having researched on how natural forces (tides, winds, etc.) influence this portion of lagoon, different combinations of under-water and above-water concave structures are designed in harmony with these forces, to capture suspended sediments and promote accretion. In the most compromised cases, the structures are partially supported by initial dredges. The islands of the central lagoon become the perceptive points from which experience the transformation and the growth of this new landscape. In the end, the intertwined system of “barene” and islands, once grown sufficiently and matured, will produce a beneficial effect over the hydromorphological, ecological and biodiversity, and cultural surrounding environment. Through the process of research by landscape design, the project seeks to mitigate the threats of climate change and relative sea level rise in the Venetian Lagoon; provide a nature-based flood defence; create brackish marshland’s habitat for ecosystem restoration; invest on alternative forms of slow-tourism and foster different duration of stay in Venetian lagoon; enrich local community livelihood and economical vibrancy. Moreover, the project wants to consolidate and enhance the cultural image of the Venetian Lagoon, consisting of the diffuse sense of horizontality, reflection and visibility conveyed by the diffuse and unceasing water surface.

Over the years, the Anthropocentric societies are to blame for the problematic urban environments they have created. Within the current paradigm, our destructive behavior towards the natural environment has caused a major decline in biodiversity. To restore the ecology in our contemporary urban environment, we require a turning strategy. This is where the Third Generation city framework emerges: a city aiming to learn from the mistakes made in the urban environment, followed by restoring them. Within the spectrum of restoration, it aims to restore the natural environment & creating ecocentric mindsets. Due to their post-anthropocentric characteristics, brownfields can be seen as the seeds for the Third generation city, as wildlife often returns to these sites due to the absence of human activity. Therefore this thesis introduces architecture as a regenerative act toward the socio-environmental context of these brownfields. In one of London's most socio-environmental deprived areas, the representative brownfield development aims to actively regenerate the deprived neighborhood, becoming a statement in the city as a learning center. Here, visitors & local communities can learn how to support London Ecosystem with the effect of stimulating Ecocentric mindsets, while the design & material conditions of the architecture simultaneously stimulate the ecological development of the brownfield site. Multiple of these ecological brownfield developments can influence the larger urban organism and become the driver toward an Ecocentric, Third generation London, restoring the balance with the Anthropocentric urban environment.

The Cyprus island(s) of 2022 is divided into the North and South sides, on the Turkish and Greek sides, since the war of 1974. 47 years of an intentional post-conflict (bio)political process of erasure of the pre-war shared identity between Orthodox and Muslims that leads to a series of critical socio-cultural and environmental conditions. In order to counteract the impacts of this monologue, the project proposes a process of harvesting, decomposing, and reintroducing the components of past shared identity, between the traces of a post-conflict vilified territory. So, following this process, a series of care protocols exemplify an alternative way of occupation the settlement and the landscape of these kinds of territories, for the future. The notions of time, exchange, and attachment are the key elements of these alter-protocols. This paradigm is being assembled based on a cultural identity that is built during the years and constant current experimentation (scientific or not). An action, and reaction between human entities and other ecological elements following a biodynamic calendar. So, the protocols’ times are both linear and circular, with the random times of events revealing another kind of interrelation between the multiple components. Furthermore, it acts on an “ownerless” land, which obtains different agencies during this process. It is the shelters’ land, the survival land, the shared land, or the human-less land. The actors build their shelter, live collectively, and work with the landscape in order to co-create but also develop the paradigm of symbiosis. This system is accessible seeking to influence local actors and visitors. So, the permanent actor hosts an ephemeral actor in order to co-create together, products and art, temporarily integrating them into a new way of life. This is an expanding process, as the ephemeral visitor becomes permanent and the paradigm is embraced by more actors.

Aligning the urban environment to concrete urban processes, increasing the liveability, is one of the major challenges urban planners are facing. Adapting the built-environment to cope with soil sealing, climate change, the densification of cities with the ‘compact city’ concept and other urban demands, constantly pressure the quality of urban environment. Being part of the Dutch building culture for centuries, urban domestic gardens have played a significant (spatial) role in Dutch cities, taking up a significant part of the urban environment, and providing a private outdoor space for residents. The ongoing urban processes can or will affect the role urban domestic gardens play and how they are being used or implemented into the urban environment. For this research, the neighbourhood the Tarwewijk in Rotterdam has been used to investigate and explore how urban domestic gardens can contribute to a more liveable urban environment through a sustainable urban regeneration, in response to concrete urban demands. The research shows that rethinking the implementation of urban domestic gardens leads to an increase of the liveability in the Tarwewijk, by using specific, transferable values to improve the quality of the public spaces and buildings. Transferring the values related to eating, learning, working, playing and meeting from the social environment, and greening, cooling and infiltrating from the physical environment into public spaces increase the accessibility to values of gardens, without the need to provide urban domestic gardens to every single household, taking up valuable space in existing cities. It also shows that the regeneration of urban domestic gardens to semi-private shared gardens serve as a mechanism for the densification and diversification of the built environment, improving urban structures and physical forms, with related social processes and liveability.

Ori-act is a toolbox using the principles of origami and cnc milling in order to provide inhabitants of depreciated neighborhoods in Rotterdam the means to build a physical platform to carry out their initiatives to reactivate their neighborhood.

The river Rhine is Europe’s economic powerhouse. Without the Rhine, the Ruhr area and the port of Rotterdam wouldn’t have developed into the economically leading industrial regions they are today. The economic power of the Rhine comes forward from the ability of humans to control the river. By rectifying and canalizing the river and constructing dams and locks, the ships’ ability to navigate the river increased. This focus on economic development has caused critical environmental problems. Floods, droughts, and pollution are the most notable environmental threats to humans. This is intensified by climate change as extreme rainfall events and periods of drought will become more severe. Our current paradigm in flood risk management tells us to endlessly keep heightening our dykes, which is not a sustainable path to deal with flood risk. Heightening dykes also leads to shifting the problems elsewhere. If a river is not given space to flood its natural floodplains, it is forced to flow downstream more quickly, leading to a higher peak water level and potential floods downstream. This master thesis introduces the concepts of socio-ecological symbiosis and clearance as means to improve water safety, the connection between humans and water, and the natural habitat. The central question of this research is: How could water safety downstream be supported by upstream design interventions in the Northern Upper Rhine Valley, based on methods in which socio-ecological symbiosis and clearance are central? As upstream water management strongly influences the downstream water safety, design exercises are executed in the Northern Rhine Valley with the goal to improve the water safety both downstream and locally. Three typological design exercises are set up which together form the proposed future water management strategy of the whole Rhine Valley.

Though often successful in geopolitical and economical terms, the tendency to engineer infrastructures for ‘single purpose’ often resulted in disrupted landscapes and erasure of cultural and natural values (Strang 1996). Besides this, Tokyo deals with a wide range of problematiques, from the threat of earthquakes destroying its expressways and flood protection to lack of public green spaces or the current energy crises. Therefore, this master thesis aims to integrate infrastructures into the landscape. The networks chosen, namely Transport, Hydrology, Public space and Energy, address the problematiques found in Tokyo. The integration is done in two steps. First, the integration of networks among themselves and second the integration of these networks into the landscape, through the modification of the topography.

The current approach in riverine climate adaptation strategies aims to accommodate all functionalities of rivers into one singular riverbed, but runs into the limitations of an integrated spatial system. The research shows that the different functionalities of rivers, i.e. the different riverine regimes, in synchronization will lead to a decline in performance of these separate regimes. This thesis project Perspectives on the IJssel explores and illustrates an alternative future for the IJssel, in which an integral approach is paramount but with a methodology build on spatial decomposition rather than spatial integration. The project argues that integrative design through spatial segregation in parallel systems offers a widening of solution space within an integral approach.

The sea dike is a spatial interim in the dialogue between human at land and natural forces at the Wadden sea. Standing on the dike gives me a feeling of conquest but also of separation. It stands out as a green wall between two worlds and stretches in the wide, open landscape as far as my eyes can see. This narrow edge has once been marshlands, a gradual transition between land and sea. Now, the dike abruptly excludes the exchange of the natural phenomena between them. Seawards, the tidal gullies are hardly visible as the sedimentation is too high. On the other side, on reclaimed land, straight ditches regulate the fresh water level to serve the big agricultural plots. The modernization of the last centuries has led to a functional coastal landscape in the Northern Netherlands with hardly any ecological, economic and social development along the dike. Instead, people have turned their back against the sea and forgotten the existence of, and potential coexistence with, it. A dialogue is a continuous process. The increasing tidal volume and effect of salinization caused by relative climate change asks for a new perspective on the edge between land and sea. To what extent will we hold on to the belief that the dike as a thin, rigid line will protect us in a sustainable way against change? In my project these effects are not seen as threats but as a stimulus to deal with uncertain outcomes in spatial design. Creating a gradual transition zone will increase the level of resilience and establish ecological and social development. Looking at natural ecologies, the edge is after all the zone of the highest living activity. Making the dike more permeable has many gradations but in all cases the existing landscape with its traces will be taken as found. Using site-specific differences in topography, soil type and water infrastructure including the generic processes, will help to locate the suitable level and type of permeability. Revealing and reintroducing natural phenomena in different forms will make the narrative of the coastal dynamics in this landscape legible again.

As the landscape of the south western river delta in the Netherlands is increasingly urbanised, the processes of urbanisation and the dynamics of nature can no longer go in their separate ways. Measures for water safety, that over the course of recent history has been diverting, regulating, and controlling natural dynamics away from the urban landscapes, need to be re-imagined to cope with the uncertainty of both natural and urban processes, as well as spatially integrated in a new resilient urbanised delta. The fundamental question is thereofore how can the two dynamics intertwined as one? How can the natural dynamics be integrated to the urban landscapes as measures of water safety and climate resiliency and generate unique landscape qualities in the urbanised delta city? This research-by-design in this thesis recognises the landscape as both palimpsest and process. It seeks understanding of past processes and the landscape’s ability to accommodate future processes and uncertainties. Using the city of Dordrecht as case study, a design for a new green and blue network with the concept of ‘living with the river’which invites the natural river dynamics to be once again be a formal component of the city. The river is therefore continously shaping and reshaping the landscape developing new ecological values and resiliency of the city.

The Paraná Delta, a vital component of the La Plata river basin, is facing severe environmental degradation due to human activities and external pressures. This thesis explores the adaptive capacity of the deltaic system and stakeholders in the ‘Los Pájaros y sus Pueblos Libres’ reserve (LPPL), aiming to propose a strategy for sustainable development of the delta as a whole. The study aims to investigate biophysical processes, governmental policies, and socio-economic and cultural characteristics related to the delta and to propose a strategy for enhancing and promoting sustainable development in the region. A thorough literature review has been conducted regarding relevant existing research and data collection has primarily relied on desk research, (GIS-)data sourcing, and policy documents. Additionally, interviews with experts have been conducted and a thorough site visit has been undertaken. The results of the research contribute to the understanding of the ecological value of deltas and reveal the critical environmental degradation and diminishing ecosystem services specifically in the LPPL area in the Paraná Delta. The thesis emphasizes the importance of adopting a multifaceted and integrated approach that addresses the challenges faced by the delta. It underscores the significance of developing an adaptation plan based on NBS and strongly considering and reviving local knowledge for socially and culturally acceptable solutions. Stakeholder engagement emerges as a crucial factor in fostering collaborations and partnerships that promote a collective system of care and enable sustainable practices. The proposed strategy also advocates for localized interventions that can serve as a driving force for positive change in the entire delta. Sustainable tourism is identified as a strategic tool for conservation and regeneration, raising awareness about the delta’s ecological value and diversifying the existing local economic model greatly dependent on intensive agricultural practices and responsible for the loss of ecosystems. Finally, the thesis challenges the existing conservation framework and proposes a more flexible and adaptive approach that recognizes the interconnectedness of the delta and its surrounding areas.

Facing a lot of challenges brought by climate change, this thesis aims to explore long-term landscape-based solutions for the vulnerable low-lying area in Miami-Dade County to increase the adaptation towards Climate Change through the integration of flood impact mitigation and environment enhancement on spatial-social-ecological aspects. Public spaces are taken as the potentials and transformed into landscape infrastructures, building up the landscape infrastructure system which could facilitate functional, ecological and social relationships between human and natural processes. This system integrates water layer, vegetation layer, and activity layer which could bring multiple values in order to achieve the goal of flood impact mitigation and environment enhancement at the same time.

The Baltic Sea region is facing multiple ecological and socio-economic challenges that will significantly influence the coastal communities and habitation on the coastline in the future. Eutrophication, decline of fish resources, climate crisis, and sea-level rise are the effect of irreversible anthropogenic actions in the region, which demand to rethink how the sea and territories around it are used now and can be adapted to ensure sustainable development and healthy marine and coastal ecosystems in the future. Besides the environmental challenges in the region, coastal territories along the Gulf of Riga are also experiencing socio-economic restructuring due to a decades-long population decline that is projected to continue in the future. However, in the existing planning documents and development projects the notion of shrinkage and climate adaptation is underrepresented, questioning the acceptance of these irreversible, yet unpredictable processes. Considering these specific local conditions, the adaptation of the existing habitation patterns on the coastline of the Gulf of Riga asks for a specific approach that not only considers the long-term impacts on the natural processes and ecosystems, but also takes into account the depopulation, possible challenges of long-term maintenance and use of these spaces, and the strong cultural connection with nature. The thesis proposes an approach on how to address the climate crisis and shrinkage on the coastline of the Gulf of Riga by using the acceptance of the physical and socio-economic erasure of the coastline as spatial planning and design tool. This approach allows reconceptualizing the notion of sedimentation, discovering and using local material and non-material anthropogenic sediments as the main design elements in the transition of the coastal surface. The multi-scalar design projection envisions the possible transformation towards sustainable degrowth in the region of the Western coast of the Gulf of Riga and shows this transition on an urban scale in the coastal village of Roja. By reinventing the economic activities in the port towards more localized resource use, it is possible to maintain the port infrastructure and provide economic possibilities for the remaining inhabitants. However, the erosion along Krasta street and population decline will continue in the future. As the erasure is happening in a long period of time, the local inhabitants need time to adapt, therefore the project composition along Krasta street in Roja proposes infrastructure and landscape elements to be finite, deteriorate in the landscape, and have a significant cultural meaning. By not intervening in this process and transforming previously inhabited spaces along the coast it is possible to transition towards a more natural coastal landscape with specific anthropogenic material sediments that perform as a reminder of human actions in past.