The advent of the internet and digital technology has transformed public spaces, impacting human interactions and diluting their original purpose. However, augmented reality (AR) technology, exemplified by Pokémon Go, presents a unique opportunity to revitalize urban public spaces in the digital era. AR technology offers virtual flexibility, empowering public spaces to become multifunctional environments and redistributing the value of urban areas.
To accommodate this transformative potential, inclusive and enduring architectural structures are needed as resilient containers for AR development. This project focuses on designing robust, inclusive public buildings that seamlessly integrate into the urban fabric undergoing AR development. These structures adapt to the evolving needs and activities facilitated by AR, fostering social interaction and a sense of belonging within the community.
The integration of AR technology necessitates a holistic approach to urban design, extending beyond individual buildings to the broader urban context. By leveraging the transformative power of AR, this project envisions digitally enhanced and physically resilient urban environments that accommodate diverse activities and cultivate community. It explores new paradigms for urban design where public buildings serve as adaptable containers for AR experiences, fostering social cohesion and redefining the relationship between people, architecture, and the environment.
Through the integration of AR technology and thoughtful architectural design, this project showcases the potential for vibrant, inclusive, and sustainable urban public spaces in the digital age. By embracing flexibility, durability, and inclusivity, it establishes a foundation for AR-neutral buildings that respond to the evolving needs and aspirations of urban communities, creating a more engaging and harmonious urban environment.

The first decades of the 21st century are defined by an expected shortage of fossil resources and an emerging climate crisis which make the transition towards renewable energy resources not only inevitable but also urgent. In the process of this transition, the Port of Rotterdam, associated with the biggest fossil fuel industry landscape in Europe, is confronted with the danger of becoming a drosscape. As the Province of Zuid Holland attempts to deal with this challenge under the umbrella of circularity, new issues regarding environmental and social justice in the whole area arise and call for a coordinated planning effort towards a just transition. This effort begins by answering how can the province use the obsolete fossil fuel infrastructure to transform the port‘s material landscapes fostering spatial justice and balancing the problematic relationship between natural and man-made systems.

Consequently, the project decodes the layers of the material, social and environmental dimensions investigating the critical issues that associate with the port‘s distinctive territories. In parallel, it defines the main concepts that can instruct this just transition arising from the fenced urban and port districts towards the whole province and combining top-down with bottom-up planning processes. As the project evolves in time, starting at the most critical territories as nodal points and involving all the different actors, it takes the form of a central green-blue spine that meets Zuid-Holland‘s energy demands while embodying a redefined symbiosis between nature and human. The result defines a new paradigm for the energy transition and the remediation of fossil fuel drosscapes that incorporates material circularity, environmental and social justice under the concept of “Energy Habitat“.