New Urban Front investigates how waterfront densification can contribute to interiorizing the Maas river in Rotterdam. In the past decade, the post-industrialization of Rotterdam's docks has created a new urban front: the Maas. However, this waterfront lacks character and scale, while water and city lost their programmatic relation after industry migrated out of the city. A mixed-use high density transversal typology is proposed at the Linker Veerdam, the historic crossing of the Maas river, to heal this schism and place water back at the center of urban memory. A sectional base, large floating plinth, and towers connect water and city with a programmatic cut and add urban scale to the river. Urban program is loaded onto the river by introduction of a boat-in cinema, a Maaspodium opening towards the water, and multiple pools and piers. This creates a multi-layered and multi-scale relation between water and city. By doing so, New Urban Front contributes to interiorizing the Maas river and convert it into the central public space of Rotterdam.

This thesis focuses on the development of a computational model for early-stage design decision support of naturally ventilated terminal structures. The model is developed in a parametric Rhino Grasshopper environment paired with Python coding and CFD analyses through OpenFOAM. Optimization of air distribution parameters is performed with Galapagos evolutionary solver, while optimization of the subsequent geometry is done manually by means of the CFD results of the best-performing variant. Within the thesis a background study is made by means of an interview and literature review, after which analytic calculations and CFD studies are used to test various options and narrow down the domain of solutions for the case of the design of a naturally ventilated terminal structure. Finally, the method itself is developed and validated with a case study that is also used during the development of the model. The result of the thesis is a rapid computational model that allows for the integration of CFD studies into the early-stage design of naturally ventilated terminals with an optimization for the stated objective function. Secondly, the CFD results can be used to give an indication of a more optimal geometry of the hall. The final selection of geometry and the validation are left up to the user to perform afterwards.