This project investigates how the bazaar typology can assist in the recovery of Homs post-conflict as a mechanism of social cohesion and local economies. Following years of conflict, Homs faces fragmented social cohesion, widespread economic disruption, high levels of informal employment, and significant damage to the urban environment. In response, the research examines how architectural interventions can contribute to recovery by rebuilding the spaces and activities associated with everyday life.

The study is structured through three research questions. Firstly, it investigates how theories of post-conflict recovery consider the role of everyday economies and social interaction in rebuilding cities, and how these ideas apply to Homs. Secondly, it examines the characteristics of the bazaar typology and its capacity to support social cohesion and local economies. Lastly, it explores how a contemporary bazaar could be adapted to respond to the current conditions of post-conflict Homs.

The research identifies opportunities in public space, informal trade, and low-barrier economic activity as important components of recovery. Analysis of Syrian bazaars, particularly Souq Al-Madina in Aleppo, demonstrates how the typology combines commerce, gathering, circulation, and climate-responsive design within a cohesive urban framework. However, the research also identifies limitations in directly reconstructing historical precedents under contemporary conditions.

The findings are translated into a design proposal for Homs consisting of a contemporary bazaar, public courtyards, flexible market spaces, and a women’s centre. The proposal aims to offer a market space which supports informal economic activity, encourages social interaction, and creates inclusive public environments, particularly for women.
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Windhoek's informal settlements are home to more than 220,000 people, almost half of the city's population. Most residents lack household access to water, sanitation and public space. Although the municipality provides shared sanitation facilities as a temporary solution, these are often poorly maintained and can feel unsafe, particularly for women and children. The challenge extends beyond the provision of sanitation itself. It also lies in creating the social and spatial conditions that allow these facilities to be used, maintained and supported by the community.

Grounding Community explores how architecture can strengthen community life in Brendan Simbwaye, an informal settlement on the edge of Windhoek. The project combines a housing upgrade with a neighbourhood community centre. It draws on Jan Gehl's theory of public life and the VPUU safety principles, with multifunctionality as the guiding principle. A key observation from the fieldtrip informed the design: a shared water point had evolved into an informal meeting place. This everyday interaction became the foundation for a design that supports everyday community life.

The design brings together a market square, library, internet café, workshop space and gender-separated WASH facilities with 14 housing units. These functions are organised along a clear transition from public to private space. Decentralised, low-tech systems for water, sewage and energy are integrated into the architecture instead of being hidden as technical infrastructure. Steel chains, sloping roofs and sunken volumes make these systems visible and part of the spatial experience. The sloped terrain lets gravity move water through most of the system, reducing the need for mechanical pumping. The building is constructed from Hydraform compressed earth blocks, using low-tech methods that local residents can build and maintain themselves.

Rather than proposing a solution for Windhoek's informal settlements as a whole, the project demonstrates how a focused neighbourhood intervention can support existing community networks. By combining housing, shared facilities and public space, it creates an environment that encourages everyday interaction, shared responsibility and long-term social resilience.
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This Project investigates how architecture can support social recovery in post-conflict Homs through the reconstruction of everyday public life. In many post-war contexts, reconstruction is often measured through visible physical recovery: rebuilt housing, repaired infrastructure, restored monuments, and economic investment. While these are necessary, they do not automatically restore the social life of a city. Trust, routine, public familiarity, and collective belonging require different spatial conditions.

This project shifts attention from monumental reconstruction toward neighbourhood-scale social infrastructure. It proposes the idea of common grounds: generous public spaces where people can pass through, pause, learn, work, exchange, cook, gather, and gradually rebuild social connections. The project is developed as a multifunctional public building that combines a learning and opportunity layer, an economic layer, a community layer connected through traditional courtyard architecture.

Through research into post-conflict public space, everyday routines, multifunctional buildings, and local Syrian spatial typologies, the project translates social recovery into architectural rules. These focus on low-threshold encounter, routine-based use, connection to the neighbourhood, cultural continuity, and spatial resilience. The final design positions the building not as an isolated civic object, but as a porous neighbourhood anchor connected to public routes and daily movement.

Common Grounds argues that architecture cannot repair social cohesion alone, but it can create the conditions in which social life becomes possible again: through accessible spaces, repeated use, familiar atmospheres, and the slow rebuilding of shared urban life. ... Read more

Post-conflict reconstruction often prioritises speed, cost efficiency, and large-scale delivery, resulting in generic architecture and urban environments that overlook emotional experience, cultural continuity, and human wellbeing. In Syrian cities affected by conflict, the built environment plays an important role in shaping how people reconnect with their surroundings and rebuild a sense of belonging. The research investigates how architectural and urban design can support affective appraisal and a sense of belonging within post-conflict reconstruction, with a specific focus on the Syrian context.

Drawing on environmental psychology, architectural theory, healthy city principles, and post-conflict reconstruction literature, the study examines how qualities such as human scale, walkability, spatial legibility, visual complexity, materiality, and ornamentation influence emotional responses and long-term attachment to place. Through analysis of historic Syrian architecture and urbanism, the research identifies spatial and architectural characteristics that support positive affective appraisal, social interaction, and cultural continuity.

The findings are translated into a contemporary courtyard housing proposal for Homs, Syria, combining modular and scalable construction methods with climate-responsive design, walkable public space, and culturally grounded architectural expression. The project demonstrates that reconstruction can move beyond the provision of housing alone and contribute to healthier, more meaningful, and emotionally resilient urban environments. By aligning efficiency with social, cultural, and architectural quality, the research proposes a reconstruction strategy in which no beauty is left behind. ... Read more

This project explores how new urban architecture for Windhoek’s informal settlements can be shaped by both local living conditions and lessons from vernacular cities. This project begins with the rapid growth of Namibia’s urban population and the expansion of informal settlements, where freestanding shacks have become a dominant housing type. While this form of building responds to urgent needs and local realities, it also creates problems of poor climate performance, urban sprawl and limited space for public life. This project therefore asks how a more compact urban form could improve liveability while remaining grounded in the social and spatial practices of the settlements. To answer this, the project combines literature research, fieldwork in Windhoek and design exploration.

Based on this, the project proposes a denser housing typology that creates room for markets, shared spaces, and neighbourhood functions, while also improving indoor and outdoor climate conditions. Climatic principles from vernacular cities such as the courtyard and urban canyon are adapted to the local context to create a new typology which is novel to the informal settlements, yet grounded in local needs and conventions. The project does not present a universal solution, but a case-specific design study that shows how typology can be used as a tool to connect density, climate adaptation, and local urban life in Windhoek.
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This book has been developed during the Complex Projects Graduation Studio, as part of the master track of Architecture at TU Delft. The studio reflects on the theme of Bodies and Buildings, examining the dynamic relationship between the human body and the built environment. Within this studio, students are challenged to design a ‘one-of-a-kind’ building in Milan (a large-scale, complex building unique in the city).

This particular book presents the design of an airport that focuses on reducing the stress experienced in a terminal and provides the most pleasant passenger experience possible. The project focuses on how architectural design can influence human emotions and contributes to the ongoing discussion of transforming air travel into a pleasant and relaxing experience. Extra attention is paid to researching ways to design a mobility hub, spaces for crowds and flows of people with the goal of creating an airport that is intuitive and easy to navigate. ... Read more

The research explores the spatial and conceptual disconnect between human-centered spaces and train-centered infrastructure. It focuses on how architectural design can recalibrate the station environment so that trains are not isolated or hidden from the spatial experience but instead become visible and integrated elements of a broader urban and civic framework. Traditional station designs tend to compartmentalize functions, platforms for trains, halls for people, resulting in a fragmented spatial narrative. The design instead seeks to reconfigure the station hall as a shared domain, where the train enters into a human-scaled space rather than the reverse. In this way, the station transforms from a neutral transit shell into an inhabited and expressive civic environment.

Trains are brought visually and physically closer to users by treating the platform area not as a peripheral utility but as part of the main spatial continuum of the station. The design allows trains to enter the hall, not through concealed corridors but through an open and legible structure where their movement becomes part of the spatial experience. This strategy evokes the historical role of the station as a place of wander and fascination with machines, restoring a degree of spectacle and engagement lost in the contemporary functionalist approach.

The design creates a space where trains are present but do not dominate, where movement does not erase the possibility of pause, and where the public realm reclaims its place within a transit environment. ... Read more

The design of Aeroporto Fiera Milano Linate presents a new vision for what an airport can be within the context of a contemporary city. Conceived entirely from the ground up, the project breaks away from traditional airport models and introduces a building defined by openness, flexibility, and broad functionality. This building is more than an airport: a dynamic environment for cultural exchange and activity. Through its flexible structure and rich programmatic layers, it becomes a space for travel, performance, leisure, and gathering. A building that transforms to meet the changing needs of the city and its people, a satellite to Milan’s culture and an ‘Experience Machine.’ The building is designed to host all types of events, from small gatherings to large scale performances such as fashion shows, concerts or festivals. The central concourse acts as a flexible and atmospheric space, much like a festival ground. Spaces are modular, adaptable, and interconnected. Gate areas can be closed off and repurposed as pop-up shops or event rooms. Baggage systems, lockers, and service spaces are smartly integrated to support both travel and event use. The architecture enables rapid transformation depending on need, time of day, or type of user. Security is rethought as a decentralized system, with multiple smaller checkpoints that reduce stress and create a more fluid transition between zones. This approach removes the conventional hard boundary between landside and airside, enhancing the open character of the building. Developed within the Complex Projects graduation studio at TU Delft under the Bodies and Building theme, the project forms part of a wider urban vision. It connects with other large-scale building designs across Milan that aim to improve and activate the city through architecture.
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Opera faces a pressing challenge: engaging younger generations. As part of the Complex Projects Milan studio, this project envisions the historic site of Teatro alla Scala as a blank canvas, focusing on youth engagement in order to identify how opera houses can better resonate with younger audiences through design. These findings informed a reimagined program that balances traditional and experimental performance spaces.

In line with the overall concept, the institution itself is reframed as “Scala” a concise, contemporary identity designed to appeal to emerging generations and to signal an open, inclusive approach to cultural events. The project crafts a new architectural narrative, one that honours memory and ritual beneath the surface while projecting a vibrant, youth-focused future above.

The proposal transforms the former Teatro alla Scala’s site into a sequence of performance spaces that balance lost traditions with experimental performances. By conceiving the piazza as an open stage and weaving together floating and sunken venues, from the hovering Rolex Hall and sunken Amphitheatre to the transparent Rehearsal Passage, the Foyer, Performance Patio, and hidden Classical Hall, the design both honours Milan’s operatic heritage and blurs boundaries between artist and audience. Together, these spaces choreograph a journey through voids and masses, tradition and experimentation, and public and hidden, redefining youth engagement in Milan’s opera scene. ... Read more

JUST. MILANO stands for justice, understanding, solutions, and transparency. It reimagines the role of the courthouse in contemporary society, addressing the urgent need for judicial reform in Italy, where case backlogs and low public trust weaken the justice system. The project introduces a new typology that prioritizes mediation, transparency, and civic engagement. Rather than reinforcing the image of justice as distant and formal, the building envisions the courthouse as an open, accessible space that fosters dialogue and understanding. At the core of the design lies mediation, an informal, collaborative process facilitated beyond formal judicial spaces. By spatially integrating mediation as a key component, the project offers a more efficient and human-centered approach to justice. The courtrooms are arranged linearly in a stacked layout, creating an efficient arrangement that minimizes travel distances while ensuring flexibility, clarity, and high-level security. This organization supports the clear separation between user groups the public, private, and secure, while allowing moments of visual connection throughout the system. JUST. MILANO is more than a building: it is a spatial manifesto for judicial reform, demonstrating how architecture can actively restore trust in justice and bring the institution closer to the society it serves. ... Read more

The graduation project: Simbiosi architettura natura is located in Milan. A city full of hardening, heating and polluted air. The project aims to green the city by forming a green ring around the park in which a green knowledge center is designed at the given location. Also at this location are remnants of old city walls, which are integrated and made visible again in this project.

A green oasis has been recreated sheltered from the paved and polluted city. Around this oasis are several pavilions for Feltrinelli (library), Microsoft (office & technology center) and the a museum. These pavilions each have their own space, but are connected by the garden and bridges in between.

Within this project the relationship between greenery and buildings; a symbiosis is central. For this reason, each of the buildings are transparent and use natural shapes, materials and transition zones. Thus, the user experience is enhanced by the presence of nature. Within this project, the focus on biophilic architecture is therefore strong and the design is based on prior research. This is to create an appropriate design within which architecture, greenery and archaeology come together. ... Read more

This research explores the potential of architectural design to enhance ‘sustainable academic performance’ by looking beyond the traditional university design strategies, within the context of a future economics university building in the heart of Milan. The city’s unique blend of fast-paced economic and cultural dynamism and slow-paced aperitivo culture makes it a city of temporalities and flexibility. This study critiques the predominant focus in our society on either maximizing performance while disregarding mental health, or enhancing well-being to the point of overlooking productivity, highlighting a gap between the ‘hustle culture’ and the ‘wellness culture’. Supported by numerous research in environmental psychology, it proposes a design framework that integrates both performance-enhancing and well-being enhancing design strategies, aligned with the principles of the Attention Restoration Theory, to create a space that promotes ‘sustainable academic performance’ for both neurotypical and neurodivergent users in the academic context. Through literature review, case studies, surveys, geotagging and analysing everything through the lens of culture, the study proposes the redesign of the Bocconi University Via Roentgen Building, aiming to create a new typology of economics university building that promotes a healthier lifestyle. ... Read more

This thesis explores the redesign of Milan’s Central Station as a flexible, responsive, and scalable urban hub that integrates transportation with cultural experiences.

Titled “On the Move,” the project aligns with the European Union’s 2050 agenda for sustainable urban development and efficient mobility. It proposes a shift from viewing train stations as mere transit nodes to envisioning them as vibrant cultural centres that actively contribute to the city’s dynamic identity. Drawing inspiration from Milanese Futurism and the concept of “In Motu Vita” (Life is in Motion), the research explores how architectural design can strike a balance between transportational efficiency and cultural dynamism.

By utilising Milan’s historical trams as “living spaces” for cultural events, the project introduces a “Experience Depot” concept that allows culture to be continuously present throughout the city.

The year-long thesis not only challenges the traditional typology of train stations but also sets a visionary precedent for integrating cultural vitality into urban mobility hubs. Through a thoughtful spatial integration of Milanese culture, the redesigned station will adapt to the city’s evolving needs, ensuring it remains a lively and contemporary landmark for generations to come. ... Read more

This graduation project explores how architecture can give form to temporality through a new typology for contemporary art museums. Designed for Fondazione Prada in Milan, this Museum of Temporality questions the traditional idea of a static and permanent museum and instead proposes a cultural institution built around cycles of artistic creation, public exhibition, private exhibition and demolishing rituals. By integrating artist residencies, fashion collaborations, and city-wide event calendars, the museum becomes a spatial system for transformation in time.

The project investigates how exclusive cultural experiences can be made more public and visible while maintaining the exclusive character of the client Prada, through flexible interior as well as constructional and material strategies, playing into today's FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) character of the building users. ... Read more

This graduation project investigates how architecture can redefine the role of the hospital as a civic building that cares equally for its staff and patients. Developed within the graduation studio Complex Projects at TU Delft, and aligned with the studio’s theme Bodies and Buildings, the project examines how the built environment impacts physical, mental, and emotional well-being — particularly of healthcare workers operating under systemic strain.

The design proposes a staff-centric hospital situated in Milan’s Quadronno district, responding to the city’s dense urban fabric while integrating new green public spaces. The building’s concept is grounded in three spatial strategies: efficient internal flows, access to daylight and outdoor spaces, and the central positioning of staff areas as the heart of the facility. The result is an empathetic and legible architectural framework that supports recovery, resilience, and dignity for both staff and patients.

By prioritizing staff well-being through architectural clarity and spatial generosity, the project challenges the prevailing efficiency-driven models of healthcare design and suggests a more balanced and humane alternative. ... Read more