Europe has a long and rich history of theatre development, closely linked to the growth of cities and urban conditions. The shape of the theatre and the behaviour of the audience changed over time. Still, the interaction between the city and the stage in most theatres has remained virtually unchanged since the 19^th century. The theatre serves only as a place for performance, catering to a specific audience. This often means the theatre building remains closed to the public for most of the day, opening only a few hours before the performance. Today, there is a desire to make theatre more accessible and an important part of the city's daily public life. 

The site for the new theatre in Delft is in a complex, layered environment. Urban redevelopment of large apartment blocks began in the 1970s but never fully filled the demolished granular urban tissue of the old city. The new theatre bridges the difference in scale between new construction in the west and traditional, undemolished houses in the east by cascading and reducing its height from west to east. By aligning the stage tower to the axis of the existing street, the building creates a new and recognisable landmark for the city. By lifting the main auditorium to the first floor, a big public area is created on the ground floor. This space can be used throughout the day as a public meeting place, for leisure activities, independently from the theatre. 

The result is a big urban gesture solving existing urban problems while also creating valuable indoor public space that can accommodate different events and activities.

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This graduation project examines how a contemporary theatre in Delft can operate not only as a place for performance, but also as part of the city’s public and social fabric. Situated between the ideas of the “town square” and the “monastery,” this proposal investigates how theatre architecture can combine openness and public inclusion with more enclosed and atmospheric qualities needed for performance and production.
The project responds to Theater de Veste’s ambitions for a larger, more publicly embedded institution, while questioning the tendency of contemporary cultural buildings to become generic multi-purpose buildings.

The proposal focuses on the transformation of the urban block around the former HEMA in Delft’s southern city center into a theatre complex that combines both receiving and producing theatre. The project works through selective interventions, retaining most of the current building fabric and compromising the existing main structure only where required by the program. It addresses a current environmental discourse to design and transform buildings to suit current and future programs.
The methodology is based on precedent analysis, theatre visits, model studies, and the research focuses on thresholds and sequences of spaces. The final design is organized around a public “theatre alley,” which serves simultaneously as a circulation route, an infrastructural spine, and a performative public space. ... Read more

The Theatre, an urban figure with a long-standing history in the context of European cities. From Dionysian festivals in the large amphitheatres of ancient Greece. To the street performances in the loud, dirty, chaotic streets of medieval Northern Europe. To the gilded theatres of the bourgeoisie, where theatre became a tool of social status and class division. After WWI and WWII theatres arose that attempted to break with tradition by becoming places for political expression and experimentation. Which brings us to our current moment in time. In the Netherlands theatres are largely subsidized by the government or hyper commercialized to stay afloat. The relevance and function of theatre in our society is being questioned. What is the future of theatre?

It is within this uncertainty about the role of theatre that Theatre de Veste positions its ambition for the future. They imagine the theatre as a public space where all parts of society are welcome and can engage in a meaningful way. Currently, Theatre de Veste is located on the south-west side of the historic city centre of Delft in a building dating from 1995. The organisation feels that its ambitions have outgrown its current situation and are looking to relocate.

The site chosen for this project is located at the South-West side of the historic city centre of Delft. Currently it functions as an urban back land. It contains a temporary parking structure, the back gardens of houses with their small sheds, a garage and a car rental, and a charity shop. The challenge of the project lies in manoeuvring a large building such as a contemporary theatre into the small-grain urban fabric of Delft.

The ambitions of Theatre de Veste pose interesting questions: what is the future of theatre, and in turn, the theatre of the future? To find answers to these questions, this project positions itself as an exploration of public space, with theatre as its core function. It asks how such a space can be balanced with the technical, organisational, and commercial realities of a fully operative contemporary theatre. How can a space be created that the people of Delft can use and inhabit in a meaningful way, and what if theatre alone is no longer sufficient as a reason to gather?
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This master thesis shows a design for the theatre of the future within the city of Delft, which is called The Passage. The passage shows an open and inclusive theatre building which not only functions as space for performance, but also as culture hub within the city of Delft. ... Read more

This thesis explores the ways in which landscape architectural interventions can aid in restoring degraded ecosystems, while keeping human presence on the landscape visible and beneficial to this restoration. The design site is the Veluwe, the largest
terrestrial Natura 2000 area in the Netherlands, that has a complex history of both natural and man-made processes. The design and research process went through different iterations to figure out how these processes can be integrated into a design, incorporating knowledge from the realms of ecological restoration, rewilding and landscape heritage. The final design combined habitat restoration on a regional scale, with localised intervention aimed to raise ecological and cultural awareness to visitors. ... Read more

Theater architecture is often torn between two extremes: functioning as an isolated, ultra-flexible, neutral box, or reverting to the gesture-heavy monumentality of traditional theaters. This thesis challenges this dichotomy through the design of Theater de Baaierd at the Gasthuisplaats in Delft. Rejecting both the passive container model and exclusionary traditional grandeur, the project explores how a civic building can achieve an enduring, monumental presence while remaining contextual in its architecture and accessible to all types of public. Driven by the belief that true sustainability comes from tectonic permanence and the longevity of architecture, the design utilizes robust, honest materiality. Ultimately, Theater de Baaierd demonstrates how grand, permanent architecture can successfully democratize theater within a fine-grained historic city. ... Read more

China and Chinese society have developed incredibly rapidly over the past 50 years, and in that time, cities have grown very, very, very quickly. This rapid urbanisation involves a transformation of rural land into urban land. The transition from rural to urban is not a homogeneous process. Plots right next to each other can develop in very different ways. This creates a patchwork urbanism, with contemporary border conditions that have surprising characteristics. Further fuelled by the mountainous terrain, the patchwork urbanism creates some issues as well, this has to do primarily with the presence of pleasant urban space, and connections between different patches of land. This project investigates the possibility to design something that improves connections, and that adds a new kind of space non existent in the present landscape. The student wishes to be additive, so without taking away from the existing landscape. ... Read more

This thesis project, Synergies of Trade and Waste: The Engine & the Hive, reimagines the urban bazaar in the heart of Tbilisi, Georgia, by proposing a hybrid architectural space that integrates a waste sorting facility with a Georgian "bazaar" marketplace. Situated at the intersection of informal trade networks and negligible waste infrastructures, the project explores the dual roles of trade and waste as agents of urban change. Rooted in research conducted within the "Borders & Territories" studio of the MSc Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences program, the project responds to Tbilisi’s strategic position in global trade routes and its cultural reliance on informal marketplaces. Simultaneously, it addresses the urgent challenges posed by the city’s fragmented waste management practices.

The design is located on a brownfield site, formerly a railway repair depot, and leverages its infrastructural past to propose a new civic space. By examining material flows, urban rhythms, and social dynamics, the thesis constructs a spatial dialogue between the formal and informal, public and restricted, and human and machine. Through mapping, fieldwork, and experimental modeling, the project speculates on how architecture can bridge economic, environmental, and cultural systems—proposing not only a building, but a new way of seeing and situating infrastructure within the city. ... Read more

this project explores a post-human-centered transformation of an abandoned flour milling plant in Tbilisi through the lenses of rewilding and temporality, aiming to redefine the identity of this vast and formerly obsolete industrial facility. Through a series of interventions, the former brownfield has evolved into a living lab—a dynamic, evergrowing site of a novel ecosystem undergoing continuous ecological succession. ... Read more

The Territorial School is an organism that learns from the place it inhabits. In Preggio, a small village in central Italy at risk of abandonment, empty houses become classrooms, narrow streets become corridors, green fields become a vast garden, and the entire village transforms into a diffused school.
While more and more children learn in closed and artificial environments, detached from the surrounding nature, Preggio represents the hope for an alternative educational model.
A primary school needs open spaces, natural light and greenery. Has to be controlled for safety, isolated to support discovery, and generous towards its surrounding ecology.
Preggio is, by its very nature, an educational space: a silent teacher of the flowing time, of the sense of belonging, of the tangible culture of territories. ... Read more

This project explores the entanglement between identity politics and spatial transformation in post-Soviet Georgia, using the district of Gldani in Tbilisi as a site of investigation. Against the backdrop of Georgia’s ongoing pursuit of European Union membership, the project questions how national aspirations manifest in the everyday built environment. In Gldani, the failure of top-down urban planning after the collapse of the Soviet Union has resulted in widespread self-built “add-ons”—informal extensions protruding from apartment blocks. These architectural anomalies are both responses to socio-economic necessity and expressions of individual agency in a fragmented state.

Rather than erasing these conditions, the project adopts a palimpsestic design approach that builds upon them. At the center of the proposal is the Wall-Stage Building, a 180-meter-long linear spine that reactivates a dormant 2.5 km Soviet-era axis. The building integrates modular public programs—such as libraries, sports spaces, and rehearsal rooms—into a hybrid structural system of precast concrete and prefabricated steel. These volumes interlock with the spine like reciprocal extensions, reversing the logic of the original add-ons. Through this, the project proposes a new architectural model for urban regeneration—one that does not overwrite informal identity, but weaves it into the city’s future. ... Read more

Tbilisi, located at the heart of the Silk Road connecting Asia to Europe, has historically served as a vital meeting point for diverse cultures and ethnicities, shaping the city’s unique character. However, the Soviet domination of the country led to significant homophonyn, erasing many distinct architectures associated with various communities and promoting uniform master plans that expanded the city.

This project examines how the architectural typology of cemeteries can reflect the city's complex history. It explores the interaction between different graveyards representing specific religious groups, highlighting their individualities as well as their potential for meeting contrapuntally. ... Read more

In Tbilisi’s suburbs, the spread of informal architecture traces back to the city’s turbulent socio-political journey. Soviet planning once dictated uniformity, but the collapse of the Soviet Union and the challenges that followed allowed informal construction to proliferate. The design proposition takes the form of a series of observational structures placed along a route. Each structure offers a unique vantage point, either decontextualizing or increasing accessibility to the surrounding environment. The intention is to deepen the way one engages with this distinctive built landscape, allowing for new perspectives and a more intimate connection with the space. ... Read more

Wind behavior is complex and not intuitive. Despite its significant impact on urban environments, the topic remains underexplored in architectural design practice. Meanwhile, as cities continue to densify and buildings rise to increasing heights, designing with wind comfort in mind becomes increasingly more important. This thesis explores how wind behavior can be effectively integrated into early-stage high-rise design to improve outdoor comfort and safety.

Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations, a series of design strategies were evaluated for their impact on local wind conditions in Rijnhaven, Rotterdam, a site facing both ambitious urban development and strict wind regulations. The study identifies how design interventions such as aerodynamic shaping, podiums, and open floors can significantly reduce wind discomfort at street level, particularly on the leeward side of buildings. The result is a workflow aimed at guiding architects in designing with wind more intuitively and effectively.

This research demonstrates that incorporating wind analysis early in the design process can not only improve environmental conditions but also support more coherent and informed architectural outcomes. ... Read more

Light touches, but is untouchable itself. While being airy and ethereal, light is grounded in architecture: it plays a fundamental role in the experience of touching and tender spaces. However, catching light in terms of contrast, light diagrams and simulations models doesn’t reach the
complexity of light, the moment when light touches us. Truly understanding daylight is a matter of grasping light in its subtle, fleeting, ephemeral experiential reality. Therefore this project is a search for sensitivity to light, in particular Dutch coastal light. It does so by asking the question:
- How is light a material?

Materialization of light was researched in different ways. Firstly, using philosophy. Secondly, using artistic references. Thirdly, by making photos of light and form experiments at the Dutch coast. The architectural design project functioned as the last entry into the search for sensitivity to Dutch light, this time through the eyes of the architect specifically. The choice of location based on presence of Dutch light: Vluchthaven at Neeltje Jans, a peripheral place which radiates light and where big natural forces interfere with huge human interventions.

The research showed how light is able to both make people turn inwards, towards their own internal world, and outwards, towards the external world. The changing between those processes is admirable because it creates a sensitivity for what is outside, while at the same time it addresses imagination for potential change of reality. Light makes people see. Therefore, the design project worked with light to make experiences of introversion and extraversion, in the Dutch light. Four ateliers were designed, which address light in different manners, and one dwelling for an artist in residence, the caretaker of the ateliers. Visitors experience the light at the place, to see the place even better.

By defining, describing, and contextualising light, the project materialized light. But overly describing how light is situated, kills light vibrancy. Therefore, to use light as a material it is also important to admit its volatile character, by not catching it. It is within the associative, the intuitive, the imaginative where light is able to move. The method of artistic research, including the act of experiencing light, gave space to both processes to be able to materialize light: making light explicit and leaving light implicit.
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The Stockholm City Library was designed by the renowned Swedish architect Erik Gunnar Asplund in 1928. Since then, the role of public libraries has changed dramatically. Nowadays, public libraries constitute important social infrastructure within cities; they should provide a wide range of program for all needs and demands and enhance interaction among people. This project is about the transformation and expansion of the Stockholm City Library, in an attempt to open up the library to a broader public and address its various today’s and future needs. ... Read more

The Graduation Project is facing the challenge of extension to the historical building of Stockholm City Library. Its main goal was to provide an architectural answer to the political, economic and cultural problems which the institution of public libraries in Stockholm is facing nowadays.

My proposal refers back to the original plan for the site proposed by Erik Gunnar Asplund in 1928 and completing it with the 4th building. Thanks to that I managed to densify and fill the already-used part of the plot with subsequent educational functions. The building is connected to the main library underground which allows to preservation of its monumentality and independent character in the city. In the proposed extension I focus on the functions which can not be placed in the historical building due to its spatial limitation. The new building is a contemporary library incorporating a variety of interactions and ways of sharing knowledge. The structural layout allows for a flexible adaptation and at the same time provides different spatial qualities. ... Read more

This graduation project explores the feasibility of renewing the competition for the Asplund Library in Stockholm. The competition and assignment focus on a possible extension. A renewed proposal will have to determine if the original intended program still reflects the needs of a contemporary library. Furthermore, this proposal seriously questions whether the established strategies of working with heritage still hold up in a world that must deal with limits to growth.

The proposal suggests that by looking beyond the strategies of adding to and contrasting with existing architecture, the brief can be answered in a much more modest way. ... Read more

The project deals with extending a monumental building - the Stockholm City Library. It's complexity lies within the position of respect towards the monument which the library is and the work of the architect behind it - Erik Gunnar Asplund. This project proposes to extend as a mean of modernising and coming forward to the needs of growing and changing city. ... Read more