Culture is widely recognised as an essential element that shapes urban vitality, local identity, and economic value. As a result, many cities actively seek to implement culture as part of urban regeneration strategies. However, culture is not something that can simply be installed or imported. While art may be produced through individual creativity, culture emerges through collective processes, requiring sustained interactions between those who produce it, those who experience it, and those who support it. In this sense, culture operates as an ecology rather than an object.

This research argues that the role of urbanism and spatial design is not to insert cultural artefacts, but to cultivate the ground that allow culture to grow on. When culture is treated as an accessory or image, its relational foundations are easily overlooked, resulting in places where culture remains visible but no longer alive. Gentrification intensifies this process by prioritising the most profitable and symbolic aspects of culture, while undermining the spatial and relational foundations that previously sustained cultural production.

Using the indie music scene in Seoul as a case study, this research examines how cultural ecology forms through network of actors and its operation in place. It then explores how this system is disrupted under gentrification, transforming living culture into branded image. The study begins in Hongdae, once a thriving centre of indie culture but now better known for its popularity than for ongoing cultural production. It then traces how cultural ecology relocates within the city and how it is transformed through this movement. Ultimately, it investigates how cultural ecology operates spatially, what kinds of spatial factors support its persistence, and what role spatial design can play in sustaining cultural production under context of urban transformation. ... Read more

Over the last years, the energy transition has caused a series of challenges that affect low-income households in The Netherlands, such as grid congestion and increased energy poverty. These challenges are particularly detrimental for low-income households which currently rely on gas for heating and cooking. With the inevitability of the energy transition and its financial incentives for the phasing-out of gas, it is of utmost urgency to investigate ways to avoid widespread energy poverty in gas-dependent households. This study investigated ways and options for doing so on a local level before being scaled up to the regional level of North-Holland.

Previous research has attempted to solve this challenge largely through top-down policymaking and solely objective analyses, however lacking incentive for local residents to partake and manage in the proposed solutions. This raises the question: How can a spatial planning strategy enable a just energy transition in Noord-Holland in which the energy grid is optimized for the empowerment and welfare of low-income communities? A combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods was used, mainly GIS mappings and informal interviews. Research by design method was applied to form the strategies and to develop a regional vision for North-Holland, based on communal values partially through a qualitative media analysis. The analysis showed great potential for locally driven energy- and heating systems. Investigations into energy projects and opportunities in Den Helder, Egmond aan Zee, Hoorn and Middenmeer all showed the high importance of locally scaled approaches to larger challenges. The cases signified the crucialness of including not only residents but also businesses and other cross sectoral stakeholders. Values such as accessibility, inclusivity, and autonomy were synthesized from communal desires across all four cases, in combination with the media analysis. In conclusion, these four community values, alongside intersectoral cooperation, are critical to achieve realizable energy projects on scales that low-income households can partake in. The effect these projects could have in the long term, as for example with a changed socio-economic situation, could be explored in further research.
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