This project is about redesigning the inter-urban area between Arnhem and Nijmegen in the Netherlands into a coherent multifunctional forest structure. To achieve this, three forest types are developed that respond to current challenges on a global scale. These types are the health forest, the climate forest, and the agroforest.
The design area is seen as a developing polycentric metropolis. The inter-urban forest will respond to the spatial challenges this poses. To this end, the project will make use of existing landscape elements, with a major focus on the Linge river. ... Read more

Sustainability has gained significant importance in the building industry due to its impact on energy consumption, resource utilization, waste generation, and CO2 emissions. The responsibility for ensuring sustainable building construction often falls on project managers, tasked to lead teams and successfully deliver building projects. Project managers face various barriers when it comes to integrating sustainability during the design phase, leading to the dilution of sustainability goals and ambitions. The dilution is often attributed to the persistent focus on the traditional success criteria of delivering a project on time, within budget, and quality.

This research aims to explore and understand how project managers can use their appointed position to influence project teams toward safeguarding sustainability goals and ambitions. A qualitative research approach combines a review of relevant literature with a multiple case study to collect data from theoretical and practical sources. A conceptual framework, the Sustainability Safeguarding Framework, is developed identifying three critical aspects: authority, accountability, and affective influence, which addresses the dual role of project manager and leader in safeguarding sustainability. In the multiple case study, project managers and design team members from two selected cases are interviewed to gain practical insights into these three aspects.

Findings and discussion reveal that project managers employ authority, accountability, and affective influence during the project’s design phases to safeguard sustainability. However, their influence is sometimes limited by barriers, those identified in existing literature, and newly identified ones, such as organizational barriers and unintended effects arising from sustainability assessment tools and subsidy schemes. Furthermore, a strong relationship is observed between actively promoting sustainability and successfully safeguarding or surpassing sustainability goals and ambitions.

To effectively safeguard and promote sustainability goals and ambitions, project managers are recommended to use their authority to prioritize sustainability in the design team and among stakeholders; by having influence on design team selection, the appointment of sustainability experts/advisors, and providing them with the necessary platform, communication channels, and involvement to guide and support the team and client. Plus, taking accountability for sustainability (on top of other project responsibilities) and, by contractually organizing all sustainability goals and ambitions, and allotting roles and accountability to the team members. Furthermore, employing affective influence– involving sustainability advisors – to promote and embed a sustainability mindset within the design team and stakeholders, thus cultivating ownership, motivation, enthusiasm, ambition, and social value through collaborative efforts and effective communication. Establishing a positive and safe work environment, project managers can make a significant impact on sustainability.

The design team, stakeholders, and the project will benefit through the project manager’s effective use of authority, accountability, or affective influence. The Sustainability Safeguarding Framework can guide the project manager´s preparation and management of the design phase. This research provides further recommendations for implementation and future academic research in accordance with the recommendation to give sustainability criteria an equal position alongside the traditional criteria of cost, time, and quality. ... Read more

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has significantly improved the efficiency of construction projects. Using BIM tools provides various opportunities for cost management professionals to improve their cost management services' quality, speed, accuracy, value, and sophistication. Despite these benefits, BIM implementation for infrastructure projects can be quite challenging as these projects are highly complex. Very few organisations (who deal with infrastructure) have implemented BIM higher than BIM 4D in their projects. Therefore, this study investigates the challenges organisations face while implementing BIM 5D for infrastructure projects and identifies ways to minimise these challenges and enhance the BIM 5D process. The research methodology for this research is based on a literature study and interviews conducted with experts from Arcadis. This thesis first explores the challenges faced by organisations while implementing BIM 5D for infrastructure projects. In addition, this thesis also looks into the steps the building sector took to enhance the BIM 5D implementation and how these steps can be fine-tuned to suit the infrastructure projects. Based on these two points, recommendations are created for organisations dealing with infrastructure projects to BIM 5D, depending on their role in the project. The results show that the project managers should be targeted first to promote the use of BIM 5D. The expertise of BIM front runners should be utilised in projects, and a standard BIM Execution Plan should be prepared and followed by involving both designers and cost managers. The BIM 5D processes also need to be tailored to suit the needs of specific (larger) clients. ... Read more

The focus of the graduation studio AMS MID CITY is creating future scenarios through architectural design with as a testing ground the city of Amsterdam in 2050. The posed problem I encountered during my research on work in the future and the city is that the pace of the revolution of works grows faster than ever. So individuals have been forced to adapt to social progress and technological development. A lot of new business will start during the transition period. However, a lot of people working in traditional, lowskilled jobs will lose their job because of replacing by robots.

The ambition of my project is to help people adapting to the new age in terms of the job (re)start-ups.

Our group site location is on Zeeburgereisland, the outskirt of the central Amsterdam, isolated to the mainland for decades. In our group vision we are going to make it isolated but well-connected, a pilot and self-sufficient. In our site, there are 40% of social housing out of the whole housing amounts. It means a lot of people living on the island are lowerclass. They are mainly engaged in low-skilled jobs (about to be replaced by technology in the future), due to their limited educational resources. In 2050, a large proportion of people will need the occupation transition.

The design brief resulted in the design of “an [Re]startup Hub”. A future [Re]start-up hub, which works on educating and integrating the skills and abilities of different people, so that they can learn from each other, and create job opportunities. The value of places will shift to the promotion of networking, socializing, collaboration, hyper-individualized learning, and will be spaces where serendipity, unplanned encounters, unanticipated opportunities, and coincidences can occur, encouraging diversity activities, communication, and creativity.
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By referring to the conceptualism of the generation theory, this research observes the collaboration in project teams from a new angel. The theory of generations puts forward the idea, that people who are born in the same period shape a generation. Due to shared experiences, they also develop in a similar way and therefore share certain characteristics. For instance at work, each generation believes in a different value system, ethic and management style. So far, these characteristics are rarely explored in the context of the construction industry. Thus, this research has the overall aim to provide new insights how generational differences affect an individual’s perspective on collaboration. In order to do so the research methodology Q-methodology is applied. ... Read more