This thesis aims to understand how urban manufacturing can be integrated into postwar neighbourhoods in ways that support spatial quality and liveability. While mixed-use development is increasingly promoted, manufacturing is often seen as incompatible with residential environments. The research therefore examines the specific spatial and regulatory challenges of introducing production into existing neighbourhoods and develops a pattern language that offers guidance for doing so responsibly.

The thesis is situated within the context of postwar neighbourhoods, with a particular focus on garden city high-rise areas. Analyses of these neighbourhoods in the metropolitan region of The Hague–Rotterdam reveal spatial opportunities for integrating urban manufacturing across multiple scales, including the dwelling, building, block, and infrastructural levels. In addition, international examples of mixed manufacturing–residential building blocks and on-site observations are analysed to understand how such integrations are successfully realised elsewhere.

These insights inform the development of a pattern language, which is subsequently tested through a design for the Nolensbuurt in Schiedam. For this, the findings from all preceding analyses are synthesised to guide interventions across scales within the neighbourhood. The results demonstrate that manufacturing can be integrated in ways that activate underused spaces, enhance spatial quality, and maintain liveability within postwar neighbourhoods. ... Read more

There is an imbalance in the nitrogen cycle, mainly caused by an increasingly intensive agricultural sector. This leads to the degradation of nature and the loss of biodiversity. Measures have been taken at European level to reduce the amount of nitrogen emitted by the agricultural sector, but this has caused a backlash as farmers in many European countries have protested strongly. Many farmers fear for their future and something must be done to safeguard their livelihoods and the quality of Europe's nature.
To address this, we propose a vision for 2150 in which the food system of north-west Europe shifts from intensive agriculture to a regenerative, small-scale and collective farming system. We envision diversified and rotational land use to close nitrogen cycles and thus reduce the burden on the climate, giving the soil space and time to regenerate so that nature can thrive. Food and bio-based materials will be produced locally and seasonally, making food and material consumption more transparent and integrated into the daily lives of communities, transforming peri-urban and rural structures and the way we live in them. This regenerative production system, coupled with new incentives, will provide affordable food for all, while being more circular, organic, sustainable and fit for the future world we envision.
To enable diversified farms, farmers will share facilities, tools and land to enable soil-based crop rotation. This will have an impact not only on the local diet, but also on the food and materials produced. Focusing on local production also means introducing other collective infrastructures that increase local and regional flows. It also means reducing some of our international infrastructure while increasing knowledge flows between countries to empower people in the Global South to process and produce food locally, thus ensuring a more equitable distribution of resources. Finally, at the heart of the strategy is the conservation of nature, which will shape the boundaries of the newly structured peri-urban rural agricultural landscape. The existing boundaries of the built environment will remain, with the emphasis on densifying and transforming our current structures rather than expanding them.
In order to visualise the vision, we selected three pilot projects based on three different typologies and existing infrastructure: Nijkerk (sand, rural, a practical school and a milk processing unit), Utrecht (clay, urban and distribution centres) and Bodegraven (peat, peri-urban and dairy related businesses). These pilot projects show the necessary landscape transformation over time with the introduction of regenerative agriculture, food and material hubs along with food production within city boundaries, working towards a sustainable landscape and local diet.
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