As the Global South continues to rapidly urbanize, finding affordable and sustainable housing solutions is paramount. The Global Housing Graduation studio provides the opportunity to design new housing typologies through environmental and social lenses. São Paulo’s challenges with rapid urbanization and social inequality has left more than a million residents vulnerable to the impacts of water scarcity, lack of public infrastructure, climate, environmental risk, and climate change. Urban expansion during São Paulo’s economic boom in the 1970s led to a considerable increase of illegal land occupations in the city’s peripheries. The development of the informal settlements formed in the peripheries thus superseded the speed at which proper public infrastructure for potable water, sanitation and electricity could be implemented.

Residents in the peripheral neighborhoods occupy open land in areas of varying environmental risk, susceptible to soil degradation, flooding, landslides, and health risks due to waste discharge. They cannot access publicly supplied water or sanitation and must rely on water cisterns, illegal connections or self-made sanitation disposal to acquire the necessary infrastructure to lead a healthy life. These risks, in addition to the future risks of climate change, disproportionally impact those living in informal settlements, due to their social vulnerability and socio-economic status.

Development-induced displacement of residents within informal settlements is enforced by the São Paulo municipal government, to permit the implementation of public infrastructure such as water lines, sanitation, drainage, street paving, and the removal of housing structures in at-risk areas. While the purpose of displacement contributes towards a positive outcome - upgrading neighborhoods with much-needed services, or rehousing residents to safer environments – the social impact of displacement is palpable. Forced displacement may move residents away from their sources of income and social networks, considerably impacting their mental well-being or exposing them to financial precarity. Readaptation to new neighborhoods or lifestyles can also be difficult for residents.


The project seeks to create a balance between social and climate resiliency to address the challenges of environmental risk and resettlement. The project proposes a new social housing system, built on the principles of clustering and the Radburn Plan, to achieve an urban design which integrates public space with rainwater flows, public infrastructure, and housing. The project location, Jardim Campinas in Grajaú, São Paulo, is used as a framework for the urban system to rehouse displaced residents from various communities onto one site. The socio-ecological design approach is implemented at each scale – urban plan, sector, cluster, and dwelling unit. The design aim is a renewal of the urban fabric, by building upon existing social and ecological networks to reinvigorate social connections and relationships between natural and built environment.

Geographic Information (GI) has proven its value with its ability to be used in various fields, which left numerous questions about how this data should be stored, used, and managed. To facilitate the sharing and reuse of spatial data, Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) emerged in the last decades and with the increase in Open Data, the belief emerged that not only the public sector should be involved in SDIs, but also companies and citizens should be included as part of the Open SDI. To evaluate its value and the success of open GI in relation to the participation of users and communities in open SDI is still a challenge. The possibility to improve user participation in open SDI, such as OpenStreetMap, needs to be assessed. This research used preliminary web-based surveys and semi-structured interviews as per Schmidt [2004] with users of the OpenStreetMap, as well as qualitative analyses and combined quantitative approaches, to explore the factors that foster user participation in the community of an open SDI, using a methodology that adapted motivational factors from Budhathoki [2010]. The selection of fundamental intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors were used as indicators in user participation in OpenStreetMap, for both the survey and the semi structured interviews. Surveys showed that participants in this research were mostly heavy contributors, that primarily who are extrinsically motivated to participate mostly because they believe in the main goal of OSM, they value the community and the development of the platform, and trust the system and its users. Moreover, the users have intrinsic motivations to also participate for fun, instrumentality, altruism, to meet their own needs, alignment with the unique ethos and for learning. One of the conclusions that was drawn from this research is that OpenStreetMap is perceived as an Open Data Ecosystem among its users, yet some diving opinions to the perception about Open Spatial Data Infrastructures. Future development points for OSM are the need for stricter standards and safeguards against hostile commercial or external takeovers if OpenStreetMap wants to effectively engage both the public and private sector. Applying a stricter standard for the metadata of datasets that are used by governmental and external parties should guarantee
further re-use and provide sustainability for OSM. This includes an increase in their outreach through better marketing for the relevant potential users and provide further support systems for a new users. Furthermore, the expansion on different spatial data is also desirable, as well creating linked or integrated data with external open data providers. Current government or private SDIs that are in the process of transitioning into user-centric or open SDIs can apply these factors from this research into their own decision making processes if increasing user participation is their end goal.

The Indonesian government mentioned the urge to accelerate the process of providing detailed spatial plan maps. Moreover, to have one standard of reference, detailed spatial plan maps need to use large-scale (1:5.000) base maps as reference. Furthermore, the Indonesian government established the One Map Policy agenda as a legal basis for accelerating large-scale data. The Geospatial Information Act (2011) mentioned that the National Mapping of Agency (NMA) of Indonesia is responsible for providing nationwide large-scale (1:5.000) base maps. However, until now, only 2.7% of large-scale (1:5.000) base maps are available from all over Indonesia . One issue is the gap between the budget needed and received annually from the national government. Dependent on the national government, the NMA faces budget uncertainty between the budget requested and received during the annual process. Moreover, the budget was focused on supplying a national program of large-scale (1:5.000) base maps. Therefore, the NMA tend to innovate its funding model to accelerate the production of large-scale (1:5.000) base maps. Innovative funding models are assessed by using Analytical Hierarcy Process, one of the Multi-Criteria Analysis. Moreover, to achieve categorize the stakeholder, a stakeholder analysis is conducted. This project shows that sharing financial resources between local and national authority is a viable option. However, both national and local government needs to set several parameters and create a proper relationship among stakeholders.

Current elderly housing in the Netherlands is not suited for the needs of the elderly. There is not one type of elderly, but many, all with different needs. A problem lies with one of the groups: anonymous elderly. Even though socially isolated elderly think they are happy, social isolation causes stress and therefore health-related problems. When they get older, the problems will get worse and they need professional care which already has a shortage. Therefore, society should step in and help each other. The following research question is derived from this problem: How can architecture stimulate the social safety of elderly, while maintaining their individuality?
My goal is to create a new concept with architectural tools to develop a place where people can stay for the rest of their lives. A place where they can keep their individuality, but where they can rely on the help of others, even when they can’t ask for it. Designing to create spontaneous encounters can contribute to the social networks of the elderly.

This research is about the meaning of self-reliant living and what the physical environment can bring to improve this, with as main research question;
In what ways can architecture encourage elderly to become more self-reliant. The research is conducted through fieldwork observations and interviews in care home 't Kampje in Loenen aan de Vecht, as well as through literature and case studies. The anthropological research led to a conclusion that many people living in care facilities show passive behavior and are not as self-reliant as they used to be. Many of them don’t interact as much with each other and barely do something for each other. The goal of this research is to find out what it means to be self-reliant and how a person can remain like that with the help of architectural tools.

Self-reliance is about realising an acceptable level of functioning in the important areas of daily life. If necessary, by organising the right help at the moment that a decline in the performance level threatens or occurs that cannot be prevented or remedied by oneself. These important areas of life are called; ‘life domains’.
Both healthcare institutes GGD and Vilans use these domains to value their clients degree of self-reliance- and direction. The domains differ in some areas, as the domains of the GGD are used for anyone in the Netherlands, and the domains from Vilans are more tailored for elderly. The 10 domains that Vilans describe are; daytime activities, living conditions, physical functioning, mental functioning, cognitive functioning, housekeeping, general daily, social network, mobility, and the financial situation.

Each domain has certain conditions for a person to be called fully self-reliant. Most of these conditions indicate a need for independence and a safe- and healthy living environment. Architecture alone can not provide all the answers for self-reliant living, the living environment around the building plays an equal role in the degree of self-reliance for
a person. The extracted design tools for each domain show correlations between each other. Such as having places for gardening, the promotion of natural movement, the need for a diverse aged target group, homes that are compact and life-cycle proof, close proximity of shops, public transport- and other amenities, and the need for a social environment. These are the main architectural / urban strategies that can encourage elderly to become more self-reliant. These have to do mainly with being- and remaining healthy in a physical way, a mental way, and a social way.

Nowadays, lots of geo-information (GI) is openly available. The value of this information lies in its use. Geoportals play an important part in allowing users to discover and access suitable data for their use cases. However, the user-friendliness of these geoportals is not as it should be. As the communicational layer between a system and its users, a more user-friendly UI can result in a more user-friendly geoportal. In an explorative research methodology involving a literature study into UIs and geoportals, assessing existing geoportals, and a user requirements session, I developed a guideline for user-friendly geoportal UIs: the Geoportal User-Interface Design Evaluator (GUIDE). The elements captured in the GUIDE cover the different parts of the UI: the content presentation, the interaction with available services (system interaction, navigation, search mechanisms, access mechanisms, and communication mechanisms) and the enabling information (metadata and help mechanisms). Concrete implementation examples of these design elements are provided by implementing a mock-up in accordance to the GUIDE. To assess whether or not the elements of the GUIDE result in an increase in user-friendliness, the results of a benchmark usability session are compared to the results achieved during a follow-up usability session with the mock-up. The tasks participants perform during these sessions are all related to the most important reasons why users would visit a geoportal: discovering data, assessing whether the discovered data is suitable for a specific use case, and accessing the data. The comparison of the results of the two usability studies suggests that the elements listed in the GUIDE as implemented in the mock-up indeed result in a more user-friendly geoportal UI. In the adopted usability metric that covered 128 fields related to performance and self-reported metrics, the mock-up outperformed the benchmark in 95 fields. This improvement is confirmed by qualitative comments of the six participants of the usability sessions and by experts of the Dutch geo-platform PDOK. Especially the increase in efficiency is appreciated. Based on the foundation the GUIDE and the corresponding mock-up provide, there is room for more in-depth research to further improve the user-friendliness of the UIs of geoportals. This, for example, involves looking into what communication mechanisms and help mechanisms, icons, terminology, or controls users prefer. Furthermore, additional research into the possibilities of adaptive UIs for geoportals can be valuable to suit possible differences in the needs and preferences of the different individual users.

What are the preconditions for aleatory occurrence of social interaction? Can unexpected public activities be catalyzed by specific spatial characteristic? The objective of the thesis is to explore the flexibility, mobility and adaptiveness in architecture and urban domain through the research of “Public Condenser” within multiplicity and complexity of political, economic and cultural conditions in Vesterbro, Copenhagen. Instead of proposing fixed programs that inform people how to behave, the public condenser allows spaces for multiple narratives by diverse users. The design proposed a urban living room for sharing and creativity that facilitates the encounter of unknown.

This graduation report researches what a public condenser can contribute in the neigbhourhood Vesterbro in Copenhagen. Research is done in what subjects a public building can play a role. What positive impulses can it provide in this neighbourhood. In short: Why is a public building needed in Vesterbro? How can it contribute to the subjects discovered? What does a public building look like if it wants to fulfill the role it has to have in this neigbhourhood?