In recent years, Mumbai has experienced rapid urbanization due to its economic growth. This large influx of migrants, who are looking for opportunities in the city, has led to an issue of overpopulation. It has been estimated that the population will grow to 28 million within the next few years. More than 40% of these people live in informal settlements in extremely poor conditions while two-thirds of the population lives on only 5% of the total area of the city. A clear separation can be seen between different income groups within the city of Mumbai, as well as in the rest of India and the global south. This social polarization is not beneficial for the city nor its inhabitants and current housing schemes don’t provide the tools to tackle this problem. In Nalasopara the same issue is at hand where a city is divided into two part: the eastern area where most of the low-income lives while in the west more and more large towers are being constructed for the middle and high-income groups. This problem has only increased in the past 20 years. This increasing social polarization and a widening income gap lead to spatial and social inequality in Nalasopara and Mumbai. This contributes to unfairness between the rich and poor, unfairness in upward mobility, harsh borders between different income groups, different accessibility to public space and ghettoization of certain groups. Which leads to a disconnect between the city and its inhabitants. This project aims to design and create a framework where all income groups have access to accessible urban spaces & affordable housing. While softening the boundaries between income groups but maintaining the qualities, individuality and opportunities for each income group. Which in turn will encourage diversity within this framework to re-connect the people with each other and with the city. Thus creating an example which will stimulate the development of socially depolarized, sustainable urban settlements in the global south.

Amsterdam is currently experiencing a period of significant growth, demographically as well as economically. It is becoming more international, more affluent, but also more crowded. In the process, the city's status as 'werelddorp' is changing into that of a metropolis. Such a scale change requires a rethinking of what it means to live and dwell in Amsterdam. As such, this graduation project investigates what constitutes a contemporary metropolitan living and dwelling environment, within the scope of housing design. Having defined this as a high density high-rise living environment, the design focuses on creating a high-rise building that accommodates a contemporary metropolitan lifestyle.

The importance of coping with climate change and its consequences on depleting sandy rural landscapes and their water systems is often underestimated. The seasonal imbalance of rise in temperatures and precipitation leading to both drought and flood under extreme circumstances, has deteriorated these landscapes. Attempts to regulate this area, in order to make way for rural development related to agriculture and water management, have led to numerous environmental issues and loss of its scenic beauty. A global solution addressing the environmental issues and scenic and cultural values is required. In this thesis, an attempt is made to rebuild the lost relationship between landscapes and water systems for a climate scenario that is predicted for the year 2050. This is elaborated in the thesis with research by design in the case study area situated in the Baakse beek watershed of Gelderland province. Climate change prompts a re-examination of the potentials of Baakse beek stream with regards to its rich and diverse landscapes. The proposed sustainable solution involves improving the stream water structure, realising ecological connection zones and enhancing the agricultural structures with the help of a climate corridor. This thesis specially focuses on changes in land use so new estates in the Estate Landscape Zone can co-exist with water systems and Rabat forests for recreation.

A living environment designed for elderly people and elderly people with dementia. If the residents, the elderly people, gets dementia they will be able to continue their life in the same, trusted living environment, without moving to other living environments.

The project concerns the refurbishment of post-war housing, specifically the Camera Obscura in Utrecht. The proposed plan is based upon: 1) technical parameters for energy neutrality, 2) the problems specified by the building analysis and 3) four types of flexibility, to enable inhabitants to influence their dwellings.

The development of the landscape around the national border, a usually “unreachable” space due to mentality issues and practical difficulties, is the subject of this graduation project. Enhancing inner connections, literally and symbolically, has been the key to preserve and celebrate the unique qualities of the borderland. A combination of structural continuities and punctual interventions was proposed, with the natural landscape acting as the base upon which connections and boundaries –physical, mental, soft, hard- are at a constant dialogue. Being multi-scalar in nature, with a regional perspective as well as local elaborations, the project envisions a development of the borderland in all aspects –ecological, economical, cultural- that will attract people’s attention and trust and, hence, turn this landscape from edge to core.

Families are the center of society. They bring life to the neighborhood and the city as a whole. Children play a crucial role and turn the city from a place of mobility to a space of activity. However, not every child grows up in the social setting we are familiar with. More and more children grow up in a modern type of family in which they need to deal with rapidly changing social circumstances. Architecture can offer solution to help these families finding their place inside the city. Prioritizing the children in the living environment and the support for parents and stepparents offers the baseline of a design for modern families. These two key points shape the base of this graduation project focused on both the modern and traditional families. Because every family deserves a home and every child needs the opportunity to be child without paying the price for the social circumstances in the family.

Residents typically have a negligible impact on their living units spatial layout in mass housing projects. Building industry lacks tools for users to create space tailored to their needs. The purpose of this work is facilitate co-creation by providing a pre-configured and engineered set of spatial units corresponding to human activities, in order to lower the technical threshold for participation in the design process. This set provides an accessible search space for modular solutions allowing for free aggregation of space by people without an architectural background. The methodological approach used in this work was Design Science Research.

War renders the characteristic of a territory and over-shadows the affects and desires that have been always a part of it. The Bosnian genocide in the early 90’s not only impacted the political and urban structure but also was a severe blow to the social structure. Mostar and Mostarki were synonymous to tolerant cohesive society. Neretva was one such important element of this society but over the years the people distanced itself from the river. The underlying effects of the war overpower the affordances and affects that are existing throughout the city and especially along Neretva. With these gradually decaying territories co-existing with rampant reconstruction to bring back the just image, a heterogeneity has resulted in present day Mostar. The urban transformations have also resulted in an overused and exploited river with increased erosion, sewage discharge and energy generation. In order to respond to the complex situation as experienced in Mostar, the project adopts a framework based on the theory of affects. The lens enables to see this territory as a chaotic assemblage of affordances and potentials. Thereby, identifying & developing a relevant field of affordances in these chaotic slowly decaying natural and urban spaces. This leads to the development of a rhizomatic network of public spaces based on the strategy of urban acupuncture. The proposal works as an experiment which adopts a theoretical outlook to deal with the practicality of temporal, natural and social issues. The thesis aims to acts as a stimuli in order to reinstate the relationship Mostaki’s have with their city, the river and amongst themselves.

Offices located in Midtown Manhattan are on the move towards new developments on the river banks, leaving their old residencies behind. Because of this phenomenon Midtown is experiencing high vacancy rates in its obsolete building envelope. This transition can be seen as a threat or an opportunity for Midtown’s future. It happened before and will most likely happen again, but the question is how we can deal with these kind of issues. The Rockefeller Center complex, for example, is part of the generation of urban renewal projects that helped to revitalize Midtown Manhattan at the end of the 20s and part of the more recent re-developments in the 60s. Still today, by being the largest business district in the world, Midtown remains the corporate center of Manhattan. The office building Park Avenue Plaza, previously leased by BlackRock who is now moving out towards Hudson Yards, lies in the center of financial business district of Manhattan. In this graduation project the building will function as an example to evaluate how to unlock building values that lie within the existing building stock in Midtown. With the refurbishment into a Life Science (Li-Sci) Center, financially supported by Deerfield Management, the building will pioneer and set an example for other sidelined buildings in Midtown.

The manipulation of the delta landscape in the Rotterdam region, to meet the economic desire of society, resulted in a degradation of ecosystem services. Each eco-based design, such as the case-study ‘the River as a Tidal Park’, is subjected to a wide range of environmental, societal and political risks. Considering the extremely uncertain projected risks for increasing sea levels and more extreme river discharges after 2050, the river does not provide the flexibility the future demands. After the implementation of relatively short term and local scale initiatives the projects are still subjected to these uncertainties, which makes the long-term values uncertain as well. Therefore, it might result in a loss of capital for partners as the project appears to be unsustainable. Accordingly, the thesis aims for ensuring the project provides the desired ecosystem services for 2100 and costs and benefits are distributed more evenly among stakeholders through time and space. To bridge the gap between time and space, the thesis considers the concept of seeing and working with “Nature as a New Economy’ as a starting point. This concept focuses on the development, preservation and regeneration of nature to obtain most values from it. The thesis approaches two scenarios for 2100. The Rest Scenario considers moderate climate change and socio-economic decline and the Steam Scenario investigates extreme climate change and socio-economic growth. The research follows in a search for value synergies among both scenarios to find ‘no regret’ measures for the short term. To guide decision-makers in the process between short term investments and long term needs, an adaptive framework is developed. This framework provides guidelines to take action when specific tipping points in time are reached. The hypothesis is to what extend the value of ecosystem services can be inverted in time to use it as a design instrument in relation to decision-making processes. The research question which leads the thesis is: "How can the concept of ‘Nature as a New Economy’ be used for the development of an adaptive design for the spatial transformation of the fluvial zone of the Nieuwe Maas considering the uncertain future?" The thesis’ results show that, with the proposed adaptive design, most ecosystem services increase through time. This results in increasing interest and a model of revenue for stakeholders, which makes sure that the project can be extended until 2100. The concept of ‘Nature as a New Economy’ is providing decision-makers with a language to give insight in the benefits for them on the long term, is increasing the financial support for the project and will reduce the risks for future generations. It makes decision-makers aware of the value of nature and that it could go beyond economic growth. It can be seen as an inversion of the concept of nature: nature is no longer seen as something we have to fight against to strive for economic growth. Nature can now be seen as an economy itself which is the new value for producing economic growth.

The river Rhine is Europe’s economic powerhouse. Without the Rhine, the Ruhr area and the port of Rotterdam wouldn’t have developed into the economically leading industrial regions they are today. The economic power of the Rhine comes forward from the ability of humans to control the river. By rectifying and canalizing the river and constructing dams and locks, the ships’ ability to navigate the river increased. This focus on economic development has caused critical environmental problems. Floods, droughts, and pollution are the most notable environmental threats to humans. This is intensified by climate change as extreme rainfall events and periods of drought will become more severe. Our current paradigm in flood risk management tells us to endlessly keep heightening our dykes, which is not a sustainable path to deal with flood risk. Heightening dykes also leads to shifting the problems elsewhere. If a river is not given space to flood its natural floodplains, it is forced to flow downstream more quickly, leading to a higher peak water level and potential floods downstream. This master thesis introduces the concepts of socio-ecological symbiosis and clearance as means to improve water safety, the connection between humans and water, and the natural habitat. The central question of this research is: How could water safety downstream be supported by upstream design interventions in the Northern Upper Rhine Valley, based on methods in which socio-ecological symbiosis and clearance are central? As upstream water management strongly influences the downstream water safety, design exercises are executed in the Northern Rhine Valley with the goal to improve the water safety both downstream and locally. Three typological design exercises are set up which together form the proposed future water management strategy of the whole Rhine Valley.

With the help of information technology, people can not only store the massive knowledge formed over thousands of years in various network databases but also present the process of knowledge production in different spaces at the same time. At this time, education will present a new ecology that can be learned everywhere and all the time. The physical boundaries of peer communication, work, and learning become blurred or even disappear completely, and the fluidity of educational space arises at a historic moment. It can be seen from recent experience that the traditional model of space and ownership (space owned by colleges and departments) is changing to a more diversified and flexible shared space. Success depends not only on the type of space provided but also on how to connect different types of space through circulation and create interactive activities. This project, Google Computer Science Faculty, based on Google's plans and ambitions to enter the higher education market, tries to create fluidity in the next generation of educational spaces by focusing on the design of circulation areas.

The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept which seeks to enhance social sustainability by improving accessibility. In this master thesis accessibility in Amsterdam Nieuw-West is explored to better understand the link between the 15-minute city concept and social sustainability to answer the research question: To what extent is the 15-minute city able to enhance social sustainability? Empirical research is conducted to identify the indicators that truly affect accessibility. Literature regarding the subject has pointed out two scale levels which affect accessibility. The macro scale relates to accessibility of the infrastructure network and availability of facilities while the micro scale relates to the indicators affecting the accessibility of a place. There where also two categories of accessibility indicators defined. Physical accessibility indicators experienced directly because of the built environment and social accessibility indicators experienced because of the behaviour of people inhabiting the built environment. This creates an interesting dynamic of the designed physical accessibility and the social accessibility resulting from it. After the initial literature review, three research methods were used in the case study in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. First two project mangers affiliated with the municipality were interviewed which alongside case study documents aided the framework of known accessibility indicators in Nieuw-West. Thereafter, the way accessibility is experienced was studied on both scale levels. The macro scale by interviewing residents about their decision making process regarding their routes and destinations utilising mental maps and the micro scale by street interviews with users of Osdorpplein. The findings show that the 15-minute city concept is not applicable as a one size fits all solution for urban development as that would be discriminatory because of the different desires and capabilities of inhabitants. However, indicators of the 15-minute city on their own are able to improve accessibility and thus social sustainability.

Families are an important factor in the liveability of neighbourhoods. As more and more families are leaving Amsterdam, innovative ideas are needed to reverse this trend. In this graduation project a residential tower is proposed, an uncommon building form in the Netherlands, especially for this specific target group. With the alternative typology presented in this project, relatively more families will be able to stay in the city.

Hoewel met de piek in asielaanvragen in Nederland sinds 2015 is gebleken dat vroege integratie veel voordelen heeft, is de architectuur van Nederlandse asielzoekerscentra daar nog niet op aangepast. In de sociologie zijn veel onderzoeken gedaan naar voorwaarden voor de facilitatie van integratie, maar deze zijn nog nooit toepasbaar gemaakt voor architectuur en architecten. Op basis van een literatuur- en praktijkonderzoek is een toolbox opgesteld voor architecten, met voorwaarden op het gebied van schaal, programma, doelgroep en gebouwkenmerken, waaraan een gebouw moet voldoen om integratie te faciliteren.

In response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, access to office workplaces became more restricted, and employees were ushered to work from home. The current scientific literature does not fully address the link between abrupt change in the workplace and the impact of this on employees. More generally, research on the employee perspective and employee experiences is often not performed in the context of change in the workplace. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the experiences of abrupt change regarding the workplace due to Covid-19 in depth. It analyses the individual and organisational factors that help deal with this abrupt change. The study adds to research on gradual organisational change and contributes to knowledge about the added value of the office as a workplace, and employee perspectives on change processes. Preliminary interviews give insight into the lived experiences of employees concerning the abrupt change process and experiences of working from home. Next, an embedded case study analyses employee expectations and preferences through semi-structured interviews. The research findings provide new insight into the abrupt change experience. The motivation and productivity of employees are harmed due to lack in variety of work activities and a monotonous way of interacting with colleagues, both formally and informally. Working from home resulted in a decline in informal interactions. The reduced contact resulted in a reduced feeling of involvement in the organisation. This is disadvantageous to the change process, as communication between the organisation and the individual help foster the transition during abrupt change. To improve the abrupt change experience, the study recommends a 5-step implementation plan for organisations. The process helps to better align employee preferences and expectations with organisational objectives. A more employee-oriented approach in workplace strategy creation is recommended. This would incorporate employee preferences in the process of change, to ensure employee wellbeing and enhance competitive advantage during abrupt change.

The project proposes an architectural sheltering system for transitional use over monuments and excavations sites in the Mediterranean context. The thesis is concerned about the diaspora of archaeological sites and remains in the Mediterranean where many layers of history are partially unearthed and highlighted. Based on a context research, the assignment focuses on Greece's sites for a new excavation -restoration workflow of specialists under better conditions and time periods. A prototype development of a 5x5m grid system that evolved as a deployable folding kit responds to predefined criteria of reversibility, modularity, adaptability and movability. As a case study, the ongoing excavation of Ancient Eleon was selected to present a valid working scenario. Based on the Greek climate, the open-air shelter is based on a repetitive grid of high-point tent modules that form different sheltering schemes and types. This produces a varying architectural result which addresses all sites endangered by weather. The membrane covering along with the deployable aluminum beam profiles are connected with joints. The system is furtherly extended with a series of an adjustable (bars) truss system to span larger trenches etc. As a result, the challenge is for a transitional architecture that can be seen as a type destined for monuments and a product to be further developed.

Port-city interfaces have grown apart over the last few decades, resulting in a disbalance between ports and cities. This thesis focuses on finding an approach to reuse and remediate unused industrial sites in sensitive port locations while making them ready for a post-carbon era. The project uses phytotechnologies for remediation of polluted soil on an old refinery site and the construction of a series of laboratories that are made from reused materials and productive phytoremediation landscape around the old refinery installations and are hosted by the old refinery installations,.