The master's thesis explores the possibilities of reusing abandoned post-industrial structures and objects of architectural heritage. Objects, which are usually difficult to renovate due to high costs and their poor physical condition, could be filled with new inflatable volumes and thus be filled with new space, function, and life. The work is inspired by designs from the 1960s and 70s of temporary and easily deployable inflatable installations, as well as the latest developments in soft robotics. Pneumatic structures equipped with sensors and activators would allow the creation of a responsive and interactive architecture evolving in time.

The theme of the studio, spolia, is a term from archaeology, which is to place remnants in a new environment. The project started research of a historical river in the city—the Senne in Brussels. The river influenced the urban development of the whole city morphologically and typologically. Interventions regarding the river show how local people treat spolia. The site is also located along the trace of Senne. A typical wall was formed because of the covering the Senne. It indicates the history but also segregates and influences current situations. It serves as such an important role that it should not be easily discarded. It is the spolia for this site. There is a big difference between the two sides of the wall--living and working, nature and the built environment, leisure and production. The urban concept is to reuse the wall to activate the neighbourhood, increase housing and public facilities and remove the productive constructions to the suburban area. The urban regards the wall as the main spolia and returns the centre of the block to the public. The wall frames the public facilities and parks of the community garden. The architectural proposal continues the focus on the wall as the spolia and explores how to treat it on the architectural scale. The project deals with three issues: the urban gestures facing different sides, the combination of the elderly and the children and the reuse of the existing wall. Among these, to reuse and reconfigure the wall intertwine the other two and becomes the main spine of my project. In the architectural scale, the content of spolia can be enriched. The wall is not only a line. It has the thickness; it has structure; it has a function. The wall acts as the perimeter of the project and organizes programs. The two user groups share an event hall and the kitchen. They have visual connections but also have their privacy. The façade intends to remain the solidness of the wall and make the new open and light while ties in with the old. So for the new façade, the frame can open up the courtyard by reducing the mass of the wall. The original texture of the old is remained to highlight the old wall. The façade also uses similar bricks of the old wall but uses different bonding to create a subtle difference between new and old. Especially for the entrance, light and translucent material is applied to the cladding to express an opening of the old. The interior use wood floor and plaster wall to release the heaviness of the texture of the bricks. In conclusion, my project lies partly in the urban solution. It articulates and celebrates an existing wall from urban scale down to materialization. In different stages, the content of the wall is enriched and enhanced.

This speculative project named “Bridging Heterotopia” is named as such because it draws from the guiding principle that is juxtaposition in real space, of many spaces together that would normally be incompatible. This principle materializes through a bridge which will be a facilitator for different cultures in Rotterdam to find a common space. In this project, the identity of Rotterdam is explored through architectural entities connected to the city’s social and economical history and a future vision is materialized into a living, changing bridge to reverse the current disintegration in the society. To illustrate the inner workings of the design, three cultures were selected. The architectural components of these cultures were then dismantled based on historical importance and current identifiable values that they represent for the members of these cultures. The ties between the common denominators of these seemingly far apart cultures, both architecturally and socio-geographically, were analyzed and represented within the continuous feedback loop between architecture and cultures of societies. The project builds upon the state-of-the-art technology that is available at the time of its conception by analysing the core principles and reflecting the plausible advancements onto the future realm of possibilities.

Explores the possibility of developing robotic building system and long-duration architecture solutions with the aim to re-settle post disaster environments, through digital driven design parameters, material and numeric controlled technology research and experimentation through scale models and prototypes

IN-FLOW deals with a context driven research into the unique ephemeral nature of a temporary pop up city in India. The site is situated in the northern city of Allahabad[now Prayagraj] at the confluence of two river, Ganga and Yamuna respectively. The site facilitates the gathering for religious festival called “The Kumbh Mela”. It is the largest public gathering in the world, drawing 150 plus million pilgrims over the course of three months. The site functions on a set of temporal cycles where the site is under water during rainy season, the city materialises during the dry period once the water subsides and after the festival is dismantled the farmers use the same plots for farming. The Thesis deals with a system where the site goes through various differential states and hence leads to flow of architecture and material structure from one state to another. This reversibility could serve as a rich case study to examine the working behind a temporary pop up city. The thesis is carried out at the Robotic Studio, with emphasis into the various robotic tools available to form a design intervention which adheres to the social and material culture of the site. The specific research question raised here is: Can Innovative tools (Robotic fabrication) further the craft of local construction principals around the site?

My graduation project (Permeable Playground) is to design a space for art that integrates Bauhaus Dessau and the new Bauhaus Museum in Dessau Station, Germany. The project begins with an analysis of the mechanisms that capture the relationship between art and the human being. And establishes assumptions about the place for 'creativity' to the new age. Based on these assumptions, this proposal will release space for the unique relationship between art and people, and incorporate them into the city to enhance the connection of Bauhaus and the new Bauhaus museum with the expansion of the experience of art. Here 'the expansion of experience in art and creation' is the principle of this project. The extended relationship between art and human means that by improving technologies, the production and distribution of art can be implemented easily. This means that the boundaries between the viewer and the artist gradually disappear, and the space for art has the direction for ordinary life besides the conventional museums. So, what is the space for 'arts' that is so close to everyday life? To find out the answer of this question, this project analyzes the architectural typology of Dessau in Germany and adopts and changes it, hoping that the space of new art is not a just object but a 'space' that can 'encounter' in the city all the time. Understanding and application of 'city' and 'type' is the core methodology of the research. Here' understanding' refers to research and 'application' refers to the domain of design. When accumulated knowledge needs to accept the new possibility, it needs reasons. The project is being carried out in the Robotic Building of the Architectural Engineering Department. This project has a premise, the foundation of the fourth industrial revolution, that is, the development of robotic technology, based on the question of what changes can be made based on the changed background. The irresistible desire for change based on new technologies will rewrite the relationship between architecture and human beings, which will gradually be accepted to the 'context' of the city. Through these aspects, this project has reflected the chance to bridge between technology and design, history and philosophy, context and diversity. Whole relationships provide ways to implement abstract or theoretical information to realization/ fabrication.

It is known that the global impact of solid waste is becoming more worrying day by day; however, the application of reused materials in the built environment is not yet fully embraced. In particular, plastic composites are now fundamental for the global world economy but the organization of their end life needs to be improved. Therefore, the research investigates the possibility of reusing plastic in the built environment through means of robotic fabrication and computational design. Thus exploring different design possibilities based on reclaimed plastic objects, testing their structural stability and robotically modifying them. In order to create a design system for a pavilion made of reclaimed materials, based on a computational workflow. Throughout the course of the research project, physical testing and software simulations have been performed to assess the properties of the robotically fabricated geometry, in order to retrieve design guidelines. Moreover, a digital workflow was developed including performance-driven design, performance evaluation and geometry generation for robotic fabrication. To conclude, the study emphasized how rather than employing new resources in the fabrication of a pavilion structure, it is possible to promote the use of reclaimed material using digital techniques and reversing the design process. Instead of designing a shape and consequently choosing a material, the design will start from the choice of a reclaimed material and the analysis of its potential, in order to originate a structure according to it. Besides the research project aims to facilitate the process through the creation of a computational workflow that can be applied to multiple reclaimed objects and shapes.

The average weekly working hours within the European Union has been decreasing very steadily over the last decades, as a result of the automatization of the economy. This seems to suggest a disappearance of the necessity to work. In his New Babylon project, Constant Nieuwenhuizen has imagined a society in which the inhabitants, the Homo Ludens, are completely free of any occupational obligations. How can an architectural intervention transform an existing building in order to integrate in such new kind of society? This design question was accompanied by a research that emerged from a personal fascination. The question from this perspective was: How can certain natural processes be abstracted and translated in simple rules in order to use them in computational tools in the design process? An intervention in an remnant from an industrial era has been designed in order to suit this new kind of society. The intervention creates a new route through the building, the floors of the existing parts contain the program. This program aims to provide technological additive manufacturing tools and render them accessible to a wider public. It strives so by providing interactive user interfaces and human-robot collaborations. The intervention has been developed in close relation to the research. The computational tools created in the research have been used to design the structure. First a main volume was created which determines the composition of the atria as well as the structure. Structural analysis was applied to inform the composition and thickness of the beams. Consecutively, analysis of the utilization of these beams is used to inform its cross sections. Details as railing and balustrades are the design with the aim to extend the emerged architectural language. Because of the close relation with the research in natural processes certain art-nouveau characteristics emerged in the architectural language of the intervention. However, rather than merely decorative, they are informed, performative and functional. The emerged architectural language therefore may be referred to as ‘informed art-nouveau’. The research concludes that it’s important to acknowledge the complexity of natural processes and that they are always a part of a larger entangled system. Therefore, in order to use a natural reference in the development of computational tools it is essential to abstract an aspect that seems relevant for the project, which than needs to be translated, adjusted, and complemented in simple rules. By doing so the natural processes become merely inspirational in the architectural design. Yet they have been fundamental in the development of this project, which is evident in the emerged architectural language. For a more elaborate description as well as the animated presentation see: http://100ybp.roboticbuilding.eu/index.php/project09:Final_Presentation

The world around us is rapidly changing and evolving. In a new report by the World green structure committee, the building and development industry are liable for 38.8% of all CO2 emissions internationally, with operational outflows (from energy used to warmth, cool and light structures) representing 28%. Our designed structures depend upon many resources during the construction or operational phase. So it is clear that the design decisions we make now for our built environment have a significant impact on the future. As the population increases, the need for freshwater, electricity, and other urban resources grows exponentially. It constantly increases pressure on the urban resources and infrastructure needed to run our cities smoothly. Self-sufficient buildings can be a crucial solution to urban problems like increasing energy demands and poor air quality, which we face today. It is less dependent on active energy systems like mechanical ventilation and electricity from the grid; it is more inclined towards passive energy systems. Integrating vegetation into the built environment has proven in many instances that it increases the self-sufficiency of the users' buildings and well-being, according to R.Hassell, 2017. Nature has always provided inspiration and ideas for the field of innovation. It has always inspired newer living and green solutions for the future, environmental, economic, health, and community benefits. The integration of green vegetation into the buildings has various psychological and physiological benefits over the users To summarize, integrating green building strategies can increase the self-sufficiency index in our structures. The research has explored various computational methods used for similar contexts and related them with green building strategies to design a self-sufficient habitat. The research question mainly revolves around developing a design process that explores computational methods in green buildings and landscapes. After careful deliberation, all investigations are moving towards understanding different aspects and finding the overlaps between these two emerging fields because innovation and new ideas can be explored in that overlap. To summarize, the research question is "How to integrate green building strategies using computational methods to design self-sufficient buildings."

The following project is an exploration of computational tools, parametric design and robotic fabrication in the context of the AMC hospital. This multi-functional and complex structuralist building is due for renovation, both in terms of sustainability but also innovation, technology and place-making. It was an ideal testing ground for the way these new technologies can improve the healing qualities of space, quantitatively and qualitatively (i.e thermal comfort, acoustics, light properties, vegetation, ergonomics, etc). My design consists of a parasitic intervention or pavilion within the public areas of the AMC that integrates several parameters through variable scales and porosity and can be materialized through additive manufacturing. It also displays the interesting dynamic of how non-standard architecture can enhance standard architecture. The research and methods utilized can be transferred to other fields as well, since the scripting and algorithms developed are applicable through a wide array of projects.

In a quest to breathe new life into public spaces and engage with its today’s increasingly (inter-)connected users, robotic architectural components seem to open up possibilities to give agency to building component. A new field of research has been involving multi-agent robotic systems in the architectural design and/or fabrication process. They require a new understand the built environment as an “adaptive ecology” composed of autonomous agents that interact with each other and their nearby environment (users and context). I am proposing the examination of a multi-agent system composed of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) that can collaborate together to self-assemble into structures that are user-interactive and responsive to the local climate conditions. These structures are composed of a many of these ‘drone-bricks’ that form shelters that can grow and morph to accommodate users’ changing positions and movements through time. They are able to modulate environmental conditions such as wind and rain shelters, daylight penetration and the acoustic resonance of the space. This architecture is directly informed by the users’ activities, environmental conditions, and other information flows. It relies on principles of emergence, indeterminacy and generative design. This architecture has no blueprint but is self-organising; it is processual, indeterminate and continuously in formation, as opposed to the dominance of static, predetermined forms and functions in the organisation of the environment today. How to translate these architectural intents (performative and qualitative metrics) to a swarm of UAVs in an attempt to create a robotic architectural ‘species’ where autonomous agents collaborate to form temporary shelters that respond to local environmental conditions and human interactions? The research, simulation and prototyping rely on a behavioural and praxiological approach to architectural design that establishes a feedback loop between the algorithmically-encoded robotic capacities (behaviours), the material properties (morphogenetic processes) and sensing capabilities (neurological processes) of the agents and the emergent interactions and their self-organization in the environment in real-time. This project attempts to look at the ways these behaviours are digitally coded and physically expressed, as well as evaluate the overall agency granted to the system through the implementation of these behaviours with the overarching aim of developing new relationships between space and users through multi-agent robotic systems.

With a declining mining industry, Canada is looking for new models of economy. Arctic Eco-Tourism has already started growing over the last decade and is expected to grow even more rapid in future. This brings the chance of economic growth and employment. But it is also a danger¬ous situation for nature. Since the Canadian north is to more than 98% untouched, uncontrolled growth of traditional building complexes must not destroy nature as is already did in the south. The concept suggests combining two aspects of Canadian past with one of the future. The declared goal is not to destroy any more nature by infrastructure of insensible build-ings for tourism. The site of the Diavik Diamond Mine has been chosen for two things: First, to re-naturalize the area by money made from tourism. Second, to build an invisible starting point for Eco-Tourism in this area. The huge holes, which have been the result of a process called open-pit-mining, are a perfect spot to implement a building on a site from which nature was already banished. Another main point is to use the old airfield as infrastructure for tourism. No additional streets need to be built. The aim is to create a resource efficient and fully autocratic building complex for arctic Eco-Tourism. This complex will mainly offer temporary accommodation for tourists. It is the goal to use this project to examine the opportunities with robotically fabricated CLT structures as prefabricated building parts.

The story started from the invisible river Senne on the urban scale of Brussels, concentrating on the wall which is both spolia on site and the identity of my youth center. The archaeological idea of Spolia keeps me discovering the existing value, then constantly thinking of collecting, composing and re-using. Once existing fragments collide with new ones, the process of bricolage comes up. The wall on site is the ghost of Senne that could be seen as spolia on immaterial, but now it became the backdrop of people’s lives in the neighborhood, where the youths there are facing issues such as stigmatization. The strategy of the urban proposal and architectural part is to use the wall as a frame to turn the situation from segregation and at the meanwhile to break youths’ mental wall. The old wall owns the collective memory, speaks for space. That’s why the walls teach.

The project is situated in the city of Vienna, Austria, and attempts to connect two divided quarters of the city. Over the years inhabitants from both sides of the city have become more disconnected. By retelling the story of Maurice Ravel's 'La Valse' in an architectural sculpture, I will attempt t reconnect the two groups of people. Using basic music- and color theory I will translate his musical ideas into architectural form. Musically, the structure will translate into an architectural circulation diagram, where volumes are placed accordingly. A vector field will establish a relationship between the volumes. Material distribution and detailing will be informed by the musical color, and will have input by acoustics, porosity and lighting. Finally I will reflect upon the parametric design process - how it has helped the flow of data and design, and what new opportunities it may bring in the future.

Eventually either the oil and gas supply will be exhausted, or society will develop methods to rely completely on eco-friendly energy sources. What will then happen to the oil industry and their factories and structures? In this hypothetical situation, offshore drilling rigs, structures made of billions of euros worth of steel and concrete, will need to be repurposed. These highly sophisticated platforms and jackets resist storms, frequent waves (resonance), and salt water. These abandoned rigs provide society with the opportunity to repurpose, and even extend the site over and under water. Humans are facing the dangerous consequences of the climate change. Especially the population of the Netherlands, which has to face rising sea levels. An undesired, nor not impossible scenario, would be the loss of livable land due to flooding. The loss of building and living area would result in drastic changes to the means of life. On the one hand, we need to research possibilities to slow down the process, and also change our way of life. However, on the other hand, we must look for concepts and design proposals to support a lifestyle with radical climate changes. Our society, human behavior, and cities are changing due to the exponential progress of technology. How are we going to live in a future, and which role will architecture play in an augmented world? It might emerge as a balancing act between utopia and dystopia, between the total dependency and repression of the machines and the freedom to achieve more than we ever imagined. Society’s addiction to technical devices emphasizes the urgency at hand to begin to work with new technologies instead of denying the process categorically.

In the current times, the world context is focused on trying to incorporate hybridity into various industries. There is a certain research gap between architecture and soft robotics where inflatable architecture has been implemented and architectural robotics has also been implemented but a combination of pneumatic robotics has not been explored much. In this aim, my thesis explores the possibility of integrating Soft robotics into an architectural design approach leading to the symbiosis of digital and physical. The goal of the thesis is to develop a computational design approach for integrating spatial experience into design. The Intersection of robotics and spatial design explores a new tangent in architecture where the relationship between the human and space is constantly challenged and enhanced using sensors, actuators, responsive materials and ambient intelligence. The design represents an ever-changing living environment where human social behaviour not necessarily with space dictates the plasticity of the environment. The soft robots would be used as a means to highlight and explore how spaces could react to humans on a material scale.

Hospitals fulfill an important function within the healthcare systems, providing complex and specialized care. Healthcare continues to evolve into more effective forms of care and thus benefiting those in need. While care changes the physical hospital rarely does, resulting in hospital architecture which leaks the quality to contribute to and improve the users wellbeing. This design thesis explores a large scale architectural intervention strategy that improves the hospital architecture of the AMC Amsterdam through means parametric and computational design. The intervention focuses on spatial redistribution of function based on trends and innovations in healthcare. Resulting in vacant space available for spatial interventions. In order to increase wellbeing the intervention focusses on the themes of nature, exercises, sight and daylight. Creating an biophilic experiential structure that connects vertically and horizontally on the various floors. Enabling patients to move, stay and experience the intervention each on their own manner, while simultaneously creating an healing environment that improves patients wellbeing.

3D Printing is an emerging manufacturing technology that is in a research and prototyping stage in the construction industry. This research presents a governance framework for construction projects in which large scale freeform 3D printing is applied, based on empirical data of 7 case studies. The observed governance in the case studies is a combination of existing governance models for construction projects, product design and innovation. Traditional project governance was found to be invalid for 3D printed objects. For these objects a product design approach is required. Based on the best practices and challenges observed in the case studies, governance structures were designed for two types of projects: construction projects in which 3D printed components are applied, and a building in which the majority is 3D printed. Both scenario's will be competitive with traditional practice for specific projects and/or components, and are expected to be introduced in the construction industry in the medium term future (2-5 years).

Vacancy is and remains a serious problem in today's office landscape. Many spaces and buildings are unable to adapt to the modern knowledge economy is shifting towards. This project attempts to provide a solution for disconnected, vacant offices spaces, particularly through the integration of parametric architecture. The redevelopment of the vacant floors of the Marconitowers, situated in the Merwevierhaven in Rotterdam, is the end result of this proposal.

Globalization and urbanization produce large amount of space, which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity. This kind of non-places creates neither singular identity nor relations; only solitude and similitude, especially for those metropolises, like Shanghai. Shanghai is described as the place where eastern culture meets the western one, due to its colonial history. In the 1990s, rapid re-development and economic reforms began in Shanghai. Shanghai is one of the fastest developing cities in the world and has been described as the “showpiece” of the booming economy of mainland China. On the other hand, the structure of the society also changed subsequently. The relationship between the urban space and people need to be re-examined. The research of the graduation project starts from research’s personal life experience. Shanghai People’s square is in the center area of Shanghai, it is one of the top tourist destinations in the city and metro station of People’s square is one of the busiest interchange station. Such space used to be attractive to people due to its special historical and cultural background. But now its identity is challenged, becoming a pass-by place more than a destination. My graduation project is determined to dissolve the social and cultural alienation and to repair the relationship between people and space.