New Urban Front investigates how waterfront densification can contribute to interiorizing the Maas river in Rotterdam. In the past decade, the post-industrialization of Rotterdam's docks has created a new urban front: the Maas. However, this waterfront lacks character and scale, while water and city lost their programmatic relation after industry migrated out of the city. A mixed-use high density transversal typology is proposed at the Linker Veerdam, the historic crossing of the Maas river, to heal this schism and place water back at the center of urban memory. A sectional base, large floating plinth, and towers connect water and city with a programmatic cut and add urban scale to the river. Urban program is loaded onto the river by introduction of a boat-in cinema, a Maaspodium opening towards the water, and multiple pools and piers. This creates a multi-layered and multi-scale relation between water and city. By doing so, New Urban Front contributes to interiorizing the Maas river and convert it into the central public space of Rotterdam.

"Air Rights" in New York gives freedom for the super tall towers, while cages low rise buildings which sold their unbuilt. This graduation thesis investigates the future possibilities for the lots which sold their air rights. By exploring underground space, this project solves urgency of limited buildable spaces, and tests how to make subterranean space inviting. It is also a critic of achieving density and verticality by only introducing high rise towers in New York.

As big player architecture has been the main shaper of the NYC skyline this thesis sought to find the answer to which industry would follow to built the next addition. The result is a vertical tech campus where the new york office is mixed with the california campus to create a flagship store/office for the fictional client Google inc.

Public space in Manhattan is mainly generated through a mechanism called Privately Owned Public Spaces, shortly POPS, allowing developers to construct taller buildings in exchange for the provision of public space. As a result of this incentivizing mechanism there are countless manifestations of public private contradiction in the city of New York. Furthermore, the city's process of densification results in a shift from a monotonous office environment into a mixed-use living environment - inherent to this change is a desire for a new type of public space that fosters healthy densification. The main question of this project relates to how such a new type of public could evolve, taking into account the critical force of privatization. In order to explore the main question, this project speculates on the contradictory nature of public space production by means of the design for an extremely private NSA office, which through its constrains for security and privacy, generates a unique public housing and sportscenter. The project reveals the potential of integrating mutually exclusive private and public worlds into a singular structure, while at the same time highlighting that the debate on densification is one of zoning regulations rather than spatial-architectural design.

The digitalization of labor – enabled by the rise of the Internet and digital technologies – began a redefinition of architecture typologies. The typologies of Home and Office, once seen as stable and fixed, with clear distinctions, are now blurring their boundaries towards each other. The ubiquity of the network has spread work outside of the office and, as a result, the boundaries of these two dimensions are diluted in the realm of an omnipresent and interconnected reality. New phenomena are emerging. Every place, as long as connected to the network, becomes a productive one, even the most private and intimate: the home. How is this shift concretizing in architectural design? The productive home project aims to give tangible and spatial form to the contemporary condition of labor, unfolding the blurred line between domesticity and productivity. The project has been thought out as a series of designed scenario: each of them aim to reflect upon the relationship between the working and living sphere: from blurred to sharply separated, the goal is to express the different nuances of the contemporary condition of Labor.

With global urbanization, cities all around the world are changing. Rotterdam is expected to grow significantly in the upcoming decades and therefore will experience densification. This densification takes shape in the form of Rotterdam’s high-rise strategy and will have a direct influence on the way residents live in the inner city center of Rotterdam. Therefore, the need for leisure amenities in dense area’s is of significant importance. With leisure-time being an important part of the day, investing in a wide range of amenities is crucial for a city center. In this project, the focus is on leisure sports, which is known as a space consuming function. This results in the following research question: How can space consuming leisure sports be implemented in a densified city center, in order to be a social condenser? The design assignment will be a leisure sports facility in the city center of Rotterdam. This building aims to engage the residents in sports and social activities and thus intensify their social interaction. By looking to other countries, this project can be a future migration of the Athletic Club; a combination of a social club and a sports club. This typology is the main reference for the final design; a tower filled with stacked sport facilities and social amenities.

The ambition of the project for the new public library in Beirut is one that explores how architectural space can facilitate this synergy between digital information and books. Through the integration of digital media in architecture and its interactive aspects, information can become more accessible to users. Beirut is historically known for being the intellectual center of the middle east. Hosting high quality schools and possessing a cosmopolitan character, Beirut truly put its mark on the map. Despite this reputation, Lebanon now finds itself struggling with urgent crises surrounding education and knowledge. The most important factor in the crises is the socioeconomic disparities in the access to knowledge and education. Currently there is a lack in public learning spaces and buildings in Beirut. Due the absence of a public library or learning space in the city, Beirutians have little access to knowledge and this access is determined by their social class. By satisfying the need for a public library there is a potential to address the social fragmentation of Beirut and minimize this fragmentation. This learning space should not only respond to the current needs of the city, but also to the future of Beirut. Economically, there is a national shift from service sector to IT sector. It is expected that Lebanon will grow further in the IT sector due to its national and regional competitive advantage. The same trend is seen in globally, where digitalization is becoming more and more apparent in our daily lives. This new way of living influences the library typology, where printed and non-printed information can be found. The way we learn is evolving due to this fast paced growth of technology. Conventional learning is teacher- centered. This type of learning typically refers to learning situations where the teacher is the main source for learning. This is also visible in conventional libraries, where the buildings are book centered. With the rise of technology however, there is new trend of learning which shifts from teacher-centered to student-centered learning. This means that the subject learns through different sources of knowledge, due to the accessibility of it through technology. In contemporary library buildings, this shift is visible where the building’s main element is not only books. In other words, typology is becoming less book centered and more user-centered. The library is not only a collection but an experience where multiple types of information come together. How can these different media be interwoven and work together to create an optimal library experience? In most contemporary buildings, these two types of information are quite segregated in the building. But how can these two ways of information be interwoven and work together to create an optimal library experience? The research question for this project is: What role can a public learning space play in the reconstruction of Beirut and how can it spatially facilitate the local and global digitalization of information?

In the coming 20 years, the city centre of Rotterdam will face a new wave of constructions, with the goal of densify the area with new 50.000 dwellings before the 2040, converting the city centre towards a more residential and international character. This up-coming densification of Rotterdam, led by the high-rise strategy developed by the Municipality, it is going define a border condition between the new high-rise developments and the historical neighbourhoods, such as the case of Cool Zuid and Baankwartier, causing a disrupted relationship between the built environment, the public space, and the human scale, creating tension and dichotomy. Within this scenario, what could it be a different catalyst event, different from the high-rise strategy, that will lead the future of this neighbourhood, preserving its human scale while accommodating the future of the city? And so, “How is public space going to be reconsidered within the international character and the high-rise strategy of Rotterdam?”. Therefore, if the Municipality of Rotterdam will be more focused on the skyline of the city, the goal of the Open & Closed is to explore the so-called “groundline” of Rotterdam.Thus, the Open public space that today is only perceived as playground, a fixed mono-functional use, in the coming years it will be re-thought and designed as a more informal public space, where different users will start to interact and co-exist. Meanwhile, the Closed public space will be a new Performing arts centre, where the already present activities such as dance, music and theatre studios in the area will be reallocated in one public building. However, it will be important to make a strong synergy between the Open & Closed public space, made of visual and physical relationships that architecture can create, together with a public program to engage a broader audience, in response to the future growth and needs of Rotterdam.

The traffi c network of Midtown is under an enormous pressure, with a subway system that has deteriorated to such a dismal state that nearly all available funds go into maintenance and overhaul. Since Manhattan is an island and there are a limited number of access points, these connections are even more congested. For commuting to and from the island the subway has always been the most used mode of transport, but the poor conditions have recently led to a decline in the usage and has stimulated the rapid growth of ride-hail and carsharing services e.g. Uber, VIA Van & Lyft. Especially the underserviced, East and West areas of Midtown which are overpassed by the connection, benefi t from the expansion of this new extended transport network. On the other hand Midtown keeps on developing and growing. With more and more homes being built, which is leading to more inhabitants whom all need to move within the city. This leads to the question: “How can the entry points of Midtown contribute to a greater mobility of the city?” The project investigates the way new and old transport modes can be connected. The project is a 45,000 m2 mobility hub and Tesla city headquarters showcasing a new type of mobility hub in Midtown connecting rideshare, ride-hailing, the subway and Tesla’s future mobility ideas. The building consist of two main components, the Tesla offi ces and a parking and charging places for over 800 cars. The project is located near the busiest bridge (Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge) to Manhattan, the Frank D. Roosevelt Highway, The East river and the N,R,W subway lines. The project researches the new connections between the aspects mentioned above.

In an era when rising threats put increasing pressure on security demands in state office buildings, the public trust in these same governmental institutions is on the decline, owing to a sense of detachment and lack of transparency. This detachment partially stems from the functional and physical separation of people’s civic and political lives, leaving public officials as uncountable, a separated class unresponsive to the everyday people, who in turn can glance little of the everyday working of their government. In other words: it is easier to pass unfavourable legislation when you never interact with the common people and sit in your fortress hidden from protests. For these reasons, the future must see the creation of new governmental spaces that are public in nature, but also safeguarded from new dynamic threads. New design approaches in established typologies need to be sought to answer these relationship questions that stem from new state, societal, and technological developments. The Graduation Project ‘Fortress Without Barriers‘ seek to explore these issues of security and accessibility by using a scenario involving the design of a new Federal Ministry of Defence headquarters in Berlin. At first glance this typology might be perceived as ill suited to the integration of public life, even agitative. But rather the project places it as the ultimate test for whether these values can be effectively expressed in an urban context. Defence Ministry being the most prime domain of security, on the scale of city within a city, and placing the most private and secured programme imaginable alongside the proposed public functions.

What relationship can a cemetery have with the city? Since the first garden cemetery was built in the early nineteenth century, this concept spread rapidly throughout Europe. Until now garden cemetery is still the common form of cemeteries in European cities. With the concept of garden cemetery, cemeteries exist in the urban fabric as a public space represented by nature and landscape attributes. The emergence of this relationship is closely related to the demand for burialbased burial forms. For a long time, this relationship has given the cemetery a natural and green identity, which is also the common perception of the cemetery among citizens. Has this relationship changed? In the context of the Complex Project, Building Body Berlin course, this research design will focus specifically on Berlin, Germany. The existence of the German cemetery law, known as “Der Friedhofszwang“, makes cemetery burial mandatory in Germany. Along with this law of compulsory burials, the demand for cemeteries has a huge quantitative basis in Germany. However, according to the research of cemetery development plan of Berlin in 2006, since the end of the 20th century, the cemeteries (mainly garden cemetery) in Berlin have roduced a large amount of vacancy. These idle cemeteries consume a lot of operating and maintenance costs. This phenomenon does not mean that the demand for cemeteries has declined. On the contrary, the demand for cemeteries in Berlin is still increasing. Moreover, with the aging of the population in Germany, the death rate and the number of deaths have risen, and Berliners’ demand for cemeteries will continue to increase in the future. The increase in demand for cemeteries does not appear to coincide with the reduction in cemetery size. It is this inconsistency that helps us see the problem for what it is. The reason for this lies in the transformation of the form of burials. As cremation has grown in popularity, people have increasingly turned to other forms of burial, such as burial of ashes and placement in columbariums. According to statistics, the proportion of cremation in Germany has reached more than 75%. Compared with the traditional form of burying coffins, the land area required for the new burial form represented by cremation is greatly reduced. Statistics show that compared with the average area of 12 square meters in traditional burial coffins, the average area of urns placed in columbariums is only 0.5 square meters. This huge change has also led to a continuous reduction in the core space actually used in the cemetery. Therefore, more and more cemeteries can no longer assume the role of urban public green space due to the reduction of the core use area. Although this phenomenon of quantitative change has not accumulated to produce qualitative change, we can still see the urgent need for the transformation of the cemetery. So how can the cemetery provide a new value as an urban public space? This research design process will ask questions around this question and offer a possible solution.

​Europe Central Station is a new kind of station in the global railway network, airming to replace air travel with a more environmentally sustainable option. This thesis conducted research on the essential requirements for designing an intercontinental train station, anticipating a future where train travel becomes the standard mode of transportation. As a result, new programs such as border security measures and well-designed arrival and departure halls were implemented. In addition, it illustrates how such a large train station can be strategically positioned within the city of Berlin, serving as a catalyst for future urban development. It also shows how such a large train station can be designed, providing an efficient, safe, and comfortable travel experience for the passengers.

Since the neoliberal implementation in the government plans of Rotterdam in 1987, the vision of the city changed quite radically. A decade before the change, the city rejected high-rise buildings. But since this new vision, called ‘Nieuw Rotterdam’, got approved, Rotterdam implemented a high-rise vision which made the city as it is today; defined by a modern character and full of high-rise buildings, at least for Dutch standards. Yet, this high-rise implementation is only a small attribution of the conducted vision that was established in the late previous century. Neoliberal implementation goes further than merely implementing American-like high-rise buildings. It concerns the economics; particularly the liberation of the market and the multinational business trend that defines the contemporary economical appearances of both city and country. Since the drastic changes in city vision, Rotterdam opened up its borders and adopted a desire for foreign business, to upgrade their economical game and compete against the economic prosperity of other cities. Rotterdam therefore changed quite radically since Nieuw Rotterdam was practically implemented. Its buildings grew, its habitants grew and it became a popular place for tourists. In the Netherlands, Rotterdam is known today for their rich modern architecture and its modern appearance. However, the aspect of business, is less thriving. While it started to aim at welcoming more foreign business about thirty years ago, Rotterdam today is still struggling to find and welcome foreign companies and multinational business into its city. One of the primary reasons for this, is that both the city centre and its economical heart of the RCD, lacks an economical identity. Rotterdam did have its identity of the industry and the port, yet the neoliberal growth and privatization of those instances led to the translocation outside the city centre. In addition to this, the economic sector of industry became less favourable, since the tertiary sector of a business service economy predominates a neoliberal oriented city. The project of the Vertical High Tech Campus explores the promising economical sector of high tech in combination with its research and business aspects in an urban environment as a step towards providing a new economic identity for the city of Rotterdam.

Lebanon has been dealing with a multitude of challenges over its history. An massive port explosion in 2020 caused a rapid decline of the Lebanese valuta. The inflation caused an increase of the food prices with 400% since Lebanon is very depended on its food imports. This left people from lower income classes unable to afford proper nutrition. Ironically, the Lebanon is one of the most arable countries in the region, but the people lack the proper tools and knowledge to preform agriculture in a efficient and sustainable manner. In order to reduce the peoples dependence on the food prices, argriculture education is needed in the areas where the people suffer the most. Therefore, the project encompasses an agriculture campus which combines formal and vocational education. The school aims to teach it’s student about sustainable ways of doing agriculture in an urban setting, focusing on the enhancement of biodiversity. The campus hosts both primary and secondary education and teaches agriculture as the main addition to the general classes.

Cities are expanding and populations growing, the phenomenon of global urbanization causes cities to change. Rotterdam is the most progressive vertical urban city in The Netherlands. Starting from the 1990’s Rotterdam’s high-rise strategy caused the city to densify its city center. The vertical expansion is set to grow even more, especially in the city center. Which is expected to grow exponentially as Rotterdam is building more 50.000 homes in the city center aiming for people and most importantly families. Our group vision enforces living in the city center by supporting the city living by redesigning the urban public space and our projects that take on the specific missing functions. One of these important missing functions in the Rotterdam city centre is education. But the conventional Dutch school typology is no longer applicable to the dense urban city. This results in the typology of the urban school which has not yet been explored in the Dutch setting. The Rotterdam Urban School explores new urban educational typologies in a building combining diverse student bodies. The Internal design of the project will enforce 21st century concepts of learning in its design.

How can the national library best accommodate the collection and curation of knowledge to encourage learning in an age of digitalisation? During the graduation studio Complex Projects the role of the national library in Germany was put under investigation. The national library functions as a central place where all published work of the nation is collected. How does the library position themselves to stay relevant for information that can be curated for it to be easily accessible. The use of the building will need to be revised to continue serving its users and engage a new generation and audience. Currently the collection is stored in multiple cities in Germany, which defeats the goal of the national library to centralise the collection. As the collection continued to grow it resulted in buildings with multiple extensions and not optimal storage conditions. The design of the national library emphasises the representation of all media such as books as well as online publications, providing a welcoming space for the public, organising events and encouraging learning.

The skyscraper has since its invention shaped modern cities all over the world. More than any other architectural typologie it embodies the social-economic tendencies of the context in which it arises. As our urban ideals shift away from a corporate towards a community oriented built environment, aided by the process of densification, the skyscraper will consequently have to change with it. However, its vertical orientation poses serious challenges when it comes to sustaining the social interactive character at the heart of these densification strategies. Therefore the project proposes a rethinking of the standardized elements in tower design, shaping a continuous system of publicly accessible plazas throughout the vertical organization. Plazas that form unique activity spaces that serve both the in-building community as the wider urban neighborhood of the Rotterdam Central District.

Today, we have a variety of options for listening to music whenever and wherever we choose, from CDs and the radio to downloads and online streaming. But prior to the development of this technology, how did people listen to music? Opera was an artform whereby this was possible. No instrument has the power of the human voice to reach the deepest feelings of the human spirit. It is a way to entertain and move people with vocal sounds, supported by an orchestral. Today the day, opera is a pure artform that’s got a bit in the background because of the wide span of activities that society offers us. Nevertheless, it has a rich history and offers a safe space to take a break from the neverending pressure of expectations we have to deal with every day. It offers us a reflection of who we are, how we relate to others, and what it means, collectively and individually, to be human. This research plan investigates how an opera house in Berlin can be designed in such a way it will produce a boost for the artform and will enhance the future improvement of opera Abstract together with the cultural development of Berlin. The idea of designing a framework for a 21st century opera and polishing the ‘dusty‘ imago of the opera will be the key provider for this research. To get an answer to the research the following research question is set up: ‘’How can architecture help to design an opera house in Berlin to boost the popularity of opera performances in the future?’’ The conceptual framework is based on different theories that support different levels of research. Methods such as fieldwork, literature research, and case studies extend assumptions through a varied Scala of knowledge. The outcome of the research will help with the design choices that need to be taken during the process. Furthermore, it can be used as guidelines for new research around the topic of performing arts, and encourage possible design questions regarding the site, the program, and the client of opera houses.

As our society has entered the age of the digital, several problems have risen from the unprecedented amount of information circulation. While indeed the benefits of this instant access to information and data cannot be overstated, one cannot ignore problems such as misinformation. With that in mind, comes the problem of how could architecture deal with a society that is ever more dependent on the immaterial world provided by the digital in the context of politics. This is where the parliament as a building typology factors in. It represents the intersection between political institutions (and by extension the societies they serve) and architecture. As such, the graduation project aims to explore how a parliament would look like in the context of an information society. In short, the proposed answer of the project is injecting a higher degree of publicness to the parliament typology as stressing the physicality of such a political institution is ever more important. By trying to be more inviting to the public and more hones and transparent in regards to how its institution operates, the architecture of the New European Parliament emphasizes why actively engaging the public is crucial in an information society.

The fascination started with the idea that a street is a gettering place for everyone. It is an open space where everybody can come and where people can meet and interact with each other. But is the street designed as a place for interaction? Or is it intended to get from one place to the other? Is the street a logistical way of working, to structure the city and the flow of people? Research has been done about the street, what is a street, and how do we experience a street? To create a better understanding of how streets are designed different street typologies around the world are analyzed. The exciting part about the streets is that they are everywhere, they already designed in a certain way during medieval times. Everage cities exist 1/3 out of streets. Can we see the street still as a public space, or is it occupied by the car? Looking at Rotterdam, 75% of the public space exists of streets, and are mainly occupied by vehicles. So what if we can see the street again as a public space, rather than a place for movement. This research focuses on how the connection between houses and the place for social interaction can increase in the street in relation to the built environment. The research question for this paper: How can the street become a public space through the design of a building? The research question will be tested in Rotterdam city center. Rotterdam is after the bombing design in a car-oriented way, which makes the topic very interesting. Besides of urbanization the big cities becomes denser and denser, this also includes Rotterdam. So the city needs to extend to household all those people. What you can see in Rotterdam is that the centre of the city is slowly moving more to the south. The city’s municipality created a high-rise strategy that will make it possible to house 50.000 more people/houses in the future. But through so, the number of buildings in the center is increasing and the amount of public space decreases. Streets are playing a significant role in the design of the of new households, and to keep the city livable. To test the research question through the design of a building, a specific location in Rotterdam’s center is chosen, called the Kop van Zuid. Through analyzing streets around the world and researching the different aspects of the street. Three main ambitions are defined, which will play an essential role in this project: designing a place for social interaction, establishing a human scale in the city center, and creating a connection between the street and the building.