The Graduation Studio of Interiors Buildings Cities (2021-2022) investigates the possible future of the National Bank of Belgium, located in the city of Brussels. The bank as a collective system has been recently scrutinized due to persistent climate change. As Brussels is working towards a Doughnut Economy Model, the National Bank of Belgium investing in climate destructing companies is contradictory. This Graduation Project re-grounds the institution of The National Bank of Belgium to represent the environmental responsibilities that the bank caries towards society today. The co-existence of species, human and non-human, within the social and physical context of the Future Bank is investigated in this Graduation Project.

The Graduation Studio of Interiors Buildings Cities (2021-2022) examines the possible future of the National Bank of Belgium, located in the city of Brussels. The Bank as a collective system has recently come under scrutiny because of the ongoing climate change and the switch from physical to digital payments. The municipality of Brussels is working on improving the city through a slow traffic mobility plan, creating green connections and changing the economic shape in Brussels. Meanwhile, the National Bank of Belgium stands like a closed fortress at a critical point in Brussels. In this graduation project, the National Bank of Brussels as an institution offers new terrain through the creation of a radical opening to create a connection from the lower part of Brussels to the upper part of the city and creating a new connection that contributes to a better mobility in the city.

The new design for the Flemish Museum of Contemporary Art (VMHK) endeavoured to provide a contemporary interpretation of the nineteenth and twentieth century warehouse architecture, translated into a contemporary art museum. The 'Warehouse for Art' symbolizes its role as a repository for the museum’s knowledge and art, while at the same time identifying with the genius loci of the former port identity found along the Scheldt river and its surrounding brick buildings. This industrial character is neutral, but not as aseptic as a characterless white cube and does not lose itself in architectural caprices. Moreover, the design its flexibility makes the building adaptable for its upcoming function as a museum and the ones after, thus making it future-proof. Simultaneously, the design questions the conventional notion of a contemporary museum, aiming to transcend its exclusive institutional character and function as a public building instead. Within this pursuit of an 'anti-museum', the warehouse exemplifies a departure from the typical museum typology. Instead it represents a typology that contemporary art museums have discovered in industrial heritage and can fit into newly constructed buildings of the twenty-first century as well.

MHKA (Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp), is a museum established in the 1970's. Given spatial and characteristic requirements, it is seeking for an expansion and reestablishment in the wide art scene in Antwerp. The MHKA has deep roots in the city itself, including public inclusivity and how people have been experiencing art in various ways. From open public events, to temporary exhibitions, the museum centralizes itself around this ideology and wills to expand this to a greater scale. The new museum, VMHK, is a result of this will. From facilitating isolated art galleries to open forums on different levels, the museum is a place to gather, discuss, experiment and experience. With adaptable spaces that host a variety of public activities; the establishment seeks to act as a ground for inter & intra dialogues for the people, for the art and for the city. It becomes an unfiltered, common ground that embodies the institution's stance and character towards art & people.

In summary, the design proposal is a new building for the contemporary art museum the M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerpen), which in the future will be the Flemish oriented contemporary art museum VMHK (Flemish Museum of Contemporary Art). The project location is the existing court of appeal on the Zuiderdokken in Antwerp. The existing building will be demolished because of spatial and technical requirements and will make room in my proposal for a new museum: The building arises from the park, which the building faces. A landscape slopes up to the building's public ‘forum’ space. It is a raised level, where one can look over the flood defenses onto the river, while the art handling truck enters the building underneath. This artificial landscape, which forms the base of the building, consists entirely of recycled concrete, with various repurposed aggregate materials. Above the forum space rises a large volume, a biobased box, with all the 'silent program' of the museum. The careful placement of circulation cores allows for large art spaces.

During the worldwide pandemic between 2020 and 2022, lockdowns were instigated. Working from home became the norm for almost two years. This has caused the needs and preferences of employees and employers regarding work and the workplace to change for good. As a result, the common preference for implementing more remote work in the post-pandemic era grew. This combination of remote work and in-office work is named a hybrid strategy. Many services and public sector managers plan to create a hybrid workplace to support these preferences. However, the research toward this post-pandemic office is in its starting blocks. Furthermore, creating a workplace is complex, and no one-size-fits-all solution exists. Managers must find a future workplace that aligns with their organisational beliefs, values, strategy, and assets. How these characteristics are used to transition toward a hybrid workplace remains unclear. This research aims to understand how organisational characteristics are used to transition to a hybrid workplace. This knowledge can serve as a map for managers planning to initiate a similar transition and as a backbone for further research towards future workplaces. A literature study first identifies the organisational characteristics by introducing a corporate real estate asset management model. Then, case studies are performed on implemented hybrid workplaces to collect data on how characteristics are used in a transition. Cases are collected from the client pool of the graduation organisation Dev_ real estate, a real estate advisor with experience with hybrid workplaces. Three cases are selected based on various selection criteria. The workplace can be seen as a complex issue. Therefore, a qualitative approach is used to analyse the various perspectives and data sources in-depth. Data is collected from semistructured interviews, exploring the views and experiences of the participants open-endedly. The participants are the architect, the project manager, the organisational manager, and the employee. Other sources are internal reports and floor plans. The data is collected, reduced, and coded based on the model introduced in the literature. A within-case and cross-case analysis are performed to identify the similarities and differences between the cases and literature. The analysis identifies a common sequencing of organisation characteristics used in all cases. The research also concludes that the neglect or ignorance of certain characteristics causes the hybrid workplace to remain unaligned with organisational values after completion. Furthermore, the management model used during this research is critically and improved for future post-Covid research.

This project stems from an interest in institutions and the materialisation of politics within them, implicit and explicit. Art and architecture both have the capacity to be a scaffolding upon which protest and proposition of alternative relations can be built and communicated. While museum and art has always been implicated in commercial and political reality of power and authority, with the retreat of public funding and an increase in private, there is a gap which museums try to fill by adopting business strategies of shopping malls to cover the huge costs of heating, cooling and dehumidifying their expansive interiors in addition to competing with the private art market. At the same time, they strive to maintain their authority through institutional responsibility towards the society. The aim of my project is to question the role and impact of architecture in the politics of a museum, with an understanding of the complex reality of museum-making. The interrogation of the original competition brief for the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (M HKA) with regards to the budget, the spatial ambitions or demands, and the fundamental sustainability of resources, led me to propose why an alternative proposal for the M HKA could and should be put forward. The economic and spatial arguments, together with my position towards the climate crisis and research on the history of the institution, have resulted in a proposition radically different from the original brief, but still very much connected to it and resulting from it. Adapting the existing courthouse building on site for a public archive of contemporary art not only allows a more intelligent budget distribution, but forces different power relations with regards to public funding, its responsibilities and sense of permanence. Densifying and reducing the amount of space required for art encourages more targeted architectural decisions, other types of spaces, actually fitting more appropriately into the existing courthouse building. This project inscribes itself in a trend of public archives, while at the same time taking a critical position of an outsider-insider. The adaptation of the courthouse for the new MHKA allows a unique focus on the processes before and during the construction, acting as an event in the city, making transparent the process of change and adaptation. The architecture of the new museum will be an expression of its positioning towards art, the public and the city. As my graduation project, it also expresses my position towards an uncritical building culture of competitions, ethical and professional sensitivity to the larger social and environmental context. By preserving the court building, I argue that embodied carbon is as valid an argument against demolition as heritage value and by interrogating and negotiating the demands of the competition brief against its budget, type of institution and the current economic, political and ecological reality, I question the role and responsibility of the architect in the face of multiplicity of crises.

This year‘s graduation studio of Interiors Building Cities focuses on the redevelopment of the M HKA (Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen) in Belgium. In the context of an industrial metropolis like Antwerp, museums have evolved from spaces of representation and power structures to spaces for critique. Artists have repurposed disused structures in the city, including those left behind by the contemporary city, giving rise to new forms of art and the formation of art collectives and institutions since the 1960s. These spaces now serve as platforms for the public to engage with and learn about contemporary art and its significance in our society. They showcase a diverse range of mediums, from paintings and sculptures to photography, video, installations, and performance art. Additionally, educational programs and events are offered to enhance visitors‘ understanding of the art and the creative processes behind it. With the redevelopment and relocation project, M HKA aims to establish a Flemish museum of contemporary art on a new site in the southern part of Antwerp. While the client‘s brief emphasizes the need for static sequences of spaces and programs, it fails to address the potential for unpredictable changes and user demands. Public institutions must bring flexibility to the forefront of architectural design, particularly when dealing with so-called obsolete buildings. This perspective is evident in the new site‘s design, where the planned demolition of a former court building is the only justification given in the brief. In my graduation design, I critique this decision by proposing to retain most of the existing structure, using it as the foundation for new towers on the site.

This project aims to take advantage of the leftover space in the city and create a new type of public space in the high-density low rise residential area. It contains three parts: firstly, renovating the existing infrastructure---the funicular on the site, which is an important feature of Valparaiso. However, as the development of other modern transportation, the funiculars have been gradually abandoned in recent years. To reserve this unique icon, it is essential to apply a new function and social role to it. This project combined funicular with a community center and create different activities along the funicular track. Secondly, renovating four abandon housings and creating several different projects, which are supposed to be “bookshop”,”sharing kitchen”,”day care center”, and” bakery“ to meet the need of locals. Together with the design of the vertical parks, this site will become a community center with its own characteristics.

The process of identifying, interpreting, and implementing societal values in university education is an essential part of responsible innovation and designing for equitable, inclusive, and sustainable societies. While there is now a well-defined and growing body of research on the theory and application of designing for values (or ‘value sensitive design’), at present the pedagogical dimension remains underexplored. Teaching Design for Values: A Companion is a resource for teachers of design-based disciplines who wish to foreground values more explicitly in their classes. With fourteen chapters written by both TU Delft educators and international contributors, the book aims to examine the concepts, methods and experiences of teaching design for values within a variety of fields, including urbanism, engineering, architecture, artificial intelligence and industrial design. Through its multi-disciplinarity, Teaching Design for Values proposes an expanded definition of ‘design’ to encompass a broad range of disciplines and processes that deal generally with ‘future-imagining’ and ‘futurebuilding’, including process management. In doing so it explores the ways that values may be expressed and analysed in a variety of different pedagogical contexts.@en

The process of identifying, interpreting, and implementing societal values in university education is an essential part of responsible innovation and designing for equitable, inclusive, and sustainable societies. While there is now a well-defined and growing body of research on the theory and application of designing for values (or ‘value sensitive design’), at present the pedagogical dimension remains underexplored. Teaching Design for Values: A Companion is a resource for teachers of design-based disciplines who wish to foreground values more explicitly in their classes. With fourteen chapters written by both TU Delft educators and international contributors, the book aims to examine the concepts, methods and experiences of teaching design for values within a variety of fields, including urbanism, engineering, architecture, artificial intelligence and industrial design. Through its multi-disciplinarity, Teaching Design for Values proposes an expanded definition of ‘design’ to encompass a broad range of disciplines and processes that deal generally with ‘future-imagining’ and ‘futurebuilding’, including process management. In doing so it explores the ways that values may be expressed and analysed in a variety of different pedagogical contexts.@en

This dissertation puts together planning documents and multiple archival sources to demonstrate how urban planning and the role of planners have evolved in an ever-changing transnational context of Iran. It challenges the prevailing approach in the literature of Tehran urban studies that simply flattens the complexity of local-foreign collaboration and labels transnational planning of Tehran a top-down “Westernization” project. To depict a more nuanced picture of Tehran master planning at the time of transnational exchange and rapid urban growth, this dissertation introduces a new engaging and argumentative periodization with four distinct phases which brings transnational planning of Tehran to the fore, while reflecting on diverse political and socio-economic upheavals between 1930-2010. Dissection of Tehran master plans in each period through the lens of multiple actors offers a unique opportunity for a renewed interpretation of transnational planning of Tehran and the way Iranian planners steered Tehran urban developments while engaging with foreign experts and their planning systems. It presents a detailed analysis of overarching ‘ideas’ behind each plan, their translation to urban ‘policies’ and later on their broader (un)wanted ‘impact’ on the city and its regions. By recognizing a great diversity in transnational approach in Tehran planning practices, the dissertation concludes with how transnationalism first gave rise to the formation of the modern planning system and how later on led to contestations against it which revolutionized the role of urban planners and the political agenda for Tehran urban growth....@en

M HKA museum of co-existence. This graduation project rethinks the open museum through co-existing. A public institution in today’s day and age should not only be used by regular museum visitors. According to me the institution also serves a role in the city and neighbourhood it sits in. Especially in Antwerp, a multicultural city with people from very diverse backgrounds, I envision my museum as an important place for gathering and encounter for these diverse people in the city: non-museum visitors with encounter as a first way of mutual acceptance and co-existing.This theme of “co-existing” is furthermore expanded with co-existing between humans and non-humans. My project is about creating a truly open museum: not only for humans but also for non-humans, as there is a necessity to do this. Cities are becoming more and more densified by buildings, and this means that the city’s ecosystems get disturbed with less space for insects, birds, bats and plants. Extensive research into the urban ecosystems in nature have led to strategies to invite a new, wider audience to the museum: animals and plants. I’m creating a dialogue between park and buildings. By inviting nature, into and around the building, spaces become bio pleasant and comfortable. Two of these spaces are the Urban Living Room and Winter Garden. By doing this and using plants inside for a healthy atmosphere, I’m also able to invite non-museum visitors to the museum. Just like a living organism, the museum is flexible in its use and adapts to the changing conditions (summer/winter and day/night). During the design, the cycles of nature were a key inspiration. The projects aims to set an example with regards to the nature inclusive design strategy and the topic of co-existing (between humans & between humans and non-humans) as these topics are two relevant and important topics which are applicable to many densified and multicultural cities in the world.

The Flemish Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA) is an institution strongly rooted in the existing fabric and socio-political framework of Antwerp South. The museum is located on the outskirts of the city, which has undergone consistent urban development and urban planning as the city grew into one of the most diverse metropolitan areas in Europe. In this development, the Antwerp Museum of Contemporary Art gradually sought to evolve with society and make way for a larger institutional purpose that pushed the museum agenda towards a more formal and generic interpretation of art spaces and how they are interpreted in light of the current zeitgeist. In my final project, I revisit the meaning of art presentation in relation to cultural building by reconnecting with MKHA’s historic approach of capturing the essence of conserving and presenting contemporary art, an identity and genesis of an institution that has curated its growing collection between less conventional building layout and architectural fabric. My design proposal is based on the sustainable idea and design language of reusing existing building tissue, specifically the former courthouse building which is assigned for the new developments of the M HKA or at the time entitled: Vlaams Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst (VMHK). A building typology that exists of two prefabricated office towers that are connected by a low-rise structural addition and entrance. Here, the practice of preserving and exhibiting art in an anti-museum condition becomes relevant again through the presence of existing structure and building layout, which, in resemblance to the former MHKA building, reinforces this familiar identity in which exhibiting art bears the title ‘symbiosis between’ anti-museum condition and institutional purpose.