This graduation project focuses on the adaptive reuse of the former steel cable factory Nedstaal in Alblasserdam. The industrial complex is transformed into a mixed-use complex with public functions and a central public street as a catalyst for future development. Apartments are added on the upper floors.

This project explores the transformation of a former shipyard in Sliedrecht into a resilient, mixed-use neighborhood that reconnects the village with its maritime heritage and the river landscape. Situated outside the primary dike, the site faces flood risk but holds cultural and historical value as part of the “Maritime Industry Heritage Line.”

The design proposes a layered masterplan that integrates housing, public space, and the adaptive reuse of industrial structures. Key heritage elements—such as the crane, slipway, and shipbuilding halls—are preserved and reinterpreted, with the shipyard repurposed into a hotel and conference center. Flood resilience strategies are embedded throughout, using a combination of elevated construction, water-resistant materials, and adaptive landscape design.

Aim: This paper aims to explore various design strategies for revitalising former small-scale
harbours and reinforcing maritime identity in the Water Triangle area, located in the south-western Netherlands.

Problem: The Water Triangle area has a rich maritime history, but its maritime identity has faded over time. Many former harbours in the region have disappeared or become ‘hidden harbours,’ where traces of maritime heritage still exist. Despite their historical significance, these small-scale harbours have not been extensively studied.

Methodology: The research uses several methods, including a literature review, an analysis of a
reference case, and a conceptual design process. These methods help identify and test potential design strategies.

Findings: The study presents nine design strategies, generalised to be applicable to other
contexts. Strategies are tested through a conceptual design process applied to the hidden harbour of Papegat, demonstrating how they can be adapted within a small-scale context.

Research Limitations/Implications: This research focuses on a specific geographical area and one case study, which may limit its direct applicability to other regions. However, the design
strategies offer a framework that can inform similar revitalisation efforts in other historically
significant maritime environments.

Value: By addressing the overlooked small-scale harbours, this study contributes to the broader
knowledge on revitalisation of maritime heritage and identity, and provides a framework for
integrating maritime traces into contemporary
architectural design.

This project proposes to reconnect the hidden, neglected maritime heritage of Sliedrecht with the public realm through spatial, material, and narrative-based design strategies. It is part of the Heritage & Architecture studio, with a focus on transforming maritime heritage into publicly accessible spaces that reinforce local identity and landscape memory.
Located across the Biesbosch, the Delta Shipyard and adjacent watertower embody the layered history of Sliedrecht’s shipbuilding legacy. Through three key strategies—preservation and adaptive reuse, material reuse and sustainability, and storyline and interpretation—the project aims to revive the site without erasing its traces of labor, erosion, and change. Formerly fragmented and inaccessible, the site is reimagined as a continuous, layered landscape where the historical and contemporary overlap through careful spatial interventions.
Historic fragmentation gives way to a layered, accessible environment where memory and use co-exist. By designing with and through the remnants of the shipyard, the project allows the community to re-engage with their maritime past, transforming a former industrial enclave into a collective space for leisure, culture, and reflection, rooted in both site and story.

The Dutch Delta region has a rich history deeply intertwined with water, which has shaped its cultural identity. However, a growing separation between heritage preservation and watermanagement, coupled with the challenges of climate change and rapid urbanization, presents a critical problem. It not only threatens the relationship between people and water but also affects the preservation of both watermanagement and maritime heritage, weakening regional identity. In addition, this separation also causes heritage to be left out of discussions about delta planning, hindering the exploration of water’s potential to link watermanagement and maritime heritage sites and connect the past to the present. This problem raises a fundamental question:
‘How can adaptation, preservation, and reuse of the uiterwaarden reactivate and strengthen the relationship between people and the water of the Dutch Delta?’
The key to addressing this question lies in understanding the historical and cultural significance of water to the inhabitants of the Dutch delta, and how it has shaped the uiterwaarden. The uiterwaarden in urbanized areas acts at present as a physical barrier between people and water due to their assigned industrial and watermanagement functions. However, in the face of a changing industrial landscape, the connection these sites have to water and to history might also give them the potential to connect people to water again. Thus, strengthening regional identity and preserving both watermanagement- and maritime heritage.

In 1299, Count Johannes I van Holland and Count Johannes van Avesnes granted Dordrecht staple rights. Consequently, all goods that were transported over the rivers Merwede and Lek had to be offered on the market of Dordrecht first before they went anywhere else. This secured Dordrecht’s position as a trading city, which it had become due to its strategic location at the intersection of east-west and north-south trade routes. Significant for Dordrecht was the trade of wine, grain, and wood. The latter had already started in 1287. That year, the first known report was made of a German wood raft flowing down the river to Dordrecht. This marked the beginning of Dordrecht as one of the most important Dutch centres of wood trade for more than six centuries.

Physical remnants of the pre-industrial wood trade in the Waterdriehoek, the area around Dordrecht, were looked for during the research part of this thesis. Landscape remnants were found by comparing old maps to current satellite imagery. Timber buildings were found through archival research and fieldwork.

The design focuses on one of the five remaining pre-industrial timber barns in the Waterdriehoek. This barn stands in Kinderdijk, the village that is world famous for its mills. The outer dike barn was part of a shipyard and millrod-producing factory. Its rich history is the starting point of the reconstruction design.

On the other side of the dike stands a former boardhouse of one of the two former waterboards in Kinderdijk. It was built to meet, eat, and sleep in. These functions are again accommodated in the redesign. Meeting rooms, a bakery shop and lunchroom, and a B&B are placed both in the original boardhouse and in newly added nature-friendly barns behind the boardhouse.

These functions serve both the village inhabitants and the tourists who come to see the mills. Its position between the mass tourism zone and the small village prevents the tourists from entering the village, reducing the tourist nuisance for the village inhabitants.

Furthermore, the masterplan design enriches the tourist experience. Routing, functional, and design alterations are made to make the tourist visit complete, logical, and pleasing to the eye.

Architecture embodies cultural, social and historical values which shape the human experience and our identities. Nevertheless, the past and present destructions of historically significant buildings erase part of our collective memory, silencing stories of the past. One solution to the vanishing matter of the past is the reconstruction of those historic structures.
This research aims to explore the process of reconstructing vanished structures to remind of the history rooted within structures, particularly focusing on authenticity. Through tracing the historical background of heritage preservation, official rules and guidelines and the analysis of case studies, a holistic understanding of authenticity beyond tangible aspects is achieved.
A conclusion is drawn that authenticity in reconstructive projects involves preserving the full historical narrative, acknowledging each period – the ‘golden days’ as well as the destruction and absence – within the design.
Within the project developed, the idea of fully representing the historical narrative is tested and applied.

In this project a casestudy is performed on the location of the former steel factory of Mercon Kloos in Alblasserdam. The structures of Kloos are located on an outerdike plot and are of high cultural significance for the Dutch industrial history. Therefore the main challenges is maintaining the structures and tackeling the issue of flooding. Based on casestudies and research the important characteristics of maritime heritage are layed out and combined with the posssibilities of adapative reuse in this context. In this way the structures were adjusted, repurposed and redesigned to ensure a future existence of this heritage site while always maintaining the important heritage characteristics of this location.

The revitalisation project, called 'Navigating Tourism', focuses on the heritage site of Kinderdijk in the province of Zuid-Holland, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. Kinderdijk's historic water management system and landscape, with a striking contrast between the horizontal canals, dikes and fields and the vertical mill systems, are key elements of the site's universal value. The project focuses on the challenges posed by the influx of more than one million tourists per year to the small community of 790 inhabitants.

The study compares Kinderdijk with another heritage village, Zaanse Schans, and identifies common problems such as tourist pressure and the need for better infrastructure. The proposed design aims to streamline tourist access while maintaining the integrity of the site and improving the quality of life for local residents. Key findings include the separation of different mobility flows, the creation of a centralised entrance and the separation of functions for tourists and residents.

Currently, the point of arrival at Kinderdijk depends on the mode of transport chosen to reach the heritage site. New arrival points for boats and buses are therefore proposed, together with a car park just outside the core of the heritage area, in order to reduce the arrival points currently scattered throughout the area to one, so that all visitors arrive at the same point. A new entrance building, integrated into a reinforced embankment, will serve as a visitor preparation area and will include a cinema, restaurant and exhibition spaces. This building will be strategically located adjacent to the heritage area.

The project also focuses on preserving the cultural memory of Kinderdijk's industrial past. The Pot Barn, an important historical building in the outer dike area, will be dismantled, restored and rebuilt, and will then form part of the new entrance complex. The Pot Barn was traditionally part of an ensemble of three barns that together functioned as a shipyard. The ensemble will be restored by rebuilding the trio on top of the new entrance building, preserving their original orientation and architectural details. One of the barns will act as a gateway to the tourist facilities and the other two will house communal areas for residents, creating a clear distinction between areas for residents and visitors.

Overall, the project aims to strike a balance between tourism and heritage conservation, enhancing the visitor experience while respecting the needs of the local community and preserving the historic significance of the site.

The abandoned Kloos & Zonen industrial waterfront in Alblasserdam creates a tangible link to its former workers community, embodying a rich blend of industrial and cultural heritage. Despite these heritage values present, the workers community is slowly disappearing and with them their cultural heritage and narratives. While the industrial heritage often takes precedence, numerous cultural narratives often remain untold, despite shaping local culture. This research aims to uncover these untold stories and cultural themes connected to the former workers community of the Kloos Industrial waterfront.

Industrial shipyards form a unique legacy of architecture and engineering in the industrial heritage field. They are the tangible and vivid remains of the industrial ages. The appreciation and importance of the transformation and reuse of industrial shipyards in the Netherlands has significantly risen in the last three decades. However, there are places where the ongoing process has come to an end and the appreciation and sense of historical continuity has disappeared. Many industrial shipyards fell into decline in the second half of the 20th century as industrialized economies started to decline. The abandonment that followed de-industrialization poses great challenges to the redevelopment of industrial shipyards.

The project Makersdorp Kloos proposes a redesign for the maritime complex of the former Kloos site in Alblasserdam in its urban context and landscape setting. The design features co-living and designing your own spaces together with your neighbours.

The central topic of this research paper is interior circulation design, particularly within the museum building typology. Investigated is how the interior circulation influences the narrative of the exhibition. The main question is 'How can interior circulation design support the story of the museum?' To answer this question a literature study is conducted. Varies types of museum layout organization and arrangement of exhibition spaces are illustrated as well as potentials to facilitate storytelling through circulation design. The aim is to present a framework of circulationtypes and their characteristics, which can be applied on case studies and new designs. The paper includes one specific case study analysis of the dredginmuseum in Sliedrecht. Resulting in a proposal for a renewed dredging museum, housed in the formar dwelling of the Volkers family and an extension with pavilion and martime shipshed.

'The throughline' is a concept for a renewed and extended dredging museum in Sliedrecht, combining all the aspects of dredging with the aspects of the terrain.

For almost five years, healthcare design and construction sector is in my focus.
I started my experience in this field from design proposal of health-improving and rehabilitation center in Moscow which was my master thesis in Moscow Architectural Institute (MArchI) in 2012. After graduation I also worked as an architect in large architectural bureau which is specialized in design and construction of healthcare and resort facilities. Healthcare architectural typology is one of the most complicated ones because it deals with great number of technical and technological issues, which dictate the final spatial and design solutions in many ways. Moreover, technical regulations and demands in this type of buildings are one of the strictest ones based on the core functions and nature of the process. To find a rational balance between technology and architectural aesthetics in healthcare is a great challenge for architect.

In 2013 I started my MSc Architecture program in Politecnico di Milano in order to extend my architectural vision and to get European experience and understanding of the profession of architect. Because of the fact that I already had experience in the healthcare sector at that time, I chose the topic of healthcare as my graduation subject in Milan. There is a special department in Politecnico di Milano dedicated to design problems of healthcare facilities. The head of the department, professor Stefano Capolongo, was my supervisor of the graduation project which was dedicated to modular and prefabricated solutions in healthcare design. The main focus of my thesis was to design spatial solutions for general hospital where all functions and departments can be arranged into modular and prefab scheme by using the same span of the structural grid. Questions of modularity, transportability of the modules to the construction site, universality of the layout which allows to put different functions within the same module were the main ones in my research. In order to test my hypothesis and findings I designed renovation project for the real general hospital in one of the Russian provincial cities. The idea behind this step was to test possibility to extend existing healthcare facilities in a modular and prefabricated way which allows to minimize interruptions in the daily activities of the hospital while being under renovation, reduces time schedule for the renovation project in construction phase and increases the quality of the complete work based on in-factory production and assembly process.

The focus of my Milan project was mainly on spatial and technological aspects of modular healthcare design. Since I am particularly interested in medical design and construction sector, as I already mentioned, I decided to continue my research in this field while working on my graduation project in TU Delft on Management In the Built Environment Master program in order to understand the entire process of modular construction not only from architectural, but also from managerial, technological, logistic and financial points of view. The main question of this research is whether modular solutions in hospital construction more economically feasible than traditional on-site construction methods, considering the entire life cycle process of the hospital building? By answering this question, I will understand and evaluate financial, managerial and logistical aspects of hospital construction, which will give me the complete picture of effectiveness of modular construction in hospitals.

I would like to say thank you to my mentors, Peter de Jong and Ruben Vrijhoef, who supported me along this year and organized a number of interviews with the set of experts who helped me to get the picture of processes in modular construction. Special appreciation to all experts and specialists, who kindly agreed to meet and answer to my questions. All their interviews can be found in appendixes of this report. Special thank you to my family who supports me in my career and helps me to get the things I am working on.