This research-by-design project investigates the redesign of the kitchen building of the Kolonel Palmkazerne in Bussum, one of the standardised military barrack complexes designed by A.G.M. Boost prior to the Second World War. As many former military sites have lost their original function, adaptive reuse offers opportunities to preserve their heritage value while accommodating contemporary needs. The research aims to identify the design principles underlying the Boostkazernes and evaluate how these principles are reflected in the transformation of the Kolonel Palmkazerne kitchen building into a public library.

A comparative case study analysis was conducted on four other Boost-designed barrack complexes: Elias Beeckmankazerne (Ede), Generaal de Bonskazerne (Grave), Constant Rebecquekazerne (Eindhoven), and Saksen-Weimarkazerne (Arnhem). Through archival research and architectural analysis, site morphology, building morphology, functionality, and materiality were studied. The findings revealed a consistent design logic based on pavilion planning, central organisation around the parade ground, hierarchical spatial relationships, grid-based ordering, symmetry, and the integration of modern construction techniques within a traditional architectural language.

These principles were translated into a design framework and used to evaluate the redevelopment of the Kolonel Palmkazerne kitchen building. The resulting design keeps the organisational logic and ensemble value characteristic of the Boostkazernes while adapting the building to contemporary requirements for accessibility, and public use. The research demonstrates that historical design principles can serve as a valuable framework for adaptive reuse, enabling architectural interventions that respect heritage values while accommodating new functions. ... Read more

The adaptive reuse of military heritage sites often presents a paradox between the integrity of its heritage values and the implementation of contemporary reuse programs. This project aims to adaptively reuse the former Officierscasino in Soesterberg, a Dutch national monument with an introverted character rooted in its military history, as a contemporary, public-oriented, extroverted art complex. Employing a research-by-design methodology, the project utilized a phenomenological tool to investigate the introverted character and translate it into executable design guidelines, which in combination with a value assessment, formulated a design position opposing the extroverted reuse program. The tension between introversion and extroversion was then resolved via multiple design interventions, eventually creating an architectural scheme that balances introversion with extroversion, privacy with publicness, and old with new. The project ultimately provides a methodological framework to incorporate intangible spatial phenomena into heritage conservation, demonstrating how exclusive monuments can be appropriately transformed into inclusive public spaces through architectural interventions. ... Read more

This graduation report investigates the adaptive reuse case of the former Soesterberg airbase through the transformation of abandoned aircraft shelters into a center for research for nature and biodiversity, and museum. Following the decommissioning of the military site, the area gradually evolved into a protected natural landscape with ecosystems developing throughout the entire airbase. Specific shelters are strategically maintained: some are currently occupied, some are intentionally left to decay. This raises concerns regarding a long-term vision for the preservation of such military heritage. This project proposal explores how architectural interventions can act as mediators between biodiversity, heritage preservation, and public accessibility whilst respecting the core values of the site. Through context analysis, case studies and transformation research a strategy for intervention is elaborated. The proposal introduces a program that develops across three unused shelters and combines them with outdoor ecological study fields and public walking routes. The main intervention case focuses on one of the shelters with function of museum and educational center, in which the shelter is preserved through an arch structure. This newly introduced climatic layer protects the deteriorating World War II building whilst allowing it to be the main exhibit element. ... Read more

The National Dredging Museum in Sliedrecht tells the story of the Netherlands’ global dredging industry, rooted deeply in the local community. Beyond its physical collection, the museum holds a rich layer of intangible cultural heritage (ICH): personal stories, skills, and lived experiences passed down through generations. Today, this heritage is mostly kept alive by the museum’s team of volunteers. However, these people are aging and there is no succeeding generation to take over, raising concerns about the future of this ICH. As the importance of safeguarding ICH gains recognition, organisations like UNESCO have developed frameworks to protect it. However, these focus largely on documentation and education, offering little guidance on how architecture might support ICH.

This thesis investigates how architectural design can contribute to preserving and activating intangible heritage. Using a research-by-design approach, the National Dredging Museum is reimagined as a space that not only displays the history of dredging, but also sustains its living culture. Through spatial design, the museum becomes a vessel for ICH. ... Read more

This thesis investigates how genius loci, the spirit of place, can serve as a meaningful strategy in the adaptive reuse of twentieth-century industrial heritage. Drawing on Christian Norberg-Schulz’s phenomenological theory, the research explores how a transformative intervention can be executed while preserving a building's identity and atmosphere. Through a literature review and analysis of adaptive reuse strategies, a value matrix is developed that integrates Norberg-Schulz's subjective, place-based values into design principles. The study applies this framework to three case studies, LocHal (Tilburg), RDM Onderzeebootloods (Rotterdam), and Mastenloods (Den Helder), to assess how contemporary architectural interventions respond to and reinterpret the genius loci. The findings show that incorporating the design principles leads to more rooted, context-sensitive reuse that preserves a building's identity. The final outcome is a adaptive reuse strategy for De Biesboschhal that balances historical continuity with contemporary needs, emphasizing repurposing (Winhov, 2024) over contrast-based reuse. This research contributes a perspective to heritage discourse, offering designers practical tools to preserve and articulate genius loci in adaptive reuse projects. ... Read more

This project explores the complex interplay of utopian and dystopian perceptions within the maritime industrial heritage context, focusing on the former Van Eijk shipyard in Sliedrecht, the Netherlands. Once a symbol of industrial progress and prosperity, the site now embodies a sense of abandonment and spatial decay, reflecting a shift in societal and functional values in the post-industrial era. The central research question is: How were the utopian/dystopian dualities manifested over the course of the former Van Eijk shipyard's lifetime and its epistemological sections, and how can these dualities be employed to re-form its appearance into a heritage-based transformation?

The study examines how industrial spaces, traditionally viewed as utopian, often evolve into dystopian environments, depending on their current state and social perception. Drawing upon historical and theoretical frameworks—such as critiques by Manfredo Tafuri, and Constant Nieuwenhuys’s New Babylon—the research reveals how utopia and dystopia are not fixed categories but subjective experiences shaped by context and use.

A new method of heritage evaluation is introduced, emphasizing spatial experience and user perception over traditional value matrices. Unlike established matrix-based assessments, which often require expert interpretation and singular viewpoints, this approach incorporates multiple user perspectives to recognize the coexistence of contradictory spatial meanings. By focusing on spatial dualities—accessible vs. inaccessible, extrovert vs. introvert—the method allows for a more nuanced, participatory understanding of space.

This user-oriented model not only facilitates adaptive reuse strategies grounded in emotional and experiential spatial qualities but also strengthens the continuity and identity of heritage sites. Ultimately, the architect’s role shifts toward mediating between spatial atmosphere and collective memory, enabling a more inclusive and sustainable transformation of post-industrial environments.
The proposal for a complex combining existing heritage with new construction brings the theory to life. The use of materials and proposed functions create a social hub for the local community, reconnecting them with their forgotten past while creating a prominent future. Similar volumes, semi-transparency and framing create a landmark that aims to be given back to the local community, with the land and water at its epicenter.
Sponsors:
-Foundation for Education and European Culture (IPEP)
-Greek Shipowners’ Social Welfare Company ... Read more

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. ... Read more

Throughout history, water has shaped the way we build - from the beginning of settlements to the modern design of climate systems. Today, as we face growing environmental and educational challenges, the role of water in our built environment is shifting once again.

Threading Waters explores how architecture can act as a bridge between these timelines - sewing together the seemingly contrasting ends of our traditional relationships with water and contemporary approaches to sustainability and education. It proposes a space where water is not just a backdrop, but a core element of how we learn, interact, and adapt.

Located in the maritime industrial heritage line in the province of South Holland, the project brings together its local ties with the dredging industry with its economic vision to strengthen its innovation and research in the maritime industrial sector. By repurposing an old shipyard, the site acts as a public gateway to water research, making scientific knowledge more accessible and understandable to a wider audience. Drawing from the (in)tangible values of the existing conditions, it questions how we can use past practices as a springboard for future sustainable development. ... Read more

Former 20th-century industrial complexes and their landscapes were once determining the socio-cultural fabric on a local and regional level. While such buildings were originally designed for machines and streams of production, the stories of those who worked there remain entangled within the industrial realm. These factories therefore act as “time shelters” of the past - tangible evidence of materiality and spatial configuration, interwoven with intangible traces of human discourse. One such time shelter of the maritime industry is Nedstaal Fabriek – a closed-cycle steel production complex in Alblasserdam, The Netherlands.
The project explores the adaptive reuse of Nedstaal and its landscape in a socially sensitive and heritage-based manner. The oral history method was employed to examine the factory’s hidden industrial values as perceived by those who worked there or lived in Alblasserdam. Six direct oral interviews were conducted and summarized in oral history fragment maps. The values that emerged from this research method, were then directly implemented in the proposal for the adaptive reuse of Nedstaal in a maritime innovation campus. These outcomes featured the importance of the “objects” of Nedstaal – the machinery and facilities used during the steel production process, as these tangible elements, that formed the interviewee’s spatial perception of the factory’s realm. Furthermore, the overall industrial atmosphere was highlighted as an important intangible value.
The project focuses on redeveloping the former annealing department building in a startup mixed-use office building for the maritime technological demand of the Drechtsteden area. This repurposing is executed within the constraints of the existing building and its “shell”. Internally, a new steel gallery system, connecting the various spaces is introduced. This gallery features reused steel arches from another building on the terrain, currently in the process of demolition. These arches were specifically designed for visitors to the factory and therefore represent one of the few elements, oriented towards human use. Reusing them is a symbolic gesture, aimed at restoring the connection between past and future in the new redevelopment. Furthermore, two atriums used as laboratory spaces extrude from the ground floor to the rooftop. Adjacent to them, newly built startup cubicles are introduced. Finally, the former annealing basins – facilities used for the treatment of steel, are repurposed in various ways, thus actively participating in the new design. On a landscape level, several points of the plot had been altered to showcase the industrial past while actively participating in the urban fabric for future use.
Overall, the project proposes a human-centered, value-based manner of adaptive reuse where the human experience and its implementations for designing within the context of industrial heritage rank equally important to other scientifically straightforward approaches.

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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. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

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.


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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.
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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. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

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. ... Read more