Dit afstudeeronderzoek gaat over de implementatie van sociale duurzaamheid in de huidige woonomgeving. Het toont een integrale toolbox als designstrategie met basis beginselen voor architecten. Hoe een aantal dringende zaken als individualisering, de toename van het aantal huishoudens, de bestaande woonconditie in voormalige arbeiderswijken, en duurzame en klimaatadaptieve transformatie kunnen worden aangepakt op een sociaal duurzame manier. Als context is gefocust op de transformatieopgave van de verouderde arbeidersbuurten rond de stedelijke centra, echter kan de theorie in vrijwel elke stedelijke context worden toegepast in Nederland. De onderzoeksvraag die leidend is voor het maken van de strategie: Hoe kunnen de ruimtelijke en architectonische waarden van de bestaande woonomgeving sociaal duurzaam worden versterkt? Het onderzoek gaat in op de gebieden van sociale duurzaamheid en haar ruimtelijke en architectonische middelen door middel van een literatuuronderzoek, precedentenanalyse en een buurtschets van de huidige stand van zaken in de naoorlogse arbeiderswijk de Prinsessenbuurt in Leiden. Centraal in dit onderzoek staat het waardebegrip. Mensen kennen waarde toe aan de functies en beleving van de ruimte. Als strategie voor de sociaal duurzame versterking van de ruimtelijke en architectonische waarden van de bestaande woonomgeving is het van belang om technische innovatie en ondernemerschap met een maatschappelijke missie in te zetten als verbindend element, een drager van collectieve waarden, voor sociale cohesie en te ontwerpen vanuit de gebruiker. In het proces dragen vier verschillend gefaseerde oplossingen bij aan het versterken van de waarden van de sociale duurzaamheid. ... Read more

This research has two main purposes: (1) to show the quality of dominant nature, above man and (2) to demonstrate the investigation of biodiversity in a city environment both by designing a prototype of a dwelling. The city environment, in this case, is Amsterdam; the dwelling is designed in the Jordaan. The location is chosen because this neighborhood has a low amount of biodiversity and inhabitants have difficult access to surroundings with a high amount of biodiversity. Ecology, a dynamic interaction between environmental factors, organisms, geography, and abiotic factors, is part of the integration of biodiversity in architecture. These subjects change the architecture of the prototype. Abiotic factors such as wind, sun, temperature, can affect the growth of the organism, but also influence the living conditions. The ecological flow and ecological management make influences on the ecology. Organism arrowing on nutrients and sunlight are the main ingredients to reach the purpose of the research. The use of a combination between quick growing and slow growing plants, trees, and mycelium in conjunction with an open construction is the concept of the design. This open construction made of not living natural organism stimulates the growth of the quick and slow growing plants, trees, and mycelium by stimulating the geography, for example, the air temperature and the quality of the nutrients in the ground. Whereas the ecological flow during the time secures the growth of the organism during the lifespan of the use of the construction, the ecological management by the human users is low. The growing organism slowly overtakes the human-made architecture, the surrounded city environment. ... Read more

“It was generally believed that losing one’s life to a hurricane is… something that happens in far-away places,” the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh wrote in his 2017 book ‘The Great Derangement’ (p. 26). The current climate and environmental crises are in the very first place crises of culture, crises of imagination. [...] An idea in close correspondence with what Joan Didion famously mentioned when contemplating the American countercultural phenomena of the late nineteen sixties and early seventies: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live” (The White Album, 1979). To be at home in modernity is a constant struggle between space and place. The essay considers in a narrative way the longing for places which are stable and deep-rooted, which might be point of reference, of departure, of origin, in times which have declared change to be the purpose of life. It contemplates on matter inventively moulded into the reassuring concealment of ‘a world as we know it’. But also on ‘characters of the road,’ the mad ones, “the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars…” (Kerouac, J. On The Road, 1957). [...] The writings of the Beat Movement among others, unintentionally initiated the downfall of the American dream from moral clarity, pioneers and heroism to vague, meaningless freedom and decades of turmoil, violence, apathy, and a shaky morality. “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold” (Yeats, W.B. The Second Coming, 1920), but in order to make life possible on earth, we, as human beings, construct the world, the philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote. We, as human beings, are in need of a stage for what Arendt defines as ‘action’. A durable situation upon which we can speak, communicate, share and discuss. The shift of modernity from place to space and from durable to more and more temporal artefacts, of which architecture is a very important part while action takes place in the public sphere, renders the homeless mind of modern man. One who becomes hardly able to turn feelings of melancholia, insecurity and imperfection into creativity and reflection. But instead focusses on power, matter and scattering. Imperialistic concealments which narrow his frame of reference and increasingly shorten the range of the probable. A man-centered world that cannot cope with the questions the Anthropocene era poses. Questions of climate crises, hyper-objects and environmental instability, confronting a people who seem to have forgotten that “recognition famously is a passage from ignorance to knowledge” (Ghosh, A. The Great Derangement, 2017 p. 4). [...] A more suitable balance between the human and non-human is being advocated to widen the range of the probable and expand the understanding of modern man. By acknowledging instead of rejecting that technological and natural incomprehensibilities are not something outside of the human, but being human precisely exists out of the continuous scanning and incorporation of it, it becomes possible to confront oneself with the non-human actors and their effects on being human. By considering the human mind as ‘artefactual,’ an object made by human beings, it can be levelled with non-human actors and be recognized as a part of this. As long as architecture, a physical translation of the relationship between man and his surroundings in search of a place to call home, is understood and developed as an ‘attempt to bridge the gap’, it can be a vital practice in questioning what it means to be human, at home in longing. ... Read more

A self-organised community within the polish countryside -

Alongside the fast development of cities, digitalisation, threats of an unstable political situation and a wish for a simpler life, more and more citizens are migrating towards rural areas. The absence of agriculture is not a problem for them - the countryside is not a place for making a living, it has become a place for living. These modern nomads tend to organise themselves in communities occupying the countryside while still being connected to the city.

During the last two years, people of various backgrounds gathered at the Silent Lake in order to celebrate the experience of “untouched” nature and exchange about alternative ways of viewing the world. These Gatherings initiated a participatory thinking process pointed towards understanding the potentials and future development of the site, taking into account the current context and successive urbanisation of the countryside.

Nevertheless, the principal question remained, being: how should one approach the development of such a site? In fact, the complexities and potentials of the rural area in which the Silent Lake is embedded seemed hard to grasp during the numerous group discussions that took place during the summer visits. On these grounds I decided to focus my research on the country surrounding the Silent Lake in order to develop a methodological framework that would allow a better understanding of the landscape composing this site which would possibly result in a more sensitive development of the Silent Lake community as well as constitute an approach that could be extrapolated into similar scenarios in different sites.
... Read more

Het toenemende gebruik van de openbare Amsterdamse ruimte presenteert de gemeente van Amsterdam met de uitdaging om maatregelen treffen ter optimalisatie van duurzame benutting en ruimtelijke organisatie voor stadsplas de Nieuwe Meer. De kansen en ambities die voortvloeien uit deze uitdaging zijn opgenomen in verschillende gemeentelijke visies, met elk een eigen thema. Daarnaast zijn er nog een tal van andere belanghebbenden zoals omwonenden, huidige gebruikers, bedrijven, en verenigingen. Samen met de gemeente delen zij de ambitie om de kansen van het gebied beter te benutten, al lijken er door de verschillende stakeholders uiteenlopende belangen en plannen vastgesteld te worden voor dezelfde geografische ruimte. De fusie van deze uiteenlopende belangen zou meer dan de som van zijn delen kunnen creëren.

In deze thesis ligt de aandacht voor duurzame stedelijke ontwikkeling op de samenkomst van sociale, ecologische, economische en projectmatige belangen, ook wel verwoord als People, Planet, Prosperity en Project. Het doel van deze thesis is om het fysieke landschap van de Nieuwe Meer in Amsterdam aan te passen aan de belangen van verschillende actoren op duurzame wijze, en om op die manier toegevoegde waarde te creëren op het gebied van sociologie, ecologie, economie en het project. Daarom is deze thesis gericht op het beantwoorden van de volgende vraag: Hoe kan de People-Planet-Prosperity-Project (PPPP) methode toegevoegde waarde creëren voor de fusie van recreatie en ecologie in de Nieuwe Meer in Amsterdam?

Om een antwoord te kunnen geven op de onderzoeksvraag is een theoretische basis gevormd van het begrip ruimtelijke kwaliteit, de People-Planet-Prosperity-Project methode, en de Fusie van Belangenstrategie. Vanuit dit perspectief zijn vervolgens twee case studie-projecten geanalyseerd, resulterend in praktische inzichten in duurzame ontwerpstrategieën en generieke lessen voor een gelijksoortige ontwerpopgave. Om inzicht te winnen in de belangen en wensen van de stakeholders van de Nieuwe Meer is kwalitatief onderzoek uitgevoerd in de vorm van literatuuronderzoek, mondelinge individuele interviews en een online enquête. Het resultaat van het onderzoek bestaat uit een ambitiekaart voor de Nieuwe Meer waarin al deze belangen zijn samengevoegd en gevisualiseerd. Aan de hand van deze ambitiekaart is gezocht naar oplossingen voor een fusie van de ogenschijnlijk tegenstrijdige belangen en plannen, welke vorm hebben gekregen in een projectvoorstel voor een duurzame wakeboardbaan met bijbehorende landschappelijke elementen en horecavoorzieningen, als recreatieve impuls voor de Nieuwe Meer. ... Read more

The project examines the relationship between a city and a waterfront. With the ongoing waterfront redevelopment projects it is necessary to step back and evaluate the current trends and impacts of them on the city. City Plaza proposes a unique and original way to merge architecture and waterfronts and proposes a new structure and relationship of our city edge and waterfront occupation. ... Read more

More and more people are moving to cities. The general idea is that there is always something to do and there is always someone to meet with in those cities. The truth is different. A lot of those city dwellers are feeling lonely from time to time. They experience a lack of social contacts and relationships. The increase in loneliness is mainly caused by our individualistic oriented society and the fact that a growing number of singles lives in one-person households. Currently, those singles are living in houses designed for bigger households. Therefore, they are using a bigger amount of space and that is the exact thing cities are lacking.
In order to design dwellings for the future, a new way of living, which should tackle the social and spatial issues cities are coping with, has to be found. This research states that many of the problems could be solved with a more collective way of life.
The design goal is a residential building with the maximum achievable communal
space and only the minimum needed private space for every individual. Thus,
the focus in this living environment lies on the collectively organised activities.
Nevertheless, every individual demands and requires a certain amount of privacy.
This research questions the strict separation between private and collective spaces and activities and gives a better understanding of ‘what’ can be collectivised and what needs to stay private. This will result in architectural guidelines to design ‘a more collective way of life’. ... Read more

This thesis explores the topic of Craft in an information society, the redefinition of craft that follows is developed through the design of a 3D bio printing laboratory in Nijmegen Netherlands. ... Read more

Driven by my fascination for utopian open structures that give answer to the unexpected, I have been exploring the meaning of flexibility for the city of today.
The project is called Arrival City: a radical transformation of the modern ruin at the Hofplein-area in Rotterdam into a transitplace for all kinds of newcomers. ... Read more

Global climate change is an inescapable discussion today. Our history shows us the constant need to move along with this changing stream of life, as more and more extreme climate-related events happen every day. I witnessed the sad consequences of flooding problems due the Tsunami in Sendai, during my exchange period in Japan in 2012. Facing the problems of this disaster has been the start of this exploration in urban- and architectural water management. This thesis is an evolving process in finding answers to the key question “Which design solutions at a building level will help Cần Thơ adapt to the worldwide climate related flooding problems?”. The final result is identified in three separate objectives: 1) To create a toolbox with climate adaptive and particularly water robust solutions on a building level for the design process of houses in delta areas; 2) To propose a sustainable climate adaptive solution on a neighborhood level with particular attention to the existing tube houses in Ninh Kieu (District Centre of Cần Thơ, Mekong Delta, Vietnam) for the year 2100; 3) To propose a climate adaptive and water robust architectural re-design for the tube houses in Ninh Kieu for the year 2100. ... Read more