Combining insights from urban design theory and political philosophy, this research aims to bridge the gap between public and private spaces in cities. While existing approaches to urban design have successfully enhanced social cohesion at the street level, they fail to address the potential of spaces within and on top of buildings.

This thesis proposes a cross-disciplinary framework for embedding semi-public functions in and around high-rise developments, functions that invite social interaction, inclusivity, and civic presence in the vertical dimension of the city. By integrating perspectives from Urban Management, Urban Planning, and Urban Design, the research addresses both conceptual and operational barriers that inhibit the vertical expansion of public life.

Achieving this ambition requires a shift in how ownership, access, and publicness are understood, alongside practical tools to navigate legal complexities and spatial hierarchies. Through spatial design strategies and organisational models, the research demonstrates how elevated spaces can become legible, accessible, and socially meaningful extensions of the urban commons.

This report presents our proposal for “Globalisation Free Choice,” an elective course for master’s students in the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft, in collaboration with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). The course aims to explore sustainable and integrated development and its regional impacts.

During the 9 weeks of the course, a regional vision and strategy for the Greater Bay Area was prepared. The Greater Bay Area is a global centre for economic development located in the Pearl River Delta in the Southern part of China. In this report we describe how we want to instigate a paradigm shift from focusing on megaprojects to working in mega-processes. In the first two weeks we analysed the environmental, social and economic situation of the area to create a problem statement and define focus points. The next two weeks were spent in Hong Kong at the Polytechnic University where the morphological game boarding strategy was used to look at regional design in a more experimental way. We created two games - one focused on the social perspective including the liveability within the region, and the other based on the morphological perspective, looking at spatial changes. During these two weeks and during the playing of the game we defined two interesting zoom-in locations in the area.

The first zoom in location is the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, an area which is already planned to grow into an innovative tech hub. Due to the rejoining of Hong Kong with Mainland China in 2047, the border will be eliminated, opening a lot of opportunities for development. The other location is the Nansha district near Guangzhou, which lies in the heart of the delta. Major development plans consisting of various megaprojects are proposed by the Chinese government in Nansha, which will disrupt the natural cycle of the water and soil. The two zoom-in locations will be used to develop an approach to integrate the built more with the green-blue networks to mitigate floods, droughts and heat island effect.

We then returned to Delft to develop a vision and strategy for the GBA, focusing on these megaprojects and thinking of ways to change the current way in which they are executed. We used an element-based approach inspired by the book ‘the Elemental Metropolis’ to develop a strategy of working in a more agile, process-based way. We conclude the report by revisiting the entire Greater Bay Area to identify additional regions where the insights from our work on the two focus areas can be applied, aiming to create a resilient, adaptable, and liveable dynamic delta.

This research introduces The Forest of the Future, a transformative visionary that reimagines European forests as multifunctional, sustainable spatial structures extending over land and sea. It confronts current environmental challenges, including deforestation, biodiversity loss, and climate change, by proposing an innovative spatial strategy for the BeNeLux bioregion within a broader European context. The strategy aims to integrate forestation within other land uses enhancing ecological, social, and economic values towards a sustainable future by 2100. Based on conceptual frameworking and a multi-criteria decision analysis, it evaluates current land use, soil quality, climate zones, biodiversity, and the state of marine environments, proposing new forest types and forestry-based regenerative agricultural practices. The envisioned forest network serves not just as a carbon sink but as a catalyst for biodiversity, sustainable agriculture, and community well-being.

Achieving this transition requires a multifaceted approach, including policy reform, stakeholder engagement, and the development of a strategic implementation plan that aligns with regional and European sustainability goals. This strategy requires a combination of regulating, stimulating, engaging and capacity building instruments, Additionally, the transition to a forest-based land use system requires a combination of policies tailored to ‘planting the seeds’ in the near future, launching the Future Forest, and ones ensuring the healthy maturation of those ecosystems over the following decades. The research concludes with an evaluation of potential impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, suggesting significant contributions towards Europe’s climate goals of climate neutrality.