Despite the rich Islamic history of Madrid, remnants of its Islamic past are hardly visible anymore. Contemporary architecture both in and outside of Madrid is centred around pragmatism, in contrast to the rich tradition of Andalusí architecture and the
extensive degrees of symbolism interwoven with its characteristic buildings. It is impossible to copy the form language of Islamic architecture without acknowledging the underlying cultural and religious symbolism. This research paper will therefore focus on the way in which different forms of symbolism are translated into edifice within the tradition of Andalusí architecture, and on the role atmospheres play in this translation. This is done through literature review, case studies, and experimental design research. Following the historical importance of water within both the city of Madrid and Islamic architecture, a particular focus is placed on water as a bearer of symbolism and the phenomenological qualities of water are elaborated upon. Finally, the analysis of Therme Vals by Peter Zumthor will provide insights into the atmospheric-architectural design methodology, which is combined with the findings of the literature review to be applied to a contemporary design project.

The research hypothesis is that extensive layering and apparent modifications in the San Isidro area along Manzanares, dictated by the necessity of expansion, have changed the site’s everydayness. As a result, patterns of continuities and discontinuities began to take over the area, which needs to be addressed in the contemporary context and life of the city. This calls for an architectural intervention which aims, beyond the project itself, to the seamless transition of current and future everyday rituals. Due to urban stratification, there is an accumulation of multiple functions, atmospheres, daily rituals and routines over the greater area of San Isidro. In particular, the San Isidro, San Justo and Santa Maria cemeteries, alongside the park, festivities, and infrastructural networks, pose a convoluted environment where the different functions compete for prevalence. Simultaneously, their borders blur, putting the contemporary rituals in danger instead of promoting their evolution/development along the urban context. Furthermore, the city’s current and future development plans treat the areas mentioned above as sites of additions; it is not interested in preserving or developing existing characters; rather, it imposes new ones. Instead of trying to solve or alleviate the complex current state, it adds more layers to the existing ones. The graduation projects need to act as a reflection and critique of the current situation.

The notion of ornament is as intractable as it is central to our discipline. The considerable body of work delving into this topic, including recently, serves to illustrate the ongoing interest of our societies for architecture that exudes character. We will explore the ornament from the prism of labour forces, defining the contours of an emerging type of workers we will call the “neo-producers”. To do so, an outline of the theory of Western ornamentation will be sketched to contextualize the research. Consequently, we will delve into the neo-producer’s origins and definition. The worker’s unique characteristics compared to existing actors will be underlined as well as their close links with the mass-customization revolution. Then, their impact on architecture will be studied, arguing they could represent the key to producing feasible, expressive designs.
The disruptive nature of this new role will be underlined, as well as the opportunities it represents, notably to produce affordable, condition-specific ornaments. In a wider lens, the topic will be connected to important epochal changes like artificial intelligence, sustainability or technological acceleration, as the ornament reflects and materializes societal conditions. Of course, since the topic of the ornament is inherently a discussion about beauty and how to create it, there can be no definitive answer. However, we will see how many different factors come into play for a society to create ornamental systems it deems fit for purpose, and at heart, no individual change can lead to a ornament’s renaissance. There is hope, though, that the neo-producer could be the first step towards a more expressive architecture.

The institutionalization of the architectural practice has caused a linear life cycle that relies on the efficiency of mass standardized products, not only exacerbating ecological effects but also breeding mediocrity in architecture. An epistemic break from the creative and tangible process of craftsmanship, which has been marginalized as practice of the past. The aforementioned restrictive qualities of the practice have spurred the emergence of new counter ideologies in repair and reuse, which embrace the heterogeneity inherent in wear. The context of Madrid provides an opportunity to explore the idea of crafting wear, beginning with empowering an network of traditional crafters and extending to overlooked actors in material aging, enriching discourse and exchange of material knowledge towards a more mature attitude in hybrid design. The transformative impact of embracing wear in the urban fabric can cultivate a communal sensitivity towards architectural expression of material aging. In adopting a hybrid expression of wear, from the craftsman to the public, interweaving various knowledge domains carving a niche in the practice of architecture, that develops into a thriving network of skilled crafters in material wear.

The lack of connection between the city and the Manzanares riverbank represents the project’s exoskeleton. The use of the Manzanares as a laundry historically and the metaphorical use of today expose issues related to the relationship between the water, its use and its connection to the city’s inhabitants. Approaching the topic from the water’s point of view, it unfolds along its multiple courses as a narrative thread unveiling its arcs, which all resolve in the Manzanares river. The site location has been selected according to the historical importance and only few soft boundaries between hard borders created along the river by the underground M30 highway. The lack of connection to the river of Manzanares could also signify a detachment to one’s own unconscious according to Jung’s theory regarding water as a metaphor for the stream of the unconscious. According to Peter Sloterdijk architects are designers of immersion. For humans, one of the most primal forms of it is the immersion into water.

One of the most obvious yet unexplored and historically overlooked promenades is the Manzanares river in Madrid. The project represents a set of architectural interventions along the riverbank that create new links to the city while also proposing continuation of the . Choosing the area around the Segovia bridge as the main site for unveiling the connection to the water as is linked to the historical importance of the bridge crossing, to the physical connection to underwater stormwater tanks and a tangential point between the city of Madrid and the river. While the M30 highway is hidden under the new MadridRIO project and has represented a rejuvenation of the riverbank, it also created a hard border that delimitates the river from the city and the experience of it. An exception of this issue represents the area around the Segovia bridge where, due to engineering issues and previous urban planning, the Manzanares could essential break free and explore the soft boundaries that a riverbed can offer to the city.

The thesis challenges conventional notions of the social and explores the intricate relationship between humans and the imminent commons. It confronts the consequences of neglecting the imminent commons (water, earth, air) in urban environments, urging a re-evaluation of design principles. The research reveals ecological risks from prioritizing human desires in land use and proposes innovative solutions in the agri-food system to bridge rural-urban divides with the main research question how can architectural intervention through productive landscapes bridge the gap between city and land, people and food? Advocating for sustainable cities, it highlights the reliance of London on an unsustainable global food network. The project reimagines the Newham city farm, which happens to be a part of the Beckton Park redevelopment Plan. By challenging commodity-driven perspectives, the design explores the intrinsic eco-social value of land and the detrimental impact of unsustainable agriculture and food miles as it focuses on the interplay of material and immaterial flows in our daily lives, with design shaping our interactions with the environment.

The design aims to reconnect the social and ecological aspects through productive landscapes as it establishes three pillars: productive landscapes as social spaces, restoring the experiential connection to land, and fostering eco-social production, paving the way for a sustainable future.

Water is the elixir of life for London, the river Thames is the heart powering its growth. Although it has created the existence of London, it has mainly been the city that influenced the river in route, form and function aligning with their needs. There always has been a changing tension between city and river, a battle between the forces of nature and the power of the anthropogenic. The combined impact of rapid urbanization and climate change has resulted in numerous shortcomings in the control-focused approach to urban river engineering and planning. Repeated flooding, environmental deterioration, biodiversity loss, declining livability, and increased environmental stress are all indicators of the diminished harmony between rivers and cities. These unintended side effects are a product of neglect, denial, and arrogance of not recognizing the river and its ecology. Therefore, there is an urgent need to rethink the Thames waterfront towards a justification for its existence and help regenerate both the river and the urban collective towards a coexisting future.

This thesis explores the changing meaning of water and the riverfront in London today, accompanied by an overview and understanding of the various waterfront conditions along the Thames. Based upon that knowledge a strategy was made to (re-) connect humans and rivers through the use of architecture as a riparian mediator. The combination of the “third generation city” theory by Marco Casagrande and the “oligopticon” theory by Bruno Latour provided a powerful framework for developing an architectural typology that focuses on connecting humans and the non-human, while simultaneously regenerating the ecosystem. As the architecture had to be further defined the strategy continued upon the idea of negotiating boundaries. Not only between humans and non-humans, as already established, but also between form and fluidity, between architecture and landscape, and between program and regeneration for humans and non-humans. This not only strengthens the concept of architecture as a mediator but also takes on the role of being an interdependent system. Therewith it becomes a much-needed and long-lasting protagonist in the re-establishment of the relationship between the water and the city. That has resulted in the architectural design of the five river rooms along the Thames.

Rapid and uncontrolled urban growth has resulted in fragmented cityscapes, leading to the loss of a sense of place in cities like London. The relentless march of modernization and compulsive development has given rise to illegible spaces, where once-distinctive landmarks are being replaced by generic high-rise buildings and shopping malls. This research gives an urban and architectural framework on how to deal with this phenomenon by drawing on the revalorisation of its identity.

Places such as Romford have seen an enormous growth turning a rural town into a metropolitan area in less than 100 years. This results in a fragmented urban landscape where small historic fabric collides with large infrastructure orientated typologies tied together forming one blurred cityscape. This graduation project presents a potential solution to this contemporary challenge, which involves strengthening the identity of a place while accommodating contemporary paradigms.

The proposed strategy involves the preservation, refurbishment and addition of urban elements that reinforce the identity of the place, thereby enhancing its overall legibility. By embracing the interplay between historical and modern architectural elements, it aims to create a harmonious and distinctive urban environment.

This research not only offers practical insights into Romford's transformation but also presents a broader perspective on how cities can retain their unique character in the face of uncontrolled growth. Moreover it contributes to the ongoing discourse on urban development and offers tangible steps towards reconciling the past with the present, creating cities that are both visually captivating and deeply rooted in their historical identity.

The research deals with funerary scenes of London through various aspects of significance such as memory, material and ritual. The expression and reaction to one's death in the built environment are studied through both quantitatively and qualitatively, where the first looks into the underlying facts in London's history and current statistics depicting indifferent facts at a meta-level. The later focuses more into human experiences and feelings throughout grieving period and influences of spacial quality in how people remember and practice rituals. The project, which derives from this research is a funeral and memorial space in St. George's Garden, which locates itself within the bustle of London city centre. The ultimate goal of the project is to provide a collective memorial where encloses personal attachment and their remembrances. Therefore, through modulating of embodied experiences and sequences of different spacial character, one creates their individual memories with the deceased and exchange farewell. The physical fabric of the memorial is shared collectively, while the personal sentiment towards the material is established through funeral ritual.

This research paper focuses on the phenomenon of social and urban morphological contrasts within community boundaries caused by socioeconomic inequality and the process of urban development. This paper also discusses the reason and the spatial needs for social integration. This topic is becoming increasingly relevant in London because of the gentrification process in multiple urban edges around central areas of the city. However, it is also relevant in cities around the world where gentrification has caused social segregation problems. Hence there is an urgent need for an urban development strategy that provides spatial opportunities for interactions and innovations.

This thesis explores the potential of difference and disruption as a productive ground for approaching gentrification in London. Multiple forces are driving the process of gentrification, the focus lies on the aspect of postmodern consumerism. A cultural change in which the individual, through a variety of choices, can meticulously stage their own identity. This causes an erosion of cohesive norms and values. Moreover, the cityscape is changing into enclaves whose coherence with the bigger scheme of the city is diminishing. While the original urban experience, with its complex and uncertain character, is essential to form interfaces between people from different walks of life and therefore truly address intricate problems.
My research is a search for possibilities for an open society in which architecture becomes a medium for negotiation, a domain of confrontation. Approaching this angle requires a critical approach to the reciprocal relationship between architecture and the social. Moreover, in search of differences, places of juxtapositions are derived through selective mapping and research. To fully understand the difference in experiences of the same places and find opportunities for concurrence. Unfortunately, during the research, it turned out that there were too few leads. As a result, the design shifted from wanting to bring together different target groups, to a more activist direction. Namely, providing agency for displaced residents.

The research aims to uncover the specific qualities of East London waterfronts and its post-industrial structures. The neglected, but still partially untreated by commercialized approach waterfronts were found to be a unique chain of polluted yet biodiverse areas.
The research is followed up by a design project in which the agency for resilient nature and industrial waterfront heritage became the conceptual premise. Bordering between disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning, the research proposed a strategy and intervention for the fragment of post-industrial biodiverse waterfront in Purfleet. The project aimed to ‘reactivate’ the waterfront and reunite people with water while embracing the specific qualities of the area.

Nowadays with the continuous development of the metropolitan cities, the city is getting more and more packed. The land of cities like London is very precious, land is scarce, every inch counts. Therefore, the decision of what to do with space is crucial, the highest bidder often gets the land. However, how to deal with space that is wasted, like residual space and disused spaces? The research started with this fascination of residual spaces and the lack of space in London. In the search for lost spaces in London, it is discovered that there is plenty of disused infrastructure. From these structures new groundscapes were born; on the ground, above, under and the in-between. These spaces are rarely translated into productive and meaningful spaces, even in the context of London where every square metre counts. The result of new groundspaces created by layering infrastructure would be the main topic of my research, because of the potentials it contains to revive space in London.

The wealth gap has been widening over the last decades and it is visible over the different London’s boroughs and districts and people’s living standards. While richer areas have better infrastructure, better housing conditions, lower crime rates, higher life expectancy, other less privileged regions are somehow “forgotten”. Sometimes invisible to others and the government, these forgotten regions are also experiencing year by year a decrease on support and investments in some sectors.

Besides its wealth and social conditions, London also stands out for its rich cultural offer and is recognized as being a global art and capital of culture. The city cultural offer ranges from a great number of museums, galleries, libraries, theatres, pubs, parks and much more. It is also important to mention that a great deal of museums and galleries are public and free of charge, which makes it more accessible to the public. But yet we can also see inequality of access to culture among the struggles the city is trying to overcome, and social inequality plays an important role on it. These disparities can be observed and manifest themselves in multiple ways throughout the city and affect Londoners in different forms.

This essay will focus on cultural inequality in London and its causes and the consequences for Londoners with a focus on children and young people. The objective of this research is to understand the problem and its extent in order to find a way on how architecture can support and contribute to a more balanced access to culture in London which will be in the form of a design proposal.

The “traditional” high street that was once a distinctive element in the city’s historic urban fabric, is now slowly declining. This decline is further intensified by the insensitive development of its nearby leftover lands and the lack of investment in the public realm. This research is meant to support a new interpretation for the contemporary high street in the basis of urban interstices and it aims to emphasize the importance of considering the high street and its community in the future city planning. For that reason, a number of urban and architectural placemaking interventions are studied, using a precedent analysis in order to explore possible urban regeneration strategies as an attempt to reconnect the high street to its surrounding urban fabric and functions. Eventually, through specific case of Shoreditch district, this paper seeks to establish the development capacity for the high street, in terms of the available development sites and their potential relationship with the existing infrastructure and services.

The following research discusses the changing nature of public space and how ownership has become an inevitable part of it. The aim of this research has been to discuss the complexity of the grey area between privately owned public space and public space, as well as the emerging issues related to POPS within the City of London. In which my design proposal acts as an investigation to how architecture could create a more balanced relationship between public and private interests as a response to the current privatisation of public spaces. It tries to find opportunities and possibilities by making use of this identified grey area and memory of site, space, elements and materials. Therefore, the research and design research has focussed on the architectural translation of this grey area as a means to understand how the architect could have influence: analysing usage, elements and materials of 15 existing POPS. It brings forward the notion of affordances and appropriation of space in order to create places which invite and allow different uses or behaviour and might trigger a more diverse and broader public. This allows POPS to be less determined and more open for own interpretation, as it promotes a more free use of public space. The users or actors play a vital role in this, since they are the ones who change the space into the desired program. Which in the end creates a sense of ownership.

In London - and many other metropolitan cities -, we have seen the large shifts public space has gone through over the years, as well as the effects on architecture and the people who inhabit the city. These changes have been the result of social, political and economic influences specific to their time. The last decades London has become a city where public good is being sold off to the highest bid. Private investors have become owners of large parts of the city and along with that, the number of ‘genuine’ public space decreases. My research tries to obtain a better understanding of why these changes occur and if these changes are still relevant in current times. As well as it aims to take a critical stand within this discussion, since it has become clear the believed positive effects of selling public good to private investors has caused large scale gentrification and created places of exclusion. By identifying the grey area within privately owned public spaces in London, my project seeks for an architecture in which the potential of the grey area is fully utilised and can result in a more representational space grounded in time and place. The design proposal tries to show ways in which architecture might mediate. By understanding the change in nature of public space throughout history and the reasons behind these changes politically, economically and socially: architecture can attempt to contribute in creating places where public, as well as private interests can benefit both. Possibly, create spaces where the imbalance between private and public will be less visible and tangible.

In the eighteenth century, the city centre of the metropolis of London was the most chaotic due to its immense industries and excessive noise and smell. This sensorial overstimulation brought and still brings potential unsustainable health and well-being effects on its urban participants.

This research explores the redefinition and mapping of city intensities and follows the process of creating an urban sensescape through different scale levels in London. The root of the problem lies in the experience of city intensities as perceived by the senses of its drifting participants. It appears that there is an imbalance between vibrant public spaces and more tranquil public spaces in the contemporary city of London. This disparity in space, together with the ocular-centric view of society, will result in an imbalance in the sensory systems of its drifters and thus a disregard for their bodies and senses. This research is guided by the following main question:

How can the design of a sensescape in the urban public realm evoke an inclusive, embodied, and multi-sensory experience for its participants, achieving balance in the perceived city intensities?

The implementation of a sensescape in the urban public realm could create an inclusive, embodied, and multi-sensory experience in order to curate a balance within the vibrant and tranquil public spaces on the spectrum of city intensities. The design recommendations made through the different scales will constitute a critical reframing of architectural design concerning an user experience (UX) centered society within the urban public realm of London or other large cities in economically developed countries. This will allow the overemphasis on the intellectual, aesthetic, and conceptual aspects of architecture to disappear, making room for the tactile, sensual, and embodied essence of architecture to emerge. The knowledge gap between the built environment and its impact on society is being narrowed by designing for the balance between vibrant and tranquil public spaces with a sensorial and empirical design approach.

The foundation for future research and design into the interdisciplinary link between psychology, urban design, and inclusive sensory architecture is laid by this thesis in which the city intensities of London are being curated with and for the senses.