How would it be if collective appropriation was an essential part of a spatial strategy? Playgrounds of commons refer to a mix of top – down and bottomup spatial strategies and design interventions taking as a starting point that Rotterdam South can be seen, and (re)designed as an heterotopia, where as Shane (2003) underlines some armatures should be designed top – down, whereas leaving freedom for others to occur in a more spontaneous way. The spatial strategy is based upon the empowerment of collective appropriation through leisure, food and crafts. More specifically, it discusses an alternative way of approaching urban renewal in deprived areas of Rotterdam South establishing an alternative accord. What is important to highlight is that this project does not only focus on upgrading housing stock in order to attract newcomers and empower the concept of “mixed neighbourhoods”. On the other hand, it does not emphasise the need of creating connecting infrastructures between the North and the South so as to connect unemployed people from the South to the North labour market and available vacancies. On the contrary, the project aims at reinforcing not only North – South connection, but most importantly East- West and creating opportunities for local employment in the South. In that sense, design intervention and strategies aim at making South a service area and a productive hub, by reinventing underused lands or areas under transformation, such as the riverfront. That signifies a transition to more integrative design and decision making processes. A key element of this project is that starting from the theoretical framework, moving to the site analysis and the development of a neighbourhood game, it puts forward a dual strategy: hacking institutions – hacking space, acknowledging the power of space as a software and finally concludes with the design of four key projects and a matrix of recommendations regarding appropriation and urban

The thesis departed from the problem that is the lack of integration between theories like Regenerative Development and Design (RDD) and planning practices. Theories like RDD take a systematic approach towards bringing sustainable and adaptable solutions to the built environment. Theories like this are highly relevant because they embrace cities as the complex systems that they are. The thesis used the case study of the Metropolitan Area to answer to the question of how to integrate then, RD, and planning practices. It used the working hypothesis that by integrating the geodesign framework as a methodological basis and the Social-Ecological Systems Framework (SESF) as a theoretical/analytical basis, the previous could be achieved. The SESF was used to address the use of social-ecological systems, governance, and multiscalarity, while the geodesign framework was mostly used to achieve transdisciplinarity. The report then presents the methodology that was used to explore such issue. As the hypothesis indicated, the research integrated the SESF as a structured language into the geodesign framework. The SESF language helped to answer the questions that the original geodesign model asked. Throughout the process of developing the methodology, the geodesign framework was adapted to enhance its use of multiscalarity, which it actually did not possess, and its use of transdisciplinarity. The first modification improved the use of multiscalarity in the adapted framework by dividing the Resource System in two different types of scales: into system and subsystems, and into an assessment and designing area. It also developed the selection of the criteria, the methods to model and the modelling of the Macro-scale of the Resource System before than the rest of the framework The second and third modifications aimed to enhance the use of transdiscplinarity by 1) enhancing the designing amongst the stakeholders and co-designing between the stakeholders and the designers by 2) using an anticipatory-agent based modelling method in the Process Model, )and by integrating the Change Models of the stakeholders and geodesign team rather than selecting from them.

This thesis elaborates on a theoretical, epistemological and design research framework for the possibility of an operative synthesis of, on the one hand, climate-related risk management (primarily, flood exposure from multiple source, i.e. sea level rise and coastal/tidal flooding, fluvial flooding and pluvial flooding) and, on the other, the planning and design of operational landscapes of material production, as a means for sustainable ecological development. Contemporary practices of managing ecological, environmental and climatic risk rely heavily on a ‘mitigation’ approach, where the imperative is the restoration of a previous ‘natural’ order or the spatial planning of the next waves of development and urbanization according to the evaluation of the internal logics of natural processes. However, this line of thinking severely hinders the possibility of a creative and proactive reorganization of human processes of material production precisely because it presupposes a “nature-society rift” (Moore, 2014). Similarly, the negative externalities associated with the extensive and intensive operationalization of vast terrestrial terrains are viewed as singular phenomena to be addressed in situ and not as opportunities to fundamentally reconceptualize contemporary planetary urbanization (Brenner, 2016). The basis upon which this work is built, is that to properly address climate-related risk one has to, also, address unsustainable patterns of material production and the physical and functional organization of urbanization. Following the development of the concepts of "concentrated" and "extended urbanization" through the construction of gradients of "agglomeration" and "operational landscapes" (Brenner, 2013; Brenner and Schmid, 2014; Katsikis 2014; Katsikis 2018) and in contrast to the predominant approach of placing the emphasis on the agglomeration side of these gradients, this thesis attempts the opposite: shifting the analytical centrality from agglomerations to the operational landscapes that sustain them, we are able to formulate an urbanization hypothesis that addresses the requirements of the latter not as externalities of the former (thus hindering the capacity of the framework to be adequately socio-ecologically sustainable) but as the fundamental elements of the planning and design of the urban fabric. It is, thus, suggested that an incorporation of biophysical processes and ecosystem functions, which are central to the performance of operational landscapes, within the urbanized landscape would, at the same time, offer climate-related performance. Assuming, therefore, that this act is an act of construction of the urban landscape and, even further, it partakes in its economic activities, this work reformulates Lefebvre’s opening statement in “The Urban Revolution” (2003) as following: 'the urban has been completely operationalized', and attempts to elaborate on the coming-into-being of this reality, ‘the project of the cultivation of the urban’. As such, the objective of this thesis is to develop a framework for a design exercise that could inform a potential urban and territorial project. The design research proposal elaborated here is one that seeks to discuss the possibility that “agglomeration landscapes” become hybridized with “operational landscapes” (Katsikis, 2018). By that I mean that contemporary cities and urban regions renounce their sole correspondence with the secondary and tertiary sectors of economy and, in turn, take on the role of encompassing primary (i.e. material) production as well. In other words, this work assumes that there is a possibility that the various productive hinterlands of the planet be diffused within and throughout the urbanized landscapes that they sustain. By concurring with Moore (2014) that operational landscapes represent, essentially, the way that humanity interacts with nature, I evoke Foster (2000) to propose the possibility of retrofitting material production within the economies of agglomerations and, thus, operationalizing the urban.

Cape town stands at top of the most “water stressed cities” list in the world, like the other global south cities, it has disregarded its natural systems in its spatial planning and water management. This pushed the city to a Day Zero situation in 2018 implementing water restrictions on all residents of the city. But the scenario in the townships are different, these service and infrastructure deficit spaces are always and constantly in ‘drought’ like environment with limited water usage and informal areas within them with no access to water. In many ways, it can be defined as two parallel worlds. The spatial development of the city much dictated by its past apartheid mechanism has led to development of townships on the periphery and on vulnerable landscapes. These landscapes fall under the biodiversity hotspots of the city which are inaccessible, abused or undervalued. The lack of addressing socio-ecological systems in the city’s water management has further increased the inequality in townships, therefore, requiring an integrated engagement of social, hydrological and landscape processes in disaster risk reduction and in building resilience for the city, townships and biota. The research question of the project investigates on how landscape-based strategies and design principles can be applied to mitigate the drought and social inequity in townships by reinforcing inter-scalar spatial planning toward water resilience & ecosystems restoration in Cape town. Three main lenses of landscape, water and townships are used in project elaboration with theoretical underpinnings that account for resilience, socio-ecological systems, operationalizing landscapes and considering townships as ethnic enclaves. Key conclusions to frame a vision for the city through in-depth spatial analysis of the natural & social systems of the city, followed by narrowing of micro scale locations – Kuils river and Khayelitsha township. Systems interaction between the river and township are explored to design a landscape infrastructure to increase water resilience and local adaptation measures to capture, purify and reuse, to attain circularity by involving the community. The project further explains ways to spatialize and implement such ideas at neighbourhood level through two zones at Khayelitsha wetlands and Dunes at Enkanini informal settlement to create new socio-ecological possibilities and water security. Therefore, through multi-scalar and systems approach the landscape infrastructure design addresses the questions of social inequity, drought and environmental degradation to create an inclusive and resilient city.

In recent years, processes of urbanisation have been changing the face of the world as we know it. A whole new landscape is being built, one with many more challenges and externalities than the previous one. Besides the correlation that these intense urbanisation processes have with climate change, more subtly, they relate to a conceptual separation of the natural and built environment. As of today, socio-economic growth cannot be met without environmental degradation, and while many efforts are present towards ecological conservation, none has proved adequate on a global and continental scale. A reason behind this ineffectiveness lies in a 'weak' understanding of the concept of sustainability, in which environment, society and economy are loosely interchangeable. Furthermore, the current administrative division of territories poses yet another challenge to the management of ecosystems which often have a cross-border nature. First, this thesis proposes a 'strong' sustainability concept, based on the coexistence of natural and human domains. Also, in the European context, a massive push to decrease our impact on the environment is being developed through the European Green Deal, which sets out to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. This thesis aims to exploit this urgent transition towards climate neutrality as a way to prepare for the following transition towards climate resilience, one in which built and natural environment will be able to adapt, together, to changing climate conditions. To do so, the two hypotheses of multifunctional and multi-actor development are advanced and applied to the context of the Scheldt estuary, at the border of the Netherlands and Belgium. Multi-functionality refers to the possibility of having multiple and different functions (environmental, social and economic) within single spatial developments. Multi-actor, instead, refers to the complementary need to include an extensive and diverse range of stakeholders in the decision-making process. These two hypotheses hold the potential to increase preparedness in an evolutionary-resilience perspective. In fact, opting for a multifunctional development that couples economic and environmental functions today might facilitate further adaptation measures needed in the future. Moreover, maintaining an active debate among different stakeholders about the long-term future of the region might boost innovation and increase the possibility of local populations to imagine different futures.

Despite the increasing demand for women’s participation in the growing economy, the persisting gender inequality in current societies has a significant spatial factor contributing to inhibiting women from accessing various facilities and economic opportunities, further undermining them from enhancing their social mobility and decreasing gender inequality. The spatial structure of public spaces, including the mobility networks, functional distribution, and presence of appropriable spaces and co-creative processes emerge as critical dimensions within which women’s needs must be met in order to achieve a state of social resilience in these systems, and promote women’s spatial and social mobility across the city. While urban planners and designers highlight ecological and economic resilience, social resilience is vital to establish, in order to achieve a balanced system of resilience. This research proposes an evolutionary approach to addressing and mitigating gender inequality in cities through urban planning and design practice using a strategic planning framework. This is proposed with the goal of increasing women’s capacity for participation through the strategic shaping of their local contexts according to their spatio-temporal needs. By redefining the parameters through which urban planning and design decisions are made, and addressing who is needed to make these decisions, the research proposes a guide to decision-makers on enhancing the socio-spatial integration of city residents. Through the comparison of the three distinct cultural contexts of Cairo, The Hague, and Seoul, across the dimensions of society, economy and space, the unique needs and variables contributing to women’s inhibition are pinpointed, and actions can then be proposed, using the local conditions, to tackle the spatial issues. This allows the framework to be implementable across cultural specificities, and provides a guide for urban planning practice holistically. The strategic framework proposed is therefore a tool that utilises local stakeholders and conditions to co-create and anchor urban transformations in the local context, and does not provide a definite spatial plan. Through addressing the role of urban planners and designers in creating conditions for gender equality, the research aims to provide a frame of reference for actor dynamics in co-creation processes, empowering women to appropriate public spaces as they see fit to reach their needs.

For this graduation project, the Dutch Wadden Sea Region is chosen as analysis context. It contains both the Wadden Sea and mainland near the Wadden Sea. For the coastal part, there are tidal mud flats, shoals, barrier islands and fertile marshlands. Besides, the coastal area is occupied by several villages and towns. By all of these elements, this region is known as a natural resource area and a tourism destination for the population of the urbanized areas in the interior (Otto, 2001). The Wadden Sea Region also has rich cultural heritage, which gives evidence of interaction between human and nature. This resulted in a great diversity of geographical landscapes and a wealth of natural values (Otto, 2001). Besides, the region is important not only for nearby country, but also for few areas with comparable physical conditions, which means adaptive strategies developed here can be used as patterns and models for other development all over Europe and even the world. Right now, this region is facing a set of environmental, social-economic and demographical problems, like: sea level rise, coastal erosion, hydrological changes, weak economic potential (less competitive and less high skilled), unemployment, population decline and survival of typical landscape elements as well as some other legacy (Wim, 2013, Britas et al., 2010, Heike et al., 2005, Otto,2001). In conclusion, tidal movements, extreme weather conditions and processes of erosion, sedimentation make the Wadden Sea Region very dynamic. Besides, the cultural heritage is rich and diverse. No matter nature or culture in the Wadden Sea Region, they are both characterized by continuous interaction of traditional and current needs. This region will be constantly challenged by urban innovations, economic conjunctions and political realities (Otto, 2001).

Reversed risk With more than 80% of Thames River banks transformed into concrete storm walls, with the Thames Barrier in place since the 70s, the dynamic tidal force is persistently causing storm surge flooding and flash floods throughout London’s dense urban areas, putting the UK coastline as a priority area among the North Sea adjoined territories – both from the point of view of event frequency but also of prospective impact. Based on this assumption, one might consider the flood adaptation strategy as a priority point on the governance list, however, the Environment Agency’s funding for maintaining flood assets has fallen by 14% nationally. Recent press investigations undertaken by The financial Times quote John Pettigrew as he raises a pressing point on the British investment agenda - ‘It is important that the UK is seen as a place that is attractive to inward investment. In terms of the energy sector, a lot of infrastructure needs to be built in the UK over the next few years. Post-Brexit, it is important that it is coming in.’ Looking further into the matter, while flood defence seems to lose importance on the hierarchical chain of monetary distribution, current trends in the energy field are attracting increasing capital in the UK’s national strategy. As a consequence and if inundated, the Greater Thames Estuary region which currently contains 1 million properties would suffer direct damage of at least £ 97.8 billion at 2003 prices. Surely, the planning focus shift Is justified as the North Sea is facing an era of fossil fuel depletion and the overpriced electricity bills urgently demand the transition to clean, renewable sources. In this matter, the UK is a leading power with the most extensive exclusive economic zone coverage, with intensive fossil fuel extraction platforms that are currently being transformed into energy farms throughout the continental shelf, creating a new ground for exploring a projective dimension for productive landscapes triggered by the ocean dynamics, a possible paradigm for extraction that focuses on the potential of the contiguous maritime zone as well as the territorial sea as main generators. Additionally, the focus of the thesis supports another conceptual shift – from the recent focus of sustainability in the advancement of human development (Keenan and Weisz, 2016) to the necessity to change current behaviors in favor of a conscious awareness of the externalities of society’s unrestrained consumption (Bowen and Hepburn, 2014) – or in simpler phrasing, a new paradigm focused on the sustainability of resources and raw materials to be allocated to the promotion of resilience of the status quo and the adaptation of societies, economies, ecologies ( Keenan and Weisz, 2016). Already shifting the focus of energy production to the maritime territories that engage in exchanges with the land, we are discussing implicitly coastal flood strategies. From a theoretical point of view, there would be a clear interdependency between the particularity of the territorial sea hydrodynamics and the coastal adaptive response to risk. However, the UK planning system regard these issues as separate entities, under separate departments, directly subordinated to Her Majesty, The Queen. From the central government level, to the regional, county and village level, flood risk and energy efficiency run parallel under the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy [ BEIS ] and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [ DEFRA ], while spatial planning is addressed through a different branch - the Department for Communities and Local Government [ DCLG ], thus making any communication hard if not unlikely. On this note, the thesis is trying to converge these fields into a coherent, integrated new approach – flood risk and energy transition pressure – putting forward a strategy for extraction in estuarine waters, that would require a control body to involve the highlighted departments and ensure the pairing up between policy, investment and the department in charge. Thus, this thesis looks beyond the 2030 effective lifespan of the Thames Barrier and explores an alternative system of hybrid infrastructure that can reverse the flood risk factor towards a profitable tidal energy source, creating a protection/production cycle, simultaneously defending and “fuelling” the city as well as retrieving its original investment. Practically, understanding natural forces value, paired with adaptive capacity patterns builds up towards the gradient of spatial and performance suitability. This creates a system of critical intervention areas directly supporting and conserving their anthropic activity within the urban system. A coherent spatial assessment framework which results in critical location identification and a paired governance implementation model, followed by a design approach zooming into a transitional system – from restrictive, regeneration urban area, to natural protected landscapes. As a result, this hybrid approach to protective infrastructure boosts the regional economy through the overlaid programme pairing, promoting an agricultural transition to aquaculture and energetically self-providing urban district.

The Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, known by the name of Mayapán by the Mayan civilization, remained an enclosed and remote area during every major historical transition of the country (Colonization, Independence from Spain, Internal Civil War). Located between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, this rich landscape remained forever in the sight of powerful individuals and colonizers who never truly managed to rule the Mayan warriors. Today, the region is composed of three different states with a complex mosaic of rich biodiversity, fascinating landscapes and important coral reef systems competing for survival against the effects of nature and human actions. For decades, the focus remained mainly on the economic development of the coastal areas without considering the ecological stress and social uncertainty as a result of urban expansion. In the span of merely twenty years, the region was completely transformed following capitalist intentions and we can see the fragile state of the land as a direct result of this. Sadly, the region’s mostly mono-cultural economic practices focusing on tourism services have pushed the locals, from mostly indigenous background to leave their communities and seek job opportunities in the cities created for the new Mayan Riviera. This set of political, social, economic and natural elements have had enormous repercussions on the physical and social integrity of the landscape, which nowadays is threatened not only by the over-exploitation of resources and climate change, but also by the homogenization and simplification of an ancestral culture. However, it is in this richness of landscapes, biodiversity and cultural heritage where I see a possibility to think of new ways of co-existing and to imagine new ways of living in sync with our environment. What would be the long durée in this region where everything is the result of a process of legitimization and Disneyfication of the landscape and its culture? The aim of this thesis is to expose the critical issues, assess the damage and recover together with nature with the guiding principle that resources should be managed to reflect the relationships among all ecosystem components, including humans and nonhuman species, the environment in which they live, and physical, biological and socioeconomic interrelationships.

This research project aims to understand the spatial and procedural implications of planning and spatial justice in conditions of oppressive power and conflict. Ambitions towards spatial justice amongst marginalized ethnic minority populations are at further risk if liberal notions of government and planning continue to operate under the ethnocratic state regime. This demands an alternative approach and perspectives that are context-specific to which can engage with the realities of marginalized populations towards the quest for justice. The research framework is steered by an exploratory research approach that suggests an organic process to contextualize the preconditions of spatial justice as the research begins to unveil the marginalized areas of North-Eastern, Sri Lanka. The project aims to understand how spatial planning (planning and design) can unlock conditions to support the quest for spatial justice, self-determination, and liberation of Eelam Tamils in Sri Lanka's North-East.

The project envisioned a social-ecological resilient waterfront for Rotterdam. By focusing on the outer dike area of Rotterdam, it aims to protect the port from flooding ,and at the same time create more nature habitat for biodiversity. With creating a resilient river, it can re-realize the role of industry and reconnect them into resource flows, in the end, it will formulate a healthy and liveable social-ecosystem at New River Mass. The vision of the River Mass is firstly to restore the riverfront as the place of ecological importance and also aplace for working, living and recreations. It should be a place for people to come and meet together. In order to achieve that, it implies four strategies including protect, restore, reconnect and grow. Stadhaven is the programmes for applying proposed strategies. In fact, the stadhaven is an area in transition. Over the coming decades, new links between the city and port will be constructed in stadhaven to bridge the port and city, at the same time, develop the economy. It is vulnerable to high water levels since it is part of old harbour complex. The area is on the water which is subject to tidal dynamics and could have transition between River Mass and inner city distcit. Based on that, the systematic strategies could start from the aspects of Nature(sedmiation), densification and open space and access.

Unbalanced decision making processes, lack of planning scope and a market-driven development lead by high power interests have shaped the emergent Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico (MAVM) with an increasing spatial fragmentation and social segregation. To counteract the problematisation an adaptive planning framework is proposed linking urban morphology, governance capacities and socio-ecological systems as a way to approach vulnerable areas in the metropolis from a local perspective aiming for a collaborative and evolutionary process. Several areas with the potential to become sub-centers are defined in the territory in order to become strategic locations where endogenous development is possible creating opportunities capable of overcoming segregation and fragmentation by means of enhanced economic and community activities. The research recognises five main principles (systemic goals) which through spatial actions that act in a muldimensional level (scale, time and actors) stress capacities for adaptation embedded in the selected locations. Seemingly, potentials for connectedness and activation from a bottom-up perspective are revealed through exploration by design implementing a scenario construction departing from two levels of participation between stakeholders (high and low) and a further evaluation phase through pathways that inform possibilities and limitations of the strategies taken during the evolutionary process. This research allows to conclude that interests and their alignment with different actors, local capacities and operability of the actions taken are directly proportional to the transformation capacities and the effectiveness of the goals proposed by the adaptive framework.

This master thesis is the final result of my graduation project, a year of researching the field of urban planning and design, facing the complexity of urban regeneration processes. Because of the current complexity of this urban regeneration, it is important to research the current processes, to see if they work as efficient as possible. This research takes Rotterdam as a case study, a large innovative and developing city of the Netherlands. Both top-down and bottom-up perspectives are revised to improve the current plans and processes for the regeneration of Rotterdam. It is time for urban planners and designers to make a shift in the development of planning strategies in a way they create a more sustainable and durable way of urban development by using the existing qualities of each specific area. In this way our profession can contribute to the improvement of the living environment and conditions of citizens. This thesis looks for an improvement of involving citizens into the planning processes of the municipality. By reviewing local citizen’s demands, and combining this with the structure of the municipality, a new urban regeneration plan is developed, taking all the different actors into account.

This thesis seeks to explore the concept of Circular Economy and its integration into urban planning as a tool of implementation. The goal of this thesis is to develop environmentally sustainable cities. To develop environmentally sustainable cities, the thesis focuses on two major resource flows in the city: food and water, whose waste streams and high demand are causing damage to the environment. The thesis has developed regional strategies for both the resource flows in decentralized systems and centralized systems. It has emphasized the integration of socio-ecological systems and socio-technical systems that are required in order to successfully implement a circular economy in developing countries. The strategies and the spatial design are elaborated in two pilot projects which have different challenges.

Metropolization process in Santiago de Chile has been strongly influenced by neoliberal rationale in the field of urban planning. A diffuse interaction between the forces of the urban land market, national-global trends of capital agglomeration and fragmented governance have led to a highly segregated socio-spatial structure. These processes have fostered the economic marginalization of the most vulnerable municipal areas unable to profit within the current model of market-driven development. During the last five years, the Chilean government has raised the necessity to address these issues through new governance and planning national agenda. Based on this context, this graduation thesis investigates the evolution of those urban issues in the Metropolitan area of Santiago (MAS) and evaluates a collaborative spatial planning strategy for three vulnerable municipalities by using adaptive scenarios. A paramount emphasis is focused on the social and economic activation of the morphological urban tissue of these areas by using a multi-scalar approach.

As an archipelagic territory of 7,641 islands, the Philippines is dealing with multiplicities of identities, resources, and risks that are pressured by a centralized and homogenizing development paradigm, fragmenting critical socio-spatial landscapes that further creates a hyper-vulnerable state in the face of the climate crisis. The project touches on uncovering the dialectics between indigeneity and modernity in space, and revealing critical values that traditional and indigenous knowledge systems have that are potentially made for evolutionary resilience with identified river basins traversing critical biodiversity corridors as sites for exploration and understanding. These critical zones - The River Interface - encompass megadiverse complex social-ecological systems, coalescing frontiers of pristine Philippine biodiversity, ancestral domains, urban domains, and the rivers that tie them altogether. Framing the River Interface Unit’s pattern from The Source, The Confluence, and to The Mouth, with its embodied values of Extraction-Interposition-Consumption, respectively over the riverscape, then prompt envisioning of futures to be tackled more deeply and how these can be formed from cycles of memory that are present in practices of care as well as the biophysical phenomena shaping this, opening up which adaptive capacities can be enhanced and enabled. Where these cycles occur in space are then identified to see opportunities as to how they can be guided by principles of a decolonized process, embedded recognition of pluriversality, and implemented socio-spatial justice through a renewed form of governance. These shall then guide the making of space and allowing care to be the mode of an evolutionary and adaptive riverscape fabric. Projects for each part of the River Interface Unit system are then developed through a process of nostalgic envisioning. With the identification of ‘Memory’ as the key adaptive quality that the indigenous hold, the use of Nostalgia as a design strategy aims to envision collective climatic futures through the River Interface’s capacities for memory, consciousness, and organization. These capacities are then enhanced by Nostalgia’s ability to reinforce self-continuity in moments of struggle and crisis undergoing the processes of assimilation, accommodation, and co-evaluation. Hence, this can establish through space, multiplicities of culture with a core memory system, embedding in long-term memory an evolutionary resilient and truly adaptive way of life. In the search for a solid archipelagic identity and its significance in the response to the urgency of climate change and its effects, the project aims to offer clarity and freedom for a country longing to know who it is, its potentials, and believe in its true worth. From the accumulated identities of Exoticism, Exhaustion, and Helplessness, we turn to the true and beautiful nature of our group of islands of a nation we call home that is clearly Delicate, Diverse, and Dynamic.

My thesis explores on how to reproduce life inherent in the musical form with architectural composition. The beauty of music attributes to its high degree of life inherent in its holistic form, which is affective, adaptive and generative. In my research paper I approach the quote "I call architecture frozen music "by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe in a metaphysical way. Relationship between form, composition and phenomenal experience are explained in terms of “flow” and “Bodies”. Space and time are understood in terms of virtual flowing force acting on bodies, that they are actualized as sounds in music and “frozen” as materialistic objects in architecture, affording our sensational experience. Composition, is understood as synthesizing of individual bodies with order into a holistic body, in which tensions are created by the differential relationship of its constituent bodies. Music, is the transitional interactions between our human bodies and the musical body actualized. While in architecture, “audiences” set their bodies into actions, empathizing with the frozen transitional form through time, synchronizing the physical body experience with the inner mental experience. My thesis design reflects on the shift of architecture experience from existentially plastic and spatial experience, to mere time-compressed striking visual image, with the loss of experiential depth, under the information age. As an inverted version of “allegory of the cave”, my building functions as an immersive labyrinth with ambiguity and mystery hidden beneath ground, affording a retreating experience to urban wildscape explorers. It fulfilled the timeless task of architecture as stated by Pallasmaa – “understand and remember the shapeless flow of reality and, ultimately, to recognize and remember who we are.” The building situates itself in Paris, at the intersection of the abandoned La Petite Ceinture, an urban wildscape experiencing the transition from ruin to regeneration, and the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, where the histories of underground mining hidden beneath. The memories of two places intertwined at this counterpoint and synthesize into a frozen melody, as the body of the labyrinth. Though her body the labyrinth brings collective memories to present individual explorers. The spatial variations embodied promotes sequences of scenarios and potentials. Me as a composer, imagines different scenarios and interactions involving individual urban explorers as “audiences” or

Emergence of humans as the dominant species of the planet have come along with extreme manipulation of the earth’s systems to sustain this dominance. The Anthropocene has lasted a little over 200 years has perhaps seen the most shift from completely natural systems to requiring an additional man-made system to aid exponential growth of our species. Among earth’s systems, climate is one of the most complex factors determining energy balance of living organisms and determines energy gains and losses from organisms. India encompasses a wide range of complex territories with rich biodiversity living alongside some of the world’s highest population densities. Historically the Indians have lived and adapted to these resource abundant terrains through traditional ecological practices that aligned with the ecological systems and governed the socio-cultural practices. The current globalised world has been built upon with technological, infrastructural, sociological political and capitalistic growth has wretched devastating effects on the environment that supports us. India being a colonised country and exploited for its resources for centuries still holds traces of it in the infrastructural and production systems, in this case in the Periyar-Vaigai river basins. The region characterised by complex terrain, excessive manipulation of landforms and alteration of its resource cycles especially in water cycles by storing water in multiple dams experiences excess water flows during monsoons, causing flooding on its western slopes and proves to be the only hope for drought prone region on its eastern side. Governing such complexities lies with arbitrary administrative borders dividing the control between different states and various different departments controls the flow and management of resource which often falls short of preventing catastrophes or just management of resources. Extreme weather events in the recent past has exasperated the effects in these fragile habitats, thus the project aims to firstly mitigate the risks associated with failing monsoon, further restore the balance of the ecological system in the region. By building back resilience through co-habitation of social-ecological systems, aligned to nature using human knowledge the design aims to place value on nature rather than exploit it. The project envisions the transition from a local adaptation towards building up the system on the regional scale. It deals with primary production, anthropogenic control with respect to grey infrastructure, values and the role of ecosystems in maintain this balance. By synchronising these various systems the projects attempts at bringing back a dynamic equilibrium to this region, through methods like literature reviews, synthetic cartography and research by design.

The city is in a throes of a gigantic transformation process, due to modernisation, globalisation, technological innovation, urbanisation, explosive population growth and climate change (Brotchie, Newton, Hall, & Nijkamp, n.d.; Cohen, 2006). Within a time of change, whereas technology integrates progressively in our lifestyle, and where man is increasingly designing its environment according towards its own needs – the development and future expansion of the city is becoming a challenge. This lead to the main problem statement: What is the new kind of future habitat that can respond to the socio-technological dimensions, recognising the uncertainties of the future? In order to answer the main problem statement, the project will start with a literature study, followed by a case-study / prototype design. The literature study consists of two part: 1) Starting with the technological revolution, the first part will try to reveal the changing dynamics ofthe socio-techno system (within the global urban context) and which consequences these changing dynamics has on our lifestyle and on a broader scope, 2) Secondly, the aim of literature study is to expose the spatial implications of this socio-techno transformation on the urban structure of the global city. Firstly, we have seen that technology is a part of growth, acceleration and the expansion of the city. Technology has facilitated us with increased speed and a more inclusive network ever seen. Users of this network, supported by communication and information technologies, become singular nodes, isolated but connected through screens and the virtual world. For those connected to the network, the concept of time and place changes entirely. The connected urban population is not just bound together by the physical infrastructure of a city anymore, but starts to merge with it, annihilating time, and killing distance. In order to protect oneself, from the increase in physical and informational speed, man will increasingly has the need to withdrawal in capsules. Blind to the outside world, the capsular civilisation is one of dualization of segregation of exploitation and exclusion resulting in an implosion of the polis of the common (Barney, 2013; ManuelCastells, 2000; Cauter, 2004, 2012; Graham & Marvin, 2002). Secondly, we have tried to reveal what spatial (in the urban and architectural realm) consequences this capsular society brings forth. We have distinguished five mechanism of capsularity: decentralisation, fragmentation, isolation, privatisation and simulation. Together these characteristics will increasingly lead to the encapsulation of the urban and architectural realm. The future city will not just be a collectives, but rather a multiplicity of entities with their own sociality, character, and own rights (Manuel Castells, 2000; Cauter, 2004; Neil. A, 2018). The coming age can be defined as an age of disintegration, gated communities are the urban and architectural models that give shape to this order: an inside world of privatised publicness versus a chaotic, unsafe and uncontrollable outside world. We become voluntarily prisoners (Cauter, 2012; Davis, n.d.; Eckardt, 2017).

The Xingu River Basin sits within the Amazon Biome and integrates its deforestation belt. It is home to a multitude of endemic species and indigenous nations which are now threatened by the disruption of the river’s water pulse caused by the construction and operation of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam. As we face our planet’s ecological collapse due to resource based developmentalism, life on a planetary scale is increasingly threatened. Under the Anthropocene, urbanization networks have expanded beyond the traditional concept of hinterland. Planetary urbanization theory (Brenner & Schmid, 2012) unravels how untouched regions are now operationalized and incorporated into global resource networks. The project explores the possibilities for mediation between natural and local-social systems with the demands of development brought by modernity to the river’s basin, specifically to the areas directly affected by reduced water flow caused by the dam. Traditionally, Amazon rivers are spaces that allow for shared occupation. By considering water as the meditative space, forms of shared occupation are proposed which can enable a reconfiguration for coexistence and forms of life in the Xingu River according to varied worldviews. This sensitive approach towards local existences looks for a type of urbanization different from that of the modern project. In order to identify potential synchronicities between worldviews, a framework for reading worldview alignments regarding the systems in question was developed. This thesis questions the limits of urban practice in such territories, posing a question that possibly cannot be answered with the tools we have at our disposal. If our field intends to position itself within such territories, we must begin to propose an alternative paradigm which can adequately territorialize cosmopolitics. Would Cosmourbanism be achievable? Brenner, N. & Schmid, C. (2012). Planetary Urbanization. In M. Gandy (Eds.), Urban Constellations (pp. 10-13). Berlin: Jovis.