This project takes place in Friedrichshain, Berlin, Germany and presents the design of a Public Condenser along the Straße der Pariser Kommune named ’Bau(m) Berlin’. The project is part of the Public Building Graduation Studio and looks into the topic of designing a ’new urban lounge and commons’ through the process of Research by Design.

Through field research and urban analysis, three issues came to the forth in the Friedrichshain area; A disconnection between residents, a missing framework for social (re-)integration and low quality green space. These issues consequently led to choosing the project site along the Straße der Pariser Kommune and forming the following research question:

”What if there could be an architecture that pushes interaction so that the social gap between people could be bridged whilst functioning as
a platform that helps people to (re-) enter society?”

In order to tackle the pre-described issues, the project takes the notion of ’building’ and dissects it into ’Building the Future Commons’, ’Building Connections’ and ’Building Things’. Together they describe and result into the project Bau(m). The ’m’ in Bau(m) entails the notion and concept of Multiplicity, e.i. the idea that a thing, in this case a public building, can be used in multiple ways, for various programmatic functions, throughout time. For me, this meant seeing architecture as a framework that allows for adaptable use of a building.

Consequently, the building is designed as a pavilion within the park stretching along the Straße der Pariser Kommune and has one big roof supported by a grid structure column repetition made from timber. The columns are bended so that together, they form an arch-shaped pattern. By seeing the building as part of the park, the park is equally redesigned into a park of higher quality with an urban route that stretches through the building and connects the Ostbahnhof train station with the Karl-Marx-Allee further North.

The main function of the building is a workshop space for various crafts, amongst which furniture making, as it uses the method of making as a way of bringing people together and getting those in need back on into society. This workshop space stretches into the basement and thus forms the substructure of an urban square that exists in front of the building.

Anonymity in cities and a lack of architectural identity are some of the social-architectural challenges of our time, with profound consequences for urban life. Not only does architecture have a major impact on how we experience cities and buildings, it also has an impact on our health, wellbeing and behavior. The aim of this research is to find out how residential architecture can create identity and positively influence the mental and physical health of its inhabitants. This involves architectural design principles that can respond to users‘ conscious and subconscious needs to their living environment.
An extensive literature search in the main areas of architectural psychology and active architecture provides insights into these issues. In addition, an analysis of case studies illustrates these issues and how they can be implemented spatially.
The results show the great influence that architecture has on large parts of our lives. Among other things, it influences emotions, behavior patterns, health or the way people interact with each other. On this scientific basis, residential architecture can be designed to exert a positive influence on social, private and public life.

Airport has been labelled as a non-place by the French anthropologist Marc Augé, with its place as a limbo filled with a mass of isolated individuals which response to non-human mediations such as boarding screens and signages. Consider together with the automatic trend of mobility as well as the social health trend of non-real life conversations thanks to technology, there is a diminishing of human element within Schiphol. Nevertheless, a lack of cultural amenity on the landside for non-travellers. Consider together with the growth of Airport city, a theatre is proposed to be installed for not only landside users but also the potential of a human element added for travellers who spend excessive time idling.The Schiphol Theatre locates at the centre of Schipholterminal, which lies on one of the main axis within atransitional cityscape. It contains a multicharacter essencewith functioning as a public lounge, a public space, as well as an event space for not only classical performaces, but also public entertainments. This thesis project exploresthe possibilites of redefining Schiphol anemity experience,providing flexibility for World events/daily activities, VIA emphasizing on publicness, togetherness and cohesiveness of amenity.

It is the year 2019 and the Dutch economy is flourishing. However, the retail sector is still in a ‘re- inventing phase’. The popularity of e-commerce is increasing and Dutch shopping districts are continuously changing. This affects the profitability of both retailers and retail investors. Considering that the Dutch population is aging, people live longer independently and elderly people like shopping centres as places for spontaneous encounters it seems clear that an increasingly important target group for Dutch neighbourhood shopping centres are the elderly people. If our neighbourhood shopping centres are not tailored towards the wishes of the elderly consumers it can have both a social and financial impact. First of all, the elderly might not be able to buy the goods they need for an autonomous live and they might not like the physical environment of the shopping centre as a social meeting place. Besides this, it can lead to missed financial opportunities for retailers and shopping centre investors. The main aim of this research is to gain insight into solutions / measures that make existing neighbourhood shopping centres future proof in aging societies such as the Netherlands. The emphasis in this study is on analysing the wishes of elderly visitors with regard to the characteristics of the shopping centre.

There is a rich history of mankind’s relation with nature which is still used as a framework in today’s architecture. The framework is built on the fact modern structures are still able to awaken emotions from the past. In ancient times survival has been different compared to modern times. Man survived with whatever it could gather in the direct environment to create shelter, causing structures to be built on different principles. Modern technology allows to create structures with new techniques and mimic structures of the past. Combining these techniques with techniques to make pop-up structures adds an extra dimension to the design objective.

Currently the possibilities of sending humans to Mars are being developed. This ambitious and exciting goal demands a broad range of new technologies, innovations and a fresh view on current challenges we are facing on Earth. This also applies to the field of Architectural and Building Technology.

To start with, the need for building a sustainable habitat is established, where sustainability is defined as being as independent as possible from Earth. Therefore, being sustainable on Mars is vital. This aspect is leading to the research by focusing on using in-situ resources (ISRU).

Based on this insight, the research question was formulated: Which in situ materials and forming techniques are suitable to create an outer shell for a sustainable habitat on Mars which protects the crew from the harsh Martian environment? The Martian habitat will have to protect the crew from, among others, radiation and the extreme temperatures (ranging from 20 °C to -153 °C).

Literature study shows that ice provides an excellent shield against radiation. Moreover, ice is widely present on Mars. Hence, a number of experiments were performed to test the feasibility of using ice as a building material. The results for all three tests were the same: the addition of sand or plastic does not upgrade the building properties of the ice. However, adding salt does improve the building properties. The outcome of the experiments indicates that up to 15 ppt of NaCl increases the compressive strength from an average of 1 MPa to 4 MPa. A higher percentage of sodium chloride does not influence the compressive strength. The experiments also indicated that the colder the testing environment (up to -70°C), the higher the compressive strength of the NaCl ice is. The warmer the environment (up to +25°C), the more ductile the NaCl ice behaves.

A further challenge to building a habitat on Mars is that it has to be built semi-remotely. This thesis singles out the use of robotic technology, which can perform all tasks necessary to build the habitat, ranging from mining the ice to assembling the building. A short analysis indicates that the use of additive manufacturing has great potential for the assembling of the building. In this thesis, preliminary studies and experiments have been conducted on additive manufacturing techniques for sodium chloride ice. The main outcome is that the ice structure has a greater overall strength due to the freezing of the ice layer by layer. This technique also enables the possibility of repair during the building phase as the water fills the possible cracks, and then expands upon freezing, creating a stronger structure.

Finally, a habitat has been designed to assess if the technological findings are useful and comply with the overall habitat requirements. The “Ice Hab” uses two different techniques of building with ice; one almost completely independent from Earth materials and another one with Earth technology for redundancy. Overall, the habitat design complies well with the requirements.

Abstract – The presented study focusses on the current situation of the European flat oyster (i.e., Ostrea edulis) within an ecosystem, its development and decline during past centuries and the habitat conditions nescacary to survive. Among these conditions substrate quality proofed to be an important factor for the colonization of oyster larvae, literature research revealed that cultch (e.g., scallops) and non-CACO3 materials (e.g., concrete and granite) are among the most viable substrates for oyster reef restoration. The more feasible offshore conditions in windfarms create optimal situations for reef recovery in combination with Aquaculture, Integrated Multi-Trophic (IMTA). The combination of Windfarms and IMTA can be a first step towards oyster reef restoration in the North Sea by creating the assumed right conditions for oyster growth and survival. Research showed that giant steps still have to be made, the presented results in this abstract are promising.