The debate on climate risk labels in the Dutch housing market is gaining momentum, with opinions divided on their potential benefits and drawbacks. This thesis delves into the impact of flood risk labels on the housing market, focusing on residential real estate owned by professional investors. By adopting an investor's perspective, the study examines the implications of various flood risks, including those from main water systems, regional areas, and heavy rainfall. The research design incorporates a literature review, a questionnaire, and an expert discussion to validate the findings. The literature review explores the investment landscape in the Netherlands, existing labels in real estate, and sustainability reporting. The empirical research involves a questionnaire distributed to professional investors, followed by an expert discussion to validate the results. The study aims to understand how flood risk labels influence investment strategies and climate mitigation efforts. The findings reveal that flood risk labels somewhat benefit the decision-making process of professional real estate investors in the Netherlands. Investors consider flood risk labels as a valuable tool for risk reporting and guiding investment decisions in the face of climate change. The study contributes to the ongoing discussion on the necessity and design of climate risk labels, providing insights into their potential to improve housing valuations and investment strategies. ... Read more

The current sustainability crisis requires a shift in the way material availability is currently considered. The current trend is to dispose of material easily after it has served its first purpose, while often the material still has potential to be reused. The construction sector is a large contributor of the extraction of virgin resources, leading in the case of timber to deforestation. In The Netherlands alone around 1.740 kiloton waste wood is collected annually. 23% of this wood consists of solid non-glued or treated reusable timber, translating roughly to a waste stream of 450kton of reusable wood that is discarded. The current design approach requires shift, instead of design for manufacturing designers should focus on designing with what has already been manufactured. The design concept of discrete timber is well suited for this design approach as it involves building a structure or element out of smaller parts. This method allows for direct reuse and repurposing of a varying stock of discharged timber pieces, effectively enhancing the life-cycle of timber from a currently down-cycling scenario into a circular loop. Moreover a discrete system is not beholden to the traditional implication of uniform an rectangular cross-sections and a geometry can be easily optimised to the acting forces by leaving out parts on lower stressed area’s. Using programming and optimisation techniques, this thesis focusses on creating an efficient and adaptable structural system from a varying stock of reclaimed timber pieces while maximizing the future reuse potential of the used parts. The main computational problems addressed in this research are efficiently filling a design domain with available stock and minimizing cutting losses, and structurally optimising the design domain. An algorithm is created in the visual programming environment Grasshopper in combination with Python. The algorithm discretizes a given design space into the pieces found in the database by sequentially solving three combinatorial problems. The algorithm optimises the placement of the pieces so that higher strength grade pieces are placed in area with higher stress levels. The assembly is optimised by removing all non-vital structural parts resulting in a final efficient structure. The algorithm's performance is tested on stability of results, optimisation method, size influence of parts, filling rate of the design space, strength grade influence and buckling. This work serves as a prove of concept for designing with a highly versatile stock of reclaimed components. ... Read more

The Metropolitan Region Rotterdam-The Hague (MRDH) is a new geographic region and governance entity established in 2015. The OECD's report notes that, like many metropolitan regions, MRDH's discourse on spatial planning issues is limited by rivalry among guidelines from the traditional province-municipality administrative structure. Such a dilemma can lead to uncoordinated urban development trajectory and landscape fragmentation in the future metropolization process.

This project aims to develop a landscape-based metropolitan park structure (MPS) design framework to safeguard the essential landscape values for achieving sustainable urban transformation in MRDH. Based on the understanding and diagnosis of the MRDH complex urban system, the project carries out a targeted MPS design framework, which includes principles for MRDH's long-term visions and correspondent strategies for short-term interventions. It also encompasses a robust MPS network planning map and list of strategic locations with one local scale design as an example to elaborate how the framework contributes to sustainable urban transformation in multiscale. The MPS approach, differing from traditional metropolitan models, balances ecological preservation with urban development, promoting harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. By extending green spaces and promoting slow transportation through cultural and historical routes, the MPS fosters sustainable urban transformation. Overcoming traditional governance limitations, the MPS demonstrates a holistic approach to metropolitan spatial development, balancing socio-economic and ecological goals through ecosystem services. ... Read more

Purpose - The purpose of the research is to use existing data from literature, collect qualitative and quantitative data from experts in the luxury industry to discover what the optimal workplace is for left and right brained talent.

Methodology - This research follows the explanatory sequential mixed method design, presented by Blaikie and Priest (2019). In retroductive research, quantitative and qualitative data from in-depth interviews, as well as an expert review, are used to formulate the results. Participants are selected that are working in the service office of the Benelux for various maisons (right brained talent) or for the holding (left brained talent) itself. The experts for the review are chosen based on their seniority in the corporate real estate department of the holding company's headquarters.

Findings - The results showed that left brained talent sees itself as the binding factor of the organization who value (in)formal activities and connectivity in the workplace, while right brained talent values integrity, identity, and expressions of brand heritage. A workplace that takes integrity into account whilst providing informal meeting spaces. As well as standardization of the office interior with easy demountable and transferable objects to express brand heritage boosts productivity and overall sustainability of the workplace. The new proposed strategy ‘Workplace 5.0’ presents a set of 4 objectives with each a corresponding means/tool to develop workplaces that best support the staff in developing their skills, their activities and retaining the best talent to ultimately improve performance.

Practical implications - Insight in the core values and preferences of talent in the luxury industry can fill a future gap in formulating CREM strategies that tackle the upcoming trends from a user perspective.

Social implications – Insight into workplace core values can contribute to the potential of the industry reform.

Originality/value – There have been few to none studies that investigate the workplace core values of left and right brained talent in an office where they coexist. ... Read more

Slum population has increased continuously in global south. It expands onto precarious land such as floodplains, lagoon areas and so on leading to deficiency of basic facilities. Bandung is the third most populous city in Indonesia with around 26,000 slum dwellings. Kampung Tamansari in Bandung is the densest informal settlement located along the Cikapundung river. During the Dutch colonial era, this area was meant to be a part of the green corridor under the Garden city scheme. However, the concrete mass now uprooted the green. However, since the area is located at lower level than planned area, it is hard to expand existing infrastructure into the area. Lack of infrastructure in informal settlements and densification have led to the environmental degradation and have disconnected people from nature. Treating the river as an open sewage, people directly discharge their waste into it. Clogged ditches with garbage as well as cemented pavements which restrains water from going into the soil results in flash floods. Therefore, nature and human activities enter a vicious cycle which requires the redefinition of this relationship. This research aims to reconnect people and nature by improving their living quality through ecosystem service. It is based on two main research fields. First, Ecopolis gives a structure to create self-governing ecologically sustainable city. Tjallingi’s Ecopolis strategy helps to look into the site based on three different perspectives: area, flow and participation. Kampung Naga is used as a case study to understand how Indonesian cultural landscape creates a circular water system. Next, Kampung Tamansari is used as a showcase to explore how the ecopolis strategy can be applied into the context of a developing country. It shows how people can change their recognition of the potential of nature and how can their activities positively influence in nature in a long-term. The design strategy starts from place making for green spaces. Relocation is considered in this stage. Relocating houses are arranged in North Kampung as creating three types of enclosures (enclosure, semi-enclosure, expanded semi-enclosure). Each enclosures are transformed into different green patches to serve different ecosystem service and make people responsible to maintain the spaces. Green patches consist of kitchen garden, pit-forest and riverfront park. Kitchen garden is built in enclosure space which offers basic facilities using dry-toilet module which can recycle human faeces, generate electricity and store rain water. It lets people create their own kitchen garden to overcome food insecurity. Pit-forest is permaculture system using plant-based ecosystem service combined with organic waste management. River front park is the most open space which connects people to the river. Furthermore, it shows users visible circular water system. On the other hand, these three green patches work together as one stormwater management system. It links each other and create complementary network. Moreover, it transforms current highly linear water flow into circular water flow. This green patch strategy can be applied to other informal settlements in the similar contexts. When it is replicated, it will not only build rich ecosystem service in the informal settlement but also create mosaic garden city, Bandung in a city scale. ... Read more