The project 'From Space to Place' explores how architecture can respond to the psychosocial impact of Groningen’s gas extraction issues on the local population, while supporting the development of the leisure economy in the region. Through a design in Delfzijl, a coastal town in the northeast of Groningen, a fragile socio-economic context is studied in relation to the development of the tourism industry. The project uses the ‘third place’ theory by Oldenburg (1989) as a framework to explore how architecture can mediate between addressing residents’ psychosocial wellbeing and becoming a socio-economic catalyst for the region, which leads to the following research question: How can a ‘third place’ in Delfzijl embed a sense of place and foster psychological resilience for residents, while performing as a socio-economic catalyst for the region?

To answer this question, the project combines literature readings, reference projects and a research-by-design approach to design a spatial intervention that addresses the aforementioned concepts. It concludes that the introduction of a mixed civic programme, split between a pavilion and main building, can serve both residents and visitors without losing its value and identity as a public destination. Using spatial strategies such as framed views, distinguishing materials, layered circulation, and differentiating spatial atmospheres, a sense of place and psychological resilience are fostered and strengthened. The design demonstrates that architecture in Delfzijl can mediate between wellbeing, identity and revitalization in a complex socio-economic context. ... Read more

The Berlin Open Depot complements the cultural heart of Kulturforum, the cultural center of Berlin, located on Potsdamer Straße in the Berlin-Tiergarten district, situated on one of the busiest transportation nodes of Berlin. It is a center for a wide range of exhibition types and stands among the global frontrunners in the field of innovative exhibition experience. The Berlin Open Depot transcends the typical structure of museum buildings, adopting a new approach in its design and layout. The design pushes the boundaries of exhibition and storage spaces, consequently forming a solid, yet flexible space that can facilitate unlimited forms of exhibition. Due to its multidimensional design, the Berlin Open Depot extends beyond the confines of display, exhibition or showcase. It can also serve as a space for events, lectures, or workshops and can be curated by artists as an ever changing canvas. ... Read more

Entrepreneurs are indispensable to our society. They translate innovative ideas into valuable products and services which in several cases also contribute to a more sustainable, convenient, and ethical world. Moreover, entrepreneurship is one of the most significant drivers of economic growth in a particular area. The entrepreneurship literature has shown that entrepreneurs are usually highly dependent on the environment in which they arise. Some sites show higher entrepreneurial activities than others, which is often due to the available resources and the interconnectedness between the involved actors in these areas. To comprehend the complex nature of these business environments, the term ‘Entrepreneurial ecosystem’ (EE) emerged, which systematically looks at the resources and interconnections between actors at a certain place. A successful EE is perceived as an area in which ventures cultivate and grow. Previous studies which explored how these EE emerge, particularly focussed on how public authorities position themselves. On the contrary, this research aims to shed light on the role of a private developer in shaping an EE. The data of this study is collected by reviewing the literature about EEs and the influence of private developers. This literature review formed the academic foundation of this study. Afterward, 16 in-depth expert interviews were conducted. Subsequently, the data from the interviews were thematically coded and analysed using Atlas.ti. Ultimately, comparison and discussion between the literature review and the interviews are conducted. The findings of this study indicate that developers exert their influence in different ways. First of all, they develop meeting places, to stimulate encounters. Secondly, they offer flexibility in terms of space to respond to the growth of the companies. And thirdly, they develop spaces that can be shared by multiple companies. Aside from these three physical design principles developers adopt in shaping the built environment, they also exert their influence in selecting certain end-users. The results demonstrate that putting a cluster of start- and scaleups, a small share of established companies, and academia closely together empowers the overall EE. Furthermore, a key takeaway is that developing an ecosystem goes beyond developing real estate. Needless to say, facilitating the needs of entrepreneurs supports them in growth. These needs are not only accommodation-related but also cover soft services (e.g, organizing events). Next, these needs also continuously change. This implies that a developer should be adaptable to quickly respond to these fast-changing needs. Over and above that, they could participate in the operations phase to ensure that they transfer the developed buildings whenever not solely the real estate, but the actual EE is finished. Evidently, this is not the core business of developers. Therefore, they could team up and invest in a collaboration with another party that is more specialized in real estate operations and soft service provision. Overall, this study added a chunk of new information to the existing body of knowledge about EEs. It shed light on what role and responsibilities of a private developer, and what influence they exert, and could exert in shaping an EE. ... Read more

Metropolitan regions are the most urbanized and globalized areas as the concentration of population and economy in the world, which makes them exposed to various global emergency risks like pandemics. And the COVID-19 outbroke from Wuhan (China) at the end of 2019, offered an up-to-date perspective as an opportunity to investigate and improve the vulnerability of metropolitan regions in highly contagious global diseases. Metropolitan Region Amsterdam, is one of the most developed regions in the Netherlands and the world, who is playing a significant role in globalization. However, in this emerging public health crisis, MRA has been the most vulnerable region as the current epidemic hotspot. The concentration of corona cases in the region has resulted in various negative impacts, both directly and indirectly.
Considering these problems, this project is a research-oriented design in MRA for the post-pandemic vision. Firstly, through a series of theoretical, political, and spatial analysis, the main problem of MRA is that it is vulnerable to the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic due to a vicious cycle of urban vulnerability which has been exposed and intensified by the hazard of COVID-19. And the basic reason is related to its attachment to continuous economic growth. The government of MRA has also paid attention to this problem and attempted to transfer its development from a pro-financial model to a pro-well-being model with a theoretical underpinning called “Doughnut Economics”. However, like many other experimental tests, this transformation follows the traditional planning method which is not suitable for dynamic risks like the pandemic. Therefore, this research is aiming at spatial and political strategies based on the methodology of dynamic planning to improve urban resilience facing the pandemic in the post-COVID MRA. And the final concrete outcomes will be on different scales. There will be a vision of post-COVID MRA through a set of strategies of municipalities and institutions to improve urban resilience. And on a local scale, there will be a resilient design for different pandemic vulnerabilities for an equal and sustainable community. ... Read more

3D city models are continuously becoming more popular among practitioners due to the volume and versatility of information they contain, which makes them suitable to be used in various applications. However, there is no mechanism to allow maintaining them updated at the same pace that cities evolve, or when error correction is necessary, eventually diminishing their value. Many cities around the world already possess such models which are mostly used for experimentation and research purposes. Such an example is also the city of Rotterdam, whose 3D city model is not regularly updated and has to be outsourced for that purpose. This thesis investigates into addressing this issue by proposing and implementing an integrative maintenance workflow. The workflow is designed to fulfill what the maintenance needs of a typical municipality are expected to be. Those needs were identified after conducting an analysis of the current situation and collecting information from practitioners within the municipality through interviews. The workflow is a combination of 3D city model versioning and visual editing capabilities with the aim to effectively maintain CityJSON encoded models in an intuitive way. Its implementation includes two prototype software implementations: a versioning component, which is utilized to create a workflow inspired by git flow and allows concurrent maintenance and alternative scenario testing in a non-linear and distributed way, and a visual editing component capable of editing CityJSON encoded 3D city models by extending Blender’s functionality. Following the implementation, the workflow was tested by simulating real world maintenance scenarios. The tests demonstrate the feasibility of maintaining 3D city models with such a workflow and more specifically the suitability of git based workflows. At the same time some key parameters of the versioning mechanism are identified which if tuned properly they can optimize the performance, behavior and robustness of 3D city model versioning. With both components being prototype solutions the workflow is far from operational and there is certainly a lot of space for improvement regarding both components. Utilizing the workflow in practice would be the ideal way for collecting useful feedback. Besides that, there are already extensions of Blender that combined with the visual updating component of the workflow can offer advanced integration of editing and analysis capabilities. ... Read more

DESIGN THINKING:
Design thinking is an ambiguous term regarding its meaning. It can be seen as an approach that opts to define and solve problems by incorporating designers’ approaches, methods and tools to problem solving. As it is believed that all managers already do think like a designer, it is questioned how design thinking is implemented in the management of the Schiedam port area redevelopment. In depth analysis of the case elucidates how different design thinking themes are recognized within the management of the port area redevelopment, although being part as a process management approach. Subsequently, the case study demonstrates how it is not always necessary to implement every design thinking theme.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT:
The municipality of Schiedam is in a process of change. Subsequently, successful management of change is a necessity to survive in an eminent competitive and continuously changing environment (Luecke, 2003; Hemmington, Okumus, 1998), which leads to the question if, and to what extent, change management elements are recognized in the municipality of Schiedam’s process of change. This research answers this question, whilst demonstrating in which way the elements are recognized. Analysis shows how different elements are recognized by different interviewees who are part of the organization, and how the change process is experienced in different, sometimes contrasting, ways. ... Read more