This thesis explores the relationship between architecture and water in the Netherlands, focusing on how architecture can enhance the sublime experience of water in the Biesbosch. The concluding words of H. Marsman’s poem “Memory of Holland” – "And in all the regions, the voice of the water is dreaded and heard" – express the Dutch mentality towards water as a continuous battle. While the construction of the Deltaworks and the transformation of wetlands into polders may seem to show the victory of this battle, it raises the question: should we continue to adopt such a violent attitude towards water? Throughout history, water has been depicted in literature, art, and folklore not only as a destructive force but also as a source of life, imagination, and renewal. This duality aligns with the experience of the Sublime: a powerful tension Between awe and fear, urging reflection on our place within the greater natural world, while offering the possibility of spiritual engagement beyond institutionalized religion. This research addresses how architecture can create a meaningful relationship with water by examining Dutch attitudes towards water, exploring artworks and literature, and analysing the physical experience of water through fieldwork, mapping, and the study of natural processes. It also investigates water-related architectural case studies to understand how built environments can reflect and enhance the sublime qualities of water. The findings suggest that sublime architecture should embrace natural processes, acknowledging the frightening and discomforting aspects they may evoke. To deeply engage visitors, architecture should both harmonize with and challenge existing perceptions of self and place. By doing so, the dual nature of water can shift from a source of fear to one of sublime reflection.

Psychiatric clinics where patients live are only used when the patient cannot
live on their own anymore. Stays are kept as short as possible and patients are
stimulated to reintegrate and live on their own again (GGZ Noord-Holland-
Noord, n.d.). For patients with the prospect of moving out again, this now often
fails, because the difference between living in a clinic and living in your own
home is too big. The architecture does not fully support aspects of giving and
taking autonomy, which can result in patients feeling helpless (Evans, 2003).
This research aims to make it easier for patients admitted to psychiatric clinics
to reintegrate into out-patient care and their own home, by finding ways in
which architecture can increase the autonomy that patients in clinics have.
For this research, the subject of feeling at home is taken from J. Habraken
(1961), who says that a place can only feel like a home when you are able to
build, to change it to your preferences. The paper by Golembiewski (2010) is
used as it directly posed architectural guidelines. There is no research yet that
combines elements of architecture and the built environment into guidelines
to increase the feeling of autonomy for patients admitted to psychiatric clinics.
Part of the research is done by a case study analysis, in which 5 psychiatric
clinics in The Netherlands will be ranked points in five different categories,
with a maximum of five points. The categories are: Room for activity within,
Activities in surroundings, Possibility to choose your whereabouts, Possibility
to personalize and Stigmatization. Another part of the research is done by by
interviews and observations in a Field Work. Three interviews were done with
members of staff and there have also been observations directed to finding
out people’s needs, wishes and relationship with the building.
The research resulted in 17 architectural guidelines that architects can use
in order to design psychiatric clinics and increase the amount of autonomy
patients have. Within the guidelines, there is a clash between those that make
sure safety and privacy is provided within the building and thosethat stimulate
social contact and activities. It is both important to comfort patients as well
as prepare them to live on their own.

Key words: Autonomy, personalization, temporary co-living, psychiatric clinics,
inpatient healthcare facilities, patient-centred healthcare.

Youth care has undergone a significant transformation in 2015. Secure residential youth care is one of the areas that is currently experiencing difficulties as a result. Research has shown that the conditions in secure facilities often negatively affect the residents. Furthermore, young adults often find it difficult to adjust to independence once they leave the facility. Youth care organisations are currently closing these large secure institutions, and creating small, more customized alternatives called small-scale residential youth care. This type of care accommodates minors who are unable to make use of lighter types of care due to their complex problems and behaviour.

Many have studied the design of healthcare environments. Others have concentrated on the design of mental healthcare facilities or healthcare environments for children and young adults. However, the majority of research still appears to be focused on the design of hospitals and other formal healthcare settings, such as psychiatric facilities. Research on the design of residential care for young adults with mental and behavioural disorders is scarce. There is a need for more specific research and knowledge on this topic. Therefore, this research aims to discover: What location conditions and architectural and built environment features can support the design of open and secure small-scale residential facilities for youth care and increase user autonomy and social interaction? During this research, the following themes will be discussed: location conditions, architectural features, level of autonomy and social interaction.

Four small-scale youth care homes were visited. Analysis of the buildings, semi-structured interviews with caretakers and conversations with residents were conducted. The research showed that users preferred a neighbourhood setting close to public transport and general amenities. Architectural features included spaces that are flexible and adaptable to different users, a domestic and normalised setting, the right balance between privacy and security, sufficient facilities for leisure and materials that are low maintenance. The research showed that autonomy could be enhanced by including safety measures to prevent (self-)injury, as few security measures as possible, security measures as invisible as possible, adaptable and customisable security and safety levels and easily personalisable spaces. Social interaction could be improved by providing opportunities to meet with neighbours and to interact with the social network and other users.

This master thesis is about health in the build environment focused on the occupant’s health in their own home. Dou to the increasing research about physical health and mental well-being it is getting clearer what is needed to create a healthy home. However, our homes are not becoming healthier. This is mainly because people do not know or understand how to regulate their indoor climate system to create a healthy indoor living environment. Based on the passive house concept and the growing understanding of health this thesis resulted in healthy design guidelines.

With the growing pressure on the Dutch health care sector, growing climate problems and pressure on the Dutch housing market more should be done to resolve this. Therefore, a project statement has been made of what is technically possible resulting in the use carbon fibre as building material for this project. On a location that because of shortage of space in the Netherlands has been reconsidered and now is approved for residential development. Giving a possibility to deal with the problems of today while incorporating the solution of the future into a new healthy home design.

The need for housing is still a relevant problem in the Netherlands, part of this problem is assigned to elderly while they often stay in their current housing situation for a long time and only move when they are in need for housing with additional health care. However, the actual problem, which is also visible in the city of Haarlem is that there is a lack of suitable elderly housing and often the elderly housing that is available is experienced as not attractive enough to move to before people are indeed in need for housing with additional care facilities.

In the upcoming years, around 700.000 square meters of police real estate will be divested and 30% of the real estate of the police is in need for redevelopment. Atelier Politiebouwmeester provided us with the assignment to look into the possibilities of several of their buildings for in the future.

One of this buildings is the Koudenhorn in Haarlem, a large building covering an entire urban block in the inner city of Haarlem. The disconnection of this building with the surrounding public space caught the attention and raised questions on how this building would function if it would have a public use.
This combined led to the following research- and design question: How could the Koudenhorn building in Haarlem be transformed into elderly housing that includes public accessible functions to stimulate social interaction both amongst the inhabitants of the building and with the neighborhood?

A research into the topic of public interiors, public space and porosity resulted in eight architectural focus points that influence the public character of interior or enclosed spaces. Analyzing the focus points in a case study research resulted in strategies for each focus point that can be tested and implemented during the design process.

Within the re-design of the Koudenhorn, the courtyard of the building is added to the pedestrian network of the city. Collective spaces such as a dining hall, music studio and library and public accessible functions such as a sport facility and makerspace are added to the various typologies of elderly housing to create a attractive living environment for elderly within a building that contributes to its surroundings.

The new industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, is already emerging as also the challenges that will arise with its actual implementation. Industry 4.0 is new reality, but it hasn’t been yet fully developed. As a result, there isn’t enough practical knowledge on what will affect the location of the new industries. In order to meet the changes of Industry 4.0, the Netherlands developed an agenda under the name “Smart Industry” with various actions for promoting it, and one of them are the “Fieldlabs”. Fieldlabs are practical experimental environments for innovation, created by multiple actors in which they cooperate in order to succeed in implementing innovative projects in the industrial sector. These fieldlabs are annually multiplied in the Netherlands and can affect the relations of the urban fabric, since people from knowledge institutions, companies and governmental authorities cooperate and co-work in them. The goal of this report is to investigate if and which spatial conditions have an impact on the location choice of these fieldlabs. In order to do this the location factors affecting the fieldlabs will be researched. These location factors are gathered, analyzed and tested on different types of fieldlabs. A literature review on the concepts, will be held together with surveys and case studies in order to approach methodically the goal of this master thesis. Semi-structured interviews with representatives of the fieldlabs are conducted for analyzing better the case studies and getting more useful insights. As an outcome, the main research question is answered and concluded into the location factors that influence the location choice of the Dutch Industry 4.0 fieldlabs. The three main factors are; the core stakeholders and the scope of the fieldlab, from an organizational point of view; the financial power of the fieldlab from an organizational point of view, that translates to dependency on available location; and the network of partners of the fieldlab from a spatial point of view, since it drives the fieldlab to be located in the relevant locations that the network is situated. This research is also including a plan approach with spatial guidelines for supporting the future fieldlabs selecting their ideal location and the cities in order to organize them better, as also relative guidelines for policymakers in order to gain the maximum experience out of the generation of fieldlabs for the future spatial planning.

The goal of the project is to find out to what extent it is possible to adapt the Faculty of Humanities in Leiden to meet the requirements of a 21st century university. The Faculty of Humanities is a university designed in the 70’s. Although it will remain the same institute, the program of the 21st century version consists of different types of spaces than the faculty program of the 1970’s. This is the result of a new, and modern way of learning. A 21st century university with more students and a higher demand for usable space, not only raises the question how Leiden University is going to transform the faculty, but also how it will facilitate students with housing in their future program. The design ambition for this project is to focus on what the changes in trends for learning are in order to transform the South cluster into a design for the university. An experiment on the North buildings will test whether it is possible to adjust the former university building to student housing. However the focus on the design will be on the University design.

Trees are of great significance throughout the world, both in urban scenes and in natural environments. Models of trees can be widely applied in various fields, for instance, landscape design, geo-simulation, environment modelling, and forestry inventories. Recently, laser scanning technology has been rapidly developed, making it possible to effectively acquire geometric attributes of trees and achieve accurate 3-dimensional tree modelling. Existing studies on tree modelling from laser scanning data are vast. Nevertheless, some works don’t ensure sufficient modelling accuracy, while some other works are mainly rule-based and therefore highly depend on user interactions. In this thesis, we propose a novel method to accurately and automatically reconstruct tree branches from laser scanned points. We first employ the Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) algorithm to extract an initial tree skeleton over the single tree point cloud, then simplify the skeleton through iterative removal of redundant components. A global-optimization approach is performed to fit a sequence of cylinders to approximate the geometry of the tree branches. The results show that our approach is adaptable to various trees with different data qualities. We also demonstrate both the topological fidelity and geometrical accuracy of our approach without significant user interactions. The resulted tree models can be further applied in the precise estimation of tree attributes, urban landscape visualization, etc.

The institution in this case is the Delft University of Technology, which will make its appearance through a building to be situated in Delft’s historical center, suggesting the university’s physical return to the city after a hiatus of some eighty years. The agent of this return will be a complex of 'spaces of collection' for the accommodation and display of artefacts in various university collections. An opportunity is seen to provide an elaborated place of social and intellectual contact between the university and the public, affected by objects and realized through students, citizens and visitors.