Several areas in the Netherlands are considered vulnerable. These areas have poor livability and safety. Creating safe space is about improving the perceived safety and livability in neighborhoods by designing spatial interventions. One of these vulnerable areas is Rotterdam South. In Rotterdam South, Hillesluis is perceived by the inhabitants as the most unsafe and has low livability. The following research question is guiding this thesis:
‘‘How can the perceived livability and safety in Hillesluis be improved by designing spatial interventions?’’
In many cases, improving vulnerable neighborhoods involves gentrification; lower-income people are driven out of the neighborhood by higher-income classes. The goal of this thesis is to find a solution to improve the perceived livability and safety of Hillesluis without gentrification. To achieve this, the resident’s perspective will be used. Being in contact with residents reveals the negative and positive aspects of the neighborhood. In addition, locations in the neighborhood will emerge that need improvement because here livability or safety is poor.
To improve the safety and livability of a neighborhood, there are six important principles. These principles are social cohesion, attractivity, connectivity, accessibility, visibility, and territoriality. The pattern language method will provide a set of interventions related to these principles. These patterns were applied to the locations in need of improvement. The patterns used in this thesis are summarized in an accompanying pattern atlas, which can be used as a toolbox for improving safety and livability in neighborhoods.
This thesis sought to improve perceived safety and livability in Hillesluis by creating spatial designs for 5 locations. These locations were obtained by conducting a survey among residents of the neighborhood and making a spatial analysis.

Globalized universities located in small cities are expanding at a rate beyond the spatial capacity of its host city. The resulting presence of student housing in these cities known as ‘studentification’, have cascading social, cultural, economic, and spatial impacts that lead to, in particular, a lack of co-existence and tolerance between the university community and the local community. Existing research have primarily focused on how studentification has materialized in cities through negative consequences. As the influx of students continue to increase in an unprecedented rate in Delft, a need to understand fundamental conditions that contribute to negative consequences arise in order to propose strategic interventions for their mitigation and transformation. This research aimed to thoroughly understand the studentification process in Delft and recommend a long-term strategic plan towards co-existence. The methods used in this research involved delimiting or expanding on practices of other European cities experiencing studentification through the political, spatial, and socio-cultural lens of Delft. Through this research, the urgency and complexity of studentification were clarified and called for a comprehensive approach that transcended conventional practices.

Although not widely known, The Hague emerged as one of the most impaired cities in the Netherlands after World War II (Mellink, Saal & Van Schuppen, 2017). Bombings on Statenkwartier and Bezuidenhout left part of the city in ashes (Van Der Boom, 1995; Verbaan, 2011), but also the construction of the Atlantikwall left its marks on the urban tissue. The remnants of the Atlantikwall in the dune landscape form permanent scars that recall a memory of war, oppression and its consequences. Therefore, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of valuing this sensitive heritage. However, within the city most has disappeared. The lack of presence and the portrayal of solely military bases may have diverted attention from the human aspect of the Atlantikwall.
Though, the impact of the Atlantikwall on the public space in The Hague is often greater than people think. In The Hague, 35,000 houses have been demolished from Kijkduin to Benoordenhout to make place for walls, tank ditches, bunkers or dragon’s teeth. This defensive fortress was a total of 26 kilometers long. 145,000 residents, about thirty percent of the population, were forced to move elsewhere: within The Hague, in the province or even beyond. The area that was excavated and occupied by the Germans, left its mark on the public space and had an immense impact on the residents of The Hague at that time. Consequently, an elongated visible scar is left in the urban fabric of The Hague. When commemorating World War II, we reminisce about stories of Operation Market Garden, the bombings on Rotterdam or other events. However, the woundedness and events in The Hague, via the construction of the Atlantikwall, is a story that is often forgotten.
Sense of place, together with local communities, increases the attractiveness of and quality of urban life. Sense of place can magnify the unique values of nature, culture, (sensitive) history and landscape. It can make things tangible for a large audience and gives impetus to reconcile. The perception of citizens’ sense of place is influenced by the urban environment and its organisation. These urban external stimuli have significant influence on the well-being and mental health of residents (Gehl, 2022). The challenge lies within maintaining development and harmony with a healthy environment.
Wellbeing, mental health and dealing with (intergenerational) trauma has become a significant challenge in society. Healing is not solely defined on the individual level, but also on the community and its environment. To meet reconciliation within the landscape, cultural resources can provide pathways to healing. Exploration and development are a potential to come up with new strategies and to mitigate wellbeing and mental health, among them are cultural, social and environmental strategies (Darvill et al., 2019). A component of healing through cultural strategies is the integration of narratives of heritage, creating a sense of community and sharing connection (via the past).
Parallel to the increased differences in the meaning and significance of this heritage, the primacy of the official heritage institutions has been challenged in recent years by bottom-up initiatives. The trend towards ever-increasing citizen participation, resulting in co-creation, is also evident in the heritage world. All these initiatives come from non-governmental foundations, associations and individuals, and have a major impact on the management, (re)design and perception of the historic living environment. The knowledge to successfully cooperate with this development has not yet been brought to a generally applicable level. As a result, the appropriate working method and role perception for heritage experts, more just initiatives for residents and designers have not yet sufficiently crystallised to strengthen the spatial quality.

Citizen participation is frequently mentioned in debates about our urban environment but proves difficult to be meaningful in practice. Often, participation is characterised by intransparency, poor communication and distrust. It is a loss seen the potential positive effects of influential civil participation that could help us overcome problems regarding the increasing complexity of cities. Enabling the potential and making citizen participation a valuable asset demands the extra step; full facilitation.

The research’s aim is to understand how participation needs to be facilitated to make it worthwhile. Therefore, the following research question is formulated: How can Rotterdam facilitate and structure co-creation in the built environment in an inclusive, supportive, human-oriented and meaningful way? Although the outcome of this research reaches beyond Rotterdam, will Rotterdam be used as research subject.

To answer this research question, current context and good practices are analysed. Additionally, a real-life street experiment in the Old North of Rotterdam has been conducted. The context analyses consist of the current approach of Rotterdam in facilitating participation in the city, interviews about participation with urban and architectural firms in Rotterdam, and current programmes and strategies. Relevant good practices outside of Rotterdam are analysed for valuable lessons and used as input for the design. The experiment consists of the regeneration of a street, in which the process and co-creation were vital elements. The outcome of this research consists of recommendations and a design proposal. The main recommendation for Rotterdam is to communicate more about the process and the assessment of proposals. The design proposes a next step in the appropriation of public space by residents. This appropriation is guided by design coaches connected to the municipality. Currently available, as well as newly created space, is used to demonstrate the strategic design proposal.

Conclusion; facilitating participation in urban developments is strongly connected to actively guiding and initiating processes, good communication and transparency. For the design; to keep it tangible and make people take ownership of their surroundings, process scales should not be larger than the scale of the neighbourhood. Integrating participation into society needs to be done step by step but with complete commitment. Participation is not about saving money, but rather a new way of approaching design processes.

One of the main dilemmas in participation remains not being able to attract unusual suspects. The personal door-to-door approach connected people to the process, but not as active participants. Analysing digital tools will be interesting for follow-up research in this regard. Overall, analyses of existing practices remain an interesting way to learn

This thesis report, the new neighbors: urban revitalization in the Rosmolenwijk, presents the socio-spatial effects that urban revitalization plans combined with the housing crisis (and other trends and policies) have on working-class neighborhoods. The working-class neighborhoods are built-up with mostly social housing to provide home for the workers of the industries in the industrial revolution. However, with the industries disappearing, the neighborhoods are left with low quality housing and homogeneous population with low-income levels. Currently, these working-class neighborhoods are often considered as fragile and low-quality neighborhoods with a various of problems by the municipalities. To tackle these problems, municipalities came up with revitalization projects that meanly consists of methods like state-led gentrification and social mixing to boost the socio-economic status of the neighborhoods. On paper, these plans sound promising. Although, these plans are conducting friction between the new and native inhabitants. Firstly, the displacement of native inhabitants, who often have a strong connection to the community is high. This displacement is strengthened by some urban policies on housing associations that put pressure on making the housing more sustainable, leaving no other choice than selling blocks to the private sector or rebuilding blocks for the highest rental prices to be able to finance such investments. Secondly, the mix of new and native inhabitants rises the socio-spatial fragmentation between the new and native inhabitants as they are not mixing groups but create hotspots with the wealthier groups. And thirdly, the lifestyles are so different that the target groups do not seem to connect with each other. They have their own perception of theirs and what is not, the new inhabitants seem to like the community idea but hardly participate in it themselves, and the environmental connection to the neighborhoods of the new inhabitants is different than from the new inhabitants as well. The thesis plan points out some centers that have the potential to increase the social cohesion between the target groups based on the usage of the neighborhood. Furthermore, these locations will be transformed in a way that embraces the positive goals of the revitalization plans, while decreasing the socio-spatial friction that has is conducted with the current revitalization plans of working-class neighborhoods. Combined with this transformation comes the new condition in policies and legislation that are necessary to fulfill the aim of this thesis.

Gender is a highly context-specific social construct. It explores the social relationships between men and women, a relationship in which women have been systematically subordinated (Oakley 1972). The way gender relations are defined broadly influence the conceptualisation of space and place. In a patriarchy like India, where gender inequality is deeply rooted in its culture and history, this disparity lends itself to the realm of space-making as well. Even though women account for almost half of India’s population, they are still considered vulnerable and marginalised. They still have difficulty fostering an amicable relationship with the public realm which was predominantly created by and served for men. They are met with hostility, cultural taboos, violence and an exclusionary environment that doesn’t account for or recognise their complex needs.

The graduation project, ‘Loiter city’ explores the spatial dimension of gender inequalities that result in the economic marginalisation and socio-spatial segregation of women. It examines socially constructed behaviour patterns, relationships between women and the built environment. It deals with the inequalities between gender and focuses on the spatial dimension of this inequality trying to locate socio-spatial justice through an Indian perspective.

The framework of the project is constructed using Peter Marcuse’s Critical planning theory. By reviewing an extensive volume of academic research and literature on gender studies, the foundation of the project is developed. The project analyses the notions of gendered exclusions and citizenship and what it means for women to have the same legitimacy as men in the public realm. A transdisciplinary methodology is formulated which can tackle the complex issue both from the spatial and policy perspective in a multiscalar approach. By using ‘Loitering’ as the concept, the project envisions an operational framework that aims to change mindsets and provide more visibility to women in public spaces. The project facilitates uninhibited agency, ownership, accessibility for women and creates platforms for active participation in the co-creation of a city.

The vision of achieving legitimacy is a long, tedious and complex process that requires mobilisation of institutional capacities. For this, Gender mainstreaming is envisioned as an integral process achieved by formulating various strategies that can guide sustained change. An organisation called the Gender Lab is proposed to mainstream gender into planning and bridging the knowledge gap. This body helps in tackling opposing interests at different stages while sustaining social change. It monitors the bridging of knowledge and incentive gaps by developing alternative collaborative governance models. Women-led grassroots movements would be formalised within policymaking to boost women’s participation in planning processes and influence important decisions that affect their lives. This model emphasises operational frameworks and policy initiatives that prioritise safer and accessible spaces for women. The project paves the pathway to achieve spatial justice through gender-sensitive city planning and by giving agency and ownership to women towards the cities they inhabit.

Urban expansion and development are normally guided by road infrastructure.
Such road-oriented development ignores the profits that landscape could bring and it breaks the integrity of natural layer.The thesis researches on how to use landscape (as infrastructure) to “integrate” and guide the future urban development. Integration by landscape needs a deep understanding of different flows in the dynamic landscape layers instead of just human flows.The thesis aims at exploring how to uses landscape structure as a framework to guide urban development, and thus achieve natural, social and economics co-prosperity.