Half of the people worldwide currently live in urban areas, which is expected to grow to two-thirds by 2050. Though relatively little is still known about the exact effects of urban living, in particular on our health, some patterns have been recognised: a higher likelihood of developing mental health issues, a high degree of car-dominance and -dependence, and strongly felt effects of climate change. These diverse issues have one overlapping factor, which is urban stress, the main topic of this thesis. People with a low socioeconomic status experience this especially severly, due to their higher likelihood of living in “problem areas” with many urban issues, in addition to other financial worries. This thesis aims to find out what the exact causes of urban stress are, and find out design solutions that can help lower this urban stress. The question at the centre of this thesis is “What spatial design elements can improve the health of residents of vulnerable neighbourhoods with a low socioeconomic status through stress-relief, based on the case study of Overvecht, Utrecht?”. Overvecht is chosen as a case study, as it has all of the aforementioned urban issues, in addition to issues related to socioeconomics. Firstly, through literature review, sources of urban stress (“stressors”) are formulated and bundled in the so-called STRESS framework, which divides the stressors into five categories: Social, Activity, Economy, Nature, and Personal experience. Then, design solutions are presented in the form of the RELAX framework, which has the same categories, but seen from the perspective of stress-relief rather than stressors. Both of these frameworks are then applied in Overvecht, which shows how they work in practice. This same method could be used in other vulnerable neighbourhoods with similar issues related to urban stress. The main take away is that the different design solutions all depend on each other and to properly and effectively lower urban stress, the different perspectives should all be considered and formed into a synergetic vision/design, which reacts to local circumstances and wants and needs of local residents.

The project is situated at Lake Karla in Greece’s Thessalian Plain, the country’s second-largest agricultural area, marked by its unique city-territory dynamics, cultural heritage, and urban-rural interplay. Recent floods have caused widespread damage, underscoring the region’s vulnerabilities.The project responds to the devastating floods of recent years, recognizing them not just as isolated events, but as symptoms of broader global phenomena. Bioversity in nature and human systems just as natural ecosystems thrive on diversity, so too must our approaches to problem-solving incorporate a range of voices and expertise.
Through interventions like the Thessalian Table, the project provides a platform for dialogue, collaboration, and education, addressing the fragile relationship between human activity and natural ecosystems while offering a replicable model for regions facing similar challenges globally. It appears as a moment to question practices and foster resilience.
The proposal centers on the Thessalian Table, a conceptual and physical intervention designed to address the region’s unique vulnerabilities while speaking to universal challenges. The treatment of the surrounding nature through several scales, zooming in and out of the boundaries, is an architectural move that only allows for the careful interaction with the physical environment planted in places where unofficial meetings happen, guiding the visitor’s gaze but is also a philosophical move that compliments the different perspectives that ones have over the same problem.
The Thessalian table is a microcosm of larger issues offering a replicable model for emphasizing the need to shift perspectives, re negotiate boundaries, reflect on our relation to nature and our habits, re-read moments of catastrophe, strengthen community networks, and engage diverse voices. The floods in Thessaly serve as a stark reminder of how personal choices—our consumption habits, agricultural practices, and attitudes toward nature contribute to larger crises. These moments demand reflection by engaging diverse perspectives in addressing shared challenges.

The Mustakivi Art Museum serves as a cultural bridge, reestablishing the connection between the Lasnamäe district and Tallinn's city center. The museum, inspired by 'The Atmosphere of Silence,' aims to provide a refuge/ healing environment from the outside world. The definition of silence in this project refers to one's ability to listen inwards, experience inner peacefulness, and relish meaningful moments in the present. Emphasizing natural elements, especially water, as the medium to foster 'silence', the museum features spaces designed for both community gathering and solitary healing. Besides integrating water features, the building design, including façade decision, skylight integration, and the positioning of spaces above or underground, employs different levels of transparency to control the inclusion or exclusion of views, thereby shaping the interior atmosphere and user experience.

Responding to its location in the heart of the Mustakivi subdistrict in Lasnamäe and acknowledging the district's Soviet historical background, the Mustakivi Art Museum, as a new proposal, significantly enhances the existing site condition. Addressing the cultural gap left by the Soviet planning era, the art museum fills the void of cultural amenities in the area. It revitalizes public spaces on site and enriches residents' daily experiences by injecting new vibrancy into the urban fabric.

This project is an attempt to create an urban condenser that will utilize the concept of food, to bring back the lost connection between two residential areas Kalamaja and Pelgulinn, in Tallinn. People become familiar with all the stages of food production, from planting to cooking and from consuming to recycling and reusing the left-over materials. Food is used as a cultural carrier that has the power to tell a story about the history of a country. In my case, a culinary school is incorporated in a public building and a restaurant that through its recipes and materials tells the story of Kalamaja, opens the school to the public and connects the people and their surroundings. I try to zone my design in private classes that is followed up by a mixed-use space were students interact with visitors during the process of learning and cooking. The facade forms a public "skin" that wraps around the main building which extends to bridges that run from Kalamaja to Pelgulinn. The building forms a metaphor for the old bridge that used to connect those areas and keeps the memory alive for the locals. Parts of the floor and a blind wall are composed by bricks found in ruins around the area to give the sense of layered time (old materials and new) on the thresholds found around the building.

The current research is part of a trans-disciplinary discussion on the long-lasting impact of the acoustic environment on cognitive performance, literacy and auditory perception for preschool children, aiming to underlie the increasing necessity to perfectly tune every-day facilities such as schools and work spaces, rather than only performance auditoriums. The main focus is placed on improving speech intelligibility, which is the task of recognizing the message from the din, by evaluating the speech-in-noise perception. The research is based on a promising hypothesis that hybrid devices should allow for low-frequency absorption and high-frequency diffusion which correspond to certain properties of vowels and consonants respectively. Given the transition to the modern aesthetics of the flat wall, compared to the inherent complexity of surface ornamentation in the past, there is a growing demand to provide acoustic solutions that allow for a higher level of complexity towards an improved acoustic environment. The effect of periodicity on a uniform scattered distribution is investigated by examining different geometrical patterns, aiming to convert traditional materials into sound controlling devices. Customized and mass-produced versions are developed,arguing whether a lower level of complexity can meet the same goals if certain low-level rules with high level of self-organization are applied, introducing the idea of simplicity and architectural smartness by preserving the economy of means for the end users. Last but not least, since speech transmission is related to spatial context and surface properties, both the macro-scale and micro-scale are examined.

The study envisions an open-source toolbox for designers for generating design alternatives providing a deeper understanding on how periodicity affects the acoustics of a given space. Since periodic surfaces reduce the complexity of the reflected sound field, designers are encouraged to focus on a-periodic patterns aiming for a non-repetitive sequence via the geometry articulation.Further it suggests the manipulation of certain parameters, such as period,depth-to-width ratio and well width, towards an integrated workflow to achieve an optimized acoustic design. These alternatives can then be used as input fora software similar to Pachyderm Acoustics plug-in for Grasshopper, in order to get a glimpse which of those showcase a high scattering performance within the relevant frequency range. This should for no reason substitute the necessity for a thorough acoustical study as a next step but would however, involve designers more actively in the initial process of form-finding, while gaining awareness of the impact of their design choices on the acoustic environment.

A large part of the Dutch landscape is used by agriculture, and the two are strongly related. However, the current agricultural system has problems with sustainability, leading for example to the loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, water pollution and high emissions of greenhouse gases. Besides ecological issues, economic and social problems are present as well. The current way of farming has turned the landscape in an industrial, monotone area, losing characteristic landscape elements.

The project explores in what way agroecology and ecological principles can provide a sustainable solution to agriculture on the landscape level. The polders around Zoetermeer serve as a case study, showing how the existing landscape can be used as a starting point for the spatial implementation of sustainable farming solutions. Linking ecological principles, problems of sustainability and different areas together, a toolbox for the design of the area is formed. The end result offers a perspective on the functioning and appearance of an ecological farming landscape, using the concept of diversity, connectivity and circularity.

Structuralism represents an architecture that can interact, grow and adapt. The buildings can be recognised by their vivid open structures, composition of small units, and a spatial organisation like a city. As a reaction to CIAM functionalism, the avant-garde members of Team 10 proposed inclusive and social space and a more human form of urbanism and architecture. Starting in 1959, Dutch Structuralism became a very influential movement in the development of architecture in The Netherlands. Now the Structuralist legacy has become heritage. Once the agent of a new era, the pioneering nature of this architecture seems to have faded and it is this building stock that is now in need of renewal. Although some of the Structuralist buildings have become icons, their existence is at stake. Many buildings are facing transformation or demolition, because they do not meet contemporary demands. Despite the design of open structures, being flexible for the future by extrapolation of the structure or adaptation within the building, many of the Structuralist buildings show shortcomings in for example; indoor climate, aesthetic appearance and programmatic possibilities. Recently, the renovation of Aldo van Eyck’s orphanage in Amsterdam has been completed, which once was the inspirational example for many of his contemporaries. Other icons of Structuralism still await a new future, like the Centraal Beheer office in Apeldoorn and the Ministry of Social Affairs in The Hague designed by Herman Hertzberger. Although several buildings have been renovated, there are no standard solutions. We believe that profound knowledge about both the original Structuralist buildings and the argumentation for redesign can help to prepare intervention strategies for upcoming projects. What building characteristics prove to be successful? Are these specific for one building, the oeuvre of one architect or widespread among this generation of buildings? Do renovation concepts reuse or contradict initial design themes? How can necessary renovations do justice to the cultural and architectural values of these icons? Do the icons prove what is promised? Or do we need alternative strategies? This exhibition ‘The Future of Structuralism’ shows our search for what Structuralism is and our assessment of some of its opportunities and shortcomings. But most importantly, it focusses on potential strategies for reuse. The structure of the exhibition is thematic. By focusing on several themes that were important in Structuralism, we aim to link ideology, current examples from practice of transformed Structuralist buildings and design strategies. Through the exhibition and a debate at the opening event, we hope to bring the work from within the chair to a wider audience and add new perspectives to the debate on the movement and its future values.