This research explores the concept of a climbing-based lunar habitat as an alternative to conventional static environments, focusing on human body interaction in reduced gravity. Inspired by the natural formations of lunar lava tubes, the project investigates how irregular, vertical, and multi-directional surfaces can redefine movements and spatial engagement in extraterrestrial architecture. By studying the ergonomics of movement in low gravity, including climbing, hopping, and other dynamic body coordination, the research challenges the sedentary work-life paradigm commonly found in on-Earth architecture. A key aspect of the study is the relationship between human movement and architectural form, informed by both computational design and material exploration. Comparative analysis of terrestrial lava tubes and human adaptability in extreme environments provides insights into spatial design strategies for lunar habitation. Additionally, fabrication method such as 3D printing is explored to develop construction techniques suited for lunar materials.

Ultimately, this project aims to create a playscape-inspired habitat that not only supports basic functions of survival, but also enhances physical and psychological well-being through active engagement with the built environment. ... Read more

Buildings consume tremendous energy, and many are used for air conditioning, especially in office buildings. New alternatives to conventional air conditioning have become a global priority. Several studies have shown that applying solar cooling systems to façade systems is very promising in hot regions because it is recognized as a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional compression refrigeration systems.

The intention of this research is to explore the design and development potential of solar desiccant cooling technology integration in façade systems. This study takes Shenzhen, a city in southern China, as the case with hot and humid subtropical climate contexts, and the target building typology is the new-built high rise office building. The biggest challenge is to study how to integrate multiple systems into one façade module and how they work. Additionally, it is also significant to evaluate to what extent the design solution contributes to minimizing cooling energy consumption. This thesis aims to identify the technical constraints to overcome for façade application and establish some instrumental design guides that can potentially feed future work.
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In recent decades, the world’s population has increased exponentially and is expected to increase even more in the coming years. More and more people are moving to the city. In the Netherlands, too, we are dealing with population growth in the Randstad, and therefore also in Leiden. This increase puts extra pressure on the already extensive road network. The road network of Leiden has a negative impact on the ecosystem services that are related to roads. This lack of improving road ecosystem services makes the road network unable to cope with today’s urban challenges, such as climate change, people’s health and urban biodiversity. The current road system can even form a barrier between ecological structures. Roads play a significant role in the city’s performance, and therefore also have great potential to make a positive contribution to the aforementioned problems. A road network will always be part of modern developed cities, so serious discussion about alternative design for road infrastructure within urban landscaped are now needed. ... Read more

With nearly 70% of people living in cities by 2050 (United Nations, 2018), our urban environments are being put to the test, with more severe and frequent heat waves, droughts, floods, ongoing biodiversity loss, air pollution, and land subsidence. To sustain and increase the liveability and climate resilience of cities, the design and implementation of urban green infrastructure, with the urban forest as its backbone, is one of the most critical solutions (Spronken-Smith & Oke, 1998; Rosenzweig et al., 2015; Norton et al., 2015). However, the current indifference that runs through the veins of the anthropocentric political, economic, and socio-technical systems limits the urban forest from being a central part of the built environment.

As an attempt to put urban trees on the political agenda, the USDA Forest Service developed and launched the i-Tree software in 2006 to quantify the ecosystem services provided by urban trees (Nowak, 2020). In 2019, the first version became applicable to the Netherlands. This project is part of the three-year-long follow-up, i-Tree 2.0-NL, consisting of a consortium of 28 stakeholders to further elaborate the cooling performance, model growth curves, and synchronise the potential of the software for the stakeholders. This thesis concerns the latter.

The project starts with an understanding of the overarching transitions, exploring the direction in which the urban green domain should (and currently is) heading to calibrate the compass for change (see Figure 1). The newly proposed paradigm illustrates five societal shifts in how we relate to, integrate, account for, collaborate for and provide access to the urban forest. The ideal is to reposition the urban forest as critical infrastructure. The project is moving towards mapping the current system and processes of the consortium stakeholders, localising the role of the public green sector in urbanisation and discovering interrelationships. The different domains are strategically separated and examined in isolation to explore opportunities for integrating i-Tree into architectural, municipal and nursery processes. From this set of five opportunity areas, the concept of a management dashboard was selected for further development with the aim of linking municipal green space policy and green space management.

The ‘Urban Forest Portfolio’ is created, evolving the use of i-Tree from static assessments to a dynamic portfolio. The dashboard aims to integrate the urban forest lifecycle into planning, management and design, to track progress towards the realisation of long-term quantified targets, and to enable scenario evaluation for just compensation.

The integration of the proposition into the system is discussed, leading to eight concrete new practices and six speculations on a system scale, one of which is the establishment of the ‘Rijksgroenstaat’. Finally, the principles behind these new practices helped to make the new paradigm tangible, operationalise the transitions and bring into focus the parts specific to the domain of this project.

The project aims to discover the systemic granularity of the urban green domain, oscillating between abstract paradigms, concrete practice, and levels in between. A systemic strategy developed side by side with the stakeholders in the green sector.
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De-centralised policies and care-focused homeless support in the Netherlands has led to an over-simplified definition of homelessness in Rotterdam, where the gemeente fails to recognise and address some of it’s most vulnerable groups. Through literature reviews, interviews with actors from the homeless sector, and observations and conversations conducted during voluntary shifts at a homeless shelter; this thesis analyses the pathways into and out of homelessness in Rotterdam, identifying the groups experiencing similar prejudice or treatment, and evaluating the means necessary to end their homelessness. This is compared against the existing services available across Rotterdam to understand the social support system as a whole, and the role architecture has and should have in helping the homeless. This thesis then identifies two groups: EU labour migrants and sofa-sleepers, as potentials for non-care based support as part of a symbiotic community structure, centred around a temporary, demountable, transitional housing scheme. A detailed building programme ensures activation of the ex-homeless and integration of the public through third spaces on the active ground floor plinth. The first floor houses the ex-homeless units which are derived through a process of self-build technologies and open building principles. The temporary city represents a reformed, more humanistic image of homelessness; one that challenges the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy, because it illustrates the great lengths we’d all go through to create a home. ... Read more

The current owners of the Scheveningen Pier are starting to head into the second phase of their exploitation plan, which is to replace the current pier. This new pier is larger than the current pier and can exploit at a higher level. This thesis creates a design for a new Scheveningen Pier. A design method is used, which combines the engineering design method and the spatial design method. This combined design method consists of two design loops. One design loop for the complete design and the functional / spatial design and one design loop for the technical aspects of the design. These technical aspects are the morphology, hydrodynamics and the structural mechanics. In the end of this thesis, a total integrated design has been made. This design accomplishes the goal of this thesis and suffices the requirements and scores good on the criteria. However, to get to a fully functional and realisable design, more detail needs to be added to the design and the calculations. Some design steps should also be revised because new information is gathered over the course of this thesis. The design method used in this thesis is functional, but a more effective design method is given in the end. These changes are based on the experiences gathered in this thesis. ... Read more

This thesis reflects on the exclusion of refugees and other migrants from mobility in border space. The research suggests that, while society is becoming increasingly mobile, refugees and other ‘undesired movers’ are excluded from the otherwise unrestricted possibilities to move that have been established across national borders. Following the integration of spatial and social mobility as described by Vincent Kaufmann, it is suggested that enhancing the potentiality to be mobile for all can improve equal access to opportunities for people in border space. The thesis proposes an urban design strategy for the area along the Como (IT) – Chiasso (CH) border. The design moves away from nation-oriented planning, in which borders are seen as in-between spaces that should be crossed as efficiently as possible, towards a cosmopolitan perspective on planning and design as described by Ulrich Beck. The nation state is put forward as a malleable social construct that urban planners and designers should challenge, by planning and designing for various, hybrid territories that overlap, rather than for a singular national territory. The proposal puts forward border space as an integrative space that can accommodate inclusive mobility (i.e. to establish equitable access to opportunities by securing people’s potentiality to be mobile). Migration is framed as a permanent temporality and design measures are adapted to this notion. Three main design ambitions are experimented with through research by design: the development of affordable housing, diverse public spaces and slow traffic networks. Each of these interventions are expected to contribute to the liveability of border areas as well as access to social and economic opportunities, both for people who currently benefit from border crossing, as well as for those who are stuck in isolated places. To further highlight certain themes, two zoom-in projects explore the themes of designing an adaptive plan, flexible to various futures, and the theme of refugee integration. The first theme is researched through the development of a landscape in place of a current customs area. To research the second theme, a small scale refugee community is integrated into the urban border space envisioned. The ‘camp’ is designed according to the principles of incremental urbanism, meaning that the inhabitable spaces are designed to grow in quality over time and to form the foundation of what will later be part of the interwoven urban fabric. ... Read more

Nowadays, the high rate of urban population growth due to immigration and scarcity of land has significantly increased the need for new high-rise dwellings. Meanwhile, the recent building regulations require buildings to be highly energy-efficient to reduce the building’s impact on the environment. However, the inherent characteristics of these new energy-efficient high-rise dwellings put them at higher risk of overheating. In addition, with the effect of climate change, the risk becomes even higher in the future. Though this problem could be addressed by the means of active cooling, doing so will increase the energy consumption of the building, confronting the core concept of the energy-efficient dwellings.
Therefore, this thesis investigated passive and energy-efficient solutions for the overheating problem in energy-efficient high-rise dwellings of temperate climate. Design Guidelines helping designers in addressing the overheating problem in tall buildings were introduced. Then, by applying bundles of these solutions through redesigning the façade of a case study building effectivity of the purposed solutions were investigated for the Dutch context.
The simulation results verified that overheating can still be prevented in the future by passive means. A proper combination of the thermal mass, heat dissipation and heat protection techniques with considering adaptivity in thermal comfort displayed that overheating can be prevented even by the end of the century.

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In the wake of climate change and rising water levels the city of Dordrecht is looking for alternative ways to prepare for coming threats other than keep raising the current dikes. In an exploration a suggestion is made to use the southern side of the island as a buffer for excess water. This research takes that suggestion a step further and upgrades it towards a room for the river project.

In contrast to normal room for the river projects this case is located on a city border where the city even has wishes to expand. Within this research the city dynamics that have implications for the dike in the room for the river plan are identified. A research by design process was aimed at working towards a solution to account for these city dynamics as well as future water safety needs. This resulted in a framework for the placement of a number of mounds. Mounds that are scaled up to be able to accommodate different types of developments as well as be able to have integrated solutions for self reliance and sustainability. ... Read more

Digital application for the collection of data on environmental perception in cities ... Read more