This research focuses on the relationship between anonymous spaces and a lack of social cohesion. The hypothesis for this study is "By making architectural/spatial interventions that allow for privacy zones, more social cohesion is created." To investigate this hypothesis, the following main and sub-questions have been formulated.
Main Question:
How can the built environment facilitate social cohesion?
Sub-questions:
1. What is the role of anonymous public space in a lack of social cohesion?
2. What are the needs of residents regarding social cohesion?
To answer these research questions, the following theories and methods have been employed. Social cohesion is approached through the 8 values of social cohesion described by the Field Academy (2018). The essence of privacy zones lies in the readability of the spaces. For an answer to sub-question 1, research has been conducted based on literature study and analysis. For sub-question 2, information has been gathered from existing initiatives, consulted existing research, and fieldwork has been carried out.
The key results of sub-question 1 indicate that all four categories of social cohesion have a relationship with safety and that safety is therefore crucial for social cohesion. Social cohesion is also highly vulnerable to anonymity as it has a direct and/or indirect negative impact on multiple components of social cohesion. The main results of sub-question 2 show that residents of Carnisse have a need for a green living environment where residents can find each other and connect. They want to feel safe in the neighborhood and in public spaces that are connected to surrounding public areas.
By combining insights and information from sub-questions 1 & 2, it is evident that the built environment can facilitate social cohesion by:
1. Clearly defined situational normality. 2. A readable environment. 3. Accessible, comfortable, well-maintained, and inviting public spaces. 4. Freedom of choice. 5. Incorporating residents' needs.
By incorporating these conclusions into a design without anonymity, a built environment is created that optimally facilitates social cohesion.

Navi Mumbai is a city designed to diffuse the overpopulation problem of Mumbai. However, there were villages in the area that developed informally alongside the formal city. These villages present several problems such as inadequate housing, identity loss, lack of infrastructure, lack of public space, overcrowding and crammed streets. There are two possible outcomes for these villages, their eradication to make way for the formal city or their existence in limbo as leftover space. The project aims to break through this dichotomy and an urbanisation strategy is developed for the remaining villages in the city that anticipate informal development. The project focuses on Moha Koliwada, a fishing village that is inhabited by members of the Koli people. An urban plan is developed first to provide the community with the necessary infrastructure to urbanise in a healthy manner. Three housing typologies are designed to serve different purposes: to ensure the important access to the sea, to maintain village life and to increase the density of the village. The housing typologies are inspired from Indian modernism and more specifically low rise - high density projects. The aim is to allow these villages to connect with and contribute to the formal planned city while maintaining their distinct village character. The project attempts to show how these villages can provide housing for the urban poor in a better and more humane manner than the mass housing schemes developed by the authorities and more specifically CIDCO (City and Industrial Development Corporation). The mass housing schemes are problematic as we are historically aware in the West, they don’t reach the poorest inhabitants in India and they unfortunately become an aspiration for many residents of informal settlements. Finally, guidelines regarding urban planning, stakeholders and housing typologies are developed for the urbanisation of other villages in Navi Mumbai.

India's rapid urbanization results in a horizontal urban expansion to the periphery, shaping them into a dynamic rural-urban interface termed the 'peri-urban'. On the one hand, urbanization has profoundly impacted villages within the urban boundaries and resulted in a massive breakdown of local space through gradual changes in land use, economy, and social linkage. On the other hand, infrastructure works in the city have provided many job opportunities, attracting poor migrants from surrounding rural areas to move to the city. In 2010, about 35% of the population in Navi Mumbai were rural migrants. They were mainly working in labour-intensive sectors, such as quarrying.

Unprecedented urbanization in India increased existing inequalities and exacerbated urban exclusion in the context of disability to access social services and formal houses. Government interventions have been unable to respond to the exclusion appropriately, especially in the housing sector. Under the existing social housing allocation system, most quarry workers are excluded from applying for formal social housing without legal citizenship and stable incomes in the city. They have to live in self-built informal shelters which have difficulty accessing basic amenities and are exposed to high levels of risk, including pollution, dynamite blasting, and heavy industrial road traffic. In general, the dynamic socio-spatial spaces in the peri-urban area are full of multidimensional conflicts between villagers, migrants, and government officials. Fortunately, housing is a combination of domestic activities, income generation, and social linkage in the Global South. It is significant for urban development and facilitates social integration.

From an urban aspect, long-term socio-ecological urban resilience will be achieved through urban upgrading in Navi Mumbai's quarry belt. The upgrading will be divided into three phases: resettlement, urban upgrading, and ecological restoration. Focus on the resettlement phase, the proposal of the residential cluster is based on quarry workers' collective and mutual-help lifestyle. The temporality in the quarry area has also been taken into account, which may help the project adapt to the post-quarry period. Finally, a conclusion of urban-scale design principles will serve for upscaling and replicability of this project. It will guide the resettlement and upgrading of many informal settlements located in the quarry belt.

In India, informal waste management (IWM) within slums stands at the intersection of informal economy and circular economy. Collecting and processing hundreds of tonnes of municipal solid waste per day, this industry supports the millions of people engaged in this business and provides ecological and economic contributions to Indian cities. However, IWM is currently faced with the problems of internal vulnerability from slums and external threats from cities. The current situation of Indian slums does not correspond to the aspirations of dwellers and workers for a better living and working environment, nor the expectations of cities for a better urban image and development prospects. Over the last few decades, many slum redevelopment schemes have attempted to change this situation, yet their entire focus on resettlement strategies has left no space for IWM as well as other informal businesses. As ecosystems buzzing with activities, slums cannot simply be replaced by neat low-income housing estates unless they allow for the flourishing of many dynamic economic and social activities and new trajectories of resource use that contribute to sustainable livelihoods. The aim of the research is to explore a new direction for future slum development, which entails a synthesis of economic, environmental and social sustainability. The design result will allow informal waste management to operate in synergy with other economic sectors in a spontaneous socio-economic cluster to promote sustainable livelihoods for slum dwellers and sustainable development for Navi Mumbai.

Housing project located in Navi Mumbai, India, with a goal of social integration, and a gender-sensitive design approach. The main goal is to create places of loitering for fun and leisure for women of all income groups.

Mumbai is one of India’s most heavily populated cities, ranking as the biggest metropolitan region in the country. As a result, a design for a new city called Navi Mumbai was presented in 1964. It was originally planned to further extend the urbanization of Mumbai to the mainland instead of any further northwards. This satellite town needed to decongest the population, absorb the migration from the countryside, reduce the concentration of economic activity on Bombay Island and lower the traffic congestions. Navi Mumbai was a city planned for the common man; with jobs and housing in different sectors.
But instead of becoming a city for the common man, Navi-Mumbai today is, as many cities of the so-called Global South, a place where social inequality is growing and housing becomes a commodity.
Housing is a primary human right, but for the urban poor it is a prerequisite of political and social citizenship. For them a house is not only for life alone, but a house is also a production and marketplace. So the project focuses on a better integration of the people from the lower income groups into the city’s urban fabric. So they have fuller access to wider social networks, a more dignified social role and a deeper source for accumulating information, credibility and dignity for the urban poor in public life as well.
Two World Merge is about two different scales. One being the unit scale, by combining economic and domestic activities within one housing unit to create healthier working and living conditions. The other is at the scale of the neighbourhood or city, by integrating the lower income groups with their home-based enterprises and businesses into the city. This economic integration of the lower-income groups will lead to an empowerment of their livelihood.

Navi Mumbai is the largest planned city in the world, situated on the west coast of India, in Maharashtra state. Despite there being roughly an equal divide between the sexes, pubic space Navi Mumbai remains a male domain similar to many other cities around the world. Women’s access to public space is highly conditional and therefore their movement within these spaces is limited. Social restrictions on women’s spatial mobility reduce their job opportunities especially those from the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and the Low Income Group (LIG) since their livelihoods depend on public space. These women are faced with issues regarding their own safety, their sense of belonging and the lack of access to basic needs such as sanitation. The opportunities for women in the informal sector are extremely limited and the restricted access to public space only exacerbates this issue.

The City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) of Maharashtra was formed by the government in 1970 with the aim to address the urban housing shortage among the lower and middle income groups, including slum dwellers. Their mission is to house these people in pucca, meaning permanent, houses by the year 2022. However, in recent years, the Mass Housing Scheme has become standardized, failing to deliver what it promises, offering no planned amenities and only providing 2 very similar dwelling types. The scheme’s incapability to provide for different people’s inhabitation patterns and needs, demands a new approach. The same is true for the environmental impact on the area, specifically in regards to the mangroves. Ever since CIDCO started to develop the satellite city there has not been any serious action taken to preserve and expand the natural environment.

In response to the research, the proposed project targets areas in Navi Mumbai where the CIDCO Mass Housing Scheme has already been built in order to activate the existing schemes by means of a gender sensitive approach. A set of gender sensitive principles have been derived from the book Why Loiter? by Shilpa Phadke, writing on women and the risk on Mumbai streets. These principles have been applied at every scale from the urban strategy to the individual dwelling unit. The scheme consists of four components including separate building types for each income group with public space acting as a social connector. The project aims to show that by increasing the density and taking up more ground space, an unwelcome dead zone can be converted to a lively, safe and inclusive neighbourhood for all.

More and more people in the Netherlands want to live in the so-called Randstad. This results in a need for densification in Dutch cities. One of the solutions for this is building more high-rise residential buildings. High-rise buildings provide amazing views and house many people on a small plot of land. They do however, have some downsides. According to their residents, the circulation space can be impersonal and the use of the elevator can be experienced as annoying. Even though this is the place to see and meet your neighbours. It has also been proven that there is a relationship between living in a high-rise and poor mental health of children. And lastly, high-rise dwellings are often seen as a home to eventually move on from, to an owner-occupied home, which results in a lack of connection between the residents and the building.

This graduation project aims to rethink the current way of living in high-rise buildings to make it more suitable for families with young children by answering the following research question: How can a high-rise residential building contribute to improving the living environment of children in cities while stimulating a sense of belonging to a high-rise community in Rotterdam? As a result of the research a set of design tools and guidelines is developed to form the base for the design process.

The final result is a high-rise residential building in the centre of Rotterdam that is suitable for children of different ages and encourages social interaction to increase the sense of belonging to a high-rise community.

This graduation booklet shows the work that is done during the ‘Global Housing Graduation Studio: Addis Ababa Living Lab’. The goal of this project was to research and design housing solutions to improve the livelihood of Addis Ababa’s urban dwellers. Currently, Addis Ababa is facing the problems which are caused by the ongoing rapid urbanization. One of these problems, and the focus of my graduation project, is the degradation of the rivers and riverbanks. This project proposes a rehabilitation of the riverbank informal settlements of Addis Ababa, as well as implements a strategy to increase the density of the city which also takes into account the existing inhabitants of these riverbanks and offers them a dwelling type that fits their traditional way of life.

The prevailing matter of need for affordable housing in the time of rapid urbanisation and additionally, during the peak of the Anthropocene era, calls for new social, economic and environmental solutions to accommodate the rural-urban migration in Addis Ababa. As the city boundary of Addis Ababa is constantly expanding in the phase of its urbanisation, the farmland is compromised and taken over by new building developments. As a result, the local farmers are losing their livelihoods and are forced to move further out of the city. On the other hand, are the people residing in, often informal, neighbourhoods in the central parts being re-located to the condominium schemes in the outskirts of the city, which often results in interruptions and loss of social contexts and connections. In the time of a global extensive urbanisation and rapid rural-urban migration both around the world and within Ethiopia, the question is if we can re-connect people to their place and engage people with their environment as well as create space for traditional livelihoods and rural practices to take place in an urban environment.

The world is urbanising rapidly, with the Global South as the part of the world with the most rapid urbanisation. The urban population of Ethiopia is predicted to nearly triple in 25 years. The swiftness of urbanisation is resulting in extreme challenges. It causes, reinforced by climate change, that Addis Ababa is increasingly affected by flooding. The urban poor are forced to settle in the least desirable areas, such as areas around rivers which are most vulnerable to flooding. The rivers of Addis Ababa are polluted with all kinds of waste because of inadequate services. Around half the population has no water supply, forcing people to purchase water in shops. The urban poor cannot afford this and use the unsafe water from the rivers as a consequent. The Ethiopian government launched in 2019 the Addis Ababa Riverside project, or the Sheger beautifying project. It follows a series of ongoing beautification projects in the Global South. The project aims to clean the rivers and create public spaces, bicycle paths and walkways along the rivers. The project is criticised because it is no certainty that the rivers will not continue flooding and there is no proposition for all the waste that is currently discharged into the rivers. Rapid urbanisation in combination with poverty and the inability of the state and the market to provide affordable housing, cause that over 1 billion people reside in informal settlements. Addis Ababa can be seen as an example of this inability. Historical grown, informal neighbourhoods called sefers are located in the city centre. Over the last decade, sefers are challenged by the swift urbanisation of Addis Ababa with a resettlement program aiming to replace these low-income neighbourhoods into denser urban schemes affecting the social, economic and political tissue. This program, the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP), was introduced by the government in 2005. The inhabitants of former kebele houses claim their houses get demolished without any compensation or alternative accommodation. Piassa is chosen as a project site, being currently challenged by demolition of the existing kebele housing. Having researched the location and its inhabitants, a housing system is designed with a combination of tenure systems for different income groups. These groups will live together in an inclusive, mixed-income environment in the inner-city of Addis Ababa.

An Architecture of Enablement documents the design of a participatory housing system in the context of Addis Ababa. It represents the first application of the principles put forward in Patterns of Participation. It focuses on formulating a new standard of housing applicable city-wide, perhaps even nation-wide rather than a particular, site-specific piece of architecture. It confronts real-life issues head on, offering an alternative to the existing mode of mass housing in Addis Ababa.

The architectural framework as theatre to create character and identity, and various spontaneous stages. The collection of activities becomes the staging of the MultipliCity as a theatrical assemblage of stages attracting the different layers of society. The visitor becomes an actor in a dynamic play off stages.

The intensification of the existing parameters of Morgenstond, The Hague, will increase the need of a healthy city life. The Green Cross in The Hague is a vital urban element that enhances the city experience. The public condenser is located adjacent to this axis and should therefore become an urban element in the existing urban tissue. The ribbon as an architectural element creates and defines in- outdoor spaces. This idea of architectural element is weaved throughout the park to create a continuous flow of architectural stages with an ambiguous character.

Ethiopia alone is one of the most rapidly growing countries not only in the continent of Africa but also in the whole world. The country is populated by almost 110 million inhabitants and only 20% of the whole population is living in the cities. Over 65% of the population from rural areas have started to follow the migration patterns from rural countryside to the urban settlements. The mismanaged urbanization processes create many problems that newcomers and urban poor face. The city of Addis Ababa urgently need a change in creating spaces of transition for migrants, that would sustain their lifestyle, but also offer a flexible way to adapt towards the lifestyle of the city, by providing flexible housing arrangements, where variety of socio-economic groups could dwell together, as the current attempts by the government are failing. Therefore, the project aims to create a model of a co-existing housing scheme between two lifestyle groups of urban dwellers and rural newcomers, as well as different income groups of economically weak income, low-income, middle-income and high-income people. The chosen location serves as prototype of creating a neighbourhood, where different, even conflicting, uses and users can live together and enjoy the convenience of junction. However, this work only if the variety of people are accommodated in an urban framework, that allows them to be good neighbours for each other.

Danish people have a relatively high death-rate, compared to other Nordic countries. This has not gone unnoticed. The government has been actively promoting a healthy lifestyle for quite some time now. This promotion is mainly focussed on physical health. With this public condenser project, an architectural interpretation of this healthy lifestyle is provided. Hereby, the focus is not just on physical health. Since mental health and physical health are always connected, the project addresses both subjects. On top of that, a healthcare component is also addressed within the intervention, in order to make sure that nothing is “broken”, and that the physical and mental health can be continuously developed. By taking a very contextual approach to the way that the design is created and structured, it is possible to strengthen the positive qualities of the site, whilst simultaneously tending to the aspects of the site that could be better. Therefore the project is not just conceptually integrated (by the overarching theme), but also contextually.

Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa but only 20% of its population lives in urban areas. The relevance of this fact entails that traditions, economic activities and their social structure are still highly attached to the rural, which is reflected in the ‘’ruralization’’ of the urban areas, that have retarded the progress of cities according to the goals set by the government to achieve modernization. In The capital, Addis Ababa, traditional practices rooted in the countryside are part of the daily activities fostering a juxtaposition and fragmentation of land uses emphasizing the proliferation of informal economies and the unforeseen urban growth where lower and higher-income groups live side by side. In that sense, I find in these challenges an opportunity to propose an inclusive scenario enabling adaptations over time, while pretending to dignify the lives of the current residents and newcomers by granting the same accessibility to decent homes and healthy environments through the sense of appropriation for their own living environment.

The water tax in the Netherlands provides the funding for all the water management in the Dutch deltas. In the US there is no such tax, this means funding big civil projects may be problematic and not so easy. Therefore it is necessary to explore smaller scale solutions for the problem of sea level rise.
In the San Francisco bay area, there are many communities which are prone to flooding in the near future. Some of these communities have a high social vulnerability for disasters like flooding. This means preparing and recovering from flooding’s(or earthquakes) proves to be very difficult for the communities. That is what this project is about, providing a small scale safe location and give the opportunity to decrease the social vulnerability in these communities.
The solution that is suggested is a terp(dutch) on with people can flee when the area is about to flood. On this hill a school and community centre are located. The school functions in times of need as an evacuation centre and provides food and drinking water to its inhabitants.

How is BIM implemented and integrated as a building process for existing
buildings on a social and organizational level? By researching the building process at Schiphol during the project upgrade Wortel g-pier and combining these results with theoretical knowledge of BIM, a hypothesis could be written with a potential method of implementing and integrating BIM. This hypothesis could then be implemented and tested for the project upgrade Wortel g-pier at Schiphol Airport. The results of the implementation of the hypothesis could then be generalized to all projects where there would be an existing building.

The fire safety strategy in hospitals is complex, and requires an integrated approach, because of the presence of vulnerable and reliant patients who need assistance during evacuation. The current regulations in the Netherlands seems to be outdated, and don’t fulfill the current use and the changing design trends. The design trends of hospitals are changing, shifting towards a healing environment with mostly single patient rooms.
Research into the actual disconnecting times of different types of patients is performed, to determine the total evacuation time per patient. As displayed different phases of the evacuation route are gathered and analysed. With these differing evacuation times, the design can be adapted to the required egress time per specific ward. The evacuation times of patients on a Dialysis, Intensive Care, Neonatal ICU, Heart monitoring, Recovery and a standard nursing ward have been gathered.
With an interactive design tool, the actual risk and Required Safe Egress Time calculations can be made. A relative probability calculation indicates the risk of casualties per ward, compared with a design fulfilling the maximum restrictions of the Dutch Building Decree. Together with the gathered data, specific RSET calculations can be made for different types of wards.