In the coming 20 years, the city centre of Rotterdam will face a new wave of constructions, with the goal of densify the area with new 50.000 dwellings before the 2040, converting the city centre towards a more residential and international character. This up-coming densification of Rotterdam, led by the high-rise strategy developed by the Municipality, it is going define a border condition between the new high-rise developments and the historical neighbourhoods, such as the case of Cool Zuid and Baankwartier, causing a disrupted relationship between the built environment, the public space, and the human scale, creating tension and dichotomy. Within this scenario, what could it be a different catalyst event, different from the high-rise strategy, that will lead the future of this neighbourhood, preserving its human scale while accommodating the future of the city? And so, “How is public space going to be reconsidered within the international character and the high-rise strategy of Rotterdam?”. Therefore, if the Municipality of Rotterdam will be more focused on the skyline of the city, the goal of the Open & Closed is to explore the so-called “groundline” of Rotterdam.Thus, the Open public space that today is only perceived as playground, a fixed mono-functional use, in the coming years it will be re-thought and designed as a more informal public space, where different users will start to interact and co-exist. Meanwhile, the Closed public space will be a new Performing arts centre, where the already present activities such as dance, music and theatre studios in the area will be reallocated in one public building. However, it will be important to make a strong synergy between the Open & Closed public space, made of visual and physical relationships that architecture can create, together with a public program to engage a broader audience, in response to the future growth and needs of Rotterdam. ... Read more

The digitalization of labor – enabled by the rise of the Internet and digital technologies – began a redefinition of architecture typologies. The typologies of Home and Office, once seen as stable and fixed, with clear distinctions, are now blurring their boundaries towards each other. The ubiquity of the network has spread work outside of the office and, as a result, the boundaries of these two dimensions are diluted in the realm of an omnipresent and interconnected reality. New phenomena are emerging. Every place, as long as connected to the network, becomes a productive one, even the most private and intimate: the home. How is this shift concretizing in architectural design? The productive home project aims to give tangible and spatial form to the contemporary condition of labor, unfolding the blurred line between domesticity and productivity. The project has been thought out as a series of designed scenario: each of them aim to reflect upon the relationship between the working and living sphere: from blurred to sharply separated, the goal is to express the different nuances of the contemporary condition of Labor. ... Read more

Smells are everywhere around us. They are within ourselves and around us, they impact us in our mother’s womb and throughout our entire lives, until death. But while sight and touch prevail in the contemporary approach of design and architecture, the olfactive dimension of our built environment is often forgotten.
This thesis aims at exploring the interactions between the space outside of the body and the body itself, studying how smells matter from the scale of the molecule to the urban planning. What are the potentials of this somewhat neglected sense and how could it be used by designers and architects? How do smells affect architecture and the humans inhabiting it?
During the research, we focused on both a theoretical and an experimental approach, studying the alterations of materials, construction techniques, spaces but also bodies and minds. The research was conducted through different experimentations that helped the -exhaustive- understanding of the affects of smells on architecture. Interviews with different professionals in the landscaping, research or perfumery fields, such as perfumer Fredrik Dalman (from Maison Mona Di Orio), and the analysis of theories of affects with the texts of Deleuze and Guattari, Malgrave, Massumi, Grosz and others lead to the study of the affects of smells on humans. ... Read more

Mental health issues are becoming ever-more common in contemporary societies as urban landscapes are over-stimulating and stress-inducing. Studies suggest that lacking access to green infrastructure may be a fundamental factor. In post-industrial cities and health care systems, nature’s healing abilities are however commonly neglected and have only recently become subject to scientific research. This project explores how health is impacted by the built and natural environment.

Caused by the environmental crisis and dynamics of the global market, many European port cities are in transition leaving the territory vacant and afficted with industrial leftovers. In Dunkerque, the former refinery grounds bordering the old habour are such vacancy. Stricken with remnants of an industrial past, both structural and in form of contamination, they have been abandoned and become in a sense wild. At the same time, they are testimony to the city’s relationship with the North Sea that has been shaped by its industrial heritage as well as historic war events drawing an invisible boundary between land and water.

Seizing the void, this project comprehends an urban garden and a mediator of health; environmental, socio-cultural and human health alike. As a novel form of green infrastructure it endeavours to renegotiate existing thresholds –
between the inhabitant and the territory, the city and the port of Dunkerque, between land and sea – to become a piece of collective conscience of place, nature and health.

Through a sequence of gardens, the visitor is invited to reconnect to and explore the natural world present in a place so foreign to nature due to its anthropomorphic history and heritage. It is precisely this atmosphere that grants a new perspective on the vegetative actors of the place and not only stimulates a re-joining with the territory but also with the inner self. The territory itself is subject to remediation through the vegetation on site. Phytotechnologies degrade substances and allow a subtle opening of the site through time. By that, hitherto marginalised port areas and the North Sea foreshore are increasingly reconnected with the city converting the site into a link between land and sea. ... Read more

Along with the growing amount of data usage and smart city development, more data centers are expected to be built in the urban area to meet the demand of even higher connectivity and lower latency brought up by the advance technology. Data centers have long been an infrastructural typology that prioritizes machinery functionality over humanity. Urbanization of data centers means more urban space will be taken up by inaccessible data centers that are designed purely for servers, which harms our livability. As data usage is growing exponentially every year, it is imperative for the city to design a way that situate data centers more harmoniously into the city fabric that bring positive impact to the social context and the neighboring environment. The design focuses on developing a new data center typology which could at the same time fulfill the growing demand of data infrastructure in Manhattan central business center and provide positive impact to social life and the environment. Looking into situation in Northeast Midtown Manhattan, an adaptive reuse proposal is adopted to redesign an existing 50-years old office tower, which is 40 stories high and fully vacant at the moment, into a new data center that fit contemporary need. The project incorporates function of a data center, office and public amenities. The design aims to position data centers in midtown Manhattan as anchors of smart city developments and harnesses its waste energy to empower social gathering places and creative work environment. ... Read more

Infrastructure, industry and extraction have greatly reshaped the North Sea over the last five decades. These specific elements played and still play a vital role in the growth and evolution of the North Sea and its adjacent countries. Among all the fishing and oil industry have become highly governmentally influenced machines and are imposing structural injustice on those in contact with its multi scalar impact. Both industries appear seemingly very different from each other however, both take part in the imposition in terms of pollution, territorial claims and impacts on identity and culture. This role has its direct effects on people closely linked to these systems, but also to those far beyond the boundaries of the North Sea. Their lives forever changed, with a low possibility to ever act against. One of the main reasonings behind this imposing role are the detached positions of these industries in relation to their territorial specificities. The lack of integration in terms of site specific entities such as climate, flows and culture are enhanced by its alienated and detached appearance directly result in the separation of man, machine and territory. Unfortunately, these industries are currently indispensable for our present-day lives, without them we couldn’t live as freely and developed as we do now. To act against the structural injustice imposed by the industries a new type of industry must be introduced and by means of it an energy transition. Allowing for maintaining benefits, yet without the imposed disintegration known from our current state of existence. The duality imposed by these industries is clearly notable in Bergen, Norway. Being Norway’s largest centre of sea based extraction, production, transportation, research and education Bergen has greatly benefitted from the extraction of oil and fish however always correlated by strong cases of structural injustice. On the other side of the industry stands Bergen’s unique landscape and its territorial specificities unlike any other city surrounding the North Sea. Together they embody a topography of chance suitable for this new type of industry, which is set to initialise an integrated and coalesced energy transition. Its result is a new approach to an equilibrium between all related subjects and objects, while providing a bodily experience embedded in and exposed to territory, flows and machine. The new type of industry entails a series of interventions linked to a multi scalar energy transition in terms of production and utilisation by means of direct linkage between man, machine and territory. The proposition consists of three main elements: a hydrogen production facility, a fuelling station and a bath house. Each individual element plays a critical role in the integration and coalescence of production, flows and territory to create an integrated and sustainable energy transition. The hydrogen production facility as the manifestation of integrated production and service to the city by means of both product and waste. The fuelling station as the long term solution and the possibility of reterritorialization of fjordic waters by local fishermen. And lastly the bath house as a social proposition of full process exposure, tangibility and integration. These elements make various appearances ranging from: the uncovering of present-day systems to the management of site specificities, use and enhancement of cultural aspects and the utilisation of clean energy and waste. Furthermore, a moment of reflection on the self and the structural injustice imposed by the governmental machines which we currently heavily rely on. Together acting as a statement of minimal intervention to maximise territorial use and therefore the activation of structural justice by means of integration. ... Read more

A platform for the exchange of skills and knowledge in both local and global scale is located in the context of very highly educated people of various backgrounds, driven by ambition to develop their knowledge and careers. Talent machine supports the next step in the development of Northeast Midtown ensuring its future well-being and enhancing the historic value.
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