The accelerating energy transition in the Netherlands, driven by stringent climate targets and a rapid expansion of renewable energy, has created severe congestion in the national electricity grid. This thesis explores energy hubs as a promising solution to alleviate grid congestion, enabling the flexible, local integration of renewable energy resources. Energy hubs coordinate generation, storage, and consumption of multiple energy carriers through shared infrastructure, offering resilience and efficiency while supporting decarbonization goals. Hydrogen, with its long-duration storage capabilities and sector-coupling potential, is identified as a critical enabler within these hubs. However, widespread implementation faces significant regulatory, market, and technological uncertainties, compounded by challenges in social acceptance and governance. This research, conducted in collaboration with Arup’s Business Investment Advisory team, employs a Double Diamond design framework to analyze these uncertainties and co-create strategic pathways for implementation. Methods included stakeholder interviews, case study comparisons, participatory workshops, and scenario planning. The resulting strategic roadmap proposes iterative, transparent collaboration supported by data-driven tools such as an Energy Hub Opportunity Map. The roadmap is supported by developed KPIs, that make the roadmap actionable for relevant stakeholders. The findings highlight that energy hubs, underpinned by participatory design and equitable governance models, can bridge gaps between policy ambition and practical system constraints, transforming local energy systems into dynamic, flexible, and inclusive networks capable of reducing grid congestion and accelerating the energy transition.

The Netherlands is in the middle of the transformation of the energy system. As electricity demand and (decentralized) renewable electricity generation grow, the electricity grid is increasingly facing congestion. This threatens the pace of electrification, business growth, and sustainability ambitions. Energy hubs (EHs), local and decentralized energy systems, have emerged as a potential solution, especially if they include battery storage. This helps local balancing and efficiency. However, the development of these EHs, including storage on Dutch business terrains, is lagging behind.

This research shows that the lack of collaboration, due to misalignment of interests of network operators (DSOs) and and EH collectives, is a critical factor that delays the development of EHs. This research explores how design, especially strategic and participatory design, can play a role in addressing these challenges. The goal is to understand how collaboration between DSOs and EH collectives can be designed to facilitate battery storage integration in Dutch business terrains. This is done through a literature review, stakeholder interviews, and participatory co-creative workshops.

The literature review showed that EHs can be considered to consist of four interconnected elements: technology, organization, regulation and finance. Each element influences the others, revealing a web of dependencies that must be managed strategically, as battery operations can also pose a risk for grid congestion. Interviews showed that actors in the system differ in drivers and barriers. Four main tensions were identified:
- Operational control of batteries,
- Capacity allocation,
- Risk allocation,
- Uncertainties in emerging contracts

Co-creative workshops with different stakeholders offered a way to discuss these tensions and align interests. In the workshop, two decision-making scenarios were explored and evaluated: DSO-led flexibility and EH-led flexibility. Results showed that stakeholders generally preferred a hybrid future, where DSOs act as facilitators and the EHs have control over battery use. Participants emphasized the need for EH authority, mutual trust, fairness of compensation and reliability of the systems. The workshop also revealed boundary conditions to achieve these needed values and move toward grid integration of battery-based EHs. Based on these insights, two tools to support EH developers, DSOs, and regulators in navigating the complexity have been developed:

- A morphological chart that shows options of the EH configuration
- A roadmap showing steps for each aspect of the EH toward system integration

This thesis contributes to the energy transition by offering a deeper understanding of the problem, a shared vision for the preferred future, and clear requirements to achieve it.

Aim and relevance
The aim of this project is to design for understanding and reducing street harassment behavior among young people in Rotterdam. In 2020, nearly half (47%) of the women surveyed in Rotterdam, reported being targets of street harassment (Fischer et al., 2021). Street harassment is a persistent and normalized form of gender-based violence in public spaces that can have severe effects on the target. In Rotterdam, young people aged 15–25 are not only disproportionately targeted but are also often the perpetrators. Current interventions have focused primarily on supporting targets and bystanders or on raising awareness but often fail to address the social structures that sustain the behavior. This project addresses a critical gap: the lack of understanding about why young people engage in street harassment.

Method
To address the complexity of the topic, I used a combination of multiple design methods and practices. To better understand the social structures surrounding street harassment, I adopted a systemic design approach. To better understand the context of young people in Rotterdam, I adopted a participatory approach. Activities included, but were not limited to, stakeholder interviews (n=5), guerilla street interviews (n=27), two generative sessions with young people in youth hubs (n=7, n=12), testing the design proposal three times (n=3, n=5, n=5) and interviews with relevant stakeholders to evaluate the design proposal (n=5).

Results
The research showed that street harassment is difficult to tackle because it is deeply normalized and sustained by intersecting structures of inequality, like gender inequality, racism, and classism. It is not an isolated behavior, but is entangled with broader systems of inequality and identity formation that unfold in public space. When in public space, young people experience and reinforce these inequalities, but are unable to challenge them. Resulting from a lack of accessibility, agency and ownership in regard to their environment, young people conform to the status quo: a culture of inequality, in which street harassment is normal.

Therefore, the design proposal, a workshop, aims to increase young people’s sense of agency over the public space by enabling them to contribute to shaping public spaces in a way that is both fitting and valuable for them. Through engaging in speculative design practices, I created alternative futures of public space, made tangible in the form of scenarios and objects. In the workshop, young people engage with these scenarios and objects. Through discussions about the meaning and the consequences of these futures, they share their dreams and concerns about their own neighborhood.
Conclusion
Iteratively testing the workshop showed that the process is highly engaging and encouraged participants to think critically, listen to others and reconsider their own views. The design proposal enables urban developers and planners to gain insights into the preferences and priorities of various groups of youth, opening the door for more diverse and representative youth participation overall.

By shifting focus from punitive measures to cultivating agency, this project reframed young people not as part of the problem, but as a part of the solution. The project demonstrated two main things: the potential of speculative design as a tool for meaningful youth participation on public space, and that young people are willing and more than capable to contribute to societal issues it is framed accessibly and when they are taken seriously. With the right follow-up, the workshop has the potential to not just inform, but to activate as well. It can make young people feel seen, heard, and more aware of their role in shaping the future. More than anything, the workshop is a way to take young people seriously and to position them as valuable contributors to society.

This thesis explores a service design intervention aimed at enhancing the Dutch hydrogen market by increasing social participation. The project focuses on integrating hydrogen into the Dutch energy system across sectors such as transportation, heating, industry, and power. The research delineates hydrogen’s role as a key energy carrier for decarbonization. Through interviews with industry experts and analysis of the hydrogen supply chain, barriers and opportunities that hydrogen encountered were identified. Employing various systemic design methods, the thesis analyzed system dynamics and identified three leverage points, generating four intervention ideas. The final design focuses on a service that enables households to convert excess solar electricity into hydrogen, which can be used for other services, supporting grid congestion management and promoting hydrogen adoption.

For innovation to happen, organisations must design environments - internal and externally. This demands identification, analysis and reflection of external developments in relation to the creation of appropriate processes, structures, culture and vision within the organisation. Within this context, Board of Innovation, an independent business design and innovation firm, is willing to undertake a transformation that prepares them for the present and future challenges of the world; aspiring to become a thriving Strategy and Innovation firm.

This Master Thesis presents a journey of exploration through the internal and external environments in which the organisation operates and provides with new organisational processes that will reshape the present and the future of Board of Innovation; strategically creating new structures that focus on the learning experience of current and new employees of the organisation.