In recent decades, heritage preservation has expanded its scope beyond traditional monumental buildings to include industrial and maritime sites. This research explores the overlooked category of non-building structures, structures without walls and roofs, not built to protect people, animals or things, but for functional reasons, such as cranes or chimneys. Which despite lacking walls or roofs, are integral to maritime landscapes and cultural identity. These structures, referred to as maritime or industrial “leftovers," often lose their original function due to industrial decline, rendering them vulnerable to neglect or demolition.

Through literature review, value assessment, and case study analysis focused, this study investigates how these structures can be identified, valued, and transformed for contemporary use. Using Alois Riegl’s heritage value framework, combined with Steward Brands sheering layers a guideline on how to value these non- building structures is created. Examples such as the NDSM Wharf in Amsterdam and dock cranes in Den Helder illustrate how adaptive reuse can preserve identity while providing new urban relevance.
The study concludes that non-building structures possess significant heritage potential and, if thoughtfully integrated into urban redevelopment, can serve as tangible links to maritime history. It proposes design strategies that balance conservation with innovation, ensuring these structures remain meaningful within their changing contexts.

This is implied in a design. The design focusses on the transformation of a former cranetrack in Dordrecht. Where a function and a viewing platform are added.

During the interwar period in Greece, urbanization drove people to Athens for better job opportunities and economic recovery. They brought a countryside mentality, fostering neighborhood and small community life within Polykatoikias. When I left Greece, I still remember my first impression of other European cities, "Where are all the Polykatoikia buildings?"

The term Poly-Katoikia, literally "multiresidence" is a composite word, from poly, translated as multi, and the noun katoikia, dwelling. The construction is built with reinforced concrete. It originates from modernism, retains traditional and neoclassical elements, treated like custom-made furniture by its users and architects. Athens' architectural tapestry, marked by flexibility and adaptability, accommodates remarkable diversity within a singular archetype.
The project’s mission involves expanding the potential for communal living in the “Athens of property.” Understanding various scales—neighborhood, urban, and building— the project addresses new design challenges, including minimal living spaces.
A new design of Polykatoikia by key interior spaces (Terrace, Balconies, Foyer, etc.) to establish collective character and activity among tenants. This attempt expands the means to create a new dwelling type that retains the spatial and social essence of the archetypal Polykatoikia for innovative living.
The tenants of such a building are favored with certain flexibilities in their individual spaces, allowing them to control the level of communal element they want to introduce. It is not a rigid, copy-paste element to be repeated identically, but only one version of this flexible framework that adapts to specific needs and conditions.

Due to climate change, the sea level is rising, posing a potential threat to the protective dikes in Groningen. In the next century, we might not be able to rely on these structures anymore. As a result, it becomes crucial to reimagine our architectural design strategies, anticipating a future where water might play a more prominent role in our everyday living. Moreover, in addressing the environmental challenges posed by climate change, it is essential that we transition towards a greater reliance on renewable energy sources. The integration of water-conscious design and increased utilisation of renewable energy are crucial steps toward creating a more sustainable and adaptable living environment for generations to come.

My graduation project explores the relation between traditional craftmanship and current innovation in sustainable architecture. There seems to be a trendiness to sustainable architecture, demands and trends alternate rapidly. I define true sustainability through the enduring value of Groningen’s traditional farm constructions, which embody both heritage and innovation. What can we learn from the skilled craftman and their building methods that created these structures?
Working with these themes rely on designing through every scale. Seeing first-hand the relation between the technical design and the specific architectural aesthetics.
Thourough research evolved in a strong position as an architect and a strong idea for what I wanted for this project.
I decided to create a knowledge and research centre that offers opportunity to learn from all stakeholders in the building process, echoing the collaborative spirit of traditional craftsmanship. This created the concept of my design - a core with the traditional truss construction, extended with redesigned trusses.

Based in Vienna, Austria, the project deals with the possibilities a new type of public interior has for a gradually flattened historic city centre, concentrating on the role of derelict spaces such as abandoned shop spaces, aggressively demolished building plots or undervalued topographies in this instance an underground car parking have once integrated back into the grain of the city.

The project proposes a new type of urban institution, a network of rooms, reinterpreting and adapting aspects from typologies that local residents would be familiar with such as the ‘Wiener Kaffeehaus’, the ‘Durchhaus’ or the ‘Bildungsgrätzl’ to create a sequence of spaces and rooms that carry a sense of familiarity and intimacy for the users. Situated in the Ruprechtsviertel, one of Vienna’s most historic but underappreciated neighbourhoods, the project questions the means through which architecture can help appropriate a new public interior and reclaim spaces that are currently underutilised. Through this, it hopes to invite local communities and new publics to reclaim a sense of the qualities the city centre had for communal life all these years and continue its legacy through it.

This paper explores different participation methods that could be applied in redeveloping religious heritage. Due to secularisation, religious buildings are threatened with vacancy. Churches in particular are difficult to redevelop due to their ecclesiastical and social values. Active community involvement assists in overcoming the gap in designer and user interests. In this study, the St. Dominicus church is used as a case study in which a simulated participation workshop with actors is conducted. The initial goal of the simulated workshop was to determine a suitable program for a community centre inside the existing church building. Various methods were employed during the simulated workshop, structured by three participation phases identified by analysing case studies. Individual brainstorming, cognitive mapping, and a consensus design assignment were applied for research inquiry and design input. Two months after the initial workshop, the preliminary design was reviewed through individual semi-structured interviews. The individual brainstorming together with the cognitive mapping proved to be effective in determining general program possibilities, gapping the requirement of communication skills and time. After the review of the preliminary design, all participants expressed a sense of ownership of the design, thus these methods could easily be applied in other cases to boost social belonging and community values. Future research recommends a larger sample group and the mixing of age groups in the consensus design assignment, which could result in more conflicting interests regarding the community centre’s program.

This research explores how the St. Dominicus church in Utrecht can be revitalised with the help of contemporary spiritual values. As a result of secularisation and the shift from religion to spirituality, there is a noticeable increase in vacant church buildings. In this research, a design strategy is proposed that revises the original function in a way it can better accommodate the modern spiritual needs. Incorporating the results of different literature and analytic studies in spiritual architecture, this study demonstrates a way to create a design that accommodates
more spiritual experiences through architecture. It argues that these experiences can be evoked through architectural qualities that adhere to the bigger spiritual concepts of sensuality, humanity and sustainability.

This project focuses on the layered history and current situation of District Six in Cape Town, South Africa, which saw forced removals and demolition of non-white residents' homes under the apartheid regime. With only 108 families being allowed to return over the last 55 years later, this project looks at the impact of restitution housing and the tension between the historic community and the adjacent fragmented university campus and student body. Here the focus on the public realm and particularly the street as extension of the domestic sphere posits a hopeful threshold to bridge these two communities. With ultimately the research lending to the design of a cost-effective student residence which orientates its students towards the street and in-turn their neighbours. Here, outdoor gathering spaces, porous thresholds, and a reimagination of historic typologies encourages community engagement.

The project aims to shed light on the complexities of land restitution and the role of architecture in shaping a new and layered community in District Six.

"Brussels was never destroyed by the wars, but rather by its own people" these words of Victor Bourgouis show the destructive vision of social and cultural spaces in Brussels. The city's vision of urban development is based on top-down politics, fed by the desire to be modern. This affection leads to the non-identification and displacement of citizens. The tendency for the tabula rasa leads to the production of scar, but when the tabula rasa cannot be evoked, terrain vague starts to exist.

Terrain vague is defined by its ambiguous character. The project, which establishes the terrain vague as a walled garden, is a response to the scars that are made by the historic urban interventions. It defines itself as a space with a public character and gives it to those who require it. It gives meaning to a meaningless void in the city. It keeps the ambiguous, informal, and improvised character that is found on terrain vague, and translates it to a space of possibilities and forming a new center point in the European quarter in Brussels.



for more information, please send an email to:
meert.sander@gmail.com

Living in Rotterdam, we make eagerly use of all cultural attractions the city has to offer. We visit a museum on a free weekend, go to the library to study, spend an evening at the cinema or theatre and go out for dinner with friends and family. Without much awareness, using the cultural infrastructure of the city engages us in informal learning processes; triggering new interests, expanding our personal skills and strenghtening our social network.
But for many residents of Rotterdam, using cultural facilities as leisure is less presumable: a limited cultural offer in Zuid marginalizes the opportunity of using the city structure as learning environment.
That is the premiss of this thesis: the city of Rotterdam is dealing with an unequality in tangible and intangible cultural network between the city centre and Zuid, which has a great impact on the quality of life in the entire city. It is time to plan a future in which Zuid can take a stand in the cultural offer and become an equally appreciated part of Rotterdam.
This graduation project unravels the importance of the relationship between city structure, the cultural network and education for the talent development of
the youth. Because making space for the youth, means making space for the future. The outcome of this project is an exploration of a new experience-based learning environment, translated into the Talent Lab, a place where children can learn in the direct network of the city.

This is the graduation project, in which illustrate the research and design results of the graduation year as a whole

The Productive City in Antwerp, a material research and textile production with integrated residence: The notion of working and living in the same place has been a particular aspect of every city in the past. With industrialization, especially production and crafts have been driven out of the inner city. With the emergence of the idea of the ‘Productive City’ many cities aim to reintegrate small scale production within the urban fabric to reactivate manufacturing and local production. This contributes to the development of an active community within a neighborhood. The design of a textile manufacturing workspace with integrated residence addresses the question of intimacy within work environments and how this can be translated into an architectural project.

Under the year theme of intimate city. The project is a sports hall located in Antwerp with informal space under the formal frame.