The Stockholm City Library project involves refurbishing and extending the building, incorporating nearby Annex buildings, Observatory Hill and the city itself. Inspired by Gunnar Asplund’s design principles—spatial harmony, material quality, and poetic expression—the project honors the library’s role as a cultural landmark and storytelling space that resonates across cultures. Drawing on Sweden’s values of political neutrality, hospitality, and cultural inclusivity, it aims to create spaces that welcome minority communities, immigrants, and diverse narratives.

The intervention is organised into four key components: the enhancement and extension of a bazaar area, including the creation of two new courtyard gardens; the refurbishment of the existing library with new, light-filled covered spaces; new functions to the Annex building, connected to the library via an underground passage; and the addition of a dedicated storytelling room with a cloister, creating a unified space that bridges both buildings with an outdoor garden. The design reflects the evolving role of modern libraries as community hubs where people feel a sense of belonging and connection, addressing social isolation by fostering communal interactions. Drawing inspiration from traditional living rooms—where art and decor often narrate cultural stories—the project establishes a platform for storytelling and knowledge exchange.

Ultimately, this project seeks to restore the library’s historic character while introducing new architectural elements that harmonise the Library, Annexes, Hill, and the surrounding cityscape, enhancing infrastructure and creating welcoming spaces that celebrate community narratives.

The currently mostly inefficient resource management neglects valuable existing stocks, and grey
energy and emissions contribute to a building sector misaligned with climate goals. Amid these
challenges, rammed earth, an ancient material, is experiencing a sustainable construction resurgence by transforming under-utilized non-hazardous soil excavations into a building material. However, traditional on-site fabrication is expensive and labor-intensive. The investigation of four already existing methods of prefabrication combined with requirements in sub-urban residential housing generates a strategy of how the use of the material can be scaled up considering aspects of efficiency, circularity, and aesthetics.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA), is in search of a new building. Influenced by the anti-museum philosophy of the ICC, M HKA aspires to integrate itself into a network of regional museums while concurrently positioning itself within a broader global context. The institution has identified a promising site within a suburban neighbourhood in Antwerp, strategically positioned between the Scheldt quays and the city park, the site commands a central and strategic position, seamlessly connecting two crucial urban spaces.

Recognizing the global trend towards the increased need for financial independence among museums, M HKA is adapting its approach to ensure long-term sustainability. This adaptation involves enhancing visitor experiences and diversifying revenue streams while maintaining to enricht cultural engagement.

The redesign of the museum is informed by this growing need for financial stability. Interactive displays will be integrated to facilitate visitor engagement and bridge the gap between art and the public. Additionally, the inclusion of a publicly accessible roof terrace, known as the forum, will offer panoramic views of Antwerp and can be used for a range of cultural events.

A notable architectural feature of the museum’s redesign is the suspended white cube which is exclusively dedicated to art exhibitions. The suspended construction enables the creation of unobstructed floor plans, affording significant flexibility in exhibition layout design.

By this redesign the museum seeks to inspire, educate, and engage visitors while strengthening its ties with the city of Antwerp.

M HKA museum of co-existence. This graduation project rethinks the open museum through co-existing. A public institution in today’s day and age should not only be used by regular museum visitors. According to me the institution also serves a role in the city and neighbourhood it sits in. Especially in Antwerp, a multicultural city with people from very diverse backgrounds, I envision my museum as an important place for gathering and encounter for these diverse people in the city: non-museum visitors with encounter as a first way of mutual acceptance and co-existing.This theme of “co-existing” is furthermore expanded with co-existing between humans and non-humans. My project is about creating a truly open museum: not only for humans but also for non-humans, as there is a necessity to do this. Cities are becoming more and more densified by buildings, and this means that the city’s ecosystems get disturbed with less space for insects, birds, bats and plants. Extensive research into the urban ecosystems in nature have led to strategies to invite a new, wider audience to the museum: animals and plants.
I’m creating a dialogue between park and buildings. By inviting nature, into and around the building, spaces become bio pleasant and comfortable. Two of these spaces are the Urban Living Room and Winter Garden. By doing this and using plants inside for a healthy atmosphere, I’m also able to invite non-museum visitors to the museum. Just like a living organism, the museum is flexible in its use and adapts to the changing conditions (summer/winter and day/night). During the design, the cycles of nature were a key inspiration.
The projects aims to set an example with regards to the nature inclusive design strategy and the topic of co-existing (between humans & between humans and non-humans) as these topics are two relevant and important topics which are applicable to many densified and multicultural cities in the world.

The graduation thesis deals with the architectural redevelopment of the National Bank of Belgium. It examines how this refurbishment can benefit the bank, the city of Brussels, and its inhabitants.

Built to its limits, the introverted character of the complex reflects the historical need to secure Belgium's financial reserves within its walls. Since its completion, however, there has been a fundamental change in the demands placed upon it. Industrial functions, such as printing and storing currency, have moved out of the city or abroad. At the same time, finance is becoming increasingly digitised. In response, the National Bank decided to redefine itself physically.

The proposal examines the optimisation of space through various changes to the layout of the offices to fit the bank's desired programme, as set out in the competition brief. The project recognises that the reduced surface area required by the bank allows a large part of the site to be given over to the city. The proposal not only suggests not new uses but new spaces that become part of the urban fabric, establishing connections and refuges for urban life, both public and private.

The Future Bank involves the transformation and adaptive reuse of the National Bank of Belgium in Brussels. A vast closed off urban block, designed to safeguard the states treasures hasn’t moved with the ever changing ambiguous role of the bank. The project introduces a new public plinth for the city of Brussels to appropriate together with a conglomerate of different office environments for the banks employees. As architect, taking on the role of bricoleur, the existing building structure has been approached as a source of pre-constrained materials. The metaphorical tools of the axe and pocket knife are used to eke out new meanings within the existing building structure. The misfit building will be healed by stitching together on different scales. In that way creating an architectural continuity which allows future adaptation and even an informality that invites to do so. The minimal interventions aim to heal the existing, minimizing our impact on the limited resources that our planet has to offer. The result is a strategy which must be considered before diminishing a building that misfits its contemporary role.

The National Bank of Belgium stands as a fortified conglomerate of historic patchwork structures, within central Brussels. With its inherent role having shifted from that of a safekeeper of physical goods towards a mere office, the building can be made publicly accessible, taking on an active role in the city.
By understanding the existing building through the layers of the shell (as physical infrastructure with a lifespan of about 60 years) and sets (of furniture and partitions which are constantly replaced) the bank can be manipulated and re-used.
The careful clearance of the inner courtyard allows for an extension of the existing ‘shell’. A new framework, inserted within the courtyard, only revealing itself as chapters within the monumental facade.
The bank's excessive storage of outdated ‘sets’ become active elements in the spatial formation of the new bank. Providing an alternative narrative to the rapid regeneration of the office interior.

Noise pollution is a growing health concern in cities, especially in busy streets with parallel reflective facades, known as urban street canyons. Here, high flows of vehicular traffic generate a broadband noise, with high noise levels in the low-frequency (LF) spectrum. In the canyons, noise decays slowly due to multiple reflections. To counter this, vertical greening systems (VGS) can be applied as multi-disciplinary solutions. Not only can these systems attenuate noise, they can also e.g. decrease the urban heat island effect and increase biodiversity. Yet, the shortcoming of VGSs is the lack of LF-absorption. Hence, the following research question was asked: “How can the acoustic absorption of vertical greening systems in urban street canyons be improved, especially for low-frequency noise?” Four concept designs were developed consecutively, and evaluated on the basis of design criteria. These criteria included specifications on acoustic absorption, manufacturability, and durability. The final design consisted of a living wall system (LWS) based on hydroponic rock wool, with a parallel array of Helmholtz resonators integrated in its structure. This array was added to increase the LF-absorption of the VGS below 250 Hz. The Helmholtz cavity volumes were not physically subdivided, but rather filled with a locally reactive material with a low flow resistivity, to enforce propagation that is normal to the surface. Additionally, plants can also absorb sound in the visco-thermal boundary layer around their organs, depending on the leaf area density. It was found that sciophytes (shade-loving plants) had most acoustic potential due to their large leave surfaces. Analytical, experimental, and numerical validation was performed. A Matlab script was developed that applied Delany-Bazley-Miki equations in an equivalent fluid model, and a transfer-function approach for the multi-layer complex impedance. The design yields near-unity absorption for f>500 Hz. The resonators extended the LF-absorption (a>0.5) down to 80 Hz. Impedance tube and reverberation room measurements demonstrated that piercing the porous substrate layer with the Helmholtz resonator necks can yield a combined acoustic absorption. Finally, acoustic simulations showed that applying the proposed LWS to the facades in a reference urban street canyon in Rotterdam can substantially decrease sound levels, both inside the street canyon, as well as in the adjacent courtyard canyon. However, the window-to-wall ratio of the facade largely determines to what extent sound levels can be decreased, since vertical greenery cannot be applied in front of windows.

Opening of a 1:1 installation at City Nursery 'De Kas' in Rotterdam, designed and built by students of the Chair of Interiors Buildings Cities Initiation, organisation and coordination: Susanne Pietsch Tutors: Susanne Pietsch, Jeffrey Bolhuis, Visiting tutors: Anna Andrich, Gilbert Koskamp. As part of the Interiors Buildings Cities MSc2 studio Thinking through Making, students have been designing and constructing an interior shell within a reused greenhouse. The installation is conceived as an architectural prototype for the transformation of the greenhouse into a plant nursery, community meeting point and information centre on small scale sustainable city development. The project has been realised in cooperation with City Nursery de Kas and supported by TU Delft, the Rotterdam Climate Adaptation Plan, the Water Authority Schieland en de Krimpenerwaard and the Neighbourhood Council Rotterdam-Blijdorp. @en

For my graduation project I was aspired to devise a Public Interior that has a role and responsibility within the city and has a larger beyond its site impact and implication.

My effort was focused in the field of fashion due programmatic relevancy to Maastricht and due to my own very personal motivation of finding ways to challenge current unsustainable fashion production and consumption reality. Programmatic core of the project consisted of the argument for a more sustainable production and challenging unethical outsourcing practices that define everyday fashion that we wear.

The project is an effort of finding a new typology for post-industrial factory for fashion. The meaning of the project stemmed from proposing a new architectural typology that will be representative and cel¬ebratory of future of sustainable Fashion Production.

The typology of a palace as a festive and representative public interior has been chosen as starting point to devise the new kind of Factory. The building merges the Factory and Palatial aspects. The palace is represented by the internal circulation that creates an interior public sequence, consisting of vestibule, cortile, break space, large public greenhouse courtyard, foyer and finishes with a garden (river promentade). The factory aspects were incorporated in the material expression that foremost catered to the possibility of the very large building being built cheaply yet sustainably.

This projects addresses the social aspect of daily life, how different people in a community get to meet each other and how the community as a whole, and in a larger context the city, can benefit of these festive social qualities.

The Urban Factory considers three main themes and tools of ‘time’, ‘threshold’ and ‘material culture’ as means to go beyond the regular way of dealing with large existing introverted buildings in the heart of city centers. It is a sustainable method and social alternative to demolition, a way of connecting the building back to the city center, creating places for people as a way to make the urban humane. Creating opportunities for people to interact at the threshold of city-building and building-interior, to allow for a more playful interaction between people, buildings and cities.
By increasing threshold moments the building is no longer considered as a building but as an urban block. Also by designing the interior circulation space as a public route, climate buffer and polyvalent extra space, people are allowed to engage with different uses of the building.
Two main material interventions were made that anchors the building in its context. The more durable and expensive intervention of the facade as it represents itself towards the city and the cheaper more temporary interior facades that allows for change and engagement.
Mostly the material considerations allows for complementing the time factor of the existing by juxtaposing the rough and damaged concrete structure. We are convinced by things that show character by evolution, so by emphasizing these qualities we get to love these buildings.

Festive moments and the built environment have, throughout history, had great influence on each other. Festive architecture has always been concerned with building narratives. It has the ability to communicate political, emotional, social or cultural messages and even change peoples perceptions. In the contemporary built environment of our everyday lives however, this powerful tool is often forgotten, resulting in rather 'flat' architecture that allows us to remain detached.

This project aimed to challenge this flatness of everyday working life by questioning the separation between festive and everyday moments. Extensive studies into the vocabulary of festive architecture created a toolset that was used in the casestudy of an academic library.

The project carefully stages an assemblage of spatial experiences. Each experience strives to support the actions within the space by influencing how people perceive the atmosphere, the context, each other, their own aim and the role of the building in society.

Exhibition at RWTH Aachen, Lehrstuhl für Gebäudelehre und Grundlagen des Entwerfens und Institut für Schulbau, Prof. Anne-Julchen Bernhardt Work by architecture students of the RWTH Aachen, Chair of Anne Julchen Bernhard, TU Delft, Chair of Interiors Buildings Cities (tutors: Susanne Pietsch / Marius Grootveld) and the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture. @en

As the technical university of Delft moved out if the city centre, the city and the university got disconnected physically and socially. This institution, a knowledge center for sustainable development, will be the physical return of the TU Delft University in the city centre of Delft. Being a place to show the TU Delft to the public and a place for interdisciplinary collaboration. The complex consists out of exhibition spaces, spaces for study, an open archive, a depot, a lecture hall, a workshop, offices and a café. The building is a bold figure in the urban fabric, representing its institutional feeling through a one metre thick load bearing brick façade. This wall is not only symbolically a protection layer for the knowledge inside, but also provides space for the infrastructure of the installations in the building. The building finds resemblance with the building type of a warehouse. The interior of the complex is fully constructed out of cross laminated timber, giving a light interior character to the building. The spaces in the building are organised around a courtyard in the heart of the building. This courtyard functions as an informal meeting space and is a source of light the visitors in the building will get attracted by. Around this courtyard a visual corridor is created by positioning the columns away from the interior facades. This corridor leads the visitors to the other spaces of this complex. By reintroducing the university in the inner city through providing the city a platform for knowledge transfer and interdisciplinary collaboration between the attenders of the university and the citizens of Delft, a new and stronger social relationship between the university and the city is constructed. This is not only preferable but also encourages the development of the city, as research proved that innovation often occur when existing knowledge between different parties is mixed.