This project proposes an architectural intervention at the Skåne Bastion in Tallinn, Estonia, a historically layered site at the junction of the old city and the dynamic Kalamaja district. The research identifies a dual problem: the site's current underutilisation as a public park and a documented socio-spatial deficiency for children aged 7-9, who lack dedicated spaces within the city. The design addresses this by creating a youth theatre, providing a necessary outlet for expression and play.

The design methodology is rooted in biophilic principles and an analysis of the site's unique historical context, including its past as a military fortification and its concealed Cold War bunker. This led to a core design concept based on the duality of 'impression' and 'expression'.

The proposal consists of two main elements. The existing bunker is adaptively reused for 'impression' spaces; workshops and exhibitions that connect visitors to the site’s deep history. Above, a new superstructure houses the main theatre, a soaring space for 'expression'. This new volume is constructed using earthbags with in-situ soil, a technique that materially links the architecture to the site's geology and layered past. Passive design strategies, including stack-effect ventilation towers and a deciduous vegetated roof for dynamic shading, ensure environmental responsiveness.

"The Stage of Being" transforms a site of historical conflict into a space for community and healing, offering a model for how architecture can foster a renewed relationship between a city's youth, its cultural heritage, and the natural environment.

Synergy in Paradox is a proposal for a new ferry terminal in Tallinn.

The current terminal offers an underwhelming entrance; its infrastructure forms a border between the city and the coastline; and the typology shows similarities to that of a racetrack. These observations have been directly translated into objectives: A grand entrance to Tallinn; A walkable coast; and A temporary F1 track. These objectives form an apparent contradiction: A paradox.

Although, by implementing scale, sequence and system as operators for the design process, it has been possible to achieve these goals and have them reinforce each other: A synergy
Because of its large scale, an intermediary is implemented to bridge the gap between objectives, operators, and the actual design. This intermediary ensures that the project has its own character: A hexagonal transition zone between the orthogonal infrastructure and the dense city scape.

In summary, the project comprises a ferry terminal, an elevated park, and a temporary Formula 1 circuit, distinguished by a unique character achieved through the application of a hexagonal intermediary framework.

Tallinn’s medieval city wall once stood as a powerful structure of defence. It was a strong threshold that divided inside from outside, us from them. While it played a vital role in shaping the city’s historic identity, its defensive purpose has long expired. Today, much of the wall sits idle, treated primarily as a visual relic or economic asset for tourism, rather than as an active part of daily life. This project seeks to challenge that condition by reimagining the wall as a living monument. The design hopes to respect the historical and collective value of the city wall while opening new possibilities for contemporary use.

Through a series of careful interventions in the walkway, towers, and neighbouring courtyard, the design rebuilds the relationship between the city and its wall. It introduces new programs that invite everyday interaction from locals, reconnects separated sides, and repurposes the defensive geometry as a framework for gathering, learning, and cohabitation. The architecture engages the existing wall not just as a backdrop, but as a structure to inhabit, reinterpret, and build upon. Interventions are designed as a response to the city wall in terms of its spatial arrangements, materiality, structural systems, and more. At its core, the project reverses the logic of fortification: from dividing to connecting, from repelling to inviting.

It asks —
Can a wall built to separate become a path that connects?

This project envisions the transformation of a former railway warehouse complex in Kopli, Tallinn, into a hybrid dynamic community facility. Drawing from the site’s industrial memory and the theoretical framework of Terrain Vague, the design reclaims the in-between condition of the post-industrial landscape and activates it with new spatial narratives.

The idea of Dynamic Space emerged from the need to create an adaptable framework rather than a fixed form. It is rooted in the belief that architecture should respond to changing community needs over time. By incorporating modular grids, movable walls, and overlapping programs, the space resists singular definition—allowing users to reshape its function and meaning through daily inhabitation, negotiation, and collective authorship.

The intervention consists of two main elements: the adaptive reuse of the historic brick warehouse and a new timber structure forming from the old grid. A modular system is applied in both—embedded gently in the old building as flexible programmatic “boxes” that respect and contrast the existing shell, and fully expressed in the new construction to allow community-driven spatial transformation.

The space serves as a community “living room,” hosting exhibitions, performances, co-working, and daycare. Architectural devices such as a diagonal ramp, double-height volumes, movable partitions, and suspended installations emphasize spatial flexibility, porosity, and layered engagement.

The Dutch population is growing, and cities are becoming more dense every year. Therefore, we have to share the minimal space we have. Collaborative housing, defined as private dwellings supported by shared facilities and responsibilities, could be a favourable housing type for inhabitants to have a comfortable home within the minimal amount of space of the dense city, since sharing enables a sustainable use of this space. Currently, there is a focus on privacy in housing design. For a shift to collaborative housing design there is a need for a collective perspective on the sense of home. Therefore, the research question of this study is: how does sharing space influence the sense of home for residents in collaborative housing in the Netherlands? The hypothesis is that sharing space has a positive effect on the sense of home for residents in collaborative housing projects.
This case study analysis consists of in-depth interviews in two collaborative housing projects and spatial analysis of four collaborative housing projects in the Netherlands. Through this, the perception of home amongst residents that live in collaborative housing is studied. The case study analysis shows that specific shared spatial features positively influence the sense of home in shared housing projects. Most of these features are situated in the transitional zones between the public and private space. The sense of home in collaborative housing can only be obtained in the presence of a private space. The conclusion of this study is that residents in collaborative housing include shared features within their sense of home. This study adds to the body of knowledge of collaborative housing design. This helps to further implement collaborative housing in the Dutch housing stock. Further research should elaborate on the specific effect of shared spatial features in transitional zones in collaborative housing projects.

The Methods of Analysis and Imagination graduation studio 2023-2024 focuses on A Matter of Scale, in the North-eastern European city of Tallinn. As we were free to synthesize an in-depth site-analysis of the city with our own fascinations, I decided on exploring the Estonian nightlife. I discovered that club culture was not embraced by the city’s regulations, but quite the opposite: it was pushed back. This inspired me to design a nightclub on a vacant industrial site, of which plenty is to be found in Tallinn. My choice fell upon the Balti Manufactory Quarter, a former cotton factory with its iconic chimney and monumental masonry. It’s industrial lay-out is on its way to be taken over by nature, and first plans to regenerate the area with conventional generic housing typologies are explored. My stance in this however, is to convert the site into a cultural center for the neighborhood. By clearly prioritizing culture over a strict residential use, I give back space to the sub-cultural community who loses their spaces to gentrified neighborhoods. Furthermore, by being a cultural center, the Quarter will become a catalyst for new forms of urban cultural development: in which living, working, and leisure coexist. The Quarter is fit to accommodate this, as it is imbedded in the urban fabric and well connected to Tallinn’s infrastructure. Other than that, there is enough distance between the complex and its surrounding residential neighborhood for nightlife to flourish, whilst the plot can function as a city park during the day. The nightclub is located in the former boiler room, a separate complex next to the old factory building. And just how the boiler room used to fuel the cotton factory, my nightclub will become the nocturnal heart of the new center for culture, creation, and living.

Tallinn’s largest district Lasnamäe is based on a specific ideology, leaving it after Estonia’s independence from the Soviet Union incapable of adapting to new societal developments. Today, Lasnamäe is still mainly composed of monotonous Soviet-modernist housing slabs and lacks public interior spaces.
Opposing this situation, the building takes occurring uncertainties strategically into account and embraces them to design for unforeseeable functions, needs, actors and changes in society; and intertwines different uses and user groups, acting as an initiator for citizen-driven events and projects.
To achieve this, the design strategy embraces the contrast between indeterminacy and determinacy, creating spaces that can be used freely, combined with structures that act supportive in a structural, functional, spatial and organisational way. The indetermined space leaves things open and understands the building as “pre-used”, being interpretable by its users with the potential to develop over time. The determined parts make the building site-specific, quote Tallinn’s built history and make it a characteristic artefact.

My graduation project explores the relationship between memories, perception, and Soviet-era architecture. The project site is the former "Turist" foreign currency shop in Tallinn, built for the 1980 Summer Olympics. As a Soviet-era building aimed at those with foreign currency, it symbolizes the inequalities of the Soviet regime.
Despite years of trials, the government has failed to secure heritage protection for the building. An architectural competition plans to replace it with a high-rise, which would cause a significant loss to architectural heritage and additionally intensify Tallinn’s existing issue of constructing without regard for urban context and human scale.

An alternative to the current demolition plan is proposed - preserving and transforming the Turist shop while honouring the past, present, and future. Memories and perception in architecture serve as a foundation for reimagining the space and for guiding the design proposal, transforming the former shop into an inviting community centre. The form, scale, proportions, materialization and detailing of the new extension contrast that of the communist monument, maintaining a balance that avoids overshadowing it. This is achieved through a composition characterized by rhythm, simplicity and a strategic interplay between closeness and openness. An atrium between the two buildings is the heart of the project, where the past and the present exist together.

Lake Biwa in Japan stands as the nation's largest inland body of water, harboring over a thousand species of flora and fauna. In the past, the hydrological system of Lake Biwa operated seamlessly, with humans, animals, and plants interconnected by water, mutually influencing and sustaining each other, leading to ecological equilibrium.

However, over the past century, Japan has undergone significant transformations, including World War II, economic resurgence, and urbanization. The inner lake has been replaced by farmland, and rigid embankments have been constructed around it. These incremental changes have eroded the once robust system, with human development gradually exceeding the system's capacity. Presently, water no longer serves as a conduit between humans and nature; instead, it is perceived as a threat and a problem. Consequently, water heritage has been gradually abandoned due to its inability to meet contemporary lifestyle demands, obscuring the valuable and distinctive aspects of the land.

As a landscape architect, I am captivated by the former splendor of the site's system and lament the trend of its gradual disappearance. I aspire to reconstruct Lake Biwa's hydro-cultural heritage through landscape interventions, strengthening its distinctive characteristics while integrating new functionalities to create inclusive public spaces

This architectural design project aims to celebrate Estonia’s timber culture by reintroducing timber into Tallinn’s urban coastal zone. Despite Estonia’s prominence in Europe’s engineered wood industry, 90% of its timber is exported as a cheap commodity rather than enhancing local architecture. This project addresses contemporary challenges like sustainability and urban densification, proposing a timber-based solution that integrates the natural qualities of wood with human-scaled residential architecture.

Located in Kalasadama, between the Linnahall and an old fishing harbour, the project revitalizes the area’s industrial character. It reimagines three building volumes, oriented to create car-free streets linking the city to the sea. This pedestrian-oriented space contrasts with Tallinn’s car-centric planning, fostering a lively urban atmosphere with mobility hubs and public squares. The seaside zone emphasizes natural coastal qualities, providing a habitat for wildlife and a retreat for residents.

The ‘Tallinn Timber’ buildings feature an outer skin that showcases modern timber construction techniques and an inner street that promotes social interaction. The outer facades layer various timber methods, creating a buffer zone that pre-heats air and provides private balconies. The inner facades and roofs offer a more intimate, sunlit space for residents. Apartments are designed with modular systems produced in local wood workshops, connecting residents to the area’s workers. These spaces balance private and open areas, ensuring functionality and comfort while promoting community engagement.

This graduation project focuses on repurposing Tallinn’s abandoned Soviet-era Linnahall building, aiming to transform its deteriorated ice rink section into a vibrant market.
To align with Tallinn’s vision of creating a dynamic waterfront, the project reimagines the ice rink’s function to preserve its public and cultural significance. A market is proposed as an ideal new use, enhancing public access and cultural symbolism while revitalizing the area.
The renovation strategy includes enhancing the building’s openness and connectivity.
By combining wood with the original concrete and steel materials, the design will balance historical preservation with modern warmth, creating a welcoming market atmosphere. This project aims to set a precedent for Linnahall’s full restoration, turning it into a lively public space that enriches Tallinn’s coastal environment.

This study investigates how forest-based strategies can strengthen drought adaptation and enhance landscape identity within the metropolitan region of SGE. The research is twofold: it first examines the nature of forest-based spatial strategies and the research and design methods they represent; second, it explores how these strategies can bolster landscape identity and drought adaptation.

The study reframes forests and trees from traditional land types or natural capital into pivotal elements and methods of landscape design, emphasizing their ecosystem services. For drought adaptation, forest-based strategies link hydrological challenges with the regulating services of trees, integrating them into conventional hydrological strategies. For landscape identity, the focus is on tree language—a tree-based design approach that interprets and intervenes in the landscape, viewing the metropolitan territory from a forest perspective.

By clarifying and legitimizing landscape identity and drought adaptation as parallel issues, the study addresses these challenges through spatial, cultural, social, and environmental dimensions of forests and trees. It develops typological forestry strategies and design principles, translating challenges and opportunities into design objectives at three scales: regional, local, and intermediate.

At the regional scale, forestry strategies enhance diversity, narrative, and a healthy regional groundwater system. At the local scale, key sites demonstrate the spatial integration of these strategies, addressing conflicts or synergies in the visions and transforming over time. The intermediate scale results in a coherent blue-green spatial structure, experiential network, and hydrological function, reflecting the forest-based intertwining of city and landscape. This comprehensive approach shows how forests and trees can address diverse challenges through various spatial, cultural, social, and environmental lenses.

This project covers the revitalization of the former Volta Factory in Tallinn Estonia. This abandoned site or sleeping beauty holds lots of opportunity on many different local layers of the Kalamaja. Social, cultural, urban and many more detailed aspects are taken into account to create a Cultural Center with high quality leisure spaces for all kinds of activities. Walls are well over a meter thick and ten meters high. Two seventy meters long halls make up for a barrier that will be opened up in a Gordon Matta Clark fashion. Preserving the partition wall inside and connecting the two halls as well as the newly developed neighborhood and Plaza on one side and the waste land that will be turned into a community and botanical garden on the other side. The partition wall serves as a divider that pushes the users into a particular direction with the the help of a multifunctional circulation area. These areas are referred to as stress, passages and boulevards that form the infrastructure of the small city inside the building. One side houses sports and library program in combination with offices, study spaces and a restaurant. The other side will house a multifunctional event hall that looks out over the main street and the Bay of Tallinn. This part also houses a boxed-in theater and lounges. Both halls have been studied thoroughly and functions have been placed accordingly. The beauty of the repetitive limestone facade with its beautiful arched windows is preserved on both the inside and outside. Subtle interventions and detailing have made the building more future proof and accessible on many layers in the local and urban landscape.

Sealine is an ambitious architectural proposal in the coastal zone of Tallinn, Estonia. The design for a sailing school on the peninsula between the Linnahall and the Ferry Terminal establishes the connection between sea, city, nature (the coastal landscape) and sky. This connection is made in several ways, and has different forms: the buildings have direct contact with the water, are firmly anchored in the land, and there is a pavilion embraced by the sky. In addition, the design blends seamlessly with the existing urban structure.
The base of the sailing school is an elongated low volume (containing the boat storage, changing rooms and classroom) with a kink halfway up the volume and a nod toward the harbor. This base connects the Logi Street to the sea through the publicly accessible roof with wide stairs. On the east side, the volume is recessed into the mountainside and blends harmoniously into it; on the west side, the basement encloses a plaza with the boat docks and the façade rhythm mirrors the horizontally articulated Linnahall, but on its own smaller scale.
Halfway up the volume, is placed a pavilion that manifests itself strikingly in the coastal silhouette; its directional play and detailing make it appear to be detached from the ground. It is intended for the sailing school but can also function independently as an entertainment facility.
Both volumes are executed in concrete (sturdy in the sea climate sea) and wood (soft and human-sized, a local building material).
The design is a powerful, concrete example of how architecture, nature and human activities can reinforce each other.

For millennia, humans have lived, constructed, and cultivated along the banks of rivers. Rivers are the genius loci of these riverside cities, embodying the spirit of the place and its people. Rivers have been the source of life upon which civilization was built: providing water, power, and transport, but are also spiritually deeply meaningful for many cultures and religions around the world. It is within this context that my graduation project focuses on the urban landscape of the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary, exploring its spiritual significance.

Despite being a daily presence for the city's inhabitants, the connection between the people and the river has been lost over time due to infrastructure and urbanization. This project aims to relink the people of Budapest to the river, fostering a deeper spiritual awareness, and appreciation for the river as a living, breathing embodiment of Budapest's past, present, and future.

Just as human bodies embody the imprints of traumatic experiences, so does the river retain the memory of the place. By viewing the river as a body of water, like the human body, the river keeps the score of the city, as a repository of collective history.

Religion is understood not only as the institutionalized systems of beliefs that operate in the world today, but also with the origin of the word. Its etymology, derived from the Latin "religare," meaning "to put together what has previously been separated," captures the essence of this project's objective, throughout all scales.

The program consists of a museum and a chapel: the first being a place for the muses, a place of revelation and (re)discovery; the latter as a sanctuary of contemplation. Their purpose is to reveal, to show again, the river's significance from different perspectives.

The museum is situated perpendicular on the riverbank of Óbudai Island, revealing the river flowing alongside the city against a backdrop of the mountains. The chapel, located on the tip of Margaret Island, reveals the diverging river as part of the horizon and the sky. The route from one to the other acts as a filter of the river, alternating between moments of covering and revealing, sharp and subtle contrasts. From the flowing river to the majestic mountains, from the vibrant cityscape to the expansive horizon and vast skies, the journey offers a series of panoramic scenes.

This design proposal aims to be meaningful for the collective of Budapest in re-evaluating our relationship with the nature from which our city originated. Its essence is religious, in the linking of the islands, of two buildings, of materials, and of the humans with the landscape. The project reveals the outward landscape of the city, abstracting it in the architecture; allowing the human to empathize with it, and with our inner selves and place on this earth.

You can find them in almost any major cultural city. Combinations of museum-clusters and public parks: museum-parks. What are the (urban) advantages of these cultural clusters in the middle of the city and what role does the museum-park play in the urban fabric? In this architectural study of museum-clusters, Sophie Kugel dissects four museum-parks on different topics, such as spatial composition, route and architectural representation. By creating drawings on different scales for each case study, all four museum-parks can be well compared in order to answer the research question: What is the interaction between the museum-park and the public space in the city and in what architectural way makes the museum-park use of the advantages of museumclustering?

In recent years, population ageing is becoming more and more of a challenge for cities to prepare for. Improving facilities for an all-age-friendly city can provide a healthy and supportive life for both the young and the old living in cities. One of the cities of interest in this is Amsterdam. Amsterdam has been exploring sustainable and healthy city development, such as garden city in the 1920s. In Amsterdam Noord, a central area of Amsterdam, the post-industrial IJ bank and the attached garden villages currently need renovation. Amsterdam Noord is the potential site for an all-age-friendly development. Amsterdam Noord was built with the concept of garden city, where urban forest is used mainly as green buffer and formed entities from industrial nuisances. However, since the industry is moving out, the existing urban forest becomes barriers for connectivity and undermines the dike-polder landscape of Noord. Thus, this project takes urban forest as a key element to renovate Amsterdam Noord and aims to explore an urban forest framework for Amsterdam Noord to be all-age-friendly and to develop the Noord identity as a dike city and a garden city.
Firstly, theoretical study is executed in topics of urban identity, all-age-friendly city, and urban forest to conclude a theoretical framework of restorative and identity-narrative green network. Secondly, based on the theoretical framework, site study is executed in topics of urban fabric, site visit of the dike, and urban forest tradition. Thirdly, these studies provide site-speci c strategies to build Amsterdam Noord with a restorative and identity-narrative plan, to develop the all-age-friendly-ness and its identity. As the result, this project proposes a multi-scale plan for Amsterdam Noord. In city scale (L), Amsterdam Noord is divided into 3 zones, with different urbanization plans, to integrate into the expanding Amsterdam center as well as preserve and develop its identity. In green system scale (M), a multi-functional and restorative urban forest network is designed with the old dike as its spine, to improve connectivity within and beyond Amsterdam Noord. In green space scale (S), urban forest places are designed to offer sensorial experiences related to identity elements, as well as provide all-age-friendly space and program for Noord. The results of this project will provide a new view about how Amsterdam Noord can be developed into a future garden city, which is all-age-friendly, green, and related to its own identity as a dike city.

Society is stuck in daily routines, led by social norms and conventions. Often we are unaware of this, while life can be much richter if we would subvert from these routines every once in a while. These routines prevent us from seeing everything that there is. Our expectations need to be subverted.

Usually it is reserved for artists to make people look at the world differently. But precisely because architecture is much more common, much more everyday, than art, it is architecture that has the possibility to subvert our expectations and make our lives richer. In my research I’ve researched this moment, how you can do this, and how to apply this. 

I created a digital collection of more than 120 exemplary architecture and art projects. Each project was analysed and tagged on their effects on people, the senses and elements that were used and the type of project it is. Furthermore I tagged them on more binary aspects: size, placement, timeframe, kinetic, relation and color. This made it possible for me to easily analyse them further, sort and compare them with a few clicks.
From this collection I’ve found 8 methods how to subvert one’s expectations: confusion, curiosity, disruption, humour, imagination, play, provocation and wonder.

From the research I found that public space is good place for the subversion of our expectations. As it is a place where people adapt themselves most to social norms and conventions, but also a place where much freedom and beauty is to be found.
Furthermore I found that subverting ones expectations has a certain expiration date, after a certain while an intervention is not unexpected anymore. Thus it needs to be temporary.

As carrier and test site for these ideas, the design brief was a temporary public toilet. 
The toilet is located in the city center of Rotterdam, on Steiger, an expedition street; a back alley that is barely used. By subverting our expectations we become more aware of the public space surrounding us, and it motivates us to make use of it.

The public toilet is an experience in which almost all of the subversive methods are used. From spectator to participant, from the route towards the toilet to the actual peeing itself.
Your expectations will be subverted, your life will be richer, and the location will be activated.

By translating the Maghreb mosque type to the Dutch urban context the design provides an appropriate and recognisable building for the Moroccan community in Bloemhof, a neighbourhood in the south of Rotterdam.

This book is the result of the research conducted in the P1 phase of the graduation studio ‘Positions in Practice’ of the chair Methods and Analysis in the department for architecture and the built environment, TU Delft.