The Second World War had global effects, leading to unique national experiences and traumas. Its impacts on collective identities and narratives are still visible today. WW2 acted as a catalyser for European integration, prompting the birth of institutions that would later evolve into the European Union.
European integration should not lead to unifying national perspectives and narratives, but rather embrace the diversity and foster mutual understanding and empathy. This project focuses on the site of the former Valkenburg Military Airport near Leiden in the Western Netherlands. We view the WW2 heritage of the airport as a part of the common heritage of the Atlantic Wall, and the whole European traumascape of WW2. We propose a pan-European narrative connecting the unique local perspectives into a train-ride across Europe with several chapters in different places. The story of WW2 is told through the eyes of an innocent child, an unknown German soldier, and various local protagonists. It creates a framework to which local stories can be added, and which helps contextualise and relate subjective national experiences. One of the chapters is at Valkenburg airport, with a Dutch citizen forced to work on the airport construction as the local protagonist. We envision different ways to deal with WW2 heritage at the site and connect the locations into a route.

This thesis investigates how hybrid public spaces can serve as contemporary third places to foster social engagement among young adults in suburban and peri-urban contexts. In response to increasing social isolation and the erosion of informal meeting spaces, the study proposes an integrated design strategy that blurs the boundaries between first, second, and third places. Grounded in theories of place, publicness, and multifunctional landscapes, the project reimagines a polder landscape between Rotterdam and Berkel en Rodenrijs as a “Gathering Commons”; a spatial framework that accommodates recreation, remote work, and community life. The design draws from landscape typologies, historical land-use patterns, and contemporary social needs to generate a layered public realm that remains active throughout the day. Through spatial synthesis and pattern-based analysis, the thesis demonstrates how the hybridization of program and form can create inclusive environments while acknowledging potential challenges in governance, safety, and stewardship. The project offers a replicable model for enhancing social cohesion and spatial quality in the transitional zones of modern metropolitan regions.

The Scheveningen coastal resort is under pressure. Since the rise of global tourism, fuelled by growing prosperity and the affordability of faraway holiday destinations, once-glamorous North Sea resorts have fallen into decline, carrying a sense of faded grandeur.
Yet in Scheveningen, the challenges are not solely economic. As sea levels rise, the resort faces a growing urgency to strengthen its flood resilience. At the same time, tourists, businesses and residents are competing for space, influence and visibility, often at the expense of the natural environment. The result is a landscape where environmental risks and conflicting interests collide, raising pressing questions about the future of the resort.
This thesis identifies a fundamental imbalance between the resort’s spatial organisation and the needs of tourism, local communities and natural ecosystems. Drawing on theories of strong sustainability and sustainable tourism, it underscores the urgent need for a tourism model that prioritises ecological resilience, while also fostering a sustainable living environment for residents and a regulatory approach to mass tourism.
In response, the project proposes an integrated urban masterplan that seeks to restore a sustainable spatial balance between ecological resilience, residential liveability, and sustainable tourism dynamics. Adopting a mixed-method approach, including fieldwork, morphological, heritage and stakeholder analysis, the research investigates the spatial dynamics and identity of the resort, informing a design proposal rooted in local character and environmental context.
The core intervention involves a seaward expansion that introduces a new dune ridge, providing a soft approach to coastal defence while integrating densified urban development with regenerative ecological zones. A complementary mobility strategy manages tourist flows to mitigate pressure on both local communities and natural ecosystems.
While developed specifically for Scheveningen, the proposal introduces a design approach that could inform similar transformations in other coastal resorts facing comparable ecological and social pressures.

This research addresses the challenges faced by Yuantong Town’s waterfront along the Xi River, where climate change, insufficient festival space, and loss of cultural identity threaten the historical Qingming Festival. Rooted in the town’s 270-year-old agricultural and hydrological heritage, the project seeks to redesign the waterfront through climate-adaptive water management while revitalizing its socio-cultural significance.The study employs a dual methodology: a top-down morphological approach to structure hydrological resilience and festival infrastructure, and a bottom-up pattern language approach to integrate community practices and historical narratives.

Climate change impacts disproportionately the most vulnerable citizens in urban areas. Meaningful participation can be one of the tools to combat urban adaptation injustice, as understanding vulnerabilities and co-creation with vulnerable groups of citizens can help create adaptations that are fair to everyone. In Prague, Czech Republic, post-war neighbourhoods house the majority of the residents, but the public space in these areas is often overlooked, undermaintained and exclusive. This thesis analyses the realm of urban adaptation justice, participation with socially vulnerable groups of citizens and public spaces of Černý Most in Prague. In collaboration with two local NGOs, three participatory events in the field were designed and executed: A streetwalk with homeless people, A neighbourhood walks with residents, and A co-design workshop with socially vulnerable teenagers. These events helped uncover a social conflict in the neighbourhood, resulting in alterations of the public space to intentionally exclude certain groups of citizens. This exclusion results in hurting everyone and reinforcing and redistributing sources of vulnerability. The design consists of general neighbourhood design principles that are usable throughout the whole district. The final part is a design of a new public park, addressing the conflict, designed using the outcomes of the participation events and proposing a new future for the neighbourhood.

The Delflandsedijk is one of the most important dikes in the Netherlands, protecting the Delt’s residents from constant flooding. In Maassluis it runs parallel to the river Het Scheur and is located less than 450 meters from a pleasant boulevard, where many people walk or bike daily. It is the boundary of Het Balkon, a recent functional neighbourhood of Maassluis, whose residents are mainly kids and people between 35-50 years old.

Walking along the Delflandsedijk is a disturbing and lonely experience. There are very few people over there. Merged into the urban landscape of Maassluis, it performs as a utilitarian element, emitting safety notes (not perceived by people) in a non-orchestrated urban landscape, with a very poor environment, where sounds are reflected and reverberated since it is a flat area, with very few absorption surfaces and elements. It is an underused and under-vegetated public space, muted for social interaction opportunities. There are no “sounds of life” such as conversations, laughs, screams or cries. Sounds of birds, insects or other non-human lives are insignificant and there are moments of almost silence. The systematic sounds of the metro and its gate alarms are very intense and combined with vehicle traffic, especially during rush hours, mask any other sounds.

This research values the utilitarian character of the Delflandsedijk and other Dutch dikes, highlighting their richer urban landscape and a great public space for people, where multiple uses and functions can occur. It can become a robust and resilient landscape by connecting local fragmented green structures (enriching biodiversity) while promoting well-being, health and social interactions.

To achieve that, landscape architecture was defined and understood phenomenologically, with a human-centered perspective that allows people to relate to it and find meaning in it. This particular landscape was investigated and understood as such, using our sensory capacities to extract and collect information to find answers to the posed problem.

Through the lenses of Soundscape ecology, a “Catalogue of soundscape design” was developed to show design possibilities within this theoretical approach, which is an important contribution to landscape architecture studies, since there are scarce references for this topic.

Furthermore, a practical application of the soundscape designs from the catalogue was implemented through a landscape project for a city park on the Delflandsedijk in Maassluis.

Soundscape ecology is confirmed as essential for urban design, as it effectively addresses the complexity of the human-environment relationship. Natural environments have the potential to provide psychological restoration for people and living organisms and soundscape is being proved to be a great asset in this regard.

Resilient and robust landscapes can be built using a soundscape approach and as a result, we can create great places for people to live, work, sport, enjoy nature, recreate, play, eat, rest or simply listen to the sounds that are there.

Dutch water management has undergone a significant transition, evolving from early adaptations that allowed coexistence with water to more extensive interventions aimed at active control. However, recent insights have revealed the unsustainability of these practices. Persistent measures, such as the continuous lowering of groundwater levels for construction and intensive agriculture, combined with the impacts of climate change, have led to significant consequences. Notable events like the Maas floodings in 2021 underscore the lack of preparedness and low water awareness among the Dutch population.

In response to these challenges, there is a growing emphasis on revisiting and revitalizing water management heritage. This research aims to contribute to this shift by proposing strategic design interventions focused on The Hague, Netherlands. The designs are informed by a comprehensive historical analysis of the city’s water systems and aim to integrate heritage with modern water management practices. These interventions seek to enhance urban resilience, raise public awareness of water-related challenges, and reestablish the community’s connection to its historical relationship with water.

Herten, which is a neighborhood in Roermond, has lost part of its sense of place as a result of recent urban expansions. This thesis links the sense of place to the concept of time and concludes, through a literature review, that the sense of place and sense of time can be comprehended through static, dynamic, and collective elements. The thesis focuses on the dynamic elements, which are the urban rhythms, and explores how they can be used to create an urban design.

The main research question for this thesis is: How can urban rhythms be used in an urban design to enhance the sense of place in Herten. To answer this question, a historic analysis is conducted to understand how the sense of place in Herten has been changed in the past century. After this, fieldwork is used to observe what rhythms currently take place in the location. The results of these analyses are then used to create a small-scale urban design for a central location in Herten. This design consists of several areas inspired by a variety of rhythms, increasing the activities that can take place and allowing people from the neighborhood to meet. This strengthens the sense of place and sense of community in the neighborhood.

Additionally, the thesis presents a long-term strategy for the neighborhood which shares the same goal as the design: to enhance the sense of place in Herten. Because Herten shares many characteristics with the Dutch vinex neighborhoods, many of the interventions and conclusions from this thesis may also be applicable to other, similar neighborhoods.

This thesis examines the dramatic transformation of Sarajevo’s Olympic landscape following the Bosnian War, which erupted just eight years after the city hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, an event that initially symbolized unity and international cooperation. The war led to the destruction of both physical infrastructure and the cultural and social values that characterized the city. The primary objective of this research is to contribute to the revitalization of this landscape. The Olympic landscape is understood as a layered entity, comprising physical, social, and cultural components. Sarajevo continues to struggle with social and cultural divisions, underscoring the need for initiatives aimed at bridging these gaps and fostering community spirit. Central to this study is the redesign of the abandoned bobsleigh track on Mount Trebević, which serves as a symbol of both glory and devastation. By incorporating sports and cultural programs, the revitalization efforts seek to rediscover the Olympic spirit, restoring social cohesion. Ultimately, the thesis argues that landscape architecture can play a vital role in revitalizing Sarajevo’s Olympic landscape by restoring physical elements and creating spaces that could heal the social and cultural scars of war, thereby helping the city reclaim its identity as a symbol of peace and unity.

The performance of a city is dependent on the performance of its infrastructure. As a result, the surface-level world is inseparable from the subsurface world. However, cities around the world are facing a shortage of available space both aboveground and belowground. The existing urban fabric has over time become unfit for the addition of new infrastructure systems that are required for the future. Spatial conflict problems are arising between necessary urban infrastructures, in Antwerp specifically regarding green, blue, place, and memory systems. Nevertheless, Antwerp has an opportunity: a decommissioned canal network that lies beneath the city as tunnels that can act as a spatial mediator. Establishing this potential, the main research question asks: how can the reappropriation of the decommissioned underground canal system in Antwerp spatially mediate the city’s urgencies regarding environmental and social infrastructure? While the research question calls for the implementation of four infrastructural themes (green, blue, place, memory), an exploration of background theories on urban infrastructure implementation indicates a research gap regarding a systems-thinking approach. In this case, the Environmental Maximization Method (BOOM-Duijvestein, 1998), with its five design phases (inventory, analysis, maximization, optimization, integration), is useful. Together, the four infrastructure themes and the five design phases form a matrix that offers an appropriate design framework in the context of Antwerp. Antwerp Unearthed, as a plan, provides two answers to the research question of this report. The decommissioned underground canal system in Antwerp spatially mediates the city’s future urgencies regarding environmental and social infrastructure by pairing external problems with internal potentials and by forming a singly functioning infrastructure system. Next to this, the plan is embedded in other aspects of the urban fabric. The findings are societally relevant because they show how to work toward adaptivity and resiliency in the context of climate change and densification. The findings are scientifically relevant because they show how to work toward a justifiable and balanced implementation of different infrastructure systems. The findings are professionally relevant because they show how to work toward integral and interdisciplinary design principles for multiple infrastructural themes.

Several areas in the Netherlands are considered vulnerable. These areas have poor livability and safety. Creating safe space is about improving the perceived safety and livability in neighborhoods by designing spatial interventions. One of these vulnerable areas is Rotterdam South. In Rotterdam South, Hillesluis is perceived by the inhabitants as the most unsafe and has low livability. The following research question is guiding this thesis:
‘‘How can the perceived livability and safety in Hillesluis be improved by designing spatial interventions?’’
In many cases, improving vulnerable neighborhoods involves gentrification; lower-income people are driven out of the neighborhood by higher-income classes. The goal of this thesis is to find a solution to improve the perceived livability and safety of Hillesluis without gentrification. To achieve this, the resident’s perspective will be used. Being in contact with residents reveals the negative and positive aspects of the neighborhood. In addition, locations in the neighborhood will emerge that need improvement because here livability or safety is poor.
To improve the safety and livability of a neighborhood, there are six important principles. These principles are social cohesion, attractivity, connectivity, accessibility, visibility, and territoriality. The pattern language method will provide a set of interventions related to these principles. These patterns were applied to the locations in need of improvement. The patterns used in this thesis are summarized in an accompanying pattern atlas, which can be used as a toolbox for improving safety and livability in neighborhoods.
This thesis sought to improve perceived safety and livability in Hillesluis by creating spatial designs for 5 locations. These locations were obtained by conducting a survey among residents of the neighborhood and making a spatial analysis.

Currently, the building industry is complicit in resource depletion, excessive CO2 emissions (38% globally (UN Environment Programme, 2020)) and the nitrogen crisis. This contributes to negative changes on a global scale, such as climate change and biodiversity loss.

Using wood as a dominant building material would have a positive effect on these problems. The Netherlands used to produce wood on a large scale, but a shift in the functions that forests had to accommodate caused production to become secondary.

Currently, there is no circular system in the Netherlands in which landscapes produce materials that can be used in the common building industry on a local scale.

The main goal for this project is to show a future in which the production of wood and the forests that go with it play a central role in our day to day landscapes. This will be done by answering the research question: “How can a sustainable and multifunctional production forest be designed in the Netherlands?”
The current nitrogen crisis and the expected buy-out of farmers who run intensive cattle farms around Natura 2000 areas, will be used as a starting point for the design location.

The outcome shows three types of production forests that differ in accommodating five aspects that are valued in forests: production, recreation, biodiversity, climate resilience and experience of landscape. This way a new idea can be formed on how forests can be productive, while also providing space for animals and humans in the Netherlands. The design is tested on sand soil in Hattem, but could be applied to any agricultural land.

The discussion elaborates on the reason why production forests are not planted on a large scale to provide a circular material producing system. Taking into account: the current relationship between humans and materials, the difficulty of circular thinking due to the complexity of current systems, the long-term thinking that has disappeared in our culture and the unpredictability of the future due to rapid global changes.

The post-war neighborhood is a result of the modernist and socialist thoughts in the time period of 1945 to 1960. Its concept was to provide everyone of an equal and good place to live, with access to green, facilities and ‘light, air and space’. This resulted mostly into vast amounts of green space. The buildings in these neighborhoods are evaluated as heritage, but the public and communal space around the buildings are often not taken into consideration.

This study assumes that the concept of the post-war neighborhood and its spatial translation is important to keep and treasure, as it provides important historical insights. This study aims to find the role of the green structure for the case study of Osdorp, Amsterdam. Additional heritage and user value maps (next to the existing building value maps) are made for the public space, based on thorough literature and field analysis of the district.

The main conclusions include that the overall structure of the neighborhood, a framework branching out in increasingly more private areas is very important. Next to that, the most important embodiment of the concept does not lay within the amount of green that is present, but how it used. The green strips and spaces on the smaller scales are more likely to be transformed into the demand of today: functional and ecological.
The outcomes result in a toolbox for the different green types that are present in the post-war neighborhood and this forms the base for the design of the Wildemanbuurt, a neighborhood within Osdorp. This design is based on increasing connectivity, re-emphasizing the importance of the courtyards, bringing more ecological zones into the neighborhood and improving the multi-functionality of underused areas.

Although not widely known, The Hague emerged as one of the most impaired cities in the Netherlands after World War II (Mellink, Saal & Van Schuppen, 2017). Bombings on Statenkwartier and Bezuidenhout left part of the city in ashes (Van Der Boom, 1995; Verbaan, 2011), but also the construction of the Atlantikwall left its marks on the urban tissue. The remnants of the Atlantikwall in the dune landscape form permanent scars that recall a memory of war, oppression and its consequences. Therefore, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of valuing this sensitive heritage. However, within the city most has disappeared. The lack of presence and the portrayal of solely military bases may have diverted attention from the human aspect of the Atlantikwall.
Though, the impact of the Atlantikwall on the public space in The Hague is often greater than people think. In The Hague, 35,000 houses have been demolished from Kijkduin to Benoordenhout to make place for walls, tank ditches, bunkers or dragon’s teeth. This defensive fortress was a total of 26 kilometers long. 145,000 residents, about thirty percent of the population, were forced to move elsewhere: within The Hague, in the province or even beyond. The area that was excavated and occupied by the Germans, left its mark on the public space and had an immense impact on the residents of The Hague at that time. Consequently, an elongated visible scar is left in the urban fabric of The Hague. When commemorating World War II, we reminisce about stories of Operation Market Garden, the bombings on Rotterdam or other events. However, the woundedness and events in The Hague, via the construction of the Atlantikwall, is a story that is often forgotten.
Sense of place, together with local communities, increases the attractiveness of and quality of urban life. Sense of place can magnify the unique values of nature, culture, (sensitive) history and landscape. It can make things tangible for a large audience and gives impetus to reconcile. The perception of citizens’ sense of place is influenced by the urban environment and its organisation. These urban external stimuli have significant influence on the well-being and mental health of residents (Gehl, 2022). The challenge lies within maintaining development and harmony with a healthy environment.
Wellbeing, mental health and dealing with (intergenerational) trauma has become a significant challenge in society. Healing is not solely defined on the individual level, but also on the community and its environment. To meet reconciliation within the landscape, cultural resources can provide pathways to healing. Exploration and development are a potential to come up with new strategies and to mitigate wellbeing and mental health, among them are cultural, social and environmental strategies (Darvill et al., 2019). A component of healing through cultural strategies is the integration of narratives of heritage, creating a sense of community and sharing connection (via the past).
Parallel to the increased differences in the meaning and significance of this heritage, the primacy of the official heritage institutions has been challenged in recent years by bottom-up initiatives. The trend towards ever-increasing citizen participation, resulting in co-creation, is also evident in the heritage world. All these initiatives come from non-governmental foundations, associations and individuals, and have a major impact on the management, (re)design and perception of the historic living environment. The knowledge to successfully cooperate with this development has not yet been brought to a generally applicable level. As a result, the appropriate working method and role perception for heritage experts, more just initiatives for residents and designers have not yet sufficiently crystallised to strengthen the spatial quality.

In the past decade, many discussions on the need to reduce our carbon footprint have led the EU to open a public discourse on the applicability of high speed railroad travels within the continent. But spatial plans regarding the implementation of said infrastructure are lacking and the topic of emerging railroad technologies has not surfaced in our media yet. The opportunities behind creating a sustainable European network are endless, but where is the research? This thesis aims at opening the discourse on alternative railroad infrastructure technology in the fields of social and spatial acceptance based on the frameworks of flowscapes (operative infrastructure as landscape and landscape as infrastructure) and the three dimensions of perception, function, and symbolism in order to assess the spatial and social opportunities of designing with innovative railroad technologies. This visionary research sees the cultural landscape of the Netherlands as initiator of this development, in which the new infrastructure aims at connecting the landscape, focusing on the character and values of the province of Overijssel, based on an analysis of technology through art. As a result of the research, the technology proves its position as a guiding Line in the Landscape, providing readability in the three dimensions in terms of narrative, landmark and connection.

The Colonies of Benevolence, founded in the early 19th century, were a groundbreaking social experiment aimed at addressing poverty and fostering self-sufficiency in the Netherlands. These colonies, comprising agricultural lands and settlements, were designed to provide employment opportunities and housing for the impoverished population while instilling discipline, work ethic, and moral values. Over the years, the Colonies of Benevolence have evolved, reflecting significant shifts in social, economic, and political contexts. Today, they are recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, highlighting their historical and cultural importance.

The agricultural sector, specifically dairy farming, has played a pivotal role in the development and transformation of the Colonies of Benevolence. The Netherlands has a long-standing reputation as a global leader in agriculture and dairy production, owing to its advanced farming practices, cutting-edge technological innovations, and efficient resource management. The Colonies of Benevolence provide a fascinating case study to explore the complex relationship between heritage conservation and the dairy industry, given their deep historical and contemporary connections to the sector.

This landscape design report seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of the Colonies of Benevolence, examining their origins, history, heritage, and spatial design elements while exploring the significance of dairy farming within this context. The study aims to identify the challenges and opportunities associated with integrating heritage conservation, landscape design, and dairy farming, in order to envision a sustainable future for the Colonies of Benevolence that is both culturally rich and economically viable.

Around 19BC the Romans established their military camps on the hills of Nijmegen in their conquest of Germania. After a huge defeat the Roman Empire decided that the great Rhine river would be the per-manent border of the empire. From that moment on The Lower Germanic Limes was fortified in stone to protect the border from the tribes north of the river. After 100 AD the Rhine tributary started flowing southwards, the Dutch constructed their dikes and urbanization sped up. Nowadays the historic knowledge of the Romans is protected in archaeological locations by UNESCO.

However above ground this archaeology isn’t experienced in the urban fabric and additionally the cul-tural memory of this history induces a local identity, but the locations don’t allow for place attachment or a representation of this identity. Therefore the challenge is how to translate this experience to the current locations as part of their heritage and the main question can be formulated as ‘’How can urban design sustainably develop the UNESCO sites in Nijmegen-Oost to create awareness and create place attachment for the cultural memory of Roman Nijmegen?’’

Nijmegen was chosen for this thesis, since it has the highest concentration of UNESCO sites within the Limes in the Netherlands, with 4 overlapping archaeological areas. These locations were analysed through the Dutch Layer Approach in Roman and current times, becoming a Diachronic Layer Approach that shows opportunities for transformation and Roman visualizations.

This research firstly aims to create an elaborate design for the Limes in Nijmegen by using methods to design with archaeology. Secondly it seeks to reflect on these methods by testing designs and using theory to develop a comprehensive method on designing with archaeological heritage, which is in its infancy at the moment. The report builds upon the Limes Atlas from 2005 and where Robert Broesi categorized 10 ways of doing this with references. Using these as design methods sparked creativity, but also showed that there are more elements to the process. The main findings were more ways of creating visibility, how interaction with senses and activities created awareness, but also that the site must have a sustainable impact to function in the community. Furthermore the incorporation of a ques-tionnaire, in cooperation with the municipality of Nijmegen, determined what the inhabitants view as heritage and opportunities of the sites. This research shows that solutions to current challenges are truly under the soil and that the two fields of archaeology and urban design should interact more in future developments.

This project is to improve the accessibility of military heritage sites in Soesterberg. Because of the different war times this heritage belongs, the scale and form of the heritage differ in spatial distribution. Also, due to the expansion of urban infrastructures, the road approaching the heritage sites are gradually occupied by new roads.
In this thesis, a new regional vision that connects and diversifies the routing when approaching the heritage sites is developed. By extracting historical elements from the war, a new system of materials, forms and installations is generated. On the local scale, feelings are interpreted into spatial expressions using the materials extracted from history. Besides the historic heritage study, the diversification of forests is also vital in this thesis. The forest thinning approach to diversify the forest species in the coming 10 years could hopefully turn this area into a more defensive and biodiversified area.