Historically, mental healthcare institutions in the Netherlands have been developed as isolated and monofunctional environments, often located on large estates far away from cities. Although the contemporary mental healthcare increasingly focuses on recovery, autonomy, and social inclusion, still many care sites reflect spatial structures of separation and institutionalisation. This creates a tension between the ambition to support recovery and reintegration, and the physical environments in which this care takes place.

This graduation project explores how mental healthcare sites can function as integrated healing environments for care residents, visitors and neighbourhood users, while maintaining the safety, autonomy and comfort for care residents. The focus in this project is on bipolar disorder as a specific viewpoint, because of the interesting aspect of fluctuating needs in relation to stimulation and social interaction that individuals with this disorder often experience. At the same time, within this project this perspective gets broadened towards overall mental wellbeing, arguing that environments designed for vulnerable users can also support the mental wellbeing of a wider group of users.

This research combines the methods literature review, personal observations, research through design, and feedback from experts through brainstorming sessions. The insights from these methods are translated into a pattern language that identifies spatial principles for healing environments. These patterns are organised into the three categories of Spatial Structure, Social Interaction, and Sensory Comfort. Together, they address themes such as walking, safety, orientation, seating, nature, social gradients, sensory regulation, and public-private transitions.

Eventually, patterns from the pattern language are applied to create a vision for the case study location Park Bloemendaal in The Hague. Through this design process, the concept of the Always Home Route emerges as a main spatial strategy. This is a continuous and legible walking route that creates a connection across the site between care functions, green spaces, amenities, and a new neighbourhood. While this route enhances the autonomy, predictability, and flexibility for care residents, it allows them to move independently and always return to a familiar point.

The project concludes that mental healthcare sites can become integrated healing environments when openness and inclusion are carefully balanced with spatial, social and sensory conditions. In this way, urban
design can contribute to the recovery of care residents and a broader mental wellbeing.
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This thesis investigates how the industrial system of the Wadden Sea region can be spatially transformed towards Sustainable Circularity. As a semi-peripheral and ecologically fragile territory, the region operates as an operational hinterland for Europe where extractive industries intersect with vulnerable landscapes and dispersed communities.

Using the theoretical lenses of metabolism and territorialism, the research explores four key questions: (1) it maps the regional spatial-industrial history,
(2) examines how territorial and metabolic processes co-shape current regional dynamics,
(3) identifies leverage points and spatial pathways for systemic transition and
(4) proposes strategic design interventions on the regional and the local scale.

The methodology combines diachronic mapping, territorial capital analysis and spatial flow readings, not to quantify, but to reveal underlying spatial organisational principles and systemic logics. These are synthesised into three structuring motors: productive, protective and ecological. Based on these, the thesis formulates a vision for a sustainable, cross-border metabolism, that is explored through scenarios. The resulting findings are structured and made actionable through an adaptive strategic framework. A zoom-in on the city of Emden illustrates how baseline spatial interventions can anchor long-term transitions.

The work contributes to current discourse on circular economy, regional transformation and design-led planning by offering a spatially explicit and theoretically grounded approach. It situates industrial sustainability in policy, process and simultaneously in the fabric of the landscape and the design of territorial futures. ... Read more

Oud Crooswijk is a typical working-class neighbourhood in Rotterdam and a vital part of the city’s identity. Today, the area is in urgent need of urban renewal. However, this renewal risks displacing current residents and transforming the neighbourhood’s physical and social fabric. As a result, Oud Crooswijk is at risk of becoming unrecognizable, potentially erasing its working-class character.

To address this challenge, this thesis presents a transformation framework that explores how the urban fabric of Oud Crooswijk can be renewed while reinterpreting—rather than simply preserving—its working-class identity. The concept of a working-class neighbourhood is constantly evolving, and this framework anticipates how that identity may shift in the 21st century.

The research follows a circular process involving four key activities. First, an analysis was conducted to understand the urgency of renewal, the spatial identity-carriers of working-class identity, and how this identity is defined. Based on these findings, a design assignment was created and translated into a proposal, including a vision, design principles, a potential masterplan, and key interventions. This was followed by an evaluation that redefined the spatial expression of working-class identity and informed further analysis—completing the cycle.

The thesis concludes that “conceptualizing working-class identity in the 21st century is complex and continuously evolving.” To maintain Oud Crooswijk’s recognizability post-renewal, the redesign must anticipate how this identity could be represented in the future. The transformation framework does this by embedding spatial identity-carrying elements into the urban fabric through design principles.

While the outcomes are promising, the framework is currently limited to the context of Oud Crooswijk. To test its broader applicability, it must be applied to other neighbourhoods facing similar urban renewal challenges. ... Read more

In recent decades, gender inequality has been discussed increasingly in different fields of society. Since long ago, aspects like power dynamics in traditional households, or studies on the human anatomy, have influenced men and women’s place in society. This gender inequality has also impacted how cities have been designed by and for men, although the existing hypothesis is that the needs of men and women in a city differ. Evidence already shows that women feel more unsafe in cities then men, which can be caused by design of urban environments not being fit for women. This leaves the questions what this relation between gender and the built environment actually entails, whether cities are currently gender inclusive, and if not, how urban design can contribute to make them to do so.

This research has found that men and women have different user patterns and perceptions when it comes to their presence in urban environments. This impacts the way they use and perceive the city. In this study, these differences have been translated into design principles that can positively impact women’s use and perception of the urban environment. These design principles were used to analyse the current state of gender inclusivity in urban environments, through the locations of Hillesluis and Zuidwijk, a pre- and post-war neighbourhood in Rotterdam Zuid with a high cultural diversity and a low socio-economic status. The analysis generated a set of spatial elements that either negatively or positively influence a woman’s perception of space. After testing these spatial elements through a survey, the findings were combined with the design principles, to design a proposal on how the current urban environments could be improved to be more gender inclusive. Guided by these end products, a universal framework was created, that can test all urban environments in their gender-inclusivity.
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This report attempts to explore the causes of spatial incoherency in Hillegersberg Zuid. It does this through a retrospective historical analysis of the infrastructure, its symbolic projections and its use. Through the lens of socio-political motives of the past century the cities’ response to the current housing crisis is questioned in the area along the Ceintuurbaan, RET and St. Franciscus Gasthuis, designated as a search area for densification by the Municipality of Rotterdam. The existing functions service a larger framework yet present as isolated blocks disconnected from their immediate surroundings. (Re)developing this physical, economic and socio-political border has the potential to create a permeable boundary and allow for more diverse interaction. By searching for an approach in which the existing structures are integrated into a sustainable densification of the area a proposal is presented through physical models and design research in a concept to reconnect the fragmented area ... Read more

Changes to ecosystems due to human activity have occurred more quickly in the previous 65 years than at any other period in history, this has resulted in an irreversible loss in biodiversity worldwide. A direct consequence is a decrease in ecosystem services - the benefits for humans that are provided by ecology - which are needed to keep especially cities liveable places. It is therefore crucial that cities are going to be developed more sustainably. Several theories acknowledge that for sustainable urban development, a shift is needed from a fragmented approach to a systematic approach to development. Therefore, this thesis has studied the potential of systems thinking to make ecology more important in the process of urban development. This has been done through document analysis and semi-structured interviews, which clarified how ecology is approached in the current process. It emphasized the current socio-technical landscape we are in, where ecology is still something that is controlled by humans and where urban ecology is not acknowledged as a distinct urban system. The interviews have been used to indicate the challenges and opportunities for systems thinking to change this landscape. This has formed the foundation of preliminary recommendations that have been validated through a workshop. Challenges like other interests, soft concept and no value can be overcome by various niche developments, tools that help in quantifying or monetising ecology so a value can be created that is interesting for developers, or help can be given to municipalities to set requirements on ecology. Using these tools, the context and its systems should always be considered for ecology not to be reduced to technical features, and no optimal ecological change can be created. Tools should also be used in a pre-initiative phase, where core challenges in an area, main drivers of developers and common goals of stakeholders can be established. Involving a wide range of stakeholders influences people to think more broadly and deeply about themes. Especially involving ecologists and maintenance departments in the design phase can create flexible designs that are future-proof and implemented successfully. Besides, ecologists, who know how to use language and create more chances in ecology instead of burdens and relate ecology to other themes, should be involved throughout the different phases of urban development as they often can make it more interesting for other disciplines. This eventually benefits the desired transition towards a landscape where the paradigm around urban ecology is entirely accepted, which results in the perception of ecology as something that is equal to humans and is therefore always on an equal level or even more important as the social and economic system ultimately benefitting the loss of biodiversity. ... Read more

In 2018, Taiwan has become the “aged society” as National Union defined with 14% of total population are project to be the elderly. By 2050, there will even become twice amount of it, with more than one-third of the total population are consist of the elderly. The ageing of society is a positive yet challenging phenomenon. As Mace said in his public speech “We all become disabled as we age and lose ability, whether we want to admit it or not.” (Ron Mace, 1941-1998) The concept of the universal design pyrimid from Goldsmith also indicates that disabled and elderly people should been put at the priority as they are among those who experience the greatest difficulties in their daily life in the built environment, if the space is friendly to them then it should be usable for everyone. “Unfortunately, designers in our society also mistakenly assume that everyone fits this definition of “normal.” ”(Ron Mace, 1941-1998) Therefore, from the planner and designer aspects, it is important to create a supported built environment and well-design outdoor spaces which can promote physical activity and helps to preserve and maintain older people’s health and well-being. ... Read more

Density in a city puts a lot of pressure on the public space. As a result, public spaces are designed according to standard design rules, leaving the wishes of certain groups overlooked. This project aims to pay attention to a group of people who, while not involved in the design of the city, greatly profits from using it comfortably every day. This graduation thesis will explore the concept of the mother- and child-friendly city and try to map their wishes and needs. To achieve this, different fields of knowledge will be brought together through literature and fieldwork in the neighbourhood of Outremeuse in Liège, Belgium. The gathered input will then guide a series of interventions through the scales, gathered in a pattern language, and an urban design plan for the neighbourhood. This design plan consists of a masterplan for three central locations, one of which will be designed on the small scale. The final design will transform an existing road overtaken by car parking spaces into a pleasant space that invites outdoor play ... Read more

Like many traditional water systems, salt fields in the coastal region of Danzhou are now facing unprecedented challenges from social development and climate change. In an era of rapid urbanization and tourism development, the project aims to provide a landscape approach that balances historical preservation with the development of local public life and tourism. By exploring the potential of the landscape narrative, the project uses landscape elements such as heritage structure, local material, local plants, buildings and roads to make salt heritage, a valuable cultural heritage, a driving force for the development of traditional salt villages. When the historic, economic and ecological value of salt fields is revalued, these traditional water systems can be revived and provide more opportunities for a coastal area to develop into a resilient system. ... Read more

The graduation project is about exploring an alternative development strategy for Beijing. The project reflects on the grand blueprint of Beijing planning and the original way for urban renewal. It discusses the death of the arrival cities in this planning context and a series of social problems caused thereby.
Taking the mitigation of such Beijing planning problems as the goal of the project, this project builds a new development framework for Beijing’s urban renewal based on the theory of the Open Cities: taking the arrival city as an effective open system, and using the arrival city’s renewal as a means of opening the urban space in Beijing. This project reverses Beijing's planning logic and looks forward to finding new development value in the weak space in Beijing's current planning, giving formal planning models a suggestion from informal development forces.
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New York is currently going through a construction boom as developers try to take advantage of rising land values and rents caused by economic growth, resulting in a lack of affordable housing available to middle-income families. The current Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, has made it a priority to meet the demands and challenges of the housing crisis by incentivizing private development through various methods, such as changing zoning laws and cutting red tape for access to abandoned lands, as a way to inject steroids into the housing market (Kaysen, 2018). This has unfortunately caused issues such as gentrification and speculative development, which has led to the disenfranchisement of low-income inhabitants in the city (Kaysen, 2018). These policies have marginalized people by either forcing the poor to either live in the periphery of the city, or be crammed into social housing projects that were built more than half a century ago. This is worrisome due to the fact that these aged dwellings display a variety of health and safety issues that the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is having a hard time managing. The low-income families which rely on these projects have a hard time paying the minimum rent to begin with, and when you couple this with unacceptable living conditions, you end up with the spatial manifestation of an increasing divide between the rich and poor which now defines New York City. What is more shocking is that when you look back in history, the social housing projects were originally seen as a solution to poverty and slumification, but they ended up just being vertical versions of the slums which they took place of (Ferré-Sadurní, 2018). In order to help these disenfranchised people living in the projects, there must be an effort in place to help increase their quality of life. In order to achieve this, the monofunctionality of their public space needs to be made more functionally diverse. This is because the lack of diversity in both social and programmatic elements results in low public activity, which in turn leads to crime and vandalism due to a lack of self-awareness which tends to not exist in places of high public activity (Jacobs, 1961). In addition to this, the problem of public space is exasperated by the design philosophy that was used to create the projects. Planners used the International Style, which was a popular urbanist theory during the time that the dwellings were created. By clearing the tenement slums that were defined by a spatial hierarchy created by the street grid of New York City, he accused the planners of intentionally destroying the rich hierarchy and variety that existed in the contextual public realm (Kunstler, 2004). He also argues that the high-rises of the projects themselves destroyed any sense of human scale, which in combination of his other concerns, eradicated the inhabitants connection to the public realm (Kunstler, 2004). By looking at these failures of the social housing projects, a transformational framework needs to be produced that acknowledges these issues of monofunctionality, scale, and safety. This framework should also act as a blueprint of rehabilitation for all NYCHA projects, including what needs and characteristics need to be created in order to activate a public space that increases the inhabitants quality of life. By providing a framework that brings the “soul” of public space in these projects back to life, the original intent of the projects - or the promise it made to the people who would live in them - can be met and achieved. ... Read more

This thesis is an exploration of the cultural characteristics and urban identity of residential neighbourhoods of Shillong, a hilltown settlement in the north east region of India. The rapid pace of unplanned urbanization trends in the hill stations of India has resulted in the degradation of the quality of public space networks of hill stations which are of primary importance to the structure and quality of the urban environment. The present scenario of development in hill stations have resulted in extreme pressures in the built environment such as problems related to congestion, overcrowding, pollution and inadequate infrastructure which has resulted in a change in their morphology. Urban identity is a concept which entails a certain quality of life for the urban residents and can be used as a tool for maintaining quality of life in the face of rapid urbanization. Form, activity and meanings are the aspects which contribute to sense of place and it is these aspects which contribute to identity of a place. Due to change in building typology from the low-rise bungalow typology to the midrise apartment buildings which now graze the skyline of the neighbourhood this shift has seen a neglect in the urban infrastructure (movement networks) which provide accessibility as well as behave as a public realm. This neglect has been noticed in the rise of unsafe neighbourhood streets. This thesis aims to identify aspects of the urban environment, both tangible(physical) and intangible (mental and social), which contributes to the making of urban identity. It aims to provide a strategy, based on the qualities of urban identity, for one of the oldest townships of Shillong city which had seen a gradual decline in the quality of the network of public space structure which exists in the neighbourhood in order to bring back life to the network of public spaces in order to make them safe and also provide a better living environment for the residents. Drawing on such understandings the aim is to create a design strategy which aims at recreating these informal pedestrian streets as the social and public realm of the city.
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Over the last decades, laser scanners are becoming more and more established for the acquisition of geo-information. Depending on the sensor platform where the laser scanners are mounted, there are MLS, ALS and TLS techniques for both indoor and outdoor environments. The high-quality 3D point clouds produced from laser scanners is an important source of 3D spatial information and it is increasingly used in a wide field of applications from engineering to medical modeling, gaming and agriculture. Although laser scanners provide dense and accurate point clouds, a scene coverage and the creation of a complete 3D representation requires multiple scans of the same area. The procedure integrating multiple scans does not always result to a perfect match. Errors that exist in the datasets or errors in the transformation of datasets create difficulties during the matching procedure. Matching data-sets with the best alignment is a topic that has been researched in many fields and a variety of methods have been analyzed for registering point clouds. A co-registration can be compared to a mathematical model and hence it is important to present not only the functional model and the set of functional relationships between the variables but also the stochastic model that describes the variability among the values and gives insights about the level of satisfying predefined demands. As a result, it becomes necessary to establish an evaluation of the output of a procedure and each result to be accompanied by its quality description. The aim of this graduation thesis is about presenting the stochastic model of a co-registration with a quality description of the result of co-registration between point clouds. The approach will be applicable to results acquired from an image-based registration and the goal is to implement a method in order to quantify the quality of the co-registered result of two different point clouds. A probabilistic analysis of the results of an image-based method results to a quantification of the quality of the output. Response images acquired from an image-based co-registration are tested and the quality indicators of precision and reliability are determined. Moreover, the shift parameter is also defined, fact that enhances the applicability of this research to co-registrations referring to big areas where multiple local registrations have to be combined in a globally consistent manner and each local result contributes to the global registration according to its quality indicators. Particularly, response images that have clearly defined peak areas and pass the tested criteria, are considered more reliable and contribute to the global registration with a greater weight. On the contrary, blurry response images, fail to satisfy the tests, are considered less reliable results and contribute with a smaller weight. The analysis of the images performed by testing the distribution of pixel values in both directions of the images. The implemented approach provides information about the precision and reliability of the images that have normally distributed values. Furthermore, by fitting a Gaussian line to the discrete pixel values, a sub-pixel accuracy of the result is achieved as values are generated in between the discrete pixels. The developed method quantifies the quality of an image-based registration but further improvements and investigation of the recommendations can also attach additional value. ... Read more

The world faces another energy transition. The fossil fuels era slowly transforms into the era of renewable energy. But what happens to the fossil fuel related industries. This project specifically focusses on the oil industry. Previous energy transitions in the Netherlands have given us much industrial heritage. The windmills of Kinderdijk, the Beemster polder and the mines in Limburg are just a few examples of such industrial heritage. Will the oil industry also give us an element to remember? The PICH Project, which is also included in the research, concluded that with industrial heritage, the physical elements of the site are preserved, but the story that comes with it, is not. Together with the current trend of storytelling and meaning of place, this is implemented in the research and design of the project. Theoretical research tells us that industrial heritage is not easy. Because of its specific and strange structures and elements, and its huge scale it is not an easy task to transform such sites and preserve them as they are. Many sources tell that re-use of such sites is still the best way to preserve them. The Emscher Park in Germany is the most famous example of industrial areas transformed and re-used in a recreational way. This project focusses on the harbour of Rotterdam and specifically on Pernis’ industrial area. Historical development research showed that the harbour grows out of the city towards the sea and Pernis is therefore the next area to transform when this development continues in the future. Pernis is not only the next area facing transformation, it is also the largest oil refinery in Europe and one of the largest in the world. This also gave a challenge in transformation possibilities in the design. To know how to deal with the area and what kind of functions are needed, future perspectives of involved stakeholders were analysed. This showed that population growth and renewable energy were subjects
that occurred frequently in these reports. Therefore, the design for a masterplan contains a residential area and an energy park. The design also shows three possibilities of what a certain area of Pernis could look like in the future.
A variety of images shows three different uses of how to preserve the oil industry of Pernis based on four core values that came out of the earlier research. Because the oil industry is still needed nowadays, and the future is unsure, despite the predictions of the end of oil, these images show a possibility of how to deal with the remains of the oil industry. ... Read more

The project proposes a new approach for the design of river riparian zones, researching on the debatable issue of living on the floodplains. In recent years, there has been a shift in the tradition of engineering the river landscape towards a more landscape-friendly perspective. However, the focus still remains usually on nature and recreation, while other functions, like housing, are restricted. In addition, the dikes of the Dutch defense system form strong borders between the urban fabric and the river landscape, allowing little to no interaction between them. The objective is to embrace the natural river processes and use the potentials of inundation and sedimentation as a condition for the creation of a multifunctional and sustainable landscape. A system of living mounds is integrated in the floodplains in balance with nature, through the use of local materials and sediments and with sustainable infrastructure. Main goal is also to ‘break’ the border of the dike and allow people of the surrounding cities to engage and reconnect with this unique, dynamic nature. Added functions, like the new community gardens and a visitor’s centre, act as an extension of the urban fabric into the floodplains and operate as a buffer zone. The proposal binds the dichotomy between processes and forms by combining process-oriented and architectonic-oriented decisions, that utilize the full potential of this dynamic landscape. ... Read more

The importance of coping with climate change and its consequences on depleting sandy rural landscapes and their water systems is often underestimated. The seasonal imbalance of rise in temperatures and precipitation leading to both drought and flood under extreme circumstances, has deteriorated these landscapes. Attempts to regulate this area, in order to make way for rural development related to agriculture and water management, have led to numerous environmental issues and loss of its scenic beauty. A global solution addressing the environmental issues and scenic and cultural values is required. In this thesis, an attempt is made to rebuild the lost relationship between landscapes and water systems for a climate scenario that is predicted for the year 2050.

This is elaborated in the thesis with research by design in the case study area situated in the Baakse beek watershed of Gelderland province. Climate change prompts a re-examination of the potentials of Baakse beek stream with regards to its rich and diverse landscapes. The proposed sustainable solution involves improving the stream water structure, realising ecological connection zones and enhancing the agricultural structures with the help of a climate corridor. This thesis specially focuses on changes in land use so new estates in the Estate Landscape Zone can co-exist with water systems and Rabat forests for recreation.
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