The transition to a fully circular housing sector is urgent, given the greenhouse gas emissions and waste generated by the building sector, as well as the high energy demand that burdens both residents and the natural environment. This thesis advocates for a social approach to the Circular Built Environment, rather than one-size-fits-all technical solutions. It explores circular living environments and initiatives in the Netherlands to define the roles of architects and planners in the circular housing transition. To this end, ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted on circular initiatives in the Netherlands, such as ecovillages and the energy collective 015Duurzaam in Delft. The methods employed include in-practice studies of everyday human activity, participant observation, sketching, painting, in-depth interviews, volunteer work, and semi-structured interviews with researchers. The results indicate that both the circular housing transition and the energy transition depend on local community efforts, which are often unpaid and underrepresented in the current debate on the Circular Built Environment by policymakers and academia alike. This thesis advocates for a greater recognition of community efforts and identifies a role for architects and designers to facilitate this. Consequently, the thesis outlines six design principles for architects to foster resilient communities. Finally, it concludes with a design proposal for a circular catalyst in the form of a building that integrates a workshop and residential component. Situated in Tanthof, Delft, this proposal illustrates how circular development can respond to and build upon the specific conditions of an existing urban context.

Waterscapes of Resilience explores how innovative housing design in wetland regions can address the dual imperatives of environmental sustainability and community resilience in the context of increasing flood risks. Grounded in the Dutch Delta—specifically Midden-Delfland—this thesis responds to the ecological vulnerabilities and socio-spatial disconnections caused by rigid flood infrastructure and urbanization. It critiques prevailing paradigms that treat nature as a threat to control and instead proposes a framework rooted in re-territorialization—a spatial, ecological, and cultural realignment between human settlements and dynamic water systems.

The research employs a multi-method approach combining literature review, international case study analysis, ethnographic interviews, site mapping, and iterative design modeling. It synthesizes concepts of de-synchronization, community-based design, and adaptive architecture to develop spatial strategies that reimagine housing not as static shelter, but as an evolving interface between water, ecology, and society.

The resulting design proposal envisions a modular, resilient housing community integrated with green-blue infrastructure. Key technological ideas include floodable wall systems with removable cladding, breathable insulation, and a hybrid timber-concrete foundation system tailored for wetland conditions. Communal spaces—such as water plazas, walkable levees, and shared terraces—support social interaction and collective flood response.

By embedding climate adaptation into the DNA of housing and community design, the project advances a regenerative architectural approach that not only withstands flood events but thrives through ecological cohabitation. This thesis contributes a resilient, scalable, and inclusive housing model for deltaic regions facing climate uncertainty, while reinforcing the role of architecture as a critical mediator between human and natural systems.

Since the late 20th century, there has been a significant rise in agricultural companies offering care services in the Netherlands, also known as care farms (van der Meulen et al., 2022). These farms emerged as a response to the large institutions that once housed people with disabilities, often isolating them from society in remote locations surrounded by barriers and fences. While care farms are typically situated in isolated areas, such as rural polders, their purpose is to use this isolation to help people with disabilities engage more actively in society (Elings & Koffijberg, 2022). By removing them from overstimulating environments, negative temptations, and bad friends who can pull them into crime, care farms provide a chance for these individuals to lead better lives. Currently, most care farms offer day care services but do not provide residential options, despite a growing demand for such services from different target groups and the care sector due to evolving care needs (Ferwerda & Hassink, 2015). Care farms prove to contribute successfully to the quality of life, social participation and self-reliance of various people in need of care (Hassink, 2022).

However, care farms situated in polders are facing a significant challenge due to climate change: water (ZUS et al., 2022). Increased rainfall and the need for water storage are prompting plans to flood polders, which could reduce agricultural and building land while creating abundant water. Building homes and providing care on water could become a vital additional income source for existing and future care farms, helping to alleviate pressure on the care sector. While the trend of living on the water has already gained traction among private individuals, it remains an underexplored concept within the care sector.

The largest target group of care farms and with 1.1 million people in the Netherlands a widely represented group, are people with a mild intellectual disability (Landelijk Kenniscentrum LVB, 2024). They can possibly be a well-suited group for living on water within a residential care farm setting. Therefore, this study aims to explore the potential of a housing initiative on water for people with mild intellectual disabilities as part of a residential care farm.

To explore the potential of this concept, the research aims to answer the following question: What kind of spatial qualities can residential care farms provide for people with mild intellectual disabilities in a future with flooded polders? The study focuses on two types of case studies: residential care farms for people with MID and housing on water. Spatial qualities in both types of case studies are analysed through a combination of a literature review, an online survey, and interviews, with a strong emphasis on the perspective of the end users. These methods result in two sets of spatial qualities, which are then compared and evaluated in relation to the housing needs of individuals with a MID.

A residential care farm generally seems to meet the needs of people with MID well, such as creating a place where clients can retreat, living in a community and living in an isolated and natural environment. These qualities are also often mentioned by respondents (without MID) who live on water. The community feeling and the contact with nature are mentioned as major advantages on water. Respondents who live on water also clearly experience more freedom than on land, despite the small distance between neighbours. For residential care farms this could be a reason to realise homes on water, to possibly increase the sense of freedom among this target group. In general, however, living on water cannot directly meet the needs of people with MID that residential care farms do not or cannot meet. However, living on water could possibly provide creative design solutions to meet needs of people with MID in an alternative way, which is shown in the design project at the end of this report.

This research investigates how contemporary design can integrate modernization and efficiency while preserving the historical value, cultural identity, and unique essence of traditional Dutch polder landscapes and their dwellings. Grounded in a qualitative methodology, the study employs a multifaceted research strategy including exploratory, descriptive, correlational, comparative, historical, and case study method. These approaches facilitated a layered understanding of spatial, architectural, and cultural dynamics in the polder landscape, with Midden-Delfland serving as the principal case study.

The study explores how design principles derived from historical research and grounded theory can guide the creation of architecture that respects tradition while meeting modern needs. Through comparative analysis and narrative interpretation, vernacular forms and typologies were examined and reimagined to develop a unified set of contemporary design principles.

The findings culminate in a three-part design framework: [1] urban planning strategies that align future-oriented development with polder logic and environmental systems; [2] rchitectural massing techniques that reinterpret vernacular typologies using durable, symbolic forms; and [3] detailing approaches that combine traditional craftsmanship with digital innovation to enhance experiential and cultural value. This triadic approach offers a resilient and context-sensitive blueprint for modern architecture in heritage landscapes.

Ultimately, the research proposes that the preservation of the Dutch polder’s architectural character lies not in replication but in reinterpretation—through craftsmanship that bridges past and future, tradition and innovation. This vision champions an architecture that is both deeply rooted and forwardthinking, ensuring the continued evolution and recognizability of the polder landscape.

The Netherlands is facing a double crisis: a shortage of affordable housing and rising levels of loneliness. Traditional housing at the moment does not seem to help mitigate loneliness and isolation. Cohousing — an approach that combines private living with the sharing of space, amenities and ideologies — offers a potential solution. The graduation project explores if and in what ways cohousing could effectively address both housing affordability and social isolation. Subsequently, findings from the research are applied to a design for a housing complex in the neighbourhood of Tanthof, Delft.

This design report illustrates how the research strategies, as formulated in the research report by the author ‘Towards Productive Neighborhoods’ (J. Vermeulen, 2024), can be applied to case studies on various scale levels. These range from the national scale, to the urban planning scale, the architectural scale, the level of the dwelling and even down to the details and materials. Potential solutions are investigated by research through design in addition to the theoretical research in the research report.

This thesis addresses the challenge of designing architecture which fosters student communities while integrating with a wetland landscape. It explores the environmental and social implications of transforming the peat polders of Midden-Delfland in the Netherlands, which are subsiding and emitting significant amounts of CO2. The thesis builds on the masterplan by the architecture firm ZUS, which proposes converting these polders into a green buffer zone, combining productive landscapes with urban parks and wetlands to halt subsidence and CO2 emissions.

The primary research question is: “How can architecture create a place for student communities that connects to, and protects from, its surrounding wetland landscape?” This is divided into two sub-questions: one focusing on the design of student community spaces and the other on integrating architecture with wetland environments.

Through literature review on student housing, different urban concepts and the preferences and needs of students in student housing are defined. With case study analysis of projects that have a close relationship with a wetland landscape, the thesis identifies design strategies that protect and connect architectural spaces to water landscapes.

Key findings suggest that there are two main urban concepts for student housing, college, and campus design. For students housing proximity to school complexes are important, as well as dwelling floorplans that are practical and mix private bedrooms with shared facilities and common spaces. Creating raised living planes and incorporating landscape features into design can effectively protect residents from and connect them to changing water landscapes.

This research contributes to the broader understanding of sustainable architectural practices in wetland areas, providing insights into how to design adaptive and resilient community spaces.

This aim of this thesis is to discover which resource principle is the most affordable. To achieve this, case studies representing these resource principles are chosen and evaluated using a set of criteria. It was found that modular design was the most affordable of the chosen principles. The findings of this thesis was then translated into a housing design for Midden-Delfland in the year 2120. This design houses non-traditional family types by using modular and adaptable principles. The design also uses soil and water to drive the masterplan. Overall, this project is a result of the research executed as well as the conditions of the given site.

Hospitable Movement results from a research and design-based search towards a form of temporary inhabitation of the Dutch Peat polders. Many of these polders are now dealing with subsiding peat and releasing greenhouse gas emissions by draining the landscape. A new way of cultivating the landscape is required, by raising the water level and changing to wetland agriculture. Changing the landscape in this rigorous way doesn’t happen overnight, leaving the landscape unused in the process. A form of temporary housing is sought to fill this time gap, utilizing the precious landscape in its transition years. By various means of research, varying from surveys, literature reviews, testing out variants, and calculations temporary hospice has been designed on a specific site. Even though palliative care is the outcome of this research and design project, many other forms of temporary housing can be applied to similar sites, enabling us to release pressure from certain housing problems, buying time in the permanent problem-solving process.

Our site is located in the countryside between the cities of Delft and Rotterdam. My group selected an existing village to improve. There are few original residents here, and most of the land is used for agriculture. My intervention in building a residential project on this site started with an analysis of the existing problems. The residents here are generally old and they live in an island-like village, which made them experience the problem of residential loneliness more or less. Is there any way to improve their current situation?I paid attention to the students who had the same housing shortage problem, so I tried to make a picture of students and the elderly integrating into the same community, forming a kind of intergenerational life pattern that is a solution for social inclusion.

In a time when the future is constantly revealing itself to us, the wisdom of the past provides us with indispensable lessons for the here and now. This thesis explores the deep-rooted lessons from traditional architecture of long forgotten eras and how they can help us create affordable, inclusive and sustainable residential buildings for the modern world and contemporary demands. By looking at centuries-old building methods, materials and community-oriented designs, one can discover a wealth of knowledge that not only remains relevant, but is crucial in our quest for a better world. In this thesis lies the key to an architectural future that is guided by the richness of the past, with the goal of a livable, sustainable and affordable world for us all.

This research delves into the emergence of participatory design processes in Midden-Delfland, Netherlands. The design hypothesis posits that ZUS plan creates a great opportunity for affordable housing to emerge as an alternative to existing developments that cater to welloff members of the society. The complex socio-economic and historical context of Midden-Delfland, rapid urban growth, coupled with the array development plans, underscores the necessity to provide affordable housing. This research explores the concept of a community land trust cooperative capable of addressing the evolving needs of the inhabitants. Drawing inspiration from the successful participatory projects, this study employs a structured framework based on five fundamental tools: aggregation, variability, clustering, self-development, and support-infill. The aim is to propose a participation enabling process while addressing the need for inclusive and affordable housing in areas such as Midden-Delfland.

This thesis explores and analyses the usage of modular architecture and mixed buildings and their role in solving the Dutch housing crisis. The Dutch housing market is in a crisis due to various reasons that can be solved partially in the design process and partially by regulation changes. The mixing of production and living has become more accessible due to new innovative manufacturing methods like 3D printing. The mixing of 3D printing and residential functions is relatively new, and there is a need to understand this manufacturing process to ensure a successful mix with residential functions. This paper uses Habitat 67, Nakagin Capsule Towers and Bremer Punkt as case studies to better understand modular architecture and its benefit. Modular Architecture brings multiple benefits, which are explored in this thesis. One of the architectural benefits is that it allows a building to be adaptable, flexible and affordable compared to traditionally built buildings.

Unpacking concepts of collaborative living and mixed-use typologies, this project investigates how dwelling types can respond to modern household constellations and how the productive and reproductive realms can co-exist both at the urban level and the scale of the dwelling. Research findings are synthesised into an architectural proposal comprising a maker/educational programme and a housing programme, with the latter exploring strategies for inducing social interactions, gaining by sharing and future-proof spatial planning.

‘Gender? Home !’ originates in the perpetual state of transcendental homelessness that women of the diaspora experience. This thesis aims to re-centre the periphery by creating a gender equitable dwelling. Throughout this research the periphery is understood as the cultural, social and economic in-between that people with a migration background find themselves in. It defines a metaphysical state of being between the socio-cultural forms of the country of origin of an individual and those of the country they reside in, with that individual existing simultaneously in both and neither. The periphery is about temporal and spatial elsewheres, a sense of longing for something that does not exist, an idealised concept of home. A major factor for gender inequity in the dwelling is the harsh separations of the processes of production (productive labour) and social reproduction (affective labour) that happens under capitalist systems. Production in the framework of capitalism is understood as a remunerated form of labour that has as a purpose a ‘product’. Historically it is associated with factory processes. While social reproduction in this thesis is understood as the sum total of care, affective labour, or subjectivation. Social reproduction covers all the activities that pertain to community making, care for the youth and elderly and social organisational activities. By exploring the opportunities offered by cooperative models when it comes to ensuring ownership and providing a flexible environment for methods of habitation that do not revolve around the nucleic family, I propose a programmatic ecology, a socio-economic and administrative system and lastly a spatial configuration that create equitable living for women of the periphery.