The Netherlands is currently facing a major housing shortage while the construction sector continues to place increasing pressure on the environment through high CO2 emissions, material consumption, and the loss of biodiversity. At the same time, existing housing often lacks flexibility, forcing people to relocate when their living situation changes. This graduation project explores how architecture can respond to these challenges through a modular, sustainable, and nature-inclusive housing system.
The project, Growing Homes, proposes a modular off-grid housing system that combines flexibility, circular construction, and living in harmony with nature. The system is based on compact timber modules that can be expanded or reduced over time according to changing household needs. By allowing homes to adapt instead of requiring relocation, the project aims to contribute to improved housing flow-through and reduce pressure on the housing market.
Central to the design is the principle of “designing with nature.” The homes
are elevated above the ground to minimize disturbance to the landscape and create space for biodiversity underneath the buildings. The project integrates bio-based and circular materials to reduce environmental impact and create a healthy indoor climate. In addition, the homes function completely off-grid through integrated systems.
Besides the architectural and technical design, the project also investigates collective living as a sustainable social model. A test eco-community demonstrates how the modular system can support shared outdoor spaces, communal facilities, and stronger social connections while maintaining a close relationship with nature.
Through design research, this project demonstrates how modular and
nature-inclusive architecture can contribute to a more flexible, circular, and environmentally responsible way of living. ... Read more

As space missions become longer and more complex, the psychological impact of isolation and confinement increases, making the support of astronauts’ mental health increasingly important. This thesis investigates how to design an analog habitat that creates a spatial experience supporting psychological well-being.

Analog habitats, Earth-based facilities for isolation training, already prepare astronauts for the confined living and working conditions of future missions. However, in this project, they are also approached as experimental platforms for testing architectural strategies that would be difficult to pursue in space.

Privacy and stimulation are selected as two key challenges because spatial conditions strongly shape them. Design experiments explore how architecture can respond to these challenges.

The thesis shows that architecture can balance practical requirements and psychological effects in isolated and confined spaces, turning these tensions into a supportive spatial experience. Three design proposals explore different design responses to privacy and stimulation, from the overall organization of the habitat to the reinterpretation of basic architectural elements. Across the proposals, textiles emerge as particularly promising for future analog missions and space habitats because they are lightweight, adaptable, and currently underused in space missions.

The next step would be to develop the proposals into full-scale prototypes and evaluate them during inhabited analog missions, using existing isolation environments as a baseline. Such testing would examine whether the design strategies developed through the proposals produce meaningful effects on well-being when inhabited. The findings could contribute to future space habitats, and potentially expand architectural knowledge for Earth-based environments shaped by isolation or confinement. By using the analog habitat as an extreme case, the thesis also informs architectural education by suggesting that the psychological effects of spatial decisions should be considered throughout the design process. ... Read more

In the early 1950s almost the entire Jewish community of Baghdad left within a few months. Roughly ninety thousand people, about a quarter of the city, gone. What they left behind was not empty space. It was a built communal environment shaped and refined over centuries: houses, courtyards, schools and synagogues that encoded a way of living attuned to Baghdad’s heat and to the rules of a dense communal life. The community is gone. The architecture, where it survives, still holds the spatial knowledge that produced it, but it has been abandoned, cut off from the use and the spatial logic that once set it in motion.

How can we reactivate this architectural knowledge? To test this, the corpus is read indirectly, through archival drawings, photographs, surviving objects, and interviews with the Baghdadi-Jewish diaspora, and analysed into twenty-two recurring spatial patterns. They work in three fields. Climate, as the relation between the body and its surroundings, set against Baghdad’s hot weather. The threshold, which regulates the distance between the resident and the street, treated as exposed and unclaimed, turning on the question of protection. And gathering, which organises the relation between a person and their community. These patterns are then put to work through interventions in the last building that gave the Jewish community a space of assembly, a kind of urban salon known as the Frank Iny School, with the aim of bringing it back into use.

The patterns are read as principles rather than fixed forms. Read this way, they allow classical means to be used again within a contemporary context, and they open up an inquiry into materials and techniques that lost their place over the years. The building, left in abandonment and neglect, becomes again a place to stay, to make, and to gather. The knowledge studied in these buildings returns to life not as historical reconstruction but as a living principle for present-day residents. The method is offered as a procedure for any architectural corpus that is dispersed, partly destroyed or closed to direct visit. ... Read more

Many studies have researched the effects of gender inequality in many different fields. In the field of architecture however, it has proven a struggle to translate the social to the spatial domain. Through a combination of a literature study, interviews and site visits this thesis aims to answer the question “How can a gender-sensitive spatial design in Rotterdam South stimulate women’s space claiming and public space participation?”. In part 1, the research shows gender inequality negatively affects women’s space claiming and public space participation. Walking practices, memory and (lack of) control — the three factors in space claiming — are shaped by gender roles, collective experiences of unsafety and street harassment as well as the male hegemony. Public space participation is affected as well: women use the public space in a mobile manner, task-oriented manner or do not use it at all. Female perception of public space is generally more negative and feelings of unsafety are more common. Additionally, women continuously scan their environment, meaning the maintenance and design of the public space are vital to gender-sensitive design.

In Rotterdam South and Bloemhof, the gendered aspects of space claiming and public space participation are clearly present and the outcomes of the literature review are confirmed by the interviews and location analysis. Gender-sensitive design can contribute to a more women-friendly urban environment, empower them to partake more often in the socio-spatial domain, and encourage a sense of social safety, social control as well as encourage the (extended) use of the public space, thus stimulating women’s space claiming and public space participation. The research outcome helped create principles for the design process and other design guidelines, which are provided in chapter four and the attachment Blueprints for Change. In part 2, these principles and guidelines are applied to a real context and design, showing the possibilities of gendermainstreaming. This goes to show, spatial designers can now design female Spaces of Power. ... Read more

Baubotanik – a German term combining ‘build’ and ‘botany’ – is an emerging architectural approach that uses living trees as building material. It integrates architecture, landscape, and structural design to create living structures, raising new questions for contemporary architectural practice.

But what can you actually build with it? What forms can it take? And what are the potentials - and limitations - of designing with a material that grows, adapts, and evolves over time?

These questions form the starting point for The Growing Library. Set in the tropical urban context of Yogyakarta, the project proposes a public library that grows together with a tree, gradually evolving from an urban park into a living architectural structure. Conceived as a place for knowledge exchange, the library extends beyond a conventional building to include outdoor spaces, living systems, and ongoing ecological processes as core parts of its collection.

At the heart of the design is the Ficus benghalensis, whose aerial roots are trained and shaped to form spatial and structural elements. As they thicken over time, the roots intertwine with bamboo to form a hybrid structure, merging living growth and constructed elements into a single evolving architectural system.

... Read more

The world is always ending over and over again in one place but not another and that the end of the world is always a local event, it comes to your country and visits your town and knocks on the door of your house and becomes to others but some distant warning, a brief report on the news, an echo of events that has passed into folklore.” ~ Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

We live in a globalized world shaken by local conflicts. The digital space that has emerged through technological advancements enables the free flow of information across the globe. As a result, war has become more difficult than ever to conceive as a spatially finite phenomenon (Abujidi, 2014, p. 12). Regional conflicts stem from global political and economic dynamics, meaning that we all, citizens of democracies, bear responsibility and are, in some way, involved. However, rather than being incentivized to act, Western citizens have been transformed into mere spectators of these events. The media inundates us with photos, videos, reports, and stories from war-affected regions, providing ample information. Yet, it remains unclear how - or even if- we are truly affected. Meanwhile, due to hyper-exposure to information, the observer loses interest in the issue (Fuller and Weizman, 2021, p.120). We have the potential, but not the motivation to intervene. Through my graduation project, I want to challenge our preconceptions regarding political crises and our roles as citizens in them. I aim to create a space that allows people to empathize with victims of warfare and serves as a backdrop for discussions and debates among individuals with different beliefs and backgrounds. I believe that through education, empathy, and willingness, people have the potential to civicize their everyday lives and, together, discover how to bring about change. ... Read more

The projection introduces a systematic approach to transform incomplete concrete skeletons in the south of Italy into latent villas, addressing the wasteful obsolescence of these structures in the context of regional rural abandonment and exploring the perennial tension of order and freedom in architecture.

The project is bound to existing ideals and resources available in the south
but exceeds these by the projection of a clear, central intervention that structures the perimeter. Through imposing this absolute order, existing potentials are realized, maintaining the structures inherent openness as latent tolerance. ... Read more

This research explores how architecture can cultivate open spatial conditions that promote equal opportunities and foster new connections. Through a multidimensional approach, the study investigates the complex relationship between social and physical space, highlighting the influence of globalisation, neoliberalism, and urban development on spatial experiences. Drawing from theorists such as Lefebvre, Sennet and Harvey, and architects such as Pallasmaa, van Eyck and Hertzberger, the research introduces a human-centered framework—the Human Triad—comprising sensory design, architectural affordances, and space-time variations. This triad emphasizes the role of multi-sensory experiences, dynamic spatial interactions, and the adaptability of architecture over time. By designing spaces that encourage diverse interactions and perceptions, architects can contribute to more inclusive, flexible, and socially engaging environments. The study ultimately advocates for a shift away from rigid, standardized architecture toward a design philosophy that embraces openness, multiplicity, and human diversity in the built environment. ... Read more

In a world full of consumerism, climate change, and capitalism, we face a crisis in how we relate to the world around us. Indigenous values offer a new way forward. This graduation project responds to the task laid out for practitioners to include Indigenous values in the practice. It does so by turning to the values of the Sámi people, the Indigenous people of the North and explores how this can inform architecture.
Because of my unfamiliarity with Sámi practices and beliefs at the start of this project, I looked for an alternative to the Eurocentric design frameworks, which often overlook alternative narratives or oversimplify representations. To include these different stories, there was a need to embrace the unfamiliar and employ this knowledge to design a world in which many worlds fit. This led me to the overarching question: How to make space for the Other? By engaging in interdisciplinary literature analysis and design-for-values frameworks, I gathered tools to make values tangible and translate them into architecture. Through this methodology, I intended to be very attuned to Sámi values and make inexplicit steps of the design process very explicit.
These ideas are grounded in the urban context of Tromsø, Norway—a city with limited visible Sámi representation outside of its touristic identity. Through four site-specific interventions, the Fish-Leather House, the Kitchen, the Weaving House, and the Summer Workshop and its Sheds, this project is a creative collection of practical places and relations, a set of activity spaces. They are not fixed but shaped by the times and contexts in which people engage with them, allowing for a space to find community, speak the language, transfer practical knowledge and reclaim Sámi spaces. Each space embodies core Sámi values: craftsmanship, community, care, and indigenuity.
This project is a continuous exploration of how to engage with the people you are designing for and a reflexive positioning on the role of the architect. The insights gained throughout this process not only informed my design outcomes but also encouraged a deeper understanding of how values shape practices. It emphasises that how we work is just as important as the outcome.
... Read more

As urban space becomes increasingly tight and compressed, cemeteries have slowly withdrawn from our daily lives from the highly open public spaces in history. If cemeteries remain as they are, they may become completely inaccessible in the future, leaving people without a common memorial space. In order to cope with this possible future and status quo, I combined new technologies and urban renewal to come up with a conceptual vision of a new prototype for the cemetery. ... Read more

Modern cities are often characterized by their fast paced environments and levels of sensory overload. Consequently, these environments often pressure individuals and can create feelings of (emotional) detachment. These feelings of detachment call for interventions that enable people to connect to the full scale of their emotions and reconnect to their surroundings. Art and architecture have the potential to offer environments and encounters that can stimulate this (re)connection. Therefore, this research investigates the architectural principles and embodied visitor experiences of objects in (semi-)public spaces.

An overview of design principles and accompanied visitor experiences is created. The main types of experiences that have been identified are: contemplation, experiment/play, movement, surprise/wonder, and (unexpected) social interaction. Useful architectural tools to achieve these experiences entail, among others, the use of material, play with light, the relation (or disconnection) to place and its history, shape, sound, and perspective. Lastly, it is important to note that experience is rather subjective, even though these architectural principles can guide the experience. Therefore, urban planners and designers are encouraged to thoroughly investigate the case specific context to determine the most fit design.

These findings have been used to create three interventions following Kostverlorenvaart, a body of water located in the city of Amsterdam. By using the history of place as an additional guiding theme and incorporating a flexible structure that can be adapted to temporary needs, three pavilions have been created to help (re)connect city inhabitants to their direct surroundings. The project outlines a blueprint for urban interventions that can be implented in other cities to help counterbalance these fast paced environments. ... Read more

During the time of industrialization, the city became methodologically constructed from a repeatable pattern based on a grid. A methodology that leads to design from the large scale towards the small scale as the grid as an outline of property. Through this the industrialization of the house brought a specific kind of representation forth. A house as a machine for living that shapes the nuclear family as the diagram on which society is based. The family apartment is still what developers are trying to provide to the market where all our habitual habits are being standardized to specific commodities. One of the issues is the fact that the home is a kind of neutralized entity that we take as common sense.
Within this infrastructure, the home/apartment is viewed as a relationship from the urban condition. From this we tend to that the outline of the house/apartment, outline of the property, is the first engagement with the city. Within the borders the home is perceived as a private domain, away from the public. A space outside time, politics, and economy. Through this the home/apartment is a composition of functions with a possible range of different configuration that follows the logic of the grid.
Within this configuration of function its inhabitants can decorate the home/apartment as a form of representation of someone who lives inside the home/apartment. Which is a range of selection of objects that fits within function of the room. The décor of the home/ apartment is widely understood as a sort of memetic representation of its inhabitants, despite the obvious falsity of this. In other words, the home is a particular genre of space theoretically an infinite array of possibilities laid out, but this becomes the same through cultural appropriations. ... Read more

This paper investigates the factors that can be utilized in the redesign of public buildings to achieve vibrant, sustainable, and social public spaces. The research identifies and examines ten aspects, which are categorized into social and sustainable aspects, following regulations, standards, and recommendations formulated by organizations such as LEED and BREEAM. The social aspects include Human Health, Bio-Diversity, Public Spaces, Accessibility, and Visibility, while the sustainable aspects include Energy, Water, Nature, Materials, and Climate. The paper examines four case studies to demonstrate how these aspects can be used to create vibrant areas within public buildings. The case studies reveal the importance of factors such as ease and diversity of accessibility, biological diversity, and climate control in creating dynamic public spaces. The research aims to provide a guide for designing green and vibrant spaces within public buildings and suggests that future research could focus on developing new strategies for integrating sustainable and social aspects into public buildings more effectively. ... Read more

Tempelhof has become an oasis of leisure in a city that never sleeps, where the unplanned and spontaneous can take place. Its worth as a park, however, is always put against its land value. As Berlin expands, its demand for real-state grows as anywhere else in the world, and “the large green spot” in the center of its urban fabric always draws unwanted attention/ However, any alteration or improvement in the field is currently prohibited by the "Tempelhof Conservation Act", a law inacted by concerned citizens that fear for the park's existance and destruction. This very act, that was meant to preserve this area, has also prevented it from developing and responding to the needs of the very people who treasure it. “Craftscapes” is a playful attempt at reaching a consensus between this community, city and the vibrant nature that has found refuge in this retired airfield through a series of small timber interventions that culminate with a school for arts and crafts. ... Read more

This thesis examines how organizational culture influences the successful adoption of Systems Engineering (SE) within the construction industry. Despite increasing adoption driven by growing project complexity and lifecycle demands, implementation remains inconsistent. Using a combination of literature review and semi-structured interviews, the study identifies key cultural enablers and constraints affecting SE practices. Findings indicate that successful adoption depends on four interrelated dimensions: lifecycle-wide application, effective execution of core technical practices, organizational embedding, and the realization of tangible and perceived benefits. Empirical insights from the IJmuiden Ver Alpha onshore substation project highlight the role of beliefs, norms, and behaviors in shaping implementation outcomes. The research culminates in a Causal Loop Diagram framework that maps the dynamic relationship between culture and SE adoption, offering practical leverage points for organizations. The study concludes that beyond technical capabilities, cultural awareness and transformation are essential for sustained SE implementation. ... Read more

The Untapped Potential of Video in Architectural Design is a research and design project that explores the application of video-based techniques in the architectural design process. The project started with an experimental and applied research phase diving into video-based techniques at different stages of the design process, followed by my own design project where I could further apply and test these techniques. Due to the time-intensive nature of video production, it turned out to be difficult to use video at certain stages of designing, specifically the phase of generating and developing design ideas. In other phases, such as at the beginning and final representation, the use of video was very fruitful. The same pattern emerged when I continued to use video in my own design process; the application in the earlier research phase and the final representation phase of my design project, worked well. The use of video in the intermediate phase of generating and developing ideas less so. All of the videos that I made throughout the project, including most importantly the Research Film containing all of my research compiled together, as well as my final design videos, are available on my YouTube channel at the link below. ... Read more