Water scarcity is a growing issue in Europe, driven by the overexploitation of natural resources for anthropogenic activities, intensified by global pressures, and exacerbated by climate change. This has resulted in environmental degradation in many regions, including desertification and an increased risk of flooding. These symptoms signal a disrupted relationship between humans and nature and emphasise the need to transition towards a more socio-ecologically resilient water system. However, designing for systemic change remains challenging, as existing frameworks often fail to bridge theoretical concepts and practical implementation across interconnected spatial and temporal layers.

This thesis addresses this gap by developing a symbiotic systemic design strategy for the water transition in the Segura River Basin, an arid region marked by intensive agricultural production and structural water scarcity. Through a research-by-design process, this study integrates the concept of symbiosis with a systemic design approach.

The outputs include: (1) a methodology for symbiotic strategic design of water system transitions, (2) a pattern language of symbiotic design interventions, and (3) a regional symbiotic strategy for the Segura River Basin. The results show that a symbiotic systemic design framework can effectively connect complex systems theory to actionable design strategies and policy-making. Therefore, this research offers inspiration for researchers, designers, and decision-makers to collaboratively develop context-specific, symbiotic solutions to integrated systemic problems, moving collectively towards a socio-ecologically resilient future.

This thesis investigates the intersection of spatial justice, autonomy, and radical imaginaries within the Westland agro-industrial greenhouse cluster in the Netherlands. As a global hub of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), the region is celebrated for its innovation and productivity in addressing food security amid rapid urbanization and ecological crises. However, its productivity masks urgent socio-environmental challenges that are proliferated by the spatial configuration, including fossil fuel dependency, complex supply global chains, precarious migrant labour, and increasing automation, making the cluster vulnerable to systemic disruptions.

Combining socio-spatial and historical analysis, the work interrogates the region's socio-technical lock-in and its dialectical relationship with spatial injustices. Through interviews, media- and literature review, and scenario thinking, the study identifies and assesses "radical imaginaries"—alternative future visions for agriculture in Westland grounded in ecologism, autonomy, and commons-based values. The findings suggest that the socio-spatial and material practices associated with these imaginaries support spatial justice and autonomy. Drawing on this, the thesis presents policy recommendations for increasing spatial justice, including an inclusive participatory planning approach for the Westland municipality. Next to this, a speculative spatial project integrates insights from the researched imaginaries, commons-theory and agro-ecology to formulate a reconfiguration of the socio-spatial logic that allows for a diversity of nature-inclusive food landscape typologies.

Ultimately, the thesis contributes to the discourse on post-industrial agricultural futures, offering insights into the role of design as a mediator between nature and culture. Besides, by politicising spatial planning and design, the research contributes to a body of work advocating for democratic, resilient, and ecologically balanced agri-food systems.

With demand expansion and consumption stimulation as fundamental policies for economic growth, China's culture of consumerism has evolved into not only an economic strategy but also a dominant social ideology and a driving force of urban and regional development. In the era of accelerated platformisation, platform corporations exemplified by Alibaba have expanded their influence and established an oligopolistic platform economy that has already reshaped and continues to reshape the culture of consumerism by transforming consumption behaviors, habits, and values. As a result, the production of space and social relations is undergoing a radical transformation.

Building on this premise, this research adopts the Stack as its primary theoretical and design framework to investigate the computational system of the Alibaba corporation in China, with Shanghai serving as a case study. It examines how planetary-scale computation, as manifested through both physical and digital infrastructures, reconfigures geodesign systems across multiple scales, from the territorial allocation of productive resources and the structure and configuration of urban space to human-machine interaction. In doing so, it reveals how Alibaba digital biopolitics facilitates the restructuring of market environments and conditions human subjectivity.

In the design and strategic section, this research further addresses the ethical dimensions of biopolitics within the context of accelerated platformisation. It explores the potential of an affirmative digital biopolitics as a new paradigm, one that centers on the exploration of human futures. In this model, experience becomes a product for customers to consume in the pursuit of a better self, while platform technologies serve as mediating infrastructures that sustain the operational system and enable the enhancement of individual subjectivity. Based on this paradigm, the study speculates a utopian vision of alternative models of production and consumption within the Stack, and envisions future cultures of consumerism shaped by ethical computation and emancipatory spatial and interaction design that foreground situation construction.

Our current time, the Anthropocene, defined by crises, colours the Randstad and its accompanying Fringes in the ‘Groene Hart’ in the Netherlands, as a depleted landscape filled with economic, ecological, and socially misaligned housing developments, under constant pressure of further terrestrial urbanisation. The thesis seeks to research an alternative perspective to the prevailing market-driven, human-centric spatial zeitgeist that antagonised this misbalance, which is eroding the boundary between society and nature to being a Fringe of fluid hinterland within a depleted landscape. Contributing to housing shortages, environmental degradation, and societal polarization and segregation. Henceforth, the current form is no longer sustainable, and asking for a reiteration of the relationship between the urban and non- urban.

By adopting an ecocentric approach to housing the thesis seeks to foster synergies among, social, economic, and environmental interests by nurturing non-exploitative design. Subsequently, it contributes to the limited body of knowledge in contemporary Dutch urbanism, particularly regarding Fringes and housing developments within production landscapes.

Through the methodology of cycles of research for design and research by design, including literature and cartographic reviews, as well as digital and design interpolation, the thesis develops
a design language as a bridging design tool to explore ways to synergise conflicting systems within the peri-urban landscapes. Fostering an overall regional ecocentric strategy.

Concluding with the advocation of a transformative nature- inclusive Fringe of dynamic transitional mosaics of blue-green agroecological parklands with housing developments, advocating a revitalised relationship with the landscape and its natural operation, through the implementation of the Fringe National Parkland. Advocating a strategy of developing from the territory’s existing conditions to sustain functions by leveraging its inherent network capacity.

Emphasising the regenerative potential of enabling synergetic Fringes, the thesis paints an alternative promising perspective for the future region. It serves as a visual embodiment of how synergies can revive formerly depleted landscapes while addressing housing needs, offering a reflective outlook in the ongoing debate surrounding terrestrial development.

This research investigates agroforestry within a regenerative framework as a unifying element to reconnect urban, rural, and natural landscapes in the RZG triangle, with a focus on Het Middengebied. Decades of intensification in agriculture and urban development have left the area fragmented, with agriculture, nature, and urban systems functioning in isolation. This study addresses these issues by developing a comprehensive framework that promotes spatial connectivity, environmental functionality, and social engagement.

Based on the site’s unique context and relevant theories, a set of design strategies and principles was developed to provide integrated solutions that could provide for both urban and rural areas. These strategies were then applied to the site, guiding the final design. The design exploration across the regional, local, and detail scale shows that agroforestry, within a regenerative framework, can act as a buffer zone that directs resources—such as water, organic waste, and CO₂—and human activity, thereby connecting ecological, agricultural, and urban areas.

The findings show agroforestry promotes resource flow and environmental resilience, though its effectiveness depends on careful management. Unregulated resource use or recreational activity could reduce the system’s regenerative potential. For long-term viability, this study emphasizes adaptive management and a balance of top-down financial support with grassroots community involvement, particularly in the early, low-yield years. This integrated approach highlights agroforestry’s role as a potential bridge between urban, rural, and natural areas, offering a model for regenerative design in landscape architecture.

Nocturnal cultural spaces in Rotterdam are under pressure of gentrification. The decline in night club spaces, also results in a decline in cultural innovation and experimentation. In current redevelopment plans for creative clusters such as Schieblock, show the replacement of the creative industry by homogeneous residential neighbourhoods or offices, with no cultural value. There is no long term vision for the creative industry, as they are stuck in a cycle of displacement and do not get the acknowledgement for adding value to the neighbourhoods of the future. By involving the creative industry and nightlife in urban design through a placemaking workshop and expert panel talks, the goal of this research is to bridge the knowledge gap between Dutch planning practices

The urban environment in general needs to be renewed in light of the shifting demographics in the Netherlands in order to address future challenges. The majority of the Dutch urban environment is made up of low-density, post-war suburban neighbourhoods that are aimed towards a particular socioeconomic group. This is called the Row House Paradigm. Numerous sources claim that these neighbourhoods have a promising chance of addressing the future challenges. In the 1960s, Almere was planned as an Amsterdam "flowover" city, with the Row House paradigm predominating. In order for Almere to reach its objective of becoming the fifth city in the Netherlands, the study will examine our current living standards and provide proof that densification can be achieved while keeping existing (sub)urban qualities.

Since 2020, when remote working became standard practice worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries, including the Caribbean Island Curaçao, have introduced remote working visas targeting digital nomads to boost their local economy. As a result, the phenomenon of digital nomadism has seen a rapid increase in the last few years. Digital nomads are mobile professionals who use digital technologies and leverage workplace flexibility to perform their work remotely, while travelling on a (semi-)permanent basis living a nomadic life. Two years after the introduction of these visas, local communities of popular digital nomad destinations are protesting the negative consequences in the socio-spatial context resulting from the unrestricted access given to digital nomads. Since the economy of Curaçao is partly dependent on tourism, this thesis aims to investigate what spatial interventions in Curaçao can facilitate mutually beneficial co-existence between digital nomads and local communities beyond the potential economic benefits.
Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad theory was used to systematically investigate the social, economic, and spatial practices of digital nomads in juxtaposition with the social and material infrastructures of Curaçao. The analysis followed the structure of the model for planetary-scale computation The Stack by Benjamin Bratton. The results include an overview of the full spectrum of spatial externalities of digital nomadism as well as an evaluation of the affordances of the island’s infrastructures to support a multiplicity of mobilities. Furthermore, the juxtaposition uncovered ‘pursuit of knowledge’ as common ground between digital nomad and settled communities. The material expression of this common ground was then imagined as a civil (knowledge) campus. The civil campus as a concept is a vision for the conscious and active involvement of all citizens and visitors to adaptively shape social spaces together based on shared values of collaboration, purpose, and a mindset of continuous learning. As a material place, the civil campus is an inclusive and porous knowledge-focused hub. It is formed through bottom-up adaptive processes that serve both the locals and the digital nomads, thereby enabling local communities to benefit from knowledge exchange with this global community. The public library acts as central knowledge node and meeting place, and spatial interventions in the public realm on the micro (furniture), mezzo (architecture), and macro (neighbourhood) level activate and support social interaction and active knowledge exchange between digital nomads and settled locals.

Kampala is the heartbeat of Uganda’s economy and has driven rural-urban migration over the years as people travel in search of better opportunities (Namwanje, 2022). This has led to rapid urbanisation and unprecedented growth of the informal sector that extends beyond the geographical confines of the city.

Rural areas, acting as spatial extensions of the city, have served as productive landscapes, supporting Kampala’s bustling informal economy and the livelihoods of city dwellers. Over the years, large expanses of uncultivated land in rural areas and natural forests in some cases, have been replaced with monocultural commercial forests causing socio-ecological degradation in Kampala’s city region.

While studying past and current trends in Uganda’s forest governance, as well as the socio-cultural relations between people and forests, the study brings to light the social and epistemic injustices of past and current exclusionary forestry policies and practices. Storytelling is used not only as an investigative tool to understand the lives of the Batwa indigenous forest peoples, but also as an approach to document local knowledges and envision an alternative future outside the realm of western technocratic approaches. Counter-storytelling operates as activism, transcending oppression while fostering emanicipation and transformation of the Batwa people. In so doing, the project seeks to achieve self-determination for a just forest economy in Kampala’s city region.

Cities are constructed with extractive, finite resources that put enormous pressure on global climatic conditions. The building and construction sector is responsible for 36 percent of the global energy demand and 37 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. With the prospect of massive urbanization, the built environment will fundamentally contribute to a spike in global carbon dioxide emissions. This paper investigates an alternative: It researches the potential of turning cities into carbon sinks with emphasis on the reduction of embodied carbon dioxide emissions of cross-laminated timber. Localizing the supply chain and bridging the gap between urban planning and timber production allows the investigation of synergies between the forest and the city. This research tackles the dilemma of accelerated urbanization while decreasing C02 emissions in a research-by-design approach with a city development project as a case-study. The proposed transition from the commodification of timber to the holistic benefits of trees results in an integrative design of ecologic processes and urban dynamics. This paper suggests a framework to offset the embodied carbon dioxide emissions of cross-laminated timber by transcending the nature city dichotomy.

This research explores the potential of urban design to fulfill the role of integrating the domains of ecology, food, and climate change to achieve long-term restorative goals. Also, the potential of urban design to be the operator of a dynamic coexistence with nature by acting upon the diverse layers of landscape infrastructure and embedded socioenvironmental systems. After establishing the theoretical foundations on the domain intersections, this research adopts a research-by-design methodology that aims to answer the question of how can urban design simultaneously operationalize the intersection of ecological restoration, climate adaptation, and food production through spatial possibilities in an exploratory case study. Divided in three steps, the case study exercise starts by a pre-design step, that aims to achieve a contextual problem definition; subsequently, the design step focuses on developing a program, proposals, and evaluation of the proposals; and finally, the post-design step establishes a synthesis of the projections and discusses the wider knowledge acquired during the process. Through a contextual analysis of the case study of urban expansion in the Netherlands (Almere-Pampus), it is revealed that territorial dynamics, the trade-offs between current land use, and also the political context of the site are intertwined with its landscape infrastructure, that is vulnerable to sea-level rise. Furthermore, by adopting local references of “building with nature” approaches, it establishes a projective design exercise to investigate the potential of answering the research question through the proposition of a renaturalization process grounded on an agroecosystem that functions on base of local habitats. The results of the research indicate the potential of endogenous forms of production and land use to coexist with natural dynamics and guide the spatial design of multifunctional backbones. Also, it reveals the possible agency of a reformed countryside to be part of a decentralized water infrastructure that guides renaturalization efforts, integrating local actors and agenda demands.

We are at the beginning of the most significant societal change since the internet. We are transitioning from a 2-dimensional browser-based interaction to immersive 3-dimensional experiences. The metaverse is not a place or a destination but a state where technology and ecosystem are symbiotic.
Digital Twins, interactive toolkits, tokenization and urban platfomization, are the bedrock of the future cities and the metaverse. Today, we see the metaverse as cartoonish meeting rooms, yet on a granular level, the metaverse systems focus on user-centric governance and new decentralized economic models. De Filippi and Wright (2018) have described this as "a structural shift of power from legal rules and regulations administered by government authorities to code-based rules and protocols governed by decentralized blockchain-based networks." ... deployed to citizens.
With a nickname as Europe's Capital of vacant buildings, Riga suffers from excessive urban negligence and diaspora. Such a location provides a unique opportunity in the tokenization economy, where each urban void can become an asset (an NFT) or social crypto coin that individuals can purchase or 'invest' in, exchanging money for equity (fiat to crypto). By buying into the urban void metaverse, individuals establish a digital identity and can become active citizens of the duality. With a token, one automatically becomes part of the DAO protocols and proposes alternative solutions to the urban void of Riga through its city dashboard.
The architectural project acts as a jugendstil-inspired expression of art, history and local struggles. As part of the Next Generation EU, the project proposes a Metaverse Research Academy, where locals can play, imagine and shape their neighbourhood through serendipitous learning. The project can be viewed as a public space where the architecture seamlessly adapts the context into an icon to attract local and international talent while transforming an agglomerate of urban voids into a social, age-inclusive, permeable pocket.

Please do not share or reproduce without the written permission of Rihards Dzelme.

The main object of this study is the migrant laneway, which refers to the old community in the city center that attracts migrant workers because of its low rent and good location. This kind of community in urgent need of renewal contains three aspects: spatial, social and the process of renewal. This study regards these three aspects as the main line running through the whole research, and studies the current space situation, residents' life and the problems in the existing renewal process of migrant laneways.

Pattern language is the main analysis method and design tool of this research. By sorting out the patterns in the migrant laneway, these messy spaces are standardized. In addition, pattern language can be used to increase public engagement. This study introduces a new co-design toolkit: pattern buffet. This toolkit helps residents and designers co-design their communities. Work efficiency and program feasibility can be increased while public engagement is being added. More importantly, the result of this design with public engagement is more sustainable and inclusive.

At the social level, this study also proposes a soft strategy to help migrant workers better integrate into the city. The authors reskill these residents towards the opportunities found in a social trend: the senior care industry. While vacancies in the industry are being filled, migrant workers can get longer careers and higher wages to integrate into the city.

Therefore, this thesis develops an approach which enables the urban dilapidated areas to be regenerated in a co-design way. This regeneration framework is very new in the Chinese context. Pattern language, as the most important tool in this study, has been examined for its role and function. However, due to the epidemic, the pattern buffet part lacks practical operation, so the author cannot get feedback from the actual situation, which is also an aspect that this thesis can be further expanded.

The rapid upsurge of the platform economy is producing profound changes to the way in which urban areas are functioning. With digital technology putting roots down in the fields of public transport, hospitality and the service industry, it opened up possibilities for new platform economy companies to nest themselves within the activities of these traditional public services. In some occasions serious disruptions of existing systems occur, while in other cases it may unveil opportunities to improve the functionality of public life in cities. Where (local) governmental organizations seem to grapple with policy making to effectively balance the interests of corporate platform organizations and the public good, it is important to critically explore the implications of inadequate regulation vis-a-vis the novel platform economy and the commodification of public space and services. This thesis is an extensive multi-facetted analysis, providing insight in the externalities of flash delivery platforms, as they claim their place in cities and influence urban planning practice. Furthermore, it shall offer design-based interventions to generate synergies between platform services and the traditional functionality of public services to provide creative solutions where policy instruments will fall short. As a result, a more thorough understanding of platform urbanism is acquired and new ways of using platform economies to enhance the lived experience in cities are being presented.

Due to climate change, the built environment will have to deal with rising surface
water levels in the future. We could cope with this situation by making our buildings adaptable to changing water levels and develop floating urbanisation. Although quite a few floating projects have been realised in the Netherlands they are mostly of the smaller scale (1-20 buildings). To serve as a robust solution the floating urbanisation projects need to scale up. The aim of this research is to understand the preconditions that are needed to do so. The method used is mixed and combines literature research, case studies and a validation panel. The results have been grouped in seven themes: knowledge & skills, regulation & legislation, exploitation & economy, infrastructure & planning, technology & scale, environment & ecology and public perception. Topics within these themes that play an important role in the success of a project are developing parties with the required knowledge and skills, the presence of suitable legislation, an appropriate location and a bank willing to provide mortgages. The preconditions as they are now make the development of floating urbanisation in the Netherlands possible. Improving these conditions will make it easier to develop more floating urbanisation projects. If these improvements are needed on the short term or the long term depends on the context of that time.

This thesis explores the possibility of circularity to regenerate the degraded agricultural systems of the Foodvalley region. The Foodvalley is a regional network organization, consisting of eight municipalities situated partly in the province of Utrecht and partly the province of Gelderland. Circularity is used to describe a way in which resource consumption, distribution, and production are managed. It is focused on cycling and regeneration of resources to make sure they are used more efficiently, as well as reducing the use of finite resources. At the same time it will tackle environmental degradation and interrelated socio-economic problems. Adopting a circular approach makes sure society can live and thrive within planetary boundaries. Regenerative circular development in the agricultural sector is needed because currently most of the area’s development is on hold due to the region’s struggle with the effects of the nitrogen crisis. The interaction between the current, linear and monocultural, agricultural system and climate externalities are causing problems related to resource depletion and scarcity, overexploitation of land, and fragmentation and degradation of ecosystems.

This thesis explores the question: How to reconfigure the territory of the Foodvalley region, to facilitate regenerative circular developments, using a co - creation method?

A territorial approach regarding circular resource management is promoted. In which agri-food flows are considered in their social, ecological and spatial context and managed according to participatory transition management.

Incorporating the territory in circular development is especially important. The territory can be used to connect circular development strategies to ecosystem, landscape or territorial assets and it allows different international, national, regional and local goals to be linked in spatial organization (Forster et al., 2021).

Stakeholders influence the territory, through addressing key challenges, by pursuing different interest, exploring new opportunities, and by identifying appropriate policies and actions (Forster et al., 2021). Therefore, this thesis has developed a method which enables reconfiguration of the territory in a co – creative way.

The outcome is a circular agriculture pattern language which translates solution, that increase the regenerative capacity of the current socio-ecological metabolism, into easily understood blocks of knowledge. In this way, the complexity of a circular agri-food chain can be rendered more accessible and manageable. The pattern language can be used in design workshops to foster effective solution oriented dialogue between stakeholders. The results of the co-creation process can be used to create context-specific designs illustrating the spatial implications of a circular agricultural sector.

Currently, there is a growing gap between theory and practice in urban and architecture fields, that requires dialogue on multiple fronts, scales, and new perspectives. Bridging this gap and achieving a successful transition to a new era. In which theory and practice must work together cohesively creating new methods, models, new points of interest, new forms of professional practice and a new vision. The concept of Open Society is chosen due to the similarities of the situation between today and then (1960s), such as: housing shortage, polarization of discourse and reduction of plurality, increase in social inequality and large global migrations. For this reason, it was decided to study this concept and its projects as the starting point and symbolic break of this long investigation of the modernist project and its attempt to bridge theory and practice. The concept of Open Society appeared in the field of urbanism between the 50-60s, the Welfare State, as an attempt to improve living conditions in the city so that society would prosper. These good intentions did not translate into many success stories and the consequences of these operations continue to cause problems today, as can be seen from the current multiple crises (social, economic, environmental, etc.).
Today there are new approaches to the built environment, which allow or offer us new possibilities to reinterpret the concept of Open Society, something of great importance still in contemporary urban discourse. For this reason, this study proposes to carry out a double investigation on the concept of Open Society (both empirical and conceptual) that will provide knowledge about this concept in two Western European countries. This will help to build a network of knowledge around topics of interest in urban matters. This research aims to investigate and analyze the discursive and projective validity of the concept of Open Society today, the relation between concepts-realities (places), and a critical methodology (open framework) that engages between theory and practice in a continuous dialogue as follows:
-Critically review the concept in the theoretical framework and contemporary global policy frameworks (new urban agenda, theoretical critiques, technical code, etc.).
-Empirically review two case studies that illustrate the implementation of this concept, the phenomena and patterns that have arisen in the friction between the place, the ideals (concept) and the resistance generated by the users.
This research uses a mixed methods approach to examine these two case studies and draw conclusions, and also reflect on the principles and possible unlocking mechanisms. In this way, we generate a discursive break towards a new vision of this concept, which advocates a diverse, inclusive, fair and cohesive ecological societies.

Out of all the countries in the world, the Netherlands has the most ‘autonomous vehicle’-ready road network (KPMG, 2019). It is the result of years of investing in state-of-the-art technologies and putting in place the needed policies, and it seems to pay off: our country is likely to be amongst the early adapters as soon as these vehicles enter the market. Claiming this desired role of a frontrunner comes with many large challenges and responsibility, however. Being one of the first to be able to put autonomous vehicles on the roads, means that we should be one of the first also to have the right policies in place - there is no luxury of waiting and learning from good examples, or mistakes, made elsewhere. But what are these ‘right’ policies then? And what other kind of – perhaps unexpected - moments of choice might appear? What happens after we have made the decision to allow private autonomous vehicles full access to our inner-cities. Or what are the consequences of leaving a large role for the market to experiment freely, whilst staying passive as a public sector? There is a need for forecasting studies that help to expose these kind of potential choices - projects that try to speculate about the future from diverse perspectives. Amsterdam 2049 is such a project that aims to generate insights into these required actions, through constructing and providing future scenarios that give an idea of the potential implications of autonomous vehicles on the city of the future. By doing so, it establishes a sense of urgency amongst policy-makers and planners, as well as providing them with recommendations, from policies to spatial interventions, on how to act. Structural behind these future scenarios is the development of a unique storytelling-scenario method, which will in its own way combine several useful theories and urbanism insights to produce informative, imaginative and compelling stories about Amsterdam and autonomous vehicles. The stories thus end up as a unique combination of urbanism - with maps, sections and impressions -, ‘complex system theory’ – giving insight into ‘system transitions’ that provides a structure and timeline – and the visual language of the graphic novel – with personal perspectives, dialogues and imaginative visualizations – which altogether lead to accessible, forecasts that can inspire and inform those involved in decision-making.

Modernist urbanism under automated mobility scenarios, develops a method to intervene and enhance the quality of public spaces in modernist areas, based on a possible automated mobility scenario that triggers new relationships between car infrastructure, public space and the rest of the urban fabric. New uses for mobility landscapes in transformation are proposed, the new interventions stimulate an optimized use of the space, and upgrade the overall quality of the existing urban environment. In this project, the modern model is, on the one hand, used as an historical / conceptual reference, in which vehicular technology have been used as a determining factor in the development and transformation of cities contributed to the creation of an urban model considered unsuccessful (Aquilué & Ardura, 2017). On the other hand, is also used as a contextual reference, that has produced patterns of open block structure, separation of traffic and functions and the elimination of the street as a ‘social space’ at a global scale. In order to use Automated mobility as a trigger to generate upgrading opportunities for these areas, we try to identify typical patterns of value related to the model, to generate design proposals that can be transferable to different contexts. To this aim, this project develops a Toolbox, where a database combines information from the literature framework, and a system of pattern language is used to combine all the elements, and a possible scenario of automated mobility, to create design proposals that are tested in the Slotermeer area in Amsterdam.Finally, possibilities for future developments as an Online tool are outlined, envisioning the possibilities of application and knowledge transferability, allowing for different scales of implementation and interaction with users; increasing the flexibility of the system, allowing user interaction, the integration of knowledge, and its use as a basis for the development of participatory processes and interventions in diverse contextual situations.

‘Machinic Utopias, Automated Futures’ speculates on the role of designers as active agents addressing the potential implications of automated technologies on urban space in the specific context of the horticultural production center in the Westland. Successive expansions of greenhouses and their typological and technological transformations have resulted in an unprecedented productive cluster that conditions both the spatial character and structure of Westland and its social dynamics. Shortages of high-skilled labor, international competition, and pressures to reduce production costs have prompted growers to invest in automated technologies and machinery. While mostly concealed inside greenhouses and overlooked by municipal visions, this project portrays how these technologies have spatial implications on the surrounding social and built environment, and on the future of work, that need to be addressed by designers in order to conduce the Westland to sustainable modes of urbanization. The project shifts from the socio-economic debate on automation to highlight the spatial implications of this phenomenon. In this regard, it documents emergent technologies and production processes in the horticulture productive cluster and depicts successive accretions in greenhouse sizes that are analogous to radical technological shifts and changes in production patterns. With the help of scenarios, the project formulated possible futures for Westland. An overall strategy consisted of shifting productive premises from one part of the cluster to another. Productive premises were merged with existing urban components to create mixed-use sustainable urban typologies afforded by automated technologies. The project culminated in a design for two pilot projects - Maasdijk and Honderland- and assumed automation as a platform that forced new spatial conditions. It engaged with the emergent phenomenon of automation to stir development in Westland and conduce the area to sustainable modes of urbanization.