V. Muñoz Sanz
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1
Operational landscapes, Situated futures
Designing for post-extractive futures in West Africa
West Africa’s extraction landscapes sit at the centre of a global supply chain whose costs (degraded land, polluted water, displaced communities, foreclosed futures) remain locally borne while their benefits accrue elsewhere. Dominant responses to this condition, from large-scale initiatives such as the Great Green Wall to project-level rehabilitation, remain grounded in a positivist planning paradigm that treats degradation as a technical problem and leaves the extractive relations of ecological unequal exchange intact. This thesis takes the bauxite-mining region of Boké, Guinea, as the operational landscape through which to develop a different response.
It works from the position that planning and design for such places must be situated, anchored in the specific ecological, historical, and lived realities of the territory and the designer rather than abstracted from them. Drawing on the theoretical frame of the planetary mine, and on planetary boundaries and spatial justice as the terms of evaluation, the research moves through situated analysis, scenario-based futuring and value-based assessment. Four plausible futures are developed and compared through transparent criteria against the thesis’s goal and vision, on the basis of which Loconomy, the scenario most aligned with a just redistribution of the commons within planetary boundaries, is selected for design.
The decisive turn in the thesis comes through situated fieldwork. By indulging in the territory rather than abstracting from it, relations between human and more-than-human actors became legible as mutually reinforcing rather than competing, opening design pathways no positivist method could have surfaced. Situated knowledge thus allowed the design to live with the context rather than against it.
The design proposes a regional system in which bauxite remains relevant but extraction is slowed to the pace of ecological regeneration. A preserved coast is put to productive use through fishing, salt, and oyster-based closed loops that double as living breakwaters and tidal energy infrastructure; urban cores are held within fixed limits and given distinct regional roles; the railway is repurposed for people and regional produce; and a countryside of sequential mining is interleaved with ecological preservation and staged soil regeneration. Localised production sustains a trans-regional balance rather than a single export flow. This is one possible trajectory, proposed rather than prescribed, the situated outcome of this research, the designer, and the lived realities encountered.
Backcasting from the selected scenario then translates the design into an actionable roadmap, within which a set of no-regret measures is identified: actions advantageous across all four explored futures and therefore worth enacting whichever one unfolds. The thesis argues that the most transferable contribution is not the design itself but the situated, accountable way of arriving at it: a practice that positions the urbanist as a translator of situated perspectives more than as the architect of a ready-made end-state master plans. ...
It works from the position that planning and design for such places must be situated, anchored in the specific ecological, historical, and lived realities of the territory and the designer rather than abstracted from them. Drawing on the theoretical frame of the planetary mine, and on planetary boundaries and spatial justice as the terms of evaluation, the research moves through situated analysis, scenario-based futuring and value-based assessment. Four plausible futures are developed and compared through transparent criteria against the thesis’s goal and vision, on the basis of which Loconomy, the scenario most aligned with a just redistribution of the commons within planetary boundaries, is selected for design.
The decisive turn in the thesis comes through situated fieldwork. By indulging in the territory rather than abstracting from it, relations between human and more-than-human actors became legible as mutually reinforcing rather than competing, opening design pathways no positivist method could have surfaced. Situated knowledge thus allowed the design to live with the context rather than against it.
The design proposes a regional system in which bauxite remains relevant but extraction is slowed to the pace of ecological regeneration. A preserved coast is put to productive use through fishing, salt, and oyster-based closed loops that double as living breakwaters and tidal energy infrastructure; urban cores are held within fixed limits and given distinct regional roles; the railway is repurposed for people and regional produce; and a countryside of sequential mining is interleaved with ecological preservation and staged soil regeneration. Localised production sustains a trans-regional balance rather than a single export flow. This is one possible trajectory, proposed rather than prescribed, the situated outcome of this research, the designer, and the lived realities encountered.
Backcasting from the selected scenario then translates the design into an actionable roadmap, within which a set of no-regret measures is identified: actions advantageous across all four explored futures and therefore worth enacting whichever one unfolds. The thesis argues that the most transferable contribution is not the design itself but the situated, accountable way of arriving at it: a practice that positions the urbanist as a translator of situated perspectives more than as the architect of a ready-made end-state master plans. ...
West Africa’s extraction landscapes sit at the centre of a global supply chain whose costs (degraded land, polluted water, displaced communities, foreclosed futures) remain locally borne while their benefits accrue elsewhere. Dominant responses to this condition, from large-scale initiatives such as the Great Green Wall to project-level rehabilitation, remain grounded in a positivist planning paradigm that treats degradation as a technical problem and leaves the extractive relations of ecological unequal exchange intact. This thesis takes the bauxite-mining region of Boké, Guinea, as the operational landscape through which to develop a different response.
It works from the position that planning and design for such places must be situated, anchored in the specific ecological, historical, and lived realities of the territory and the designer rather than abstracted from them. Drawing on the theoretical frame of the planetary mine, and on planetary boundaries and spatial justice as the terms of evaluation, the research moves through situated analysis, scenario-based futuring and value-based assessment. Four plausible futures are developed and compared through transparent criteria against the thesis’s goal and vision, on the basis of which Loconomy, the scenario most aligned with a just redistribution of the commons within planetary boundaries, is selected for design.
The decisive turn in the thesis comes through situated fieldwork. By indulging in the territory rather than abstracting from it, relations between human and more-than-human actors became legible as mutually reinforcing rather than competing, opening design pathways no positivist method could have surfaced. Situated knowledge thus allowed the design to live with the context rather than against it.
The design proposes a regional system in which bauxite remains relevant but extraction is slowed to the pace of ecological regeneration. A preserved coast is put to productive use through fishing, salt, and oyster-based closed loops that double as living breakwaters and tidal energy infrastructure; urban cores are held within fixed limits and given distinct regional roles; the railway is repurposed for people and regional produce; and a countryside of sequential mining is interleaved with ecological preservation and staged soil regeneration. Localised production sustains a trans-regional balance rather than a single export flow. This is one possible trajectory, proposed rather than prescribed, the situated outcome of this research, the designer, and the lived realities encountered.
Backcasting from the selected scenario then translates the design into an actionable roadmap, within which a set of no-regret measures is identified: actions advantageous across all four explored futures and therefore worth enacting whichever one unfolds. The thesis argues that the most transferable contribution is not the design itself but the situated, accountable way of arriving at it: a practice that positions the urbanist as a translator of situated perspectives more than as the architect of a ready-made end-state master plans.
It works from the position that planning and design for such places must be situated, anchored in the specific ecological, historical, and lived realities of the territory and the designer rather than abstracted from them. Drawing on the theoretical frame of the planetary mine, and on planetary boundaries and spatial justice as the terms of evaluation, the research moves through situated analysis, scenario-based futuring and value-based assessment. Four plausible futures are developed and compared through transparent criteria against the thesis’s goal and vision, on the basis of which Loconomy, the scenario most aligned with a just redistribution of the commons within planetary boundaries, is selected for design.
The decisive turn in the thesis comes through situated fieldwork. By indulging in the territory rather than abstracting from it, relations between human and more-than-human actors became legible as mutually reinforcing rather than competing, opening design pathways no positivist method could have surfaced. Situated knowledge thus allowed the design to live with the context rather than against it.
The design proposes a regional system in which bauxite remains relevant but extraction is slowed to the pace of ecological regeneration. A preserved coast is put to productive use through fishing, salt, and oyster-based closed loops that double as living breakwaters and tidal energy infrastructure; urban cores are held within fixed limits and given distinct regional roles; the railway is repurposed for people and regional produce; and a countryside of sequential mining is interleaved with ecological preservation and staged soil regeneration. Localised production sustains a trans-regional balance rather than a single export flow. This is one possible trajectory, proposed rather than prescribed, the situated outcome of this research, the designer, and the lived realities encountered.
Backcasting from the selected scenario then translates the design into an actionable roadmap, within which a set of no-regret measures is identified: actions advantageous across all four explored futures and therefore worth enacting whichever one unfolds. The thesis argues that the most transferable contribution is not the design itself but the situated, accountable way of arriving at it: a practice that positions the urbanist as a translator of situated perspectives more than as the architect of a ready-made end-state master plans.
Visioning Indian Agro-Urbanism
Futuring Indian agricultural system paradigms for food sovereignty, security and justice
The 21st century presents India with an unprecedented convergence of crises: a growing population projected to reach 1.515 billion by 2030 (United Nations Population Fund, 2025), accelerating urbanisation encroaching upon productive rural landscapes, and a food system caught between ecological exhaustion and deepening spatial inequality. India's double burden of malnutrition and obesity, distributed asymmetrically between rural and urban populations (Dutta et al., 2019), is not merely a nutritional challenge but a territorial one, embedded in the infrastructure, governance, and political economy of the agricultural system. Historical ratchets, from the Green Revolution's ecological hatchets of soil salinisation and groundwater depletion (Aditya et al., 2020) to the emerging Agriculture 4.0 trajectory of precision farming and drone-based agriculture (Barman et al., 2025), risk reproducing structural inequities unless decoupled from questions of access, justice, and place-based ecological knowledge. This project, thus, examines how India's food production system can achieve resilience in a just manner, improving agricultural productivity to meet nutritional security, while simultaneously ensuring the livelihoods of producers and the ecological balance of the landscapes that sustain them.
This project focuses on the tri-state region of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra, linked by the Narmada and Tapi river systems and a transboundary basalt aquifer as an exemplary agro-climatic territory where these overlapping crises manifest. The region's agricultural significance, shaped by large-scale hydrological infrastructure, the Sardar Sarovar Project, reveals how technocratic water governance simultaneously enables production and produces territorial inequalities in which surplus and scarcity coexist.
This project employs critical and narrative cartography, multi-criteria decision analysis, geospatial synthesis, and scenario mapping as tools to classify agricultural landscape typologies across the study region and evaluate their biophysical feasibility, governance constraints, and socio-ecological vulnerabilities. Four scenarios, developed along axes of scale and technology, are evaluated against criteria of producer justice, ecological balance, food sovereignty, and systemic resilience.
The project concludes that India's agricultural crisis demands a decisive departure from siloed technological and economic interventions toward integrated, justice-oriented spatial strategies. The proposed Indian Agro-Urbanism Operational Framework, tested through Surat district, repositions agriculture as an urbanisation issue, embedding agro-climatic zone-based planning, participatory governance, and ecological balance into territorial planning. Investment in adaptive, resilient public and commons infrastructure is indispensable for navigating the Ratchet–Hatchet–Pivot cycle (DeFries, 2014) justly, providing conservation grounds, experimental testing spaces, and deployment commons accessible to farmers, consumers, and ecosystems alike, rather than captured by private capital. Reinstating agro-climatic zone differentiation provides a scientifically grounded basis for cropping strategies and resource allocation. Ultimately, achieving just and resilient food production requires abandoning the dichotomy between conventional and automated farming, rural and urban, and production and ecology, co-producing the spatial imaginaries that India's food system crisis urgently demands. ...
This project focuses on the tri-state region of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra, linked by the Narmada and Tapi river systems and a transboundary basalt aquifer as an exemplary agro-climatic territory where these overlapping crises manifest. The region's agricultural significance, shaped by large-scale hydrological infrastructure, the Sardar Sarovar Project, reveals how technocratic water governance simultaneously enables production and produces territorial inequalities in which surplus and scarcity coexist.
This project employs critical and narrative cartography, multi-criteria decision analysis, geospatial synthesis, and scenario mapping as tools to classify agricultural landscape typologies across the study region and evaluate their biophysical feasibility, governance constraints, and socio-ecological vulnerabilities. Four scenarios, developed along axes of scale and technology, are evaluated against criteria of producer justice, ecological balance, food sovereignty, and systemic resilience.
The project concludes that India's agricultural crisis demands a decisive departure from siloed technological and economic interventions toward integrated, justice-oriented spatial strategies. The proposed Indian Agro-Urbanism Operational Framework, tested through Surat district, repositions agriculture as an urbanisation issue, embedding agro-climatic zone-based planning, participatory governance, and ecological balance into territorial planning. Investment in adaptive, resilient public and commons infrastructure is indispensable for navigating the Ratchet–Hatchet–Pivot cycle (DeFries, 2014) justly, providing conservation grounds, experimental testing spaces, and deployment commons accessible to farmers, consumers, and ecosystems alike, rather than captured by private capital. Reinstating agro-climatic zone differentiation provides a scientifically grounded basis for cropping strategies and resource allocation. Ultimately, achieving just and resilient food production requires abandoning the dichotomy between conventional and automated farming, rural and urban, and production and ecology, co-producing the spatial imaginaries that India's food system crisis urgently demands. ...
The 21st century presents India with an unprecedented convergence of crises: a growing population projected to reach 1.515 billion by 2030 (United Nations Population Fund, 2025), accelerating urbanisation encroaching upon productive rural landscapes, and a food system caught between ecological exhaustion and deepening spatial inequality. India's double burden of malnutrition and obesity, distributed asymmetrically between rural and urban populations (Dutta et al., 2019), is not merely a nutritional challenge but a territorial one, embedded in the infrastructure, governance, and political economy of the agricultural system. Historical ratchets, from the Green Revolution's ecological hatchets of soil salinisation and groundwater depletion (Aditya et al., 2020) to the emerging Agriculture 4.0 trajectory of precision farming and drone-based agriculture (Barman et al., 2025), risk reproducing structural inequities unless decoupled from questions of access, justice, and place-based ecological knowledge. This project, thus, examines how India's food production system can achieve resilience in a just manner, improving agricultural productivity to meet nutritional security, while simultaneously ensuring the livelihoods of producers and the ecological balance of the landscapes that sustain them.
This project focuses on the tri-state region of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra, linked by the Narmada and Tapi river systems and a transboundary basalt aquifer as an exemplary agro-climatic territory where these overlapping crises manifest. The region's agricultural significance, shaped by large-scale hydrological infrastructure, the Sardar Sarovar Project, reveals how technocratic water governance simultaneously enables production and produces territorial inequalities in which surplus and scarcity coexist.
This project employs critical and narrative cartography, multi-criteria decision analysis, geospatial synthesis, and scenario mapping as tools to classify agricultural landscape typologies across the study region and evaluate their biophysical feasibility, governance constraints, and socio-ecological vulnerabilities. Four scenarios, developed along axes of scale and technology, are evaluated against criteria of producer justice, ecological balance, food sovereignty, and systemic resilience.
The project concludes that India's agricultural crisis demands a decisive departure from siloed technological and economic interventions toward integrated, justice-oriented spatial strategies. The proposed Indian Agro-Urbanism Operational Framework, tested through Surat district, repositions agriculture as an urbanisation issue, embedding agro-climatic zone-based planning, participatory governance, and ecological balance into territorial planning. Investment in adaptive, resilient public and commons infrastructure is indispensable for navigating the Ratchet–Hatchet–Pivot cycle (DeFries, 2014) justly, providing conservation grounds, experimental testing spaces, and deployment commons accessible to farmers, consumers, and ecosystems alike, rather than captured by private capital. Reinstating agro-climatic zone differentiation provides a scientifically grounded basis for cropping strategies and resource allocation. Ultimately, achieving just and resilient food production requires abandoning the dichotomy between conventional and automated farming, rural and urban, and production and ecology, co-producing the spatial imaginaries that India's food system crisis urgently demands.
This project focuses on the tri-state region of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra, linked by the Narmada and Tapi river systems and a transboundary basalt aquifer as an exemplary agro-climatic territory where these overlapping crises manifest. The region's agricultural significance, shaped by large-scale hydrological infrastructure, the Sardar Sarovar Project, reveals how technocratic water governance simultaneously enables production and produces territorial inequalities in which surplus and scarcity coexist.
This project employs critical and narrative cartography, multi-criteria decision analysis, geospatial synthesis, and scenario mapping as tools to classify agricultural landscape typologies across the study region and evaluate their biophysical feasibility, governance constraints, and socio-ecological vulnerabilities. Four scenarios, developed along axes of scale and technology, are evaluated against criteria of producer justice, ecological balance, food sovereignty, and systemic resilience.
The project concludes that India's agricultural crisis demands a decisive departure from siloed technological and economic interventions toward integrated, justice-oriented spatial strategies. The proposed Indian Agro-Urbanism Operational Framework, tested through Surat district, repositions agriculture as an urbanisation issue, embedding agro-climatic zone-based planning, participatory governance, and ecological balance into territorial planning. Investment in adaptive, resilient public and commons infrastructure is indispensable for navigating the Ratchet–Hatchet–Pivot cycle (DeFries, 2014) justly, providing conservation grounds, experimental testing spaces, and deployment commons accessible to farmers, consumers, and ecosystems alike, rather than captured by private capital. Reinstating agro-climatic zone differentiation provides a scientifically grounded basis for cropping strategies and resource allocation. Ultimately, achieving just and resilient food production requires abandoning the dichotomy between conventional and automated farming, rural and urban, and production and ecology, co-producing the spatial imaginaries that India's food system crisis urgently demands.
Reconfiguring the Solid Waste Landscape
Towards a socio-ecologically inclusive solid waste landscape in urbanising economic geographies of Global South
The operations which form the base of urbanisation – such as agriculture, material extraction and waste disposal, often create landscapes with interwoven socio-ecological tensions. The waste management practices of solid waste landscapes have been a cause of environmental degradation globally. Among the disparate waste management practices which exist, landfilling, particularly open waste dumping, has reportedly caused situated and systemic impacts as it pollutes the air, the soil, groundwater, and surface water, while simultaneously impacting public health. These sites are observed in the urbanising cities of the Global South, and the particularly vulnerable regions globally are those of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, where waste growth, coupled with projected urbanisation, is expected to double by 2050 (World Bank, 2018).
Avoiding landfilling in these regions has been popularly approached with clearing and repurposing of the landfill sites, overlooking the extended system. The proposed transitions of the extended system of infrastructures and social agencies have continued to create systemic failures, where the externalities of the operational landscape remain polluting. Moreover, the existence of practices which are found to be ecologically inclusive has been challenged. Through research situated in Delhi, India, the project outlines that the transitioning landscape is composed of diverse and involutionary practices which continue to pollute the environment, while displacing autonomous livelihoods (Schindler, Demaria, 2015).
The thesis hypothesises that, in the context of urbanising cities with informal economic geographies, there is a need to build socio-ecological inclusivity in the solid waste landscape to address environmental pollution by systemically and spatially integrating agencies and practices which are ecologically inclusive. By identifying leverage points through the system’s agencies, infrastructures, materialities and systemic malfunctions, the project identifies the need to reorganise the food waste system with narrow food loops, regenerate the informal recycling chain, engage the waste generators, and treat legacy waste as the main design levers. Through research by design, the project seeks to develop context-sensitive urban design methods to operationalise the levers, which together compose a methodological toolkit for identified global contexts, building the discourse on the agency of urban design for approaching the environmental externalities of solid waste landscapes.
...
Avoiding landfilling in these regions has been popularly approached with clearing and repurposing of the landfill sites, overlooking the extended system. The proposed transitions of the extended system of infrastructures and social agencies have continued to create systemic failures, where the externalities of the operational landscape remain polluting. Moreover, the existence of practices which are found to be ecologically inclusive has been challenged. Through research situated in Delhi, India, the project outlines that the transitioning landscape is composed of diverse and involutionary practices which continue to pollute the environment, while displacing autonomous livelihoods (Schindler, Demaria, 2015).
The thesis hypothesises that, in the context of urbanising cities with informal economic geographies, there is a need to build socio-ecological inclusivity in the solid waste landscape to address environmental pollution by systemically and spatially integrating agencies and practices which are ecologically inclusive. By identifying leverage points through the system’s agencies, infrastructures, materialities and systemic malfunctions, the project identifies the need to reorganise the food waste system with narrow food loops, regenerate the informal recycling chain, engage the waste generators, and treat legacy waste as the main design levers. Through research by design, the project seeks to develop context-sensitive urban design methods to operationalise the levers, which together compose a methodological toolkit for identified global contexts, building the discourse on the agency of urban design for approaching the environmental externalities of solid waste landscapes.
...
The operations which form the base of urbanisation – such as agriculture, material extraction and waste disposal, often create landscapes with interwoven socio-ecological tensions. The waste management practices of solid waste landscapes have been a cause of environmental degradation globally. Among the disparate waste management practices which exist, landfilling, particularly open waste dumping, has reportedly caused situated and systemic impacts as it pollutes the air, the soil, groundwater, and surface water, while simultaneously impacting public health. These sites are observed in the urbanising cities of the Global South, and the particularly vulnerable regions globally are those of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, where waste growth, coupled with projected urbanisation, is expected to double by 2050 (World Bank, 2018).
Avoiding landfilling in these regions has been popularly approached with clearing and repurposing of the landfill sites, overlooking the extended system. The proposed transitions of the extended system of infrastructures and social agencies have continued to create systemic failures, where the externalities of the operational landscape remain polluting. Moreover, the existence of practices which are found to be ecologically inclusive has been challenged. Through research situated in Delhi, India, the project outlines that the transitioning landscape is composed of diverse and involutionary practices which continue to pollute the environment, while displacing autonomous livelihoods (Schindler, Demaria, 2015).
The thesis hypothesises that, in the context of urbanising cities with informal economic geographies, there is a need to build socio-ecological inclusivity in the solid waste landscape to address environmental pollution by systemically and spatially integrating agencies and practices which are ecologically inclusive. By identifying leverage points through the system’s agencies, infrastructures, materialities and systemic malfunctions, the project identifies the need to reorganise the food waste system with narrow food loops, regenerate the informal recycling chain, engage the waste generators, and treat legacy waste as the main design levers. Through research by design, the project seeks to develop context-sensitive urban design methods to operationalise the levers, which together compose a methodological toolkit for identified global contexts, building the discourse on the agency of urban design for approaching the environmental externalities of solid waste landscapes.
Avoiding landfilling in these regions has been popularly approached with clearing and repurposing of the landfill sites, overlooking the extended system. The proposed transitions of the extended system of infrastructures and social agencies have continued to create systemic failures, where the externalities of the operational landscape remain polluting. Moreover, the existence of practices which are found to be ecologically inclusive has been challenged. Through research situated in Delhi, India, the project outlines that the transitioning landscape is composed of diverse and involutionary practices which continue to pollute the environment, while displacing autonomous livelihoods (Schindler, Demaria, 2015).
The thesis hypothesises that, in the context of urbanising cities with informal economic geographies, there is a need to build socio-ecological inclusivity in the solid waste landscape to address environmental pollution by systemically and spatially integrating agencies and practices which are ecologically inclusive. By identifying leverage points through the system’s agencies, infrastructures, materialities and systemic malfunctions, the project identifies the need to reorganise the food waste system with narrow food loops, regenerate the informal recycling chain, engage the waste generators, and treat legacy waste as the main design levers. Through research by design, the project seeks to develop context-sensitive urban design methods to operationalise the levers, which together compose a methodological toolkit for identified global contexts, building the discourse on the agency of urban design for approaching the environmental externalities of solid waste landscapes.
XMAHAKAM
Reviving the Extracted Landscape of East Kalimantan, Indonesia
This thesis investigates how landscape architecture can operate within territories shaped by long-term extraction, where hydrological systems, ecological processes, and patterns of inhabitation have become spatially fragmented and environmentally unstable. Developed through the case of Samarinda and the Lower Mahakam Basin in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, the project examines how more than 520 mine lakes and the extensive territorial infrastructures of coal extraction might be reinterpreted not as isolated remnants requiring technical reclamation alone, but as active components of a socio-ecological watershed system.
Through fieldwork, territorial mapping, and research-by-design methodologies, the study shows that the apparently chaotic mosaic of degraded forests, mining pits, agricultural plots, and unstable ridge systems is in fact structurally organized by the geological distribution of coal deposits and consequently the operational logics of extraction. This discovery becomes the foundation of the design proposal. Rather than erasing the territorial mechanisms of extraction, the project partially reappropriates them: excavation, terracing, hydrological manipulation, sediment redistribution, and infrastructural corridors are redirected toward regeneration instead of depletion.
The proposal reorganizes the regional watershed through a system of “hydro-edaphic gradients”, where ridge systems operate as distributed hydrological “sponges” capable of retaining water, sediments, nutrients, and organic matter before gradually redistributing them across the landscape. Through selective terracing, agroforestry retention systems, wetlands, and staged mine-lake remediation, the project establishes interconnected ecological corridors that support reforestation, aquaculture, wet agriculture, biodiversity recovery, and new forms of inhabitation. Mine lakes gradually evolve through distinct stages of chemical containment and stabilization that function as forms of post-extractive ecological succession, progressively becoming one with the surrounding territorial systems.
Beyond ecological recovery alone, the project positions regeneration as a territorial and social process. Agroforestry landscapes are simultaneously productive ecologies and mechanisms of continuous occupation, stewardship, and tenurial reclamation across vulnerable concession landscapes. Extraction off-road routes are reappropriated to draw settlement toward mine and new fishing lakes, productive forests, and remediated lake systems, transforming the logistical infrastructures of extraction into connective frameworks for public life and ecological care.
Rather than proposing a singular technical solution, the thesis frames remediation as a long-term, multi-scalar, and adaptive territorial process. It links upstream hydrological regulation to downstream urban resilience, agricultural productivity, and public occupation, and proposes an alternative model for post-extractive landscapes - one in which ecological recovery, infrastructural reuse, and collective inhabitation become mutually reinforcing components of territorial regeneration. ...
Through fieldwork, territorial mapping, and research-by-design methodologies, the study shows that the apparently chaotic mosaic of degraded forests, mining pits, agricultural plots, and unstable ridge systems is in fact structurally organized by the geological distribution of coal deposits and consequently the operational logics of extraction. This discovery becomes the foundation of the design proposal. Rather than erasing the territorial mechanisms of extraction, the project partially reappropriates them: excavation, terracing, hydrological manipulation, sediment redistribution, and infrastructural corridors are redirected toward regeneration instead of depletion.
The proposal reorganizes the regional watershed through a system of “hydro-edaphic gradients”, where ridge systems operate as distributed hydrological “sponges” capable of retaining water, sediments, nutrients, and organic matter before gradually redistributing them across the landscape. Through selective terracing, agroforestry retention systems, wetlands, and staged mine-lake remediation, the project establishes interconnected ecological corridors that support reforestation, aquaculture, wet agriculture, biodiversity recovery, and new forms of inhabitation. Mine lakes gradually evolve through distinct stages of chemical containment and stabilization that function as forms of post-extractive ecological succession, progressively becoming one with the surrounding territorial systems.
Beyond ecological recovery alone, the project positions regeneration as a territorial and social process. Agroforestry landscapes are simultaneously productive ecologies and mechanisms of continuous occupation, stewardship, and tenurial reclamation across vulnerable concession landscapes. Extraction off-road routes are reappropriated to draw settlement toward mine and new fishing lakes, productive forests, and remediated lake systems, transforming the logistical infrastructures of extraction into connective frameworks for public life and ecological care.
Rather than proposing a singular technical solution, the thesis frames remediation as a long-term, multi-scalar, and adaptive territorial process. It links upstream hydrological regulation to downstream urban resilience, agricultural productivity, and public occupation, and proposes an alternative model for post-extractive landscapes - one in which ecological recovery, infrastructural reuse, and collective inhabitation become mutually reinforcing components of territorial regeneration. ...
This thesis investigates how landscape architecture can operate within territories shaped by long-term extraction, where hydrological systems, ecological processes, and patterns of inhabitation have become spatially fragmented and environmentally unstable. Developed through the case of Samarinda and the Lower Mahakam Basin in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, the project examines how more than 520 mine lakes and the extensive territorial infrastructures of coal extraction might be reinterpreted not as isolated remnants requiring technical reclamation alone, but as active components of a socio-ecological watershed system.
Through fieldwork, territorial mapping, and research-by-design methodologies, the study shows that the apparently chaotic mosaic of degraded forests, mining pits, agricultural plots, and unstable ridge systems is in fact structurally organized by the geological distribution of coal deposits and consequently the operational logics of extraction. This discovery becomes the foundation of the design proposal. Rather than erasing the territorial mechanisms of extraction, the project partially reappropriates them: excavation, terracing, hydrological manipulation, sediment redistribution, and infrastructural corridors are redirected toward regeneration instead of depletion.
The proposal reorganizes the regional watershed through a system of “hydro-edaphic gradients”, where ridge systems operate as distributed hydrological “sponges” capable of retaining water, sediments, nutrients, and organic matter before gradually redistributing them across the landscape. Through selective terracing, agroforestry retention systems, wetlands, and staged mine-lake remediation, the project establishes interconnected ecological corridors that support reforestation, aquaculture, wet agriculture, biodiversity recovery, and new forms of inhabitation. Mine lakes gradually evolve through distinct stages of chemical containment and stabilization that function as forms of post-extractive ecological succession, progressively becoming one with the surrounding territorial systems.
Beyond ecological recovery alone, the project positions regeneration as a territorial and social process. Agroforestry landscapes are simultaneously productive ecologies and mechanisms of continuous occupation, stewardship, and tenurial reclamation across vulnerable concession landscapes. Extraction off-road routes are reappropriated to draw settlement toward mine and new fishing lakes, productive forests, and remediated lake systems, transforming the logistical infrastructures of extraction into connective frameworks for public life and ecological care.
Rather than proposing a singular technical solution, the thesis frames remediation as a long-term, multi-scalar, and adaptive territorial process. It links upstream hydrological regulation to downstream urban resilience, agricultural productivity, and public occupation, and proposes an alternative model for post-extractive landscapes - one in which ecological recovery, infrastructural reuse, and collective inhabitation become mutually reinforcing components of territorial regeneration.
Through fieldwork, territorial mapping, and research-by-design methodologies, the study shows that the apparently chaotic mosaic of degraded forests, mining pits, agricultural plots, and unstable ridge systems is in fact structurally organized by the geological distribution of coal deposits and consequently the operational logics of extraction. This discovery becomes the foundation of the design proposal. Rather than erasing the territorial mechanisms of extraction, the project partially reappropriates them: excavation, terracing, hydrological manipulation, sediment redistribution, and infrastructural corridors are redirected toward regeneration instead of depletion.
The proposal reorganizes the regional watershed through a system of “hydro-edaphic gradients”, where ridge systems operate as distributed hydrological “sponges” capable of retaining water, sediments, nutrients, and organic matter before gradually redistributing them across the landscape. Through selective terracing, agroforestry retention systems, wetlands, and staged mine-lake remediation, the project establishes interconnected ecological corridors that support reforestation, aquaculture, wet agriculture, biodiversity recovery, and new forms of inhabitation. Mine lakes gradually evolve through distinct stages of chemical containment and stabilization that function as forms of post-extractive ecological succession, progressively becoming one with the surrounding territorial systems.
Beyond ecological recovery alone, the project positions regeneration as a territorial and social process. Agroforestry landscapes are simultaneously productive ecologies and mechanisms of continuous occupation, stewardship, and tenurial reclamation across vulnerable concession landscapes. Extraction off-road routes are reappropriated to draw settlement toward mine and new fishing lakes, productive forests, and remediated lake systems, transforming the logistical infrastructures of extraction into connective frameworks for public life and ecological care.
Rather than proposing a singular technical solution, the thesis frames remediation as a long-term, multi-scalar, and adaptive territorial process. It links upstream hydrological regulation to downstream urban resilience, agricultural productivity, and public occupation, and proposes an alternative model for post-extractive landscapes - one in which ecological recovery, infrastructural reuse, and collective inhabitation become mutually reinforcing components of territorial regeneration.
This project started with a simple question – what landscapes support the ‘city’? Hinterlands do not lie idle – often they are working landscapes, often they work to feed the city.
Agro – industrial systems are one of the most rapidly expanding spatial developments (Brenner and Schmid, 2015). Yet their social and environmental implications largely remain invisible as these systems function as black boxes. This problem becomes more salient when considering landscapes which have been prestressed by exclusionary colonial legacies regarding land, mobility and knowledge.
This project uses the dairy farming landscape of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa as lens through which to examine the relationship between agricultural production, knowledge, people and other forms of life. This landscape was shaped by colonial and apartheid era policies of exclusion - creating a dual agricultural territory, which is being further stressed by climate and technological change. The indigenous Nguni cattle and the optimised foreign Holstein cattle embody this dual landscape – each represents two different systems of agriculture present on the same soil. The tension between these two systems drives both the research and design of this project.
The project subverts the colonial era short line railway by conceptualizing the rail corridor as a spine and platform which connects the gap between mobility, knowledge and working landscapes as a piece of public infrastructure for regeneration as opposed to extraction. The architectural response of this project is the design of a generic rail platform typology with a context specific technical college attached to it - embedded in the productive landscape that many people were previously excluded from. Rather than being an insular institution, the college is conceived of as a series of interweaving platforms, which mediate different learning environments and link students, farmers and the public to each other and the wider territory. These platforms are centered around three interacting sets of relationships: knowledge and production; analogue and digital; non-human, human and post human actors
These sets of relationships also inform the physical construction logic of the building as each end of the Nguni - Holstein spectrum has an associated set of materials, construction and climate logic. The technical detail of the building structure itself embodies this heterogeneous landscape.
Ultimately, the project takes seriously Schumacher’s provocation and that agriculture lies in the tension between the “incompatibilities of opposites, each of which is needed” (Schumacher, 1973; 89). Thus, the technical college is as heterogeneous as the landscape it inhabits – within the tension, students do not inherent a top-down single system, but instead they inhabit, maintain and re-imagine the futures of working landscapes.
...
Agro – industrial systems are one of the most rapidly expanding spatial developments (Brenner and Schmid, 2015). Yet their social and environmental implications largely remain invisible as these systems function as black boxes. This problem becomes more salient when considering landscapes which have been prestressed by exclusionary colonial legacies regarding land, mobility and knowledge.
This project uses the dairy farming landscape of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa as lens through which to examine the relationship between agricultural production, knowledge, people and other forms of life. This landscape was shaped by colonial and apartheid era policies of exclusion - creating a dual agricultural territory, which is being further stressed by climate and technological change. The indigenous Nguni cattle and the optimised foreign Holstein cattle embody this dual landscape – each represents two different systems of agriculture present on the same soil. The tension between these two systems drives both the research and design of this project.
The project subverts the colonial era short line railway by conceptualizing the rail corridor as a spine and platform which connects the gap between mobility, knowledge and working landscapes as a piece of public infrastructure for regeneration as opposed to extraction. The architectural response of this project is the design of a generic rail platform typology with a context specific technical college attached to it - embedded in the productive landscape that many people were previously excluded from. Rather than being an insular institution, the college is conceived of as a series of interweaving platforms, which mediate different learning environments and link students, farmers and the public to each other and the wider territory. These platforms are centered around three interacting sets of relationships: knowledge and production; analogue and digital; non-human, human and post human actors
These sets of relationships also inform the physical construction logic of the building as each end of the Nguni - Holstein spectrum has an associated set of materials, construction and climate logic. The technical detail of the building structure itself embodies this heterogeneous landscape.
Ultimately, the project takes seriously Schumacher’s provocation and that agriculture lies in the tension between the “incompatibilities of opposites, each of which is needed” (Schumacher, 1973; 89). Thus, the technical college is as heterogeneous as the landscape it inhabits – within the tension, students do not inherent a top-down single system, but instead they inhabit, maintain and re-imagine the futures of working landscapes.
...
This project started with a simple question – what landscapes support the ‘city’? Hinterlands do not lie idle – often they are working landscapes, often they work to feed the city.
Agro – industrial systems are one of the most rapidly expanding spatial developments (Brenner and Schmid, 2015). Yet their social and environmental implications largely remain invisible as these systems function as black boxes. This problem becomes more salient when considering landscapes which have been prestressed by exclusionary colonial legacies regarding land, mobility and knowledge.
This project uses the dairy farming landscape of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa as lens through which to examine the relationship between agricultural production, knowledge, people and other forms of life. This landscape was shaped by colonial and apartheid era policies of exclusion - creating a dual agricultural territory, which is being further stressed by climate and technological change. The indigenous Nguni cattle and the optimised foreign Holstein cattle embody this dual landscape – each represents two different systems of agriculture present on the same soil. The tension between these two systems drives both the research and design of this project.
The project subverts the colonial era short line railway by conceptualizing the rail corridor as a spine and platform which connects the gap between mobility, knowledge and working landscapes as a piece of public infrastructure for regeneration as opposed to extraction. The architectural response of this project is the design of a generic rail platform typology with a context specific technical college attached to it - embedded in the productive landscape that many people were previously excluded from. Rather than being an insular institution, the college is conceived of as a series of interweaving platforms, which mediate different learning environments and link students, farmers and the public to each other and the wider territory. These platforms are centered around three interacting sets of relationships: knowledge and production; analogue and digital; non-human, human and post human actors
These sets of relationships also inform the physical construction logic of the building as each end of the Nguni - Holstein spectrum has an associated set of materials, construction and climate logic. The technical detail of the building structure itself embodies this heterogeneous landscape.
Ultimately, the project takes seriously Schumacher’s provocation and that agriculture lies in the tension between the “incompatibilities of opposites, each of which is needed” (Schumacher, 1973; 89). Thus, the technical college is as heterogeneous as the landscape it inhabits – within the tension, students do not inherent a top-down single system, but instead they inhabit, maintain and re-imagine the futures of working landscapes.
Agro – industrial systems are one of the most rapidly expanding spatial developments (Brenner and Schmid, 2015). Yet their social and environmental implications largely remain invisible as these systems function as black boxes. This problem becomes more salient when considering landscapes which have been prestressed by exclusionary colonial legacies regarding land, mobility and knowledge.
This project uses the dairy farming landscape of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa as lens through which to examine the relationship between agricultural production, knowledge, people and other forms of life. This landscape was shaped by colonial and apartheid era policies of exclusion - creating a dual agricultural territory, which is being further stressed by climate and technological change. The indigenous Nguni cattle and the optimised foreign Holstein cattle embody this dual landscape – each represents two different systems of agriculture present on the same soil. The tension between these two systems drives both the research and design of this project.
The project subverts the colonial era short line railway by conceptualizing the rail corridor as a spine and platform which connects the gap between mobility, knowledge and working landscapes as a piece of public infrastructure for regeneration as opposed to extraction. The architectural response of this project is the design of a generic rail platform typology with a context specific technical college attached to it - embedded in the productive landscape that many people were previously excluded from. Rather than being an insular institution, the college is conceived of as a series of interweaving platforms, which mediate different learning environments and link students, farmers and the public to each other and the wider territory. These platforms are centered around three interacting sets of relationships: knowledge and production; analogue and digital; non-human, human and post human actors
These sets of relationships also inform the physical construction logic of the building as each end of the Nguni - Holstein spectrum has an associated set of materials, construction and climate logic. The technical detail of the building structure itself embodies this heterogeneous landscape.
Ultimately, the project takes seriously Schumacher’s provocation and that agriculture lies in the tension between the “incompatibilities of opposites, each of which is needed” (Schumacher, 1973; 89). Thus, the technical college is as heterogeneous as the landscape it inhabits – within the tension, students do not inherent a top-down single system, but instead they inhabit, maintain and re-imagine the futures of working landscapes.
Undressing the Desert
Restoring environmental justice regarding clandestine landfills in Alto Hospicio and Iquique, for human and more-than-human entities by reshaping urban-desert imaginaries through activism
The graduation project seeks to investigate how activism driven reshaping of urbandesert imaginaries can help to restore environmental justice for human and morethanhuman entities in Iquique and Alto Hospicio, Chile, regarding clandestine landfills. It examines how urban-desert imaginaries, referring to the perceptions of desert landscapes in relation to urbanization and related activities, of the past and present enable the proliferation of clandestine landfills as well as how activist efforts are reshaping these imaginaries. Through fieldwork, expert interviews, policy review and secondary sources a pattern language to restore environmental justice damaged by textile waste accumulation in the desert has been developed outlining actions and strategies to be executed by different stakeholders from the civic, public and private domain. Finally, the patterns with spatial implications have been mapped onto the territory of Iquique and Alto Hospicio to demonstrate the application of the pattern language by example.
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The graduation project seeks to investigate how activism driven reshaping of urbandesert imaginaries can help to restore environmental justice for human and morethanhuman entities in Iquique and Alto Hospicio, Chile, regarding clandestine landfills. It examines how urban-desert imaginaries, referring to the perceptions of desert landscapes in relation to urbanization and related activities, of the past and present enable the proliferation of clandestine landfills as well as how activist efforts are reshaping these imaginaries. Through fieldwork, expert interviews, policy review and secondary sources a pattern language to restore environmental justice damaged by textile waste accumulation in the desert has been developed outlining actions and strategies to be executed by different stakeholders from the civic, public and private domain. Finally, the patterns with spatial implications have been mapped onto the territory of Iquique and Alto Hospicio to demonstrate the application of the pattern language by example.
Ripples of Resilience
A symbiotic pathway design strategy for the water system transition to combat water scarcity and desertification in the Segura River Basin, Spain
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 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. ...
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 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.
The Glass Ceiling
Radical Imaginaries of Spatial Justice in Westland’s Horticultural Landscape
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.
...
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.
...
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.
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.
Digital Biopolitics
Exploring Customer-Product-Marketplace Relationships within Alibaba's Megastructure
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. ...
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. ...
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.
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.
Space for Disorientation
Finding, creating and allowing other urban directions
Master thesis
(2025)
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J. Lageschaar, R.R.J. van de Pas, V. Muñoz Sanz, R.R. van den Ban, C. Forgaci
Urban environments offer excellent qualities for queer life: simultaneously allowing to acknowledge diversity and to find common ground. It is where a desire for difference can actively challenge the fear of the unknown. This city-based potential is decreasing due to urban optimisation practices, which can be understood as the (re)production of orientations that narrow the 'corridors of spatial possibilities'. In some case studies, the process of continuously creating an orientation could even be considered a form of 'smooth violence'. As a counter, this project offers an explorative inquiry of developing a design philosophy rooted in disorientation.
Through understanding disorientation not only as an emotional mode, but as a concept that spans phenomenology, philosophy and spatial theory, several situated interventions imagine alternative ways of use, design and projection within the context of the Parisian Historical Axis. They show how spatial disorientation (as a design approach) could serve to expose imposed systems, to question inequitable dynamics and to create openings for other ways of living together. Ultimately, it calls for a reconsideration of the position of architecture and the role of the practitioner in scripting and guiding openings in dialogues between orientation, disorientation and re-orientation. In doing so, we could find other urban directions that should be supported by our architectural practices through open-mindedness, care and allowance: to embrace the unexpected turn, to value other interpretations and to make space for difficulties beyond, and against, normativity. ...
Through understanding disorientation not only as an emotional mode, but as a concept that spans phenomenology, philosophy and spatial theory, several situated interventions imagine alternative ways of use, design and projection within the context of the Parisian Historical Axis. They show how spatial disorientation (as a design approach) could serve to expose imposed systems, to question inequitable dynamics and to create openings for other ways of living together. Ultimately, it calls for a reconsideration of the position of architecture and the role of the practitioner in scripting and guiding openings in dialogues between orientation, disorientation and re-orientation. In doing so, we could find other urban directions that should be supported by our architectural practices through open-mindedness, care and allowance: to embrace the unexpected turn, to value other interpretations and to make space for difficulties beyond, and against, normativity. ...
Urban environments offer excellent qualities for queer life: simultaneously allowing to acknowledge diversity and to find common ground. It is where a desire for difference can actively challenge the fear of the unknown. This city-based potential is decreasing due to urban optimisation practices, which can be understood as the (re)production of orientations that narrow the 'corridors of spatial possibilities'. In some case studies, the process of continuously creating an orientation could even be considered a form of 'smooth violence'. As a counter, this project offers an explorative inquiry of developing a design philosophy rooted in disorientation.
Through understanding disorientation not only as an emotional mode, but as a concept that spans phenomenology, philosophy and spatial theory, several situated interventions imagine alternative ways of use, design and projection within the context of the Parisian Historical Axis. They show how spatial disorientation (as a design approach) could serve to expose imposed systems, to question inequitable dynamics and to create openings for other ways of living together. Ultimately, it calls for a reconsideration of the position of architecture and the role of the practitioner in scripting and guiding openings in dialogues between orientation, disorientation and re-orientation. In doing so, we could find other urban directions that should be supported by our architectural practices through open-mindedness, care and allowance: to embrace the unexpected turn, to value other interpretations and to make space for difficulties beyond, and against, normativity.
Through understanding disorientation not only as an emotional mode, but as a concept that spans phenomenology, philosophy and spatial theory, several situated interventions imagine alternative ways of use, design and projection within the context of the Parisian Historical Axis. They show how spatial disorientation (as a design approach) could serve to expose imposed systems, to question inequitable dynamics and to create openings for other ways of living together. Ultimately, it calls for a reconsideration of the position of architecture and the role of the practitioner in scripting and guiding openings in dialogues between orientation, disorientation and re-orientation. In doing so, we could find other urban directions that should be supported by our architectural practices through open-mindedness, care and allowance: to embrace the unexpected turn, to value other interpretations and to make space for difficulties beyond, and against, normativity.
A RECHARGED ‘HART’
Synergizing the Housing Pressure in the Depleted Landscape on the Fringe of the ‘Groene Hart’
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. ...
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. ...
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.
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.
Reimagining the urban-rural interface
A regenerative framework, using agroforestry to connect nature, agriculture and urban 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.
...
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.
...
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.
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
...
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
Limitations to the Row House Paradigm
A design study into an Adaptive and Alternative densification strategy for Almere
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.
...
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.
Nomads to Neighbours
Seeking to leverage global knowledge for local opportunities in Curaçao
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. ...
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. ...
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.
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.
(re)framing the narrative
Storytelling otherwise for a just forest economy in Kampala's city region
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. ...
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. ...
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.
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.
...
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.
Agro-Urban Ecologies
Design of a climate-adaptive agroecosystem and urban expansion in Almere-Pampus
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.
...
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.
Metaverse | Transitioning (To) Future Cities
Transdisciplinary platforms as instruments to democratise technology for participatory use in building back neglected urban voids of Riga
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. ...
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. ...
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.
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.
THEIR FORTRESS
The regeneration of migrant laneways from both social and spatial perspectives
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.
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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.