The former site of Kloos Kinderdijk in Alblasserdam is transformed into a mixed-use area, combining housing, recreation, retail and public outdoor space. The aim is to create a liveable environment for the residents, the neighbours and visitors. The transformation combines the translation of the heritage values, the social needs of Alblasserdam and spatial improvements. ... Read more

On the periphery of a dike, a maritime industrial area between Alblasserdam and Kinderdijk in the Netherlands, a former windmill and ship manufacturer operated during the 19th and 20th centuries. This narrow 250-meter-long hall, known as Kloos Kinderdijk, is defined by its spectacular length and characterised by its spacious and light atmosphere. It is situated between two contrasting Dutch landscapes: on one side, the typical sophisticated, delicate, horizontal polder landscape with UNESCO World Heritage windmills at Kinderdijk; and on the other side, the robust river landscape, once pivotal for the maritime industry and still significant today. Kloos is one of the few remaining shipyards. However, not for long as Kloos is now waiting to be demolished. With the demolition of this building, the last visible maritime-industrial remnant will be lost.

Maritime-industrial heritage is in danger of being lost. It is crucial to transform these sites with a reinterpretation towards the future. This research is a new way of thinking about heritage and moves away from conservative preservation methods. It illustrates how undervalued buildings can be saved, reinterpreted for future significance, and thereby gain visibility by adding value through a more radical architectural adaptive-reuse approach.

In the case of Kloos Kinderdijk, the area has struggled with water issues for years, and these problems are expected to worsen due to rising sea levels. Therefore, Kloos' design involved building a floating volume above the existing. This floating volume is flood-resistant, maintains the spatial openness of the polder landscape, and offers panoramic views of both the polder and river landscape. The construction of the floating volume radically breaks through the existing structure, to enhance the building's visibility from the river landscape. ... Read more

Centrality denotes areas within a city that serve as pivotal hubs of social, economic, and political activity, transcending geography to symbolize authority, influence, and resource concentration. This concept is both cognitive, involving a comprehensive perception of reality, and social, encompassing the amalgamation of assets and activities. Centrality thus represents a fusion of diverse elements.
The new Baggerarea in Sliedrecht has been remodelled with small interventions to enhance its social and cultural significance. A key change is opening the inner dyke to pedestrians, reclaiming it as public property akin to the old dyke. New functions include an inner-making street in the Rotterdam Steelworks BV shipyard, featuring a Box in Box system accessible from both ends of the dyke. Additionally, the old Dredging Museum and its extension have been transformed into a hotel. The Wow-Keet will be cladded with wood and repurposed as a pavilion for relaxation and coffee.
Mirroring architectural heritage can generate meaningful urban interventions, enriching collective memory. This approach is embodied in the New NBM (Nationaal Bagger Museum), incorporating distinctive elements from Sliedrecht, such as glass-stained windows above entrances and steel columns in the Van Eijck hall. Inspired by monumental buildings like the old and reformed churches, the town hall, and old dredging contractor houses, as well as the shape of old dredging ships, these elements coalesce into the New NBM’s design, preserving and enhancing the area’s historical essence and to also enhance its social and cultural significance.
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This study examines the relationship between design elements and how visitors perceive exhibitions to assess how architectural interior design influences visitor engagement in museums. In light of the post-pandemic spike in museum visits, the study attempts to close the information gap regarding the connection between evolving exhibition narratives and architectural principles for creating immersive spaces.
Through fieldwork and literature reviews, this study investigates the complex relationship between visitor engagement and architectural design. The theoretical basis highlights the significance of layout, traffic flow, and how spatial design influences visitor behavior.
The Maritime Museum in Rotterdam and Schoenenkwartier in Waalwijk serve as two case studies that highlight these concepts by showcasing how to integrate additional functions, achieve a balance between structure and freedom, and arrange interactive features effectively.
The research concludes that architectural interior design significantly influences visitor engagement through thoughtful layouts and varied installations. Achieving success requires establishing a balance between direction and liberty, catering to a variety of audiences, and integrating digital content into the exhibition. The outcomes offer architects and curators beneficial insights into designing impactful museum environments. ... Read more

The research is on the intangible cultural heritages of UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sites, analyzing UNESCO documents and media sources. Additionally, it compares these findings with how current museums enhance the visitor experience of intangible cultural heritage through architectural composition, programs, and community integration. The research focuses on Kinderdijk, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site in Alblasserdam, the Netherlands. It assesses and compares the core values attributed to Kinderdijk, as outlined in UNESCO documents, with its Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), closely linked to the site, including community and industrial structures. The assessment further explores how these are connected to present communities by extracting and analyzing keywords from various media sources. The research conducts a spatial analysis of museums within Kinderdijk and other museums associated with UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sites in the Netherlands. It evaluates the combination of spatial elements and ICH, as well as the integration of the community. Furthermore, the research proposes an efficient organizational approach to ICH. The results show a comprehensive understanding of values through diverse approaches and highlight how spatial elements of museums and community integration have contributed to intangible values, as illustrated by current case studies. ... Read more

This study explores the potential application of architectural considerations from three Dominican priories—St. Dominic Church, Sainte-Marie de La Tourette, and the Dominican Motherhouse— emphasising their reflection of divine transcendence as a design narrative for the adaptive reuse of St. Dominic Church to multifunctional Art Complex Het Steiger. St. Dominic Churchʼs introverted design offers opportunities for reinterpretation, emphasising hierarchy and contemplative qualities. Sainte-Marie de La Touretteʼs mystical themes suggest diverse lighting interventions and preserving a mystical atmosphere in Het Steiger. The Dominican Motherhouse poses challenges regarding user groups, spatial hierarchies, and integrating circulation and exhibition spaces in Het Steigerʼs redesign. These priories contribute nuanced design strategies, offering valuable considerations for Het Steigerʼs transformation into a harmonious coexistence of existing and new architectural layers. ... Read more

This paper is aimed at investigating the design of care homes for independent elderly people within a former church building. With the growing vacancy rate of churches, the aim of this research is to see if they can complement the housing need present among the elderly. In the Netherlands, a quarter of all religious buildings have already been transformed into a new function at this moment in time, which will only increase over the years3. In the case of elderly housing, this percentage doesn’t go above four per cent of the total transformations4. This article reveals the reasons why care isn’t at this moment of time appealing to host in a former church, as well as the design strategies that can be followed in order to make care functions more attractive to facilitate within a church. In addition, I also believe that the social character of the church can contribute to facilitating care facilities. This is due to the church already having a social role in society which can be complemented by taking care into consideration. Therefore, I would like to explore what we as architects can do with these buildings to provide the elderly with sufficient living space where they can live the rest of their lives and where their mental well-being is stimulated. ... Read more

National Monument Christus Triumfator church in Bezuidenhout, the Hague was designed by the team D.S.B.V. under Geert Drexhage in 1959-1962, however, among three churches under Drexhage's, only Christus Triumfator church survives in the secularization and shrinking religious community in the Netherlands. The design of Christus Triumfator church reflects a time of Dutch postwar modern architectural profession shifting into a capitalized environment, confrontation between new theories and old tradition, group standardized design for mass clients, and cooperations of professional consultants. The research aims to point out the linkages between Christus Triumfator church and its postwar modern architectural theories and traditions background for a redesign proposal.

For a contemporary redesign and intervention to respond to that from the 1960s, one of the subjects is to treat carefully in the sequence, space order, and materiality in the Christus Triumfator church by understanding the facts and meanings behind, and another one is to react to the mass production pattern matured in the era. A new zero-waste design challenge might be to set away from the producing loop, reduce and revital the form to that just meet the need, and reclaim from the past production in a tengible or intangible way that triggers reflections of the past and the future. ... Read more

This paper explores different participation methods that could be applied in redeveloping religious heritage. Due to secularisation, religious buildings are threatened with vacancy. Churches in particular are difficult to redevelop due to their ecclesiastical and social values. Active community involvement assists in overcoming the gap in designer and user interests. In this study, the St. Dominicus church is used as a case study in which a simulated participation workshop with actors is conducted. The initial goal of the simulated workshop was to determine a suitable program for a community centre inside the existing church building. Various methods were employed during the simulated workshop, structured by three participation phases identified by analysing case studies. Individual brainstorming, cognitive mapping, and a consensus design assignment were applied for research inquiry and design input. Two months after the initial workshop, the preliminary design was reviewed through individual semi-structured interviews. The individual brainstorming together with the cognitive mapping proved to be effective in determining general program possibilities, gapping the requirement of communication skills and time. After the review of the preliminary design, all participants expressed a sense of ownership of the design, thus these methods could easily be applied in other cases to boost social belonging and community values. Future research recommends a larger sample group and the mixing of age groups in the consensus design assignment, which could result in more conflicting interests regarding the community centre’s program. ... Read more

This interdisciplinary research project focuses on the adaptive reuse of Het Steiger Rotterdam church, employing a comprehensive approach integrating extensive research and cohesive design strategies. The study begins with a thorough analysis of contemporary churches' architectural and urban context, emphasizing spatial appropriateness in religious architecture. A distinctive methodology is applied to conduct a value assessment, offering profound insights into heritage values intrinsic to the church's architecture and its historical significance. Tailored methodologies and design strategies are devised to expand and transition the existing structure while preserving the perception of religious space and monumental value. The design prioritizes aesthetic beauty, proportion, and a lasting structure, diverging from the 'zero church' concept, with careful consideration of sustainable material usage and minimized carbon footprint. This research showcases a significant advancement in sustainable architectural interventions, exemplifying the harmonious blend of sustainability and aesthetic appeal. The project sets a notable precedent for preserving and revitalizing religious architecture in contemporary society through meticulous research, innovative methodologies, and thoughtful design choices. ... Read more

This research explores how the St. Dominicus church in Utrecht can be revitalised with the help of contemporary spiritual values. As a result of secularisation and the shift from religion to spirituality, there is a noticeable increase in vacant church buildings. In this research, a design strategy is proposed that revises the original function in a way it can better accommodate the modern spiritual needs. Incorporating the results of different literature and analytic studies in spiritual architecture, this study demonstrates a way to create a design that accommodates
more spiritual experiences through architecture. It argues that these experiences can be evoked through architectural qualities that adhere to the bigger spiritual concepts of sensuality, humanity and sustainability. ... Read more

By conducting co-creation workshops using digital games together with expert interviews a well-considered redesign of the Prinsenhof Museum ensemble in Delft was made. The new design consists of a new, partly underground museum together with a cultural hub of Delft. ... Read more

This research looks at Gele Scheikunde - a TU Delft chemistry department building constructed in 1945. The complex served for educational purposes until 2012 and then was sold by TU for redevelopment.
The ambition of the city of Delft is to increase the housing stock, furthermore, the number of TU campus users has grown significantly in recent years. This brings up a dilemma between densification and quality of life. For these reasons, abandoned or non-used buildings like TU faculty building Gele Scheikunde is envisioned for housing purpose. According to the official regulations and the Commission for Environmental Impact Assessment (MER), there is great potential in this university area to develop an innovative sustainable neighbourhood. Thus, the question that arises is: How to redevelop the former campus buildings?
The goal is to research on how to cope with abandoned campus buildings by including social and ecological values into the transformation and re-adaption design. The approach for the research was to involve stakeholders in the co-creation process. This co-creation process was facilitated through the Minecraft workshop. During the workshop, not only experts (e.g. architects, designers, planners) but also external parties (e.g. neighbours, users, ecologists), decided over the built environment. However, a co-creation approach is not limited to one method. There are various ways to involve stakeholders: interviews, surveys, questionnaires and workshops, with or without heritage games. For this research, a combination of the above was chosen: interviews, surveys and a gaming workshop with Minecraft.
This approach provided information on what is valued in the case study, why it is valued, what should be kept and what can be demolished. Besides all stakeholders shared their opinion on what would be the best “new program”. ... Read more

The research booklet presents the topic chosen for the graduation year of the masters of Architecture & Heritage at the Technical University of Delft. The first two quarters of the graduation year were set up as a research phase, which was used as the starting point for the design phase of the second half of the year. “Heritage 4all: Univer-Cities” was chosen as the graduation studio. The focus of this graduation studio lies on the following four themes: Co-creation, sustainability, univer-cities and digital heritage. The involvement of stakeholders is of paramount importance to know what the citizens values and what their necessities are. Therefore the research question is the following: ‘how a co-creation approach can be applied for redesigning 20th century Industrial Heritage factories for adaptive reuse together with stakeholders?’ For the stakeholders involvement Minecraft is used as the heritage game to explore if it could be supporting the value assessment of the Kabelfabriek II. Other case studies (e.g. Westergasfabriek, DRU Industriepark, Stanley Mills, King’s Cross and The Tobacco factory of Madrid) were studied to find out how to make the Kabelfabriek II sustainable in terms of energy efficiency and social inclusivity. Furthermore sixteen interviews were held, both with expert and non-expert stakeholders. The old, partly abandoned, cable factory at the Schieoevers in Delft was chosen as the case study for this research and was redesigned in the second half of this graduation year. The cable factory, in Dutch called De Kabelfabriek II, is one of the factories of the former called NKF company. When discussing the cable factory in this research paper, Kabelfabriek II at Schieweg 15 in Delft is meant. It is not listed as a monument, however it is part of Delft’s industrial heritage. The city of Delft used to be known for its industry. Yet because of de-industrialization this image of Delft as an industrial city has changed. The design process and final design can be read in the design booklet “Kabelfabriek 2.0 – Working and living cabled in the factory”. ... Read more

The renovation project of St. Elisabeth in Zutphen is guided by the concept of "sustainable city". Meanwhile as a graduation project in the studio of heritage and architecture, how to deal with the relation between historic relics and modern architectures is important. During the whole process of my project, I started my design assignment with previous analysis and research. ... Read more

This project, part of the Architecture & Heritage graduation studio, is about the transformation of an post-war highschool in Zutphen. The school is transformed from an highschool into a language institute. The building is part of a new masterplan for the neighbourhood Nieuwstad. ... Read more

This project is part of the Heritage & Architecture studio “Sustainable Zutphen”. Within this studio the aim was to revitalize Nieuwstad; a medieval city extension of Zutphen. The Baudartius Centre for Visual Arts is a proposal for the redevelopment of the post-war school buildings of the Baudartius college, which is situated on top of the former fortifications of Nieuwstad. The aim of this redevelopment proposal is to strengthen the (architectural) characteristics of the existing 1950’s buildings and to reintroduce this part of the city again as an urban node and gateway to the city. ... Read more

This Thesis architectural project aims in the extensive transformation and renovation of three historical school structures, located in the area of Zutphen, in order to adopt in the new 21st century reality.
All the structures are extensively analyzed in terms of their value and embedded spatial potentiality, based on which the proposed design strategy is formulated. The new introduced program is that of a fashion and graphic academy, while key architectural aspect of the project is the introduction of a new canopy aiming to functionally merge the three independent architectural structures into one unified complex, while touch on elements of iconic nature.
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Zutphen, one of the oldest city in the Netherlands that started as a Germanic settlement, then a trading city and now a medium-sized city is currently dealing with vacancy, dejuvenation and an aging population . Vacancy, though not as high as other cities in the Netherlands, affects neighbourhoods next to the old city centre. The city centre ‘has it all’ meanwhile the neighbourhoods act as access roads to it. Densification of the city centre can be expected . The main focus of the heritage studio is the neighbourhood Nieuwstad where opportunities lie to improve its current connection to the old city centre and the urban situation with an architectural intervention.This graduation project is about the Baudartius complex which is currently a high school. Due to the growth of students and lack of space, they plan to move out which will result in a vacant building. The assignment for this project is to fill in another function and introducing own interventions. ... Read more

Everybody knows concrete.... the building material that ones meant the future. Imagine it’s most extreme forms. I’m thinking of Sovjet concrete sculptures! Brutalist Architecture! And then think about what it would take to break parts of these adement concrete structures down. That is what this project is all about.
Welcome to ‘A Concrete Excavation’.

In the course of industrial advancements, new production processes in the nineteenth and twentieth century demanded new types of buildings; starting from the 1960s those industrial objects became outdated and are currently known as industrial heritage. Industrial sites that were originally located on the outskirts of (port) cities were suddenly ‘misplaced’ as the city grew around them. Though separated from their original context, some industrial objects have escaped demolition and the need to redesign these buildings continues to increase. The city of Rotterdam is an example of such a port city that drastically changed during the 20th century. In this context I want to talk about the Maassilo building situated in the old harboar area on the south side of the city

The Maassilo in Rotterdam is an ensemble of industrial buildings dating back to 1910, all specifically designed for one goal: store, process and tranship grain. 'A Concrete Excavation' proposes a total transformation based on the unique character of contrast and contradiction found in the layout of this industrial object. It Embraces the flexible and dynamic top floor and ground floor to bring industry back in to the city. While the silos are seen as a spatial opportunity to cut, break and carve-out and create meaningful and spaces for a unique experience in the bathhouse. ... Read more