The current condition of urban fragmentation in Bogotá
is the result of a long and complex historical process that (due to both external pressures related to the urban planning paradigms of modernity, as well as internal pressures from the Colombian armed conflict) has ended up defining a certain stance in the city’s development, both towards its natural environment and towards the various social groups inhabiting it. On one hand, the constant imposition
of progress models has ended up disintegrating the relationship that
the urban fabric has with ecological structures, generating a city that occurs on the margins of landscape dynamics. On the other hand, within the city planning process, the extensive internal cultural diversity of Bogotá has not been taken into account, resulting from forced displacement generated by the armed conflict, which led during the second half of the 20th century to a growing concentration
of different communities (originating from different regions) of the country in the main cities.
This thesis contemplates a series of strategies, both participatory and urban renewal, aimed at the urban cohesion of Bogotá. Through the implementation of the theory of “Design for the Pluriverse”, social and ecological diversity is embraced as a potential for city planning. This thesis focuses on a historical and spatial analysis of the conditions that led to Bogotá’s current condition through
a literature review and the use of GIS tools, resulting in a two-part proposal. The first part is a Participatory framework (Bottom-Up) to promote community-led land management. The second part consists of an
Urban Design (Top-Down) aimed at rehabilitating the ecosystem in which these communities reside.

Piura is a land of drastic, and even deadly, contrasts. It’s inherent desertic conditions makes water a scares resource; on the contrary, during El Niño phenomenon, heavy rainfalls are 60 times it’s average annual precipitation, resulting in oscillations between floods and droughts. Consequently, as the second biggest city of the country, over 2 million people are affected directly. The underlying issues arise from the disassociation between the natural environment and its habitation, resulting in a cycle of recurrent disasters. This research explores the intersection of urban morphology and geomorphology in order to find spaces that can mediate between them. Employing the longue duree theory and principals of evolutionary resilience, the project aims to understand and address the enduring geographical and urban structures in Piura. Above all, it recognized the fragility of the ecosystems for critical design and embraces an interdisciplinary approach across various scales, from the territorial to the material in order to integrate the changing water events within everyday life.

Desertification and depopulation are mutually reinforcing processes that cause global socio-ecological ecosystem vulnerability through land degradation. The dehesa landscape in Spain is especially vulnerable, facing severe threats from these combined pressures and urgently needing strategic intervention. This research explores the potential of adaptive strategic planning to mitigate the socio-environmental impacts of depopulation and desertification in the rural regions of northern Extremadura, Spain, particularly focusing on the dehesa landscape. By integrating a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, this study analyses historical conditions and forecasts future scenarios, providing a holistic approach to environmental, ecological, social, economic, and political factors.
The use of cartography and GIS tools enhances spatial understanding and visualisation of impact distributions. The fieldwork, characterised by landscape photography and semi-structured interviews establishes a baseline understanding of the landscape’s health and land management practises. Furthermore, surveys delve deeper into community- and landscape identity, offering insights into local values and potential engagement in future scenarios.
These narratives reveal a strong community willingness to restore landscapes, dependent on clear visions for change, structured help in the form of technical knowledge of nature-based solutions, and incentives for ecosystem services. The findings suggest that an adaptive strategy, focusing on the active regeneration of the trees in the dehesa through a framework that integrates diverse actions over time, can reverse negative trends in landscape restoration. This research contributes to existing knowledge by highlighting the importance of community-engaged fieldwork and sustainable land management on a local scale to minimise effects of global processes.

This thesis interrogates the transformation of the Croatian coast, focusing on its identity beyond a touristic destination and examining the social and ecological impacts of tourism. The research poses crucial questions about the true character of the Croatian coast, the spatial elements introduced by tourism, and the resultant dissonances, as well as the role of urbanism and policy in these processes. Employing the proposed “tracing threads” method, this project traces and harmonizes dynamic processes across diverse systems and timescales, revealing interactions between more-than-human, human, and tourist perspectives. It emphasizes the ecological roles of elements like Posidonia oceanica meadows and the socio-economic importance of traditional practices. Conducted in Njivice on Krk island, the study proposes three main mechanisms for harmonisation: Protocols of Care and Repair, Regulative Actions, and Spatial Transformations. Care and Repair protocols derive from interdisciplinary research, informing stakeholders and guiding policy. Regulative Actions transform these protocols into planning and legislative measures, while Spatial Transformations apply these principles to physical spaces. This culminates in the sympoiesis of attraction, addressing the paradox where tourism’s allure simultaneously threatens its foundation, aiming to realign and harmonize the coast’s multifaceted landscape.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) Metropolitan Region faces significant challenges, including drought, severe precipitation, floods, subsidence, societal disparities, air pollution, and an aging population. Fragmented spatial and institutional frameworks hinder effective responses, perpetuating vulnerabilities. This study focuses on enhancing water resilience with an emphasis on environmental justice in vulnerable areas between major cities. The proposed low-density development approach aims to balance economic productivity with ecological sensitivity, creating a decentralized, self-reliant, and resilient region.
The strategy integrates ecosystem-based adaptation, integrated water resources management, and water-sensitive village reorganization. A shift from a profit-centric model to one prioritizing water risk reduction in vulnerable areas is crucial for achieving environmental justice. The research employs pattern languages and the dynamic adaptive pathway method to organize potential measures, integrating future objectives, intervention patterns, and scenarios to feasibly implement actions by 2060.
Ultimately, the research envisions self-resilient units contributing crucial ecosystem services to urban centers and receiving support through knowledge exchange and economic assistance. This transformation will turn these units from sacrificial entities into integral components of sustainable development in the BTH region. Validated by both quantitative and qualitative assessments, this shift is anticipated to strengthen the water resilience of individual units and enhance the overall resilience of the metropolitan area.

In response to the need for robust and extensive green infrastructure in Monterrey, Mexico, this thesis will explore the potentialities of upscaling urban forestry and regional afforestation as a solution. The metropolitan area of Monterrey, and it’s urban landscape morphology, is facing severe environmental pressures shaped by a conflict between powerful natural forces, such as extreme weather events and deforestation, and turbulent human activities, such as urban expansion and poor management of natural areas. This results in an inaccessible, fragmented natural landscape. This thesis will define forest types suitable for arid climates, assess which ecosystems services an afforestation plan will deliver, and design strategies for sustainable, long-term green-blue infrastructures. The project’s results contribute to enhancing ecosystem services, defragmenting the natural landscape, and harmonizing the relationship between people and nature. The research also identifies the key challenges and barriers to expanding Monterrey’s green network, by creating a value map, and proposing design interventions for overcoming them. These findings will emphasize the potential of regional afforestation in arid urban landscapes and underscore the significance of ecosystem-based adaptation. Finally, this thesis proposes an evolutionary framework to find the potential capacities to connect Monterrey’s landscape patches with the natural protected areas.

The Dutch greenhouse industry contributing 19% of the national carbon emissions, highlights its significant role in the ever-increasing environmental, social, and political challenges developing from climate change. Geopolitical tensions including the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with resource scarcity and a world population growth underscore the urgency of transitioning societal practices within the food-energy nexus. Existing policies such as the European Green Deal emphasize the need to transition toward renewable energy. Given the horticulture sector’s substantial spatial and global exportation footprint, there is potential to strategically utilize these spaces and economic flows. If successful, Dutch greenhouses can be the catalyst for a circular society model that emphasizes environmental regeneration, peri-urban community empowerment, and representative policy.

This report builds from theories including social justice, circular economy, glocalization, and regenerating peri-urban landscapes. By applying a circular society framework, which prioritizes sustainable consumption patterns, co-created policy, and spatial justice, this report develops a regional strategy for connecting and diversifying greenhouse sub-regions. The goals of this strategy include enhancing community engagement, ecological restoration, innovative knowledge-based production, and fully renewably sourced systems. An analysis through the lens of these intended goals leads to an instruction manual for redesigning industrial landscapes and an index of potential building blocks to implement in the redesign.

This instruction manual offers to scientific relevance through a large-scale combination of innovations, and a circular 15-minute social and 30-minute economic system, and societal relevance through lowering political unrest and the combination of technical and social functions. The manual is useful for a diverse range of parties including municipalities, policymakers, scientists, students, and residents.

Ultimately, SowGrowConnect aims for a future where greenhouse regions are not just endless rows of glasshouses but inclusive and diverse energy and social landscapes.

The Netherlands holds the title of the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural goods, primarily due to Wageningen University’s pioneering research and innovation. However, this success has led to significant challenges. Intensive farming practices have strained resources and disrupted local water and soil cycles, sparking protests from frustrated farmers. Moreover, the quality of fresh water in the Dutch Delta has deteriorated due to pollutants like NO2 and PO4, exacerbated by increasing salinization pressure from the North Sea. This linear system has resulted in waste accumulation and biodiversity loss, endangering both agriculture and natural ecosystems’ sustainability.

To address these challenges, our goal is to integrate nature into existing agricultural practices, thus restoring a balance with local ecosystems. The AgriNature project aims to achieve this by analysing the interplay between agriculture and nature, assessing water and soil management spatially, and fostering a participatory approach with farmers.

The first phase of this transition starts with engaging farmers who are already implementing sustainable methods like agroforestry and saline agriculture, the project establishes Living Labs for co-creation, knowledge sharing, and policy influence. Waterboards and governmental agencies will mediate and provide support, connecting farmers to stakeholders and creating financial incentives. The project also recognizes the necessity of a protein transition towards more plant-based or lab-grown alternatives, aiming to decrease nitrogen pollution and eventually rewild cattle. In the second phase, AgriNature plans to expand innovations to other farmers and establish Agroparks as hubs for innovation and technology. Consumer awareness centres will promote understanding of the protein transition and the need for biodiversity. A nature regeneration centre will oversee rewilding efforts and flood risk management using nature-based solutions. The third phase will future proof these efforts by continuing innovations within the established research and development networks.

Ultimately, AgriNature envisions a symbiotic relationship between agriculture and nature, empowering farmers as stewards of the land and promoting ecologically sensitive practices. Through multidisciplinary collaboration and integration of natural cycles into urban planning and agriculture, the project aims to serve as a global model for sustainability, fostering soil health, water conservation, and biodiversity preservation.

Currently, the Southwestern Delta is ill. The inability to produce its essential ecosystem services hinders the Delta from being healthy. Systems that make the Delta economy prosper are the main reasons for this obstruction. If current hazards like salinisation, soil depletion, and nitrogen pollution continue; the livelihood of the peri-urban Delta communities will be under threat. In contrast, the direct relation to the Delta makes them a potential stepping stone for change.

The main question: ‘How can local peri-urban communities be the base of the just transition towards a healthy Delta, which restores the production of ecosystem services and improves the climate resilience of the Delta?’ forms the foundation of this research. This research aims to explore the potential of communities as the missing link in the just transition towards a healthy Delta.

By creating a vision and designing its strategy, the Delta area will be able to produce its ecosystem services from 2050 on. The combination of environmental assessments, mapping and spatial analysis, stakeholder engagement, a SWOT matrix, the development of action perspectives through scenario planning, and a policy review provides the base for a vision towards a healthy Delta. This vision is translated into a strategy where a design catalogue, community engagement approach, and a knowledge network bring everything together in the spatialisation of three zoom-in areas: Schouwen-Duivenland, Oesterdijk, and Haringvliet.

Through education and recognition, the awareness of the Delta communities will rise which will motivate them to be part of the urgent transition towards a healthy Delta. Field labs and knowledge centres stimulate cooperation and sharing of knowledge. The ecosystem can be restored through the collaboration of the communities with other stakeholders. The combination of ecosystem-based adaptation, knowledge networks, and the borderless approach creates a regenerative and resilient Delta that serves as an example to other estuaries in the world.

The Paraná Delta, a vital component of the La Plata river basin, is facing severe environmental degradation due to human activities and external pressures. This thesis explores the adaptive capacity of the deltaic system and stakeholders in the ‘Los Pájaros y sus Pueblos Libres’ reserve (LPPL), aiming to propose a strategy for sustainable development of the delta as a whole. The study aims to investigate biophysical processes, governmental policies, and socio-economic and cultural characteristics related to the delta and to propose a strategy for enhancing and promoting sustainable development in the region. A thorough literature review has been conducted regarding relevant existing research and data collection has primarily relied on desk research, (GIS-)data sourcing, and policy documents. Additionally, interviews with experts have been conducted and a thorough site visit has been undertaken. The results of the research contribute to the understanding of the ecological value of deltas and reveal the critical environmental degradation and diminishing ecosystem services specifically in the LPPL area in the Paraná Delta. The thesis emphasizes the importance of adopting a multifaceted and integrated approach that addresses the challenges faced by the delta. It underscores the significance of developing an adaptation plan based on NBS and strongly considering and reviving local knowledge for socially and culturally acceptable solutions. Stakeholder engagement emerges as a crucial factor in fostering collaborations and partnerships that promote a collective system of care and enable sustainable practices. The proposed strategy also advocates for localized interventions that can serve as a driving force for positive change in the entire delta. Sustainable tourism is identified as a strategic tool for conservation and regeneration, raising awareness about the delta’s ecological value and diversifying the existing local economic model greatly dependent on intensive agricultural practices and responsible for the loss of ecosystems. Finally, the thesis challenges the existing conservation framework and proposes a more flexible and adaptive approach that recognizes the interconnectedness of the delta and its surrounding areas.

As an archipelagic territory of 7,641 islands, the Philippines is dealing with multiplicities of identities, resources, and risks that are pressured by a centralized and homogenizing development paradigm, fragmenting critical socio-spatial landscapes that further creates a hyper-vulnerable state in the face of the climate crisis. The project touches on uncovering the dialectics between indigeneity and modernity in space, and revealing critical values that traditional and indigenous knowledge systems have that are potentially made for evolutionary resilience with identified river basins traversing critical biodiversity corridors as sites for exploration and understanding. These critical zones - The River Interface - encompass megadiverse complex social-ecological systems, coalescing frontiers of pristine Philippine biodiversity, ancestral domains, urban domains, and the rivers that tie them altogether.

Framing the River Interface Unit’s pattern from The Source, The Confluence, and to The Mouth, with its embodied values of Extraction-Interposition-Consumption, respectively over the riverscape, then prompt envisioning of futures to be tackled more deeply and how these can be formed from cycles of memory that are present in practices of care as well as the biophysical phenomena shaping this, opening up which adaptive capacities can be enhanced and enabled. Where these cycles occur in space are then identified to see opportunities as to how they can be guided by principles of a decolonized process, embedded recognition of pluriversality, and implemented socio-spatial justice through a renewed form of governance. These shall then guide the making of space and allowing care to be the mode of an evolutionary and adaptive riverscape fabric. Projects for each part of the River Interface Unit system are then developed through a process of nostalgic envisioning.

With the identification of ‘Memory’ as the key adaptive quality that the indigenous hold, the use of Nostalgia as a design strategy aims to envision collective climatic futures through the River Interface’s capacities for memory, consciousness, and organization. These capacities are then enhanced by Nostalgia’s ability to reinforce self-continuity in moments of struggle and crisis undergoing the processes of assimilation, accommodation, and co-evaluation. Hence, this can establish through space, multiplicities of culture with a core memory system, embedding in long-term memory an evolutionary resilient and truly adaptive way of life. In the search for a solid archipelagic identity and its significance in the response to the urgency of climate change and its effects, the project aims to offer clarity and freedom for a country longing to know who it is, its potentials, and believe in its true worth. From the accumulated identities of Exoticism, Exhaustion, and Helplessness, we turn to the true and beautiful nature of our group of islands of a nation we call home that is clearly Delicate, Diverse, and Dynamic.

The survival and development of the city of Maastricht are facing enormous threats from the increasingly frequent and severe fluvial floods, while the leisure industry is the most vulnerable to flood damage as a crucial segment of the economy, accounting for about 50% of the total economic damage. However, flooding is essentially just a natural process with numerous ecological benefits, and can even stimulate diverse recreational activities under certain conditions.

Therefore, this report aims to explore integrated transformation from an urban design perspective for the city of Maastricht to adapt to river flooding and to promote sustainable leisure industry. It implies a transformed urban fabric that prevents the damage caused by river flooding and converts floods into a resource for sustainable leisure industry development through a series of spatial interventions and programs that cross three scales (regional scale, city scale, and neighborhood scale).

The Wadden Sea Region spans the Dutch, German, and Denmark coasts, creating one of the most culturally and environmentally rich areas, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage in 2009 (Centre, U. W. H, 2009). The natural and cultural value of the heritage site possesses unique features and characteristics that are important to preserve for future generations. Like many other places in the world, the Wadden Sea region is facing significant uncertainty in the future. Climate change plays a vital role in planning such a vulnerable region. It is a complex landscape that has already been impacted by climate change and is awaiting big decisions and changes for its resilient future.

Due to its unique history, the Frisian landscape has developed into the largest dairy producer in the Netherlands. Years of scaling up and production growth created a situation in which the productive landscape conflicts with Friesland’s cultural and natural heritage and contributes to climate change. The Frisian agricultural practice puts immense pressure on the peat soils in the province, resulting in significant carbon emissions and is likely to contribute to water shortages in the future. “Peatlands are the largest terrestrial carbon store on earth, storing about 25% of global soil carbon, which is twice as much as forests” (UN Environment Programme, 2019). Peatlands have immense value both for the region’s natural and cultural development.

The graduation project looks into the past, present, and future of the agricultural landscape of Friesland. It aims to envision an alternative resilient future for its peatscapes, in which the productive properties of the landscape are not lost but strengthen the cultural and natural Frisian narrative of the future. The future scenarios are formed based on different outcomes related to agricultural practices, through which the most desired one is explored further. The thesis seeks an in-depth analysis of the productive landscape, resulting in a strategic design proposal for peat restoration and preservation. The strategies are implemented in close conversation with the local stakeholders on a regional and small scale-design. The alternative scenario involves strategies that strengthen ecological connectivity and cultural heritage while proposing acts for climate mitigation and adaptation. Further exploration on forming carbon banks, paludiculture corridors, and people nature is all part of the project for peat restoration and preservation for future generations.

The Blue Heart is the deltaic territory composed of the IJssel Estuary, IJsselmeer-Markermeer, Wadden Sea, and the reclaimed polders of Flevoland and Wieringermeer. The Blue Heart is a globally important node of migration of aquatic species and birds due to its delta estuary geomorphology. However, the same deltaic conditions that allowed intense biodiversity were dangerous for local human settlements, constantly facing disasters due to storm surges from the North Sea. As an adaptation measure to minimize the probability of flooding, the
Zuiderzeewerken implemented new linear flooding defenses in the Blue Heart Delta, such as the Afsluitdijk and new dikes that surrounded the newly reclaimed polders. However, this adaptation measure had severe ecological trade-offs. It interrupted the migratory routes and completely changed the endogenous brackish water ecosystem of the Zuiderzee into a freshwater reservoir for the demand for agriculture and housing. In the process, the water infrastructure morphology eliminated most of the vital local species of the brackish water
habitat, degrading the ecological succession processes in the lakes. Currently, the lakes Markermeer and IJsselmeer have severe ecological challenges related to the lack of biodiversity, which not only impacts the global web-of-life of the Blue Heart but also the original local fishing activities. Furthermore, the Province of Flevoland was developed as an intensive agricultural land towards exportation, facilitated by favorable marine clay fertility conditions and advanced farming technologies. As new climate conditions appear in uncertain future horizons, the limits of the paradigms that maintain the current territorial conditions and
functions of the Blue Heart are increasingly urgent. The project starts by shifting the harmful conditional and functional paradigms by adopting a nexus of ecology, water infrastructure, food, and housing. Then it proposed a planned adaptation model that guides the territorial recomposition and regional deconstruction of the Blue Heart to achieve endogenous agrourban ecological interfaces. In that sense, proposing a socioeconomic system that can synergize
with the web of life. The new spatial possibilities allow a regional envisioning for Flevoland that is rooted in ecological reintegration and water infrastructure change considering the future socio-climate scenarios of Deltares.

Murcia, one of Spain’s autonomous communities, is located in south-eastern Spain. The region is a gigantic irrigation machine operated by farmers, cooperatives, and increasingly foreign-owned multinationals or large supermarkets that either cultivate their own land or lease from smaller plot owners. It comprises a sector that has managed to make south Spain the “orchard of Europe” with a profit margin of more than 900 million euros in the Segura river basin and over 100,000 direct jobs associated. The industry is dependent on the immense engineering works of the Tajo-Segura transfer, a major infrastructure that transports water from the North to the South.

Water is considered the most valuable resource in the region. There is a tremendous system of exploitation underneath the ground, formed by wells, pipes, and desalination plants, many of which are neither authorized nor monitored. This setting is damaging the Mar Menor lagoon, the largest hypersaline lagoon in Europe, and its natural ecosystems; groundwater is overexploited and polluted with nitrates, despite the fact that European regulations mandate its protection.

This intensive system of production is also dependent on an increasing migrant workforce that seeks a better level of liveability in the European context. The distribution of immigrants in the territory is unequal and is conditioned by the structure of the labor market and the primary sources of demand for immigrant labor. The poor conditions of habitability, overcrowding, and lack of privacy have obvious negative repercussions for immigrant communities. Tensions in daily neighborhood relationships inevitably arise.

The project Agroecologies for the Stateless is focused on the interrelation between intensive agro-industry systems and the exploitation of a flexible migrant workforce, located in a river basin environment. The thesis attempts to put a value on nature, reconsidering agricultural cultivations and the mechanisms that support it, and in parallel, seeking a new material basis for the coexistence of local communities, in search of a viable alternative for the restoration of the territory’s imbalance.

Emergence of humans as the dominant species of the planet have come along with extreme manipulation of the earth’s systems to sustain this dominance. The Anthropocene has lasted a little over 200 years has perhaps seen the most shift from completely natural systems to requiring an additional man-made system to aid exponential growth of our species. Among earth’s systems, climate is one of the most complex factors determining energy balance of living organisms and determines energy gains and losses from organisms.
India encompasses a wide range of complex territories with rich biodiversity living alongside some of the world’s highest population densities. Historically the Indians have lived and adapted to these resource abundant terrains through traditional ecological practices that aligned with the ecological systems and governed the socio-cultural practices. The current globalised world has been built upon with technological, infrastructural, sociological political and capitalistic growth has wretched devastating effects on the environment that supports us. India being a colonised country and exploited for its resources for centuries still holds traces of it in the infrastructural and production systems, in this case in the Periyar-Vaigai river basins. The region characterised by complex terrain, excessive manipulation of landforms and alteration of its resource cycles especially in water cycles by storing water in multiple dams experiences excess water flows during monsoons, causing flooding on its western slopes and proves to be the only hope for drought prone region on its eastern side.

Governing such complexities lies with arbitrary administrative borders dividing the control between different states and various different departments controls the flow and management of resource which often falls short of preventing catastrophes or just management of resources.
Extreme weather events in the recent past has exasperated the effects in these fragile habitats, thus the project aims to firstly mitigate the risks associated with failing monsoon, further restore the balance of the ecological system in the region. By building back resilience through co-habitation of social-ecological systems, aligned to nature using human knowledge the design aims to place value on nature rather than exploit it. The project envisions the transition from a local adaptation towards building up the system on the regional scale. It deals with primary production, anthropogenic control with respect to grey infrastructure, values and the role of ecosystems in maintain this balance. By synchronising these various systems the projects attempts at bringing back a dynamic equilibrium to this region, through methods like literature reviews, synthetic cartography and research by design.

The Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, known by the name of Mayapán by the Mayan civilization, remained an enclosed and remote area during every major historical transition of the country (Colonization, Independence from Spain, Internal Civil War). Located between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, this rich landscape remained forever in the sight of powerful individuals and colonizers who never truly managed to rule the Mayan warriors.

Today, the region is composed of three different states with a complex mosaic of rich biodiversity, fascinating landscapes and important coral reef systems competing for survival against the effects of nature and human actions. For decades, the focus remained mainly on the economic development of the coastal areas without considering the ecological stress and social uncertainty as a result of urban expansion. In the span of merely twenty years, the region was completely transformed following capitalist intentions and we can see the fragile state of the land as a direct result of this. Sadly, the region’s mostly mono-cultural economic practices focusing on tourism services have pushed the locals, from mostly indigenous background to leave their communities and seek job opportunities in the cities created for the new Mayan Riviera.

This set of political, social, economic and natural elements have had enormous repercussions on the physical and social integrity of the landscape, which nowadays is threatened not only by the over-exploitation of resources and climate change, but also by the homogenization and simplification of an ancestral culture.

However, it is in this richness of landscapes, biodiversity and cultural heritage where I see a possibility to think of new ways of co-existing and to imagine new ways of living in sync with our environment. What would be the long durée in this region where everything is the result of a process of legitimization and Disneyfication of the landscape and its culture? The aim of this thesis is to expose the critical issues, assess the damage and recover together with nature with the guiding principle that resources should be managed to reflect the relationships among all ecosystem components, including humans and nonhuman species, the environment in which they live, and physical, biological and socioeconomic interrelationships.

Top-down solutions toward Incremental Housing have been criticized because the government has imposed unrealistic and unaffordable standards. On a bottom-up approach, Social Enterprises have been recognized for their contribution to global challenges by implementing service and product innovation and their intermediary role in the processes related to the Built Environment. Theory on Incremental Housing (i.e., process, elements) and Social Enterprises (i.e., characteristics of the organization, intermediary roles) are used to identify three types of Social Enterprises and their contributions to Incremental Housing. A typology was constructed from a cross-case study of 6 cases to answer the following research question: To what extent does the type of Social Enterprise and deployed Roles contribute to Incremental Housing? Firstly, type A: technical-led is a socially driven organization adopting roles as an implementer, emphasizing design and material solutions. Their intervention is sporadic, facing challenges such as a limited network, resources, and motivation to achieve goals. Secondly, type B: community-led, is a socially driven organization adapting roles as a catalyst and partner, focusing on the bottom-up process of self-organization and building social networks on a local scale. Barriers faced by this actor are; the lengthy decision-making process among groups and the minor involvement of the users. Thirdly, type C: project management-led; adopting roles as catalysis, implementer, and partner, has an extensive network with strategic allies. Barriers faced are limited access to the best talent and actors not having a shared vision towards Incremental Housing. Shedding light on these organizations aims to attract the attention of policymakers towards these actors to propel their practice and inspire new ventures towards assisting the Incremental Housing process.

The Port of Rotterdam has always been a pivotal player in the energy sector. Predominantly, in the oil-based generation of energy and the consequent export of raw material. However, there is a need for a systemic shift in the energy sector as the Netherlands embarks toward its goal to become 100% carbon neutral by 2050.
An analysis of the prevalent scenario revealed that the fossil-based energy production systems are not only embedded in the physical infrastructure of the region (Zuid Holland) but also in its social, economic and geopolitical networks. This means that as we phase out fossil fuels, its implications will be witnessed on both the local as well as global scales. Keeping this in mind, “Transtopia” aims to accelerate the transition towards renewable energy (production - consumption) by proposing synergies between the Port of Rotterdam and the rest of the Zuid Holland region.
Primarily, by decentralizing, diversifying renewable energy production, and activating the potentialities of its regional landscapes to harness energy. It proposes endogenous methods of co-creating energy landscapes aimed to establish a resilient and adaptable energy system. One where all sectors of society (civil, public and private) can contribute and play an active role in facilitating this transition. Consequently, the spatial relations between areas of energy consumption and production can be seen as activators of urban development in Zuid Holland. Not only by strengthening the economic resilience of the region in face of the energy transition, but also ensuring social integration in this change by co-creating new infrastructure initiated by a collaboration of active sectors.
Additionally, Transtopia focuses on the transformation of the port into a renewable energy hub. Since selected renewable energy such as solar, wind and biomass will be produced locally, the port becomes a backbone for the production and distribution of hydrogen in the Netherlands and around the globe. As an energy hub, the port will also facilitate research and innovation for renewable energy, establishing collaborations with universities and institutions to constantly improve the functionality of the newly integrated renewable energy systems.
Transtopia aims to accelerate energy transition, focusing on engaging multiple stakeholders by creating policies. Thereby ensuring different levels of systems and synergies, which will eventually transform the urban environment into a symbiotic landscape, with a resilient and inclusive energy system that creates opportunities for economic growth.