Pressure

Abstract

Contemporary metropolitan regions are increasingly confronted with overlapping spatial claims related to climate change, ecological restoration, energy transition, agriculture, and urban development. Within the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam (MRA), these developments place growing pressure on peri-urban landscapes, which function as critical interfaces between urban and rural territories. This research argues that these territories should not be understood as spaces between systems, but as active components of the metropolitan system itself.

The aim of this thesis is to explore how urban design can contribute to transforming peri-urban landscapes into climate-resilient territories. To address this objective, the research combines historical and spatial analysis, peri-urban typology construction, climate risk assessment, and scenario-based exploration. Research by Design is applied as the central methodological approach, allowing analytical knowledge and spatial design investigations to continuously inform one another. Design is thereby used not only as a means of producing spatial proposals, but also as a tool for generating, testing, visualising, and negotiating future spatial conditions.

The research identifies peri-urban landscapes as strategic territories where multiple metropolitan functions can be integrated to strengthen long-term metropolitan resilience. Through the translation of climate resilience theory into urban design practice, five resilience principles—diversity, connectivity, redundancy, modularity, and efficiency—are transformed into spatial design principles and tested through a series of metropolitan and local design explorations. These explorations include alternative future scenarios for the MRA and a detailed design investigation for Almere, one of the metropolitan region’s most dynamic peri-urban territories.

The findings demonstrate that peri-urban landscapes offer unique opportunities to accommodate and integrate multiple spatial claims. Through the spatial coordination of ecological, hydrological, agricultural, energy, and urban systems, these territories can help address the growing pressures placed upon metropolitan regions.

The thesis concludes that peri-urban landscapes are not merely transitional zones between city and countryside, but strategic metropolitan territories capable of supporting long-term climate resilience and future spatial development.