BK EXPO AWARD CEREMONY THURSDAY 30 OCTOBER 15:00 BEST GRADUATION PROJECTS TU DELFT ARCHITECTURE
ARCHIPRIX
Since 1980 the Dutch Archiprix foundation organizes the presentation of the best graduation projects in the fields of architecture, urban design and landscape architecture. The prize aims to find and show the best new talented designers, in order to promote their entry into the professional world. This way clients and employers are presented with a carefully selected reservoir of young design talent. Besides that, Archiprix has a quality improving effect on Dutch architecture education because schools are in a permanent state of competition. Archiprix also gives insight into trends and tendencies in Dutch design education.Archiprix Netherlands organizes on a yearly basis the juryreview, award ceremony, exhibition, website and publication (published by 010 publishers) of the best Dutch graduation projects.
ARCHIPRIX INTERNATIONAL
The Dutch Archiprix foundation started in 2001 the Archiprix International as an experiment. All schools worldwide in the fields of architecture, urban design and/or landscape architecture are invited to select their best graduation project for participation. This initiative was a success from the start.
Each edition takes place in a different country where the activities are organized in cooperation with a local partner. The submitted projects are reviewed by an independent jury. The designers of the very best graduation projects receive a HunterDouglas Award at the award ceremony. After the first edition in Rotterdam (2001) the Archiprix International took place in Istanbul (2003), Glasgow (2005), Shanghai (2007), Montevideo (2009), Cambridge USA (2011) and Moscow (2013). Next year it will take place in Madrid (2015).
ARCHIPRIX SELECTION
From the academic year of 2012-2013 there are new rules for Archiprix nominations. The old rules are not applicable anymore. From each graduation studio 1 candidate per 10 students may be nominated. This selection has to be made by the Chair. In case a Chair has more than one studio the selection has to be considered by the professor and the studio coordinator, maintaining the 1 to 10 ratio. With this consideration it is possible that some studios have no nominees while others have more.
Exhibited in the new BK EXPO room are last years 32 best graduation projects of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment in Delft.
FEI CHEN OSAMA NAJI DIMITRIOS SOTIROPOULOS STAVROS GARGARETAS ANDREA CLAASSEN KATARINA KROMMYDA MARIA KELEPERA GUILLAUME GUERRIER CHEN SHEN MATTEO MESCHIARI BRAM WILLEMSE ROBERTUS DE BRUIN SONG LIANG FEDRICA GAROFALO
JOS REINDERS & JULIUS KIRCHERT DAVID JACOME POLIT
#01 #02 #03 #04 #05 #06 #07 #08 #09 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18 #19 #20 #21 #22 #23 #24 #25 #26 #27 #28 #29 #30 #31 #32
RUBEN VAN DER PLAS ANNE BERKERS CECILIA DOBOS ALEXANDER GAYDADJIEV HRVOJE SMIDIHEN SAMUEL DE VRIES MARTIJN LUGTEN PETAR PEIJC VAIDOTAS VAICIULIS FRANCESCA RIZZETTO ATE SNIJDERS
MAARTEN VAN KESTEREN SUZANNE DE ZWART YINXIN BAO
ANA ANTON JUNWOO LEE
FEI CHEN
Flux waterscapes
The transformation of Bratislava as part of the waterscape of the Danube
As cities have urbanized, the smaller creeks have been buried in underground culverts. The river dynamic and ecological system was gradually damaged.
How can we respond to this disharmonious relationship between the water and human, and adapt ourselves in this dynamic water landscape?
Considering the existing problems of the water landscape of south Bratislava, I put forward my regional transformation plan. This plan includes the Danube riverfront transformation,
the inner city old creek improvement, the city suburb green and blue river bypass construction. The whole plan is to deal with the problem of low quality and inflexible water landscape of this area, the flood risks and inaccessible waterfront. The plan will realize with clear developing schedule. This schedule is based on the degree of urgent public needs, the construction time, commercial issues, political land owner problems in countries’ boundary area. It provides more options and potential to realize this project.
FLUX WATERSCAPES The transformation of Bratislava as part of the waterscape of the Danube Landscape Architecture Graduation studio: Flowscapes Fei Chen
OSAMA NAJI
Aquarena
The coolest stadium in de world (cup)
Aquarena is a football stadium for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar that aims to solve the increasingly significant local problems of water scarcity and extreme heat using sustainable, water-based systems. The design attempts to challenge the way the middle east thinks about sustainable design and draws references from Islamic architecture which applied water not only for consumption and cooling, but celebrated it as an aesthetic element that enhanced the quality of the space.
Through fine-tuning its geographic orientation , Aquarena has adapted an exterior shell able to passively collect water in the winter and provide cooling in the summer. In extreme conditions it converts the abundant solar heat into cooling. The most architecturally striking features include a dew-water collection roof and an evaporative cooling façade which, through their functional nature consign a new aesthetic and atmospheric quality reminiscent of traditional techniques.
DIMITRIOS SOTIROPOULOS
ATHENS_City of Crossroads
Towards the Collective Realm of the Labyrinth
The project investigates the shifting role that the Polykatoikia model (multistory apartment building) has played in the diverse socio-spatial transformations of the city of Athens. The research analyses the urban history of the Greek capital and reflects on the sociopolitical and economic factors that informed its urban growth.
The Polykatoikia unit is presented as an architectural typology defined by its fragmented character and lack of collective space while its generic structure which based on the domino model of Le Corbusier offers the possibility for urban transformation.
The design investigates an alternative urban logic based on mobility, accessibility and porosity and presents the architectural elements for the typology of the Groundscraper to evolve. A multileveled labyrinth forms the conditions for spontaneous interaction between the inhabitants and offers the possibility for the new collective to be formed. The project is presented through various crossroad conditions that provide the framework for the new urban logic to grow.
STAVROS GARGARETAS
The Evolving Room; Inhabiting Zero Wasted Space
The Evolving Room: Inhabiting Zero Wasted Space, is a project which simulates an extreme architecture based on real-time ergonomics and space efficiency. The project combines live scale test settings with hypothetical materials in a search for space efficiency.
The result is a visionary narrative, which describes requirements, possible benefits and limitations of a fully-adaptable environment. At its core, the project acts as an observation of the discrepancy between the space we use, and the space we take up. Through a series of tools, it developes a way to visualize the space which we use at any
given time of the day and goes on to explore what would be the requirements and the implications of living in such space. Yet even though the project suggests a constantly changing physical environment customized to our evolving behaviours, it never settles in a context; it never becomes part of a built fabric.
This is its architectural position and relevance; an ambiguous but precise cloud of information, that opens up a theoretical discussion about the efficient use of space, while challenging our traditional understading of architectural space itself.
Inhabited Zero Wasted Space deconstruction of a 4 person house; between 18:00 - 18:20
ANDREA CLAASSEN
REHABILITATING THE INSTITUTION
Institute for Physical Rehabilitation Overtoom, Amsterdam
In Dutch healthcare architecture there is a growing trend in downscaling institutional buildings and mimicking the home environment. As a result important issues like structure, flexibility and organization are neglected within large healthcare facilities.
Healthcare is constantly subjected to changes and developments. Hence, buildings for healthcare will not withstand the test of time without a well-constructed and flexible framework. In my view the institution is an important
architectural assignment: its physical presence characterizes the way we view our society. It is a social mechanism for the promotion of a public concern.
In my scheme I want to investigate the issues related to institutional architecture in the city and address aspects like movement, openness and serenity. Geometry, symmetry, repetition and subtle deviations in both plan and facade allow for various subdivisions and adjustments to the context and contribute to the flexibility needed to endure time.
KATARINA KROMMYDA
Arts, Crafts and Science Laboratory
“From the isolated enclave to the intimate place of social life and creativity/history and innovation”
Located upon the traces of the old historical entrance of the city of Delft, Armamentarium has gradually incarnated the spirit of a crossroads, the converging place of old and new, history and innovation, setting at the same time, the terms of the dialectic relationship between the two opposing worlds. Progressively revealed to the senses of the visitor, remnants of a deeply impregnated value of intimacy and introversion still exist behind the walls of the ensemble, seeking for a crucial and decisive response. The new life incorporated in
the notion of the new function and primarily encapsulated in the used means of expression and organization of space, posits the dual objective of both erasing the borders of isolation between private and public, and at the same time perpetuating the continuity of the most durable memory of the structure. Dedicated to respect the invisible soul of the composition, the intervention strategy seeks to reinstate the power of enclosure. In the meanwhile a well-bonded, interwoven fabric of old and new qualities, envisions declaring the new sense of place, activating the essential meaning of an urban matrix, a dynamic field of ideological, social and cultural fermentation.
MARIA KELEPERA
Transcending the Threshold
Transformation of the ‘Artilleriemagazijn Delt‘ into a market for natural local products
This graduation project attempts to bring to the fore the latent potential of adaptive re-use of building heritage through the particular case of the former ‘Artilleriemagazijn’ in the historical inner city of Delft. The building complex is currently confronting dereliction and isolation, and thus disrupts the coherence of the urban fabric.
By re-designating it as a market for natural local products, the ‘Artilleriemagazijn’ is revitalized and transformed into an inviting public cluster. The re-design proposal is not confined into the limits of the complex itself,
but instead it includes the immediate surroundings in order to achieve continuity and integration within the urban context and public realm and also to result into coherent architectural spaces and atmospheres.
Finally, it ascertains that a transformation that is based on thorough research and clear value assessment can contribute into preserving and consolidating building heritage as an integral and organic part of the city, while relating continually its past, present and future.
GUILLAUME GUERRIER
Space of ambiguity: toward the evanescence
Built environment is created by people. Thus, it cannot stay like a frozen work of art we want to protect from time. So, living environment can persist only through change and adaptation. To a certain extend it would mean a change in the way design is made in order to leave room for indeterminacy and unexpected change. Can we plan with the indeterminacy?
Under the idea of appropriation lays a hidden action, a transgressive one.
Appropriation is to make something its own and in order to do so the first role of space is transgressed in order to host the new one. It is a transgression of established rule and codification against a certain order previously established. From a conceptual point of view, transgression means to cross the boundary to achieve the unlimited. Transgression is not opposed to a limit but it crosses all limits in principle, it affirms the possibility of unlimited life: it is the act which exceed all limits.
What if designing a building would take into account this value of transgression? The building would be open to interpretation, without any specific purpose it would play a role in the collective imagination. Like an unfinished structure waiting for people to transcend it. The rationality of the space would vanish in order to create a new spatial experience. The project is transgressing the code of architecture: no program, no structural hierarchy, a contextualized randomness and openness. It would act as an architectural landscape in the suburban context of Istanbul which is under threat. The blurriness of boundaries, in a broad scope (between the various space as well as the relation architecture - Landscape), make the project out of time, always in a mutable state. The architecture is reduce to the minimum, the richness lays on the emptiness and voids structure the imagination.
CHEN SHEN
Temporary bamboo stadium
As an ecological and strong building material, bamboo can be the alternative constructional material to wood in long term consideration even in west Europe, when facing the urgency of sustainable development.
In this project, bamboo plays a key role in the levels of spatial quality, use, structure and construction with the aim of building a temporary, multifunctional and disassembled stadium in Bretten zone, Amsterdam.
In addition to augmenting the recreational and ecological values for local context, the natural and welcoming atmosphere of the stadium; sustainable and efficient constructional methods; disassemble and flexible bamboo joints contribute a lot to the local civilian life as well as the development of the sustainable and contemporary bamboo buildings in Netherlands.
As a stimulator of sustainable bamboo building in Netherlands, the project provides an amazing futural vision of how the Gift of God could build a better world.
MATTEO MESCHIARI
AmsterdamaZuid Station
Place of transitional moments of life
Amsterdam Zuid: a business district; a new residential area; a campus;
yet an anonymous public space. A river of railways divides the place in two. People leaving, people arriving, people passing by.
People staying. People living!
Train stations lead us from a place to another, becoming an important medium on an infrastructural level
but also on a public and social level. Amsterdam Zuid station unifies the two public sides: a bridge, a crucial moment of connection and transition.
Transition between the station and its surroundings, between the surroundings through the station. Therefore, the project almost anatomically orchestrates the movement
that characterize a station and simultaneously it defines a sequence of spaces that accompany those
transitional moments typifying the locus. Yet, despite the transient nature of the place, it tries to infill
perdurable memories. A megalithic monumentality, a contrasting language towards the context, a sensorial
involvement of the users are chosen to enact the experience of the space trying to leave memories and an
awareness of the place.
BRAM WILLEMSE
‘Natural processes from the basis to create a design that can adapt to
future needs and demands.’
The increasing frequency and intensity of storms forces us to find different ways to develop our coastline. To fully benefit from their potential, flood-risk defense needs to adapt to the context in which it is set. This project focusses on Coney Island, New York and investigates how a spatial framework can be created that contributes to a resilient flood-risk protection, while improving the living quality of communities. The base for this project lies in its context. Man-made elements within the bay will trap sediment from the ocean.
Different ecological habitats will develop on these sandbanks and increase the water quality, improving the ecological value and recreational use. Due to frictional and physical resistance caused by these elements and plants, the flood-risk protection is increased over time naturally.
This project shows that, by focusing on the adaptivity of a design over time, a synergy between flood-risk protection, ecological quality and quality of live can be created.
2015: RESTORING NATURAL PROCESSES By placing one intervention into the bay, the energy of a storm surge will be decreased.
2015 - 2030: URBAN INTERVENTIONS Trapped sediment will create conditions for the growth different habitats, increasing the ecological quality.
>2030: MAINTAINING THE BALANCE Plants and trees create frictional resistance against storm surges and provide an attractive leisure landscape. Urbanism
ROBERTUS DE BRUIN
‘Media Platform’
Within the severely segregated city of Chicago new development of the South Works site offers a possibility to investigate the role of architecture and urbanism. A new urban plan attracts new users to the area as well a strengthening the existing neighbourhood, allowing them to function as one. The New Media platform is located at a crucial intersection between the existing neighbourhood and the South Works area. It contains new media related neighbourhood amenities and start-up office space facilitating a programmatic mixture supporting the new urban strategy.
The overlapping theme of new media stimulates interaction within the building. The void and main routing in the middle of the building facilitates the vertical interaction between the different stacked functions. The façade consists of 3d printed shutters that form an important part of the buildings climate control, making it possible for the building to function in the extreme fluctuations of the Chicago climate.
SONG LIANG
Public Interior in Amsterdam Zuid
This project intends to create a sense of place within an indifferent urban environment. It situates in Zuidas, a business district in south Amsterdam. It derives from a utopian idea that draws inspiration from distanced examples such as Palais-Royal in Paris and the Rialto market in Venice. It defines an introversive realm in a neutral location surrounded by office towers yet at the same time connects its neighboring spaces which, in current situation, are rather fragmented.
The project itself has various functions. It consists of a railway station, a gallery, a learning center and commercial facilities. Despite of the complexity of the project itself and the context, it appears in a seemingly arbitrary form. By using simple architectural languages, the project tries to create a lively and memorable urban environment that negotiates with the surroundings. It is both a ‘naive’ attempt and a bold declaration.
FEDERICA GAROFALO
“Temporary post-disaster to permanent reconstruction”
Call for freedom.
Understanding dynamics of Aid Coordination in Haiti: a new perspective for a new response
Call for freedom it’s a project that truly aims to liberate Haiti from the chains of international humanitarian aid, towards a possible local oriented management of aid coordination pre and post disasters through the empowerment of existing local people and resources. Furthermore it brings the attention on how important is the way architects choose materials when dealing with reconstruction as they are a very influent vehicle in the achievement of more general sustainability standards in the whole society system.
The design outcome has been 100% part of the research process, and it has become the natural conclusion of it, which couldn’t have been otherwise: a permanent disaster coordination centre in Port au Prince, integrating the different development cluster programs for coordination into one structure, built in rammed earth and bamboo, anchored on an existing amphitheatre close to airport and harbor, in a gothic style perfectly suiting the use of bamboo.
JOS REINDERS & JULIUS KIRCHERT
“Olympics”
Rethinking the spatial impact of the Olympics
This project is a reaction to the very actual issues of the planning of the Olympic Games. Through a thorough research of the 6 latest Olympic Games, a strategy has been developed for future host cities. The proposed strategy envisions how European host cities working together, can use the Olympic Games to generate long-term quality development on different scales: city, area & building scale. The proposed strategy is conceptually implemented on all of these scales, concluding in an architectural project that rethinks the Olympic Ceremonial Stadium.
The stadium is designed to match the strongly changing requirements of this mega-structure during and after the event in order to suit its context. The design proposes an adaptable and ever-changing structure that will transform the structure from an athletic stadium to an area of mix-use and infrastructural knot within the Copenhagen and the Øresund region.
DAVID JACOME POLIT
Re-greening Nature
Turning negative externalities into opportunities
This project is about life. According to Johan Rockström, who leads the Stockholm Resilience Centre, we are pushing the planet to its limits in four different directions, and one of these limits is the ecosystem decline. In the very nature of things, life depends on mineral circulation on a constant cycle, among other factors. Key to sustain a circular metabolism, the proposed Center of Education, Research and Conservation inserts itself successfully in the Amazonian rainforest by looking at these cycles and becoming part of them in its subsystems.
Throughout the building, ‘air plants’ and other organisms together with humans form a structure that provides a range of “ecosystem services”. The first ones provide food and medicines, and the second ones contribute to life regeneration for a place that was initially degraded. The end result is a symbiotic relationship which enables to renew nature, preserve biodiversity and keep heterogeneity in the Amazonian rainforest.
RUBEN VAN DER PLAS
Synergetic Cost-Effective Architecture
Synergetic architecture (1+1=3) merges important interests of clients (saving money) and architects (architectural quality). By combining two elements to fulfill three functions instead of two, one element is economized. The reduction in the amount of elements leads to a minimalistic and even holistic architecture; like a paperclip.
Designing synergetic combinations requires an excessive amount of bisociative brain power. One way to enhance our bisociative capacity is by looking at visualised information. I created an overview of visualised cost-effective strategies (www.cost-effective-architecture.com)
to enhance and facilitate the design process of synergetic cost-effective architecture in each design phase.
As a testcase of this design theory, I developed a synergetic cost-effective redesign of the Forum of Groningen. Every design element is synergetically interwoven with other design elements to reduce investment, housing and facility costs. The new Forum has a holistic aesthetic and provable significant lower costs.
ANNE BERKERS
Muziekmakerscentrum
The ‘Muziekmakerscentrum’ as a new meetingplace in the south of Rotterdam. A place where individuals and groups can interchange. The building is a projection from the needs of the users and is able to adapt. The streetlife of Rotterdam will be absorbed in the building; a new public domain will be developed.
The design contains different kind of spaces, which can be derived from the concept ‘Building as a City’. Input for these
spaces is formed by an analysis on a brassband and a hiphop group; the spaces differ from formal to informal and from public to private; the transitions in between are gradually changing.
As well as the sound intensity: the routing as a soundscape brings you through the different spaces and sounds. The three atria connect both the routing and the sounds. Walking through the wooden blinds will bring you in a new space; a routing to discover.
HRVOJE SMIDIHEN
South Works Performance Center
South Works Performance Center is one of the three projects designed as a first phase of urban development of the former U.S. Steel’s site South Works in South Chicago. The projects are part of a larger urban strategy that was developed to initiate spontaneous urban growth in the neighborhood of South Chicago which is experiencing rapid decline and recession.
By being placed literally in the old canal, SW performance center is using specificity of the site as well as the old industrial
heritage to create surreal environment that can easily host different types of performances.
In the exterior the building is just an enigmatic steel cube floating above water, while the interior reveals every aspect of the performance process. The theaters placed underwater are designed as a free, chaotic space intended for spontaneous performance without divisions between spectators and performers, while the steel cube hosting supporting facilities is designed pragmatically.
ALEXANDER GAYDADJIEV
United Nations Environmental Council
To stipulate and encourage the ever-increasing importance of the many conflicting environmental issues today, a new organ within the existing organization of the United Nations is proposed via the following project.
An organization which places itself within the realm of sustainability, at the forefront, is logically affected by its own rhetoric. Therefore a dilemma of transience and longevity is presented, because sustainable and environmental research is transient; certain technocratic architectural features and aspects become archaic and move into a state of atrophy.
In an effort to bypass such technocratic dilemmas, the project looks within the bounds of classical architectural building, methodologies and techniques - i.e. plan and section. The result is an architectural system of slabs, which allows for polarization – mass/void, auxiliary/crucial, both in plan and function. By means of pure architecture tools a high degree of modularity is achieved – facilitating various types of combinations and use.
CECILIA DOBOS
Consonance: U Play - Column Pavilion - Sound Space and Body
From research to design, my graduation project focused on exploring one of the immaterial phenomena of space: sound. In this project I studied and tested how sound challenges the limits of architecture and how architecture affects the sound of space.
During the research and design I was seeking to explore the aesthetic significance of sound in relation to space and body. Sound is an interactive, emotive and performative medium of space.
Columns, a fundamental architectural element that defines the solids and the voids in the space, is by nature a theatrical spatial artifact. The column pavilion emphasizes the relationship between sound, space and body, engaging the public in a playful kinetic spatial design.
The project becomes a dynamic pause in the urban dissonance offering an absorbing ‘silence’. It genuinely invites the visitor for interaction, for a play, while creating a rich visual and sonic atmosphere
SAMUEL DE VRIES
4FFerland
Natural ecosystems negate the idea of waste. In nature material ecologies follow cyclical systems where the residues of one process are feedstock for another process. Our urban metabolism however follows a linear system where consumption leads to waste. Because our resources and energy are becoming increasingly scarce we must reevaluate this system. 4FFerland offers an alternative. 4fferland is an agricultural complex and landscape in Amsterdam. It acts as an organism which lives symbiotic with the city closing its cycles.
4FFerland works like the human body. It breaths and eats from its environment (nutritious residues, water and CO2). Likewise it excretes (organic products), sweats (heat and electricity) and breaths out (air and biogas) into its environment. Similar to the human body 4FFerland’s organs interact and share their nutrients, residues and energy. The body’s organs are represented in 4FFerland by the different types of farmers and producers required by the human diet.
MARTIJN LUGTEN
Re sil(i)ence
In airport regions, the current fashion of urban and architectural design does (often) not anticipate on aircraft noise. Nonetheless, in the Schiphol area and beyond, noise is considered as hindrance and as both airport and cities expand, problems arises.
In this research, a network of design patterns rooted in spatial noise abating solutions were designed which were tested in two design cases. These solutions (and thereby design patterns) were derived from other disciplines (e.g. road traffic) at different levels of scale ranging from urban- and architectural planning and design to materialization.
Aside from noise abatement, these patterns were also linked to a wider series of issues in order to provide solutions for e.g. water management, energy and heat demands in the Schiphol region.
The network of design patters were tested in a design case with urban planners and designers working in the vicinity of Schiphol, and an individual design case. The latter was simulated in numerical models which showed high levels of noise abatement.
PETAR PEIJC
An Architectural Topography in Istanbul
Is architecture supposed to be intellectual discipline? If so, than it implies a certain level of criticism towards current conditions and development. This project can be seen as a dual development: it focus on investigation of applicability of contextual values in overwhelming city such as Istanbul, but it also reflects personal attitude towards current urban development in the city.
Context is seen as a set of forces which influenced morphological development of the city, including both: context of space and context of time. In case of Istanbul,
I have found that all morphological changes were at some point triggered with the unique topography of historical peninsula. Bringing back the notion of topography in current development became the dominant conceptual idea.
Furthermore, the project challenges traditional relation between the monument and the residential area, suggesting that in current conditions in Istanbul, public building can be developed only by merging the two.
VAICIULIS VAIDOTAS
The Temple of All Religions
There are a number of different sacred buildings in South Chicago. However, they all contain the same program (cloakroom, wc, lobby…) and are rarely busy. This project tries to tackle this inefficiency by proposing a new building typology that would host multiple religions and preserve their different identities.
The Temple of All Religions contains three different layers: monumental entrance (“stairway to heaven”), shared public floor (“home”) and the floor with multiple religious clusters (“heaven”). The pools by the entrance are used for religious
services. “Home” contains public program where library, exhibition hall, canteen and community room are used for different religious groups to interfere and coexist. Five major religious clusters (church, mosque, synagogue, Buddhist and Hindu temples) are placed on the same level to avoid hierarchy and are unified with structural steel grid. The clusters are carved out from this steel grid in their typical shapes. Small private rooms are used for others religious groups as well as atheists, agnostics.
FRANCESCA RIZZETTO
(Re)claimed Land
Scenario of democratic landscape in contaminated territories
Reloading Landscapes
Micro and macro interventions in the polluted territory. In the city of Taranto (south Italy), industrial foul-up is one of the biggest contributors of the high percentage of cancer-death. The cause of pollution is an integral cycle steel plant, where all stages for the transformation of steel happen. The Italian government aware to the economic crisis to avoid the factory closure, is guiding a project for reforming the cycle production.
However, the rural cultivated area around the city will not be available anymore and moreover people are reclaiming a new place where live. The thesis project aims to transform the territory into a park made by different landscapes where mixed residential and productive areas could provide a new economy for the population. The thesis project has been developed followed three main themes: Relocation, Remediation, Economic Alternative. They are presented in a multi-scale scenario divided in 5 different projects, every one embracing a different scale from territory to neighborhood.
ATE SNIJDERS
Solar Glass Architecture
sun+sand=glass Ait Ben Haddou, Morocco
Recently Markus Kaiser has pioneered 3D printing with just sand and solar energy. I did further research into the structural potential of this ‘Solar Material’. It is a low grade glass, produced by fusing sand particles together with solar energy, concentrated by a lens or mirrors.
Research on the structural application of Solar Material is relevant because the greatest demand for housing is in regions where sun and sand are most abundant.
I developed applications of Solar Material to replace building practices that are detrimental to the regions environment
(i.e. use of timber causes desertification) or trade balance (i.e. steel is imported at great costs).
One of the major design challenges was to integrate the new Solar Material with traditional building techniques such as rammed earth. The result is a hybrid design showcasing the contrasting structural and esthetic qualities of the traditional and the new. The common denominator is that the materials are locally produced, resulting in a site-specific architecture.
Birds Eye Perspective
MAARTEN VAN KESTEREN
Hollandsche Schouwburg:
proposal for a Shoah memorial and museum in Mokum
From 1941 until 1943 the Hollandsche Schouwburg was the center of the plan to annihilate the jewish population of Amsterdam and its surroundings. Now a memorial and small museum reside within the remains of the once popular theatre on the Plantage Middenlaan in Amsterdam. The Joods Historisch Museum has plans to renew both. I was asked to make a study-design for the transformation.
Interweaving the Hollandsche Schouwburg and historically related Hervormde Kweekschool and tram stop on the Plantage Middenlaan into one environment of memory
creates enough space for the extensive program. The inside-outside rhythm of surrounding islands and enclaves of jewish life continues within. Traditional jewish means of conveying memory are translated into intimate cabinets in which personal stories are told and regenerative gardens.
The proposed architecture is about the place itself and creating a dignified mood of contemplation. In order to get a measure of the horrific it reminds of the beatific moments of life.
SUZANNE DE ZWART
The beads make the string How the input of individual stakeholders can improve the quality of public spaceThe project “the beads make the string - how the input of individual stakeholders can improve the quality of public space” focusses on the Vogelbuurt in Carnisse, Rotterdam Zuid. For this “problem area” consisting of portiek dwellings mostly owned by private owners, I proposed a design for the conversion of public space so that individual stakeholders can all contribute, with little interventions in this new designed public space, to increase the quality of public space in their neighbourhood as a whole.
Because social contacts in a neighbourhood mostly take place within this public space, I focussed on interventions that extend the private realm into the public realm and also incorporated a strategy to implement the design. A large part of my design is the infill of transition zones with dwelling extensions. These extensions are worked out in detail.
YINXIN BAO
GROWING CITY - MARKET TO MUSEUM
The main idea of our master plan development is “Growing” which means a transformation from agriculture production to urban development. At first place we use urban farming as a catalyst because it’s low cost, easy to do and flexible. After 40 years it will finally become a mixed-use neighborhood which combines working, living and farming.
The development of the architecture project is also based on this dynamic process. The building will change its programs according the different phases of the master plan. At first it is a warehouse combined with market hall.
After 20 years when South work become a more attractive and accessible place for the rest part of Chicago. A museum program will then be added and combined with the market and warehouse. In short, at first the building is directly focus on farming storage and selling, and finally it will transform to farming exhibition, education and branding.
ANA ANTON
Living Geometries
Contemporary strategy for developing a housing community
Living Geometries researches a contemporary strategy for developing a housing community as an ever-growing urban environment. Its ultimate goal is to describe a system that generates spaces continuously used and permanently active. How can city-integrated agriculture improve spatial and social demands?
The research focuses on analyzing and extracting information from site. Objective data (population, densities, vegetation, development), enriched by mapping important subjective data (meaningful site qualities, emergent social patterns) creates an integrated design strategy, connected to, and inspired by, European and Dutch ways of tackling the topics of housing and agriculture.
The integrated design creates seamless transitions between public and private, interior and exterior, structural and insulating materials, solved as a fluid transition of different porosities.
Living Geometries helps coagulate a community in and around the spatial confines of its design. Aesthetically and socially, it illustrates a way in which geometric patterns influence and shape the way a micro society may manifest itself.
JUNWOO LEE
My project “Chain Housing” is the suggestion about a Housing Hybrid in the restricted space of Amsterdam. The site along Oostelijke Handelskade itself is the transition between the past and the present or urban structure and nature, having extremely opposite characteristics.
Moreover, “Housing Hybrid” means also that two conflicting programs such as private dwelling and public facilities should coexist in one building.
To solve this dilemma, my design proposal is inspired by Dutch Structuralism, the study on harmony and balance of these two opposite natures by using Aldo van Eyck’s concept of Twin Phenomena.
Dwelling and public programs are interconnected and this connection has deeply influenced the arrangement of programs, façade materialisation, and even of the load bearing system. My “Chain Housing” is not only a solution for the present but also a preparation for the future of Amsterdam
Dwelling
