This thesis elaborates on the role and position of regional design in spatial planning. Building upon the argument that design in this realm aims to improve planning guidance by judging its implications for particular situations, the thesis develops an analytical framework for an enhanced understanding of how design both influences, and is influenced by, prevailing planning rationales. The analytical framework is applied to a set of regional design initiatives that evolved in the context of D...

By using Amsterdam as a living laboratory, graduate students, researchers and teachers of the architectural design chair of Complex Projects at the Department of Architecture at TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment have been interested in seeing how ‘growth’ and rapid ‘changes’ – growth of numbers of inhabitants and tourists, and change of energy, mobility, health and leisure concepts - will affect the City of Amsterdam on a time horizon 2050. How can innovatio...

Research and development in building envelope design have promoted the convergence of two system types, Thermo-Active Building Systems and Adaptive Building Envelopes, that re-conceptualize the envelope as a distributed energy transfer function that captures, transforms, stores, and even re-distributes energy resources.

The widespread deployment of Thermo-Active Building Systems as a building envelope will depend on several factors. These factors include the value of the design attributes tha...

This dissertation focuses on Industrial Heritage Reuse practice in Europe, with special emphasis on the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain and Greece. This vastly complex yet fascinating topic has not been studied holistically under the circumstances of the contemporary era. In the 21st century, Industrial Heritage Reuse is required to be more responsive, more sustainable, more inclusive and more value-driven than before. An enhanced approach for the transformation of industrial relics is...

Heritage—natural and cultural, material and immaterial—plays a key role in the development of sustainable cities and communities. Goal 11, target 4, of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasizes the relation between heritage and sustainability. The International LDE Heritage conference on Heritage and Sustainable Development Goals, which took place from 26 to 28 November 2019 at TU Delft in the Netherlands, examined the theories, methodologies, and practices of heritage and SDGs....

The 1977 book A Pattern Language was a landmark in the design world, introducing a methodology that has become influential across many fields. Among them are software and “design patterns,” and important spinoff technologies like wiki (the basis of Wikipedia) and Agile Methodology. Yet curiously, the field where pattern methodology began – the built environment – has lagged conspicuously. As one remedy, a number of long-time collaborators with the original book’s lead author have f...

The canon of western contemporary architecture has overlooked everyday, 'salaried' architecture - overwhelming as it may have turned out to be in our built environment - praising instead the solo designer and his ground-breaking work.

Since World War I, the social role of the architect (in terms both of his or her place in social hierarchies and of his or her contribution for social betterment) seems to have been primarily tested, and largely consolidated, in 'departmental architecture'. Yet...

This issue of Footprint aims to introduce the latest developments in the field of queer theory into the realm of architecture and urban design - and vice versa, to make architectural and urban design concerns an element of queer studies. Next to uncovering hitherto hidden or repressed histories and practices as part of an agenda of inclusiveness, we consider an introduction of queer theory to architecture as engendering a radical reconceptualisation of the architectural discipline: That is, t...