The Parana River is the third largest river in the American continent, after the Mississippi and the Amazon. Instead of flowing directly to the sea, it flows to the Rio de la Plata (located between Argentina and Uruguay) through a complex delta system.

Although this delta can be considered an extreme and particular case, many of the conflicts that can be found in this area replicate in other deltas around the world. Urbanizing deltas are subjected to pressures related to urban growth and clim...

Adaptive façades are designed to actively regulate the exchange of material and energy flows and thus improve the balance between comfort and energy consumption. However, their technical complexity leads to higher development efforts, maintenance and costs, and ultimately fewer implementations.

Embedded adaptive functions could be an opportunity to reduce these drawbacks. If embedded adaptivity is to work within a design, the particularities of geometry and material arrangements must be co...

This thesis presents an alternative approach to intelligence in the built-environment, departing from the two established yet divergent branches in the discourse: the Technical, centered around Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and represented by Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL); and the Architectural, centered around architectural / spatial experiences and considerations, and represented by Interactive Architecture and Adaptive Architecture.

The ...

The aim of this thesis is to add knowledge to the role and impact of policy instruments in meeting energy performance ambition in the existing owner occupied housing stock. The focus was instruments available in the Netherlands in 2011 and 2012. These instruments represented the ‘on the ground’ efforts to meet climate change targets and many continue to do so today in the same or slightly altered forms. At international level there is a recognized need to keep global temperatures within t...

The Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft houses a unique teaching collection of over 300 chairs. Unlike any other collection in the university, and because a collection’s purpose and needs deviate somewhat from the more common features of a given university department, its position can be challenging in terms of management, funding, and goals.

This publication discusses projects around the Chair Collection because this collection served as a test case for possible n...

There are several dimensions of occupant behavior and energy consumption of dwellings: dwelling characteristics including the energy and indoor comfort management systems, building envelope, lighting and appliances; occupant characteristics including the social, educational and economical; and actual behavior, including the control of heating, ventilation and lighting of spaces, and appliance use, hot water use, washing, bathing, and cleaning. Attempting to understand this complexity asks for...

We currently live in a carbon intensive linear economy. On the basis of burning fossil fuels, we take, make and waste an increasing amount of materials. This has pushed us against serious planetary boundaries. Radical reductions in environmental impact are needed over the coming decades. Entire economies and societies will have to reorganize. A promising candidate to support this reorganizing is a circular economy. It cuts waste, emissions and pollution, and it keeps the value of products, co...

Creating a circular economy within the built environment is vital to achieve a more sustainable society. By replacing building components with more circular ones during new construction, maintenance and renovation, we can gradually create a circular built environment. There are many different possible design variants for circular building components. Yet, knowledge on which variants are the most most circular, and which are feasible to implement is lacking. In this dissertation, we aimed to d...

The neglect of significance, deterioration and consequent devaluation of the post-war mass housing neighbourhoods are major challenges, both in the field of heritage conservation and management and in urban planning and design. The reasons for their deterioration are different, and interlinked with the socio-cultural discourse, as well as the spatial characteristics of these neighbourhoods. This doctoral research addresses the challenges of those neighbourhoods, focusing on New Belgrade Block...

In improving the sustainability of our built environment, European institutions emphasize the importance of protecting and advancing cultural values. As most of the stock is not listed, nor is its heritage significance assessed, future sustainable developments risk neglecting present attributes, causing the loss of resources and their significance. This problem applies to 1965-1985 Dutch housing, comprising over 30% of the stock, with no clarity on its heritage significance. This thesis aims ...