Over my time spent at the Academy, I discovered the value of the public realm in the shaping of cities. With the high pressure on new housing areas, the quality of life in the city is becoming increasingly important, and along with this, the layout and the use of the public domain. Museums and other …

The culture of fear seems to be increasingly embedded in today’s society, especially on highly social unequal countries, such as Brazil. The rise of the “condomínios fechados” (gated communities) on recent years expose how this fear shapes our cities. People are sold by the idea of isolating themselves …

Granite G682 is a yellow to pink color stone of the Precambrian period, the most famous yellow granite from China. I am from G682 granite town. I used to live in a village surrounded by stones. however, I never knew the beautiful and scary story behind it until I saw hundreds of abandoned quarries in …

About 30 years ago the ruin of a church became the starting point of an ongoing journey that brought together strangers, strangers of different nationality and confession and with different languages and cultures. Strangers that once faced each-other as enemies. But strangers with one common ground. …

Increasingly, adding trees to the city is a new goal on the urban agenda in order to fight climate change. There is an interesting contrast when looking at the average lifespan of trees in the city: 30 years. The reason is that trees are still being seen from a utilitarian perspective and as urban furniture …

Designers of the Anthropocene era have to work with and for nature in order to reintroduce its beauty and functionality into our everyday life. As humans, we are colonising every single spot on earth. According to the United Nations, 55% of the human population is currently living in cities and by 2050 …

Abandoned villages and ruins are the consequence of depopulation. The region of A Ribeira Sacra (Galicia, Spain) is an example, where since 1981 the region has lost 40% of the population. A sustainable masterplan based on a strategy will bring a future to those areas by using the ruins and reactivate …

The rehabilitation clinic I designed for severe gaming addicts is conceived as an architectural antidote to the digital world and is based on the principles of social reintegration and physical reconnection. The rehabilitation clinic provides a 12-week programme for 13-25-year-old gaming addicts, …

Although Grodzka Island is located in the heart of the city, many citizens of Szczecin have forgotten this piece of land. The island is surrounded by a very strong historical context of the popular cultural centre and an upcoming new hotspot in the city: the post-industrial harbour. Today, the city of …

Le Front Pépinière gaat over de forten rond Parijs. Een fascinatie voor oude kaarten ligt aan het plan ten grondslag. Oude foto’s laten de mooie, complexe en mysterieuze ruimtes van de forten zien: een fort is landschap en gebouw tegelijkertijd. Tegenwoordig zijn de forten verlaten en overwoekerd met …