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...

Het oeuvre van de tuin- en landschapsarchitect Lucas Pieters Roodbaard (1782-1851) is toonaangevend voor de Noord-Nederlandse landschapsparken uit de eerste helft van de 19de eeuw. Zijn oeuvre is te verdelen in drie categorieën: openbare wandelparken, landschapsparken bij buitenplaatsen en landschapstuinen bij (stads)villa’s. Aan de hand van ruimtelijk architectonisch onderzoek is een schat aan oorspronkelijke plantekeningen uitgebreid gedocumenteerd en geanalyseerd om zo tot de kern van d...

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 ...

This thesis brings forward the design dimension, and, more specifically, co-design, to the study of housing affordability. Co-design occurs when end-users and professionals work together towards a common goal. It is a process often applied in collaborative housing, an umbrella concept encompassing different housing forms based on collective self-organisation and collaboration, where residents choose to share certain spaces. The aim of this research is to assess if and how co-design processes ...

This dissertation develops an understanding towards governing social sustainability goals into area-based urban development projects. It draws on Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach to construct a capability-centered evaluation of how institutionalized governance processes around these projects ultimately affect people’s freedoms to do the things they value in their urban living environment. Presenting case studies from the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria, the approach adopted in this disse...

The study of dynamic spatial and social phenomena in cities has evolved rapidly in the recent years, yielding new insights into urban dynamics. This evolution is strongly related to the emergence of new sources of data for cities (e.g. sensors, mobile phones, online social media etc.), which have potential to capture dimensions of social and geographic systems that are difficult to detect in traditional urban data (e.g. census data). However, as the available sources increase in number, the p...

In 2002, Gunawan Tjahjono opened his inaugural speech at University of Indonesia with a reference to Vincent Van Romondt, the last remaining Dutch tutor of architecture in Indonesia, who had pioneered an approach that challenged Indonesians to think about the relationship between architecture and 'nationbuilding'. Since independence, the topic of 'towards an Indonesian architecture,' has received various interpretations, with numerous references to Van Romondt. Josef Prijotomo, one of the mos...

This issue of A+BE sets out to contribute to filling the current knowledge gaps concerning the recent socio-spatial transformation processes and their consequences in Lithuania. The thesis aimed to contribute answers to the following questions:

- What are the main features and drivers of socio-spatial change in post-socialist Lithuania?

- Why, despite the growing economy and improvements in the standard of living, Lithuania is facing major challenges related to extreme population decline and...