Against the backdrop of an increasing need for healthcare, staff shortages and relatively high rates of sick leave, understanding of wellbeing (comfort and health) of hospital workers is important. This research aims to provide a contribution, through a mixed-methods approach, with broad and in-depth insights into comfort and health. Therefore, data have been collected from questionnaires, building inspections, interviews, and photos, and analysed with several techniques.

Personal, work, and...

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...

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 research was inspired by the increasing impact of extreme weather events and changing climate patterns on flood-prone regions and cities, and the consequent human and economic costs. Despite global efforts for flood resilience and climate adaptation involving climate analysts, economists, social scientists, politicians, hydrological engineers, spatial planners, and policymakers, it is only partially clear how best to construct resilience measures and implement concrete initiatives. The co...

Expanding cities across the world rely increasingly on the global food network, but should they? Population growth, urbanisation and climate change place pressure on this network, bringing its resilience into question. For decades urban agriculture has been discussed in popular media and academia as a potential solution to improve food security, quality and sustainability. The new idol in this discussion is the plant factory: A fully closed system for crop production. Arrays of LEDs provide l...

The aim of this PhD project was to explore the multi-level interplay between the inter-organizational structures and interpersonal relations in building project organizations. In the first two studies, quantitative approaches were used to validate assumptions about how inter-organizational structures are shaped by actors and how interpersonal relationships affect the effectiveness of project teams in the construction industry. These two studies were integrated in a third qualitative case stud...