The starting point of the research is the need to refurbish existing residential building stock, in order to reduce its energy demand, which accounts for over one fourth of the energy consumption in the European Union. Refurbishment is a necessary step to reach the ambitious energy and decarbonisation targets for 2020 and 2050 that require an eventual reduction up to 90% in CO2 emissions. In this context, the rate and depth of refurbishment need to grow. The number of building to be renovated...

Climate change can no longer be ignored. It is globally recognised that the evidence for climate change is unequivocal and that action needs to be taken in order to address its negative effects. These effects, such as warmer and drier summers and more extreme rainfall, may threaten the quality of life of those living in urban environments. To limit these threats, a number of climate change adaptation measures can be taken to pre-empt the negative effects of climate change.

The challenge of in...

This book addresses the question of how to design in a historical context. How to get a grip on a site? How can a designer incorporate actual qualities of the heritage in the design? In three chapters, it is described how the conservation of heritage has increasingly become an issue of planning and intervention, with the specific cultural heritage qualities of a site as the starting point for transformation.

There are several different approaches to embed the design in the site: focussing on ...

While agglomerations along the Rhine are confronted with the uncertainties of an increasing flood risk due to climate change, different programs are claiming urban river front sites. Simultaneously, urban development, flood management, as well as navigation and environmental protection are negotiating the border between the river and the urban realm. This produces complex spatial constellations between the river system and the urban realm with a diverse set of interdependencies, where program...

Since 1978, urban redevelopment in China has resulted in large-scale neighbourhood demolition and forced residential relocation, which can severely disrupt established people-place interactions in the demolished neighbourhoods. This issue of A+BE conceptualises forced relocation as a process and as a specific type of residential mobility that occurs in the context of urban restructuring. It suggests a conceptual model to show the sequence of events that households experience

during urban rede...

Residential buildings account for a significant amount of the national energy consumption of all OECD countries and consequently the EU and the Netherlands. Therefore, the national targets for CO2 reduction should include provisions for a more

energy efficient building stock for all EU member states.

National and European level policies the past decades have improved the quality of the building stock by setting stricter standards on the external envelope of newly made buildings, the efficienc...

This thesis explores the ways in which landscape is relevant as a concept for designing architecture. Buildings that have been designed like landscapes have become a topic in contemporary architecture. The apparent distinction between architecture and landscape is questioned in exemplary theories and new designs.

The core of this thesis is three case studies of architectural designs that use landscape strategies. The analytical model for landscape architectural composition that Steenbergen an...