The Design of the Urban Fabric graduation studio deals with the dynamics and interplay between the physical urban environment (elements, materials, form, scales, density and networks) and the psychological, socio-cultural, ecological, managerial and economic processes to foster a sustainable and livable places. The climate crisis and increasing social diversification and inequality are urgencies that ask for new strategies of urban transformation. The studio engages design as a method of inquiry, generating hypotheses to investigate alternative futures.

Transitional Territories studio works on the present and future conditions of the urban and territorial project in lowlands regions (maritime, riverine, and/ or delta areas). We see the agency of Urban Design as the fine-tuning of the ever-changing interrelations between natural processes, societal practices, and (geo)political frameworks. The leading hypothesis is that the territory is a shared project – independently from scale – wherein the urban always co-constructs with nature. Our projects focus on the design of alternative forms of coexistence and care in highly dynamic geographies characterised by fragility, criticality and risk. We offer a rich program of lecture series by international experts, film making, workshops, fieldwork, exhibitions, and symposia

The complexity of our contemporary urban system urges us to understand and expose its wicked reality, vulnerabilities, and challenges. That is why planning schemes, governance arrangements, and civic participation in regions and urban areas are investigated in the Planning Complex Cities graduation studio. The studio’s core ambition is to influence the transformation of spatial structures to achieve more sustainable socio-spatial outcomes. The studio’s primary focus is on trans-disciplinary approaches that integrate knowledge from the fields of design, planning, the political sciences, and geography. Students learn to appreciate plurality in planning decision- making, understand planning systems, approaches, and instruments, and combine spatial with institutional design.

Given the ongoing climate and socio-ecological emergencies, it is paramount to support an environmentally and socially just rethinking of the world we inhabit, which is intrinsically dependent on the health of the earth’s systems. This requires a radical transformation of the role of designers and innovative strategies in delivering spatial quality and creating sustainable and regenerative metropolitan environments. The MEP graduation studio addresses the challenges mentioned above. Students will explore design beyond normative aesthetic and performative proposals as a mechanism to orchestrate, choreograph and negotiate spatial, ecological and territorial frameworks to avert the multiple contemporary crises. The studio will experiment with fabrication techniques, material testing, drawing and animation through scales, mixing the use of digital and analogue media to develop students’ curiosity, imagination, and voice in urban landscape design.

City of the Future is a multidisciplinary graduation studio for students of the MSc tracks (i) Urbanism, (ii) Architecture , and (iii) Management in the Built Environment. Students of the (iv) MSc Geomatics for the Built Environment participate upon agreement of their graduation coordinator . In addition, students of the MSc Transport, Infrastructure and Logistics (from CiTG and TPM) participate in this studio, primary from the MSc track (v) Policy. (already enrolled) TIL MSc-tracks (vi) Design and (vii) Engineering may also apply upon agreement of their graduation coordinator. This is an interdisciplinary lab, in which you face urbanisation colliding with all kinds of transitions. Matters like densification, mobility and accessibility, social inclusiveness, availability resources of the city have a direct influence on the public space and functioning of the urban systems, as well as on well-being and social interconnectivity. 

Flowscapes explores infrastructure as a type of landscape and landscape as a type of infrastructure, and is focused on landscape architectonic design of transportation-, green- and water infrastructures. These landscape infrastructures are considered armatures for urban and rural development. With movement and flows at the core, these landscape infrastructures facilitate aesthetic, functional, social and ecological relationships between natural and human systems. Through transdisciplinary design-based case studies at different scale levels Flowscapes seeks for a better understanding of the dynamic between landscape processes and typo-morphological aspects; here interpreted as flowscapes.