USI

The protection of the largest aquifer on the Iberian Peninsula, located on the Setubal Peninsula, is the subject of a landscape project that not only transforms the rural landscape of the area in question, but also the approach to managing agricultural activities in peri-urban areas. This landscape reorganisation project aims to reduce wind action within the area under consideration by modifying the upper layers of the soil and vegetation, thereby promoting a decrease in evapotranspiration from the fields. A bocage follows the drainage lines and interstices of the cadastral design, extending across the public space as a highly valuable ecological continuum. This green structure is capable of revolutionising the landscape surrounding the Moita area by intensifying biodiversity whilst promoting ecological continuity. This approach could also be the starting point for a metamorphosis of the city, taking on an urban version through the continuity of public transport and socio-environmental connections within cities.

The project begins with the observation of what lies beneath the surface, focusing on what we do not immediately see, but that shapes a its possibilities: the invisible. By understanding its history, I saw how the site became what it is today, abandoned and polluted. I asked myself how to act on this invisible layer. I found an answer in compost and biochar: compost from organic waste, biochar from biomass. Together, they clean the soil, support microbial life and block heavy metals. Infrastructures are reconfigured to support the environment. People are already there, inhabiting a space that is still evolving. This is not a project that waits to be complete to be used; it is a space that invites us to live inside transformation, and to let the invisible become generative.

This thesis project explores how industrial byproducts can be repurposed architecturally without relying on energy-intensive recycling. This investigation raised the question: could the strongest form of aluminium exist – in its scrap state – without the need for melting? Discarded scrap was catalogued by size, shape, and thickness. This classification sparked the search for a low-energy method of recombination. Compression emerged as the key: by pressing scraps, blocks could be formed while saving up to 98% of the energy compared to melting, thus pausing the material cycle rather than continuing it. This process produced a lightweight, high-performance panel made entirely from scrap. The next step was to test how these blocks and panels could be combined into a cohesive structural system. The result was a design language uniting mass and lightness within a single constructive strategy. This project addresses a global challenge – the accumulation of industrial byproducts – and reframes it as an opportunity for architectural innovation. 

Das Projekt ermöglicht eine etappenweise Umsiedlung auf ein benachbartes Grundstück mit dem Ziel, bestehende Nachbarschaften und Bindungen zu bewahren. Daraus entsteht ein dichtes Ǫuartier mit einem kinderfreundlichen Gefüge aus öffentlichen, halböffentlichen und privaten Räumen, Gärten und ruhigen Straßen. Dem Entwurf liegt ein Wohnmodell zugrunde, das sich im Laufe der Zeit an unterschiedliche Bedürfnisse anpasst. In der Planungsphase wird eine Vielzahl typologischer Grundformen entwickelt – von Einzimmerwohnungen bis hin zu Einheiten mit vier Zimmern –, um eine möglichst grosse Bandbreite an sozialen Realitäten abzubilden. Diese Vielfalt ist Teil des Konzepts, um soziale Durchmischung zu fördern und gemeinschaftlichen Zusammenhalt zu stärken. Mit Klarheit und Umsicht begegnet das Projekt einer extremen Ausgangslage – ohne sie zu vereinfachen – und formuliert eine lokal verankerte, konkret umsetzbare und übertragbare Antwort auf eine globale Herausforderung. Es versteht Wohnen als kollektiven Prozess, in dem Autonomie, Solidarität, Erinnerung und Entwurf zu einem zukunftsfähigen Modell zusammenfinden.

In Anlehnung an Christian Norberg-Schulz’ Idee vom Genius Loci geht es darum, den Geist des Ortes neu zu deuten und zu beleben. «Linha do Sal» ist eine lineare Infrastruktur, die ein 26 Hektar grosses Fragment der 360 Hektar umfassenden Salzlandschaft Alcochetes reaktiviert. Die Struktur orientiert sich an der Geometrie und Morphologie der Landschaft. Sie ist einerseits geradlinig und konstruktiv klar, andererseits bewusst fragmentiert und organisch in den Übergängen. Mineralische Fundamente tragen ein korrosionsresistentes Holzfachwerk aus metallarmen, reinen Holzverbindungen – robust, verankert und zugleich wandelbar in der Zeit. Als infrastruktureller Palimpsest ist das Projekt auf zeitliche Transformation angelegt: Heute dient es der kulturellen Reaktivierung, in naher Zukunft – mit steigendem Meeresspiegel – wird es als erhöhter Pfad durch überflutete Salinen fungieren. In ferner Zeit bleibt die mineralische Struktur als anthropomorphes Artefakt bestehen – ein stilles Zeugnis einer neu gedachten Salzkultur des 21. Jahrhunderts.

This project understands the need to re-establish access to landmarks and making them once again part of the village’s living memory. At the same time, the project addresses a broader territorial goal: creating continuity along the fragmented riverfront, making it more accessible and integrated into a metropolitan and cultural network. An unstable cliff with traces of past human interventions such as buttresses and retaining walls suggest a solution. The design introduces a new vertical connection, both infrastructural and architectural. This Project proposes architecture that is both new and ancient, rooted in the deep memory of the landscape. It transforms an obstacle into a journey, turning geological constraint into architectural potential. The path it creates is more than just physical access: it is a temporal bridge, connecting the present-day village to the prehistoric past and to a renewed future as part of a larger cultural network along the Tejo.

Basler Paradies is a housing co-operative offering approximately 150 double-height residential units, incorporating maisonettes, studios, flat-sharing cooperatives, townhouses, and family flats. Forming a block with shared balconies and terraces, the generous courtyard hosts communal areas such as a woodworking workshop, bicycle atelier, green house, and vegetable garden. Everyone has their own vision of paradise; the project provides the possibilities to build your own. A temple of columns, a structure in its pure sense; the building is based on a grid system, consisting of vertical and horizontal prefabricated elements. Full circle material recycling is envisioned; demolition, separation, production, and construction are all planned to be carried out on-site. Thanks to the structural redundancy of the elements, which allow an open, flexible floor plan design, this results in open, contemporary typologies that encourage further appropriation and adaptation.

The project, inspired by an anecdote of a tree, a moth, and a bird explores how biodiversity fosters social connection, offering a series of targeted interventions in five urban conditions identified within the Gundeldingen neighbourhood: the primary axis, Güterstrasse, extending to the intersection with Reinacherstrasse; the vertical secondary axes; Tellplatz square and the courtyards of perimeter blocks. For each condition, the project offers a transformation of its urban asset, starting with a change in materiality, a redistribution of green spaces, and a transformation of the street from a space exclusively used for transit to a space for social interactions. The final objective of these proposals is to tackle upcoming temperature issues and their consequences on biodiversity’s survival in densely populated and built environments, while cherishing and protecting Gundeldingen’s urban unicity.

This project investigates the latent potential of Basel’s backyards (Hinterhöfe) by repurposing existing structures such as garages and old workshop buildings—remnants of 20th-century infrastructure. The initiative aims to reimagine property ownership and proposes transforming these garages into new, low-profit housing units, thereby revitalising the courtyards as semi-public spaces. The individual living units are designed with a lightweight and easily disassembled construction system. Beyond the housing units, the courtyard is enhanced with café and office spaces, fostering a vibrant microcosm and promoting diversity. This transformation also results in new connecting routes within the city fabric, providing a seamless link between Klingelbergstrasse and Maiengasse. These new pathways enhance urban mobility and accessibility, integrating the courtyard development more cohesively into the surrounding urban landscape.

Highwaytopia emerges from the opportunity that the Grenzacherstrasse offers to rethink our perception of highway infrastructure. The Rheintunnel plan allows the decommissioning of a central Basel motorway, inspiring new uses for such milieus. By reducing travel speed, the highway becomes a multifunctional backbone with a tramline, bike path, and pedestrian strip. Subtracting some of the built substance of the highway’s concrete viaducts, which cast a strong shadow, is the genesis for a new type of landscape that rises from beneath the overpass. This new penumbra landscape is defined by the interplay between light and shadows. Small music follies set on the highway replace car noises with music of the community. This parade of follies reflects the ephemeral nature of parades, becoming the new scenography of the highway until future experiments arise from needs that are yet to be known. This research sought opportunities to repurpose underused infrastructure in the realm of the ugly and uncanny.