Staff

Carola Hein is Professor and Head, Chair History of Architecture and Urban Planning at Delft University of Technology. She trained in Hamburg (Diplom‑Ingenieurin) and Brussels (Architecte) and earned her doctorate at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg in 1995. She has published and lectured widely on topics in contemporary and historical architectural and urban planning—notably in Europe and Japan—and has authored several articles and books on capital city issues in Brussels, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Berlin, and Tokyo. From 1995 to 1999 she was a Visiting Researcher at Tokyo Metropolitan University and Kogakuin University, focusing on the reconstruction of Japanese cities after World War II and the Western influence on Japanese urban planning. Among other major grants, in 2004, she held a grant by the Brussels-Capital Region Government to investigate the urban location and architectural expression of the European capital function. In 2005-06 she has been working with a grant from the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy for research on Regional integration and land policies affecting the future development of Tallinn, Warsaw, and Budapest. In 2007, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue research on The Global Architecture of Oil.With an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship she investigated large scale urban transformation in Hamburg in international context between 1842 and 2008. Her current interest is the study of international networks and the transmission of architectural and urban ideas along these networks, focusing specifically on port cities and the global architecture of oil.

Carola Hein has authored The Capital of Europe. Architecture and Urban Planning for the European Union (Praeger, 2004), and has edited Port Cities: Dynamic Landscapes and Global Networks London: Rutledge 2011; (with Pierre Laconte (eds,)) Brussels: Perspectives on a European Capital. Brussels: Publication of the Foundation for the Urban Environment, 2007. Bruxelles l’Européene: Capitale de qui? Ville de qui?/ European Brussels. Whose capital? Whose city? Brussels: Cahiers de la Cambre-Architecture n 5, Brussels: La Lettre Volée, 2006; (with Philippe Pelletier (eds.)). Cities, Autonomy and Decentralization in Japan. London: Routledge, 2006/2009: (with Jeffry Diefendorf, and Yorifusa Ishida (eds.)), Rebuilding Urban Japan after 1945. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. She has also published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, books, and magazines.

Everhard Korthals-Altes has been teaching Art History at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Technology in Delft since 2005. The (international) reception and collecting of Dutch seventeenth- and eighteenth-century painting, and the boundaries between art and architecture (e.g. the representation of architecture in Dutch seventeenth- and eighteenth-century art) are his fields of special interest.

Current research includes the project: The visualization of Architecture and Urbanism in the Arts between 1600 and 1800. Community pride and urban identity culminate in streets, squares and monumental buildings. They act as a dynamic billboard that addresses citizens and visitors alike: they represent what the city (or powerful factions within the citizenry) wishes to represent. These representative qualities are greatly enhanced by the use of the visual arts which depicted the city’s most important public spaces and representative buildings. Similar illustrations often embellished maps of the city. The visual arts condensed the representative qualities of the cityscape as well as providing it with a public not necessarily living in the city - this, obviously, was the case with artistic work which could be reproduced, such as engravings.

Reinout Rutte (Roelofarendsveen 1972) is an urban and architectural historian. He studied history of architecture at the Free University in Amsterdam and historical geography at the University of Amsterdam, where he also finished his PhD thesis Stedenpolitiek en stadsplanning in de Lage Landen (12de-13de eeuw) [Urban politics and city planning in the Low Countries, 12^th-13^th centuries]. He has published and edited several articles and books about the history of the city and urbanism in The Netherlands, and about the making and mapping of the Dutch landscape. After his PhD-research at the University of Amsterdam he worked at the Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research (RPB, The Hague) on the book Tussenland [Shadowland]. Since 2004 he has been an assistant professor at the Chair History of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Faculty of Architecture of the Delft University of Technology. In 2016 he published the Atlas of the Dutch Urban Landscape. A Millennium of Spatial Development.

Drs.ir. Charlotte van Wijk (Rotterdam, 1974) is employed at the Chair of History of Architecture & Urban Planning of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft. Her activities include the curatorship of some of the faculty’s teaching collections, among which the Chair Collection is the most prominent. This involvement with collections provided as a central research theme the use of collections in education. Her educational activities include tutoring of thesis papers on various subjects derived from the collections, promoting their use in education and research.

Dr. Paolo De Martino graduated in Architecture from the Department of Architecture of the University of Naples Federico II (DiARC). After graduating he worked as an architect in Naples, focusing mainly on the reuse of the existing architectural heritage and on urban regeneration. In 2014 he moved to Delft, the Netherlands, where he completed a PhD in a dual research program between Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and University of Naples Federico II. His research, entitled “Land in Limbo”, investigates port cities from a spatial and governance perspective, analyzing the impact that actors have in shaping spatial development. The city of Naples is an emblematic case to question how to rethink the areas of land-sea interaction, at different scales, as opportunities for territorial regeneration. Since 2020 in collaboration with TU Delft, he has been involved in teaching two MOOCs entitled: (Re) Imagining Port Cities: (Re)Imagining Port Cities: Understanding Space, Society and Culture and Water Works: Activating Heritage for Sustainable Development. Since 2021 he has a teaching appointment at the Department of Architecture of TU Delft where he is tutoring students in several courses such as Adaptive Strategies [AR0110] and Urban Archipelago [AR2AA017], coordinated by Carola Hein. Paolo De Martino is a member of the PortCityFutures  research group and since 2022 he is a Post doc researcher at the University IUAV of Venice, under the supervision of Prof. Francesco Musco, working on the theme of Maritime Spatial Planning.

John Hanna is an architect, lecturer and researcher. His research addresses the spatiality of urban conflicts with a focus on Paris and Beirut. John's wider research interests include Mediterranean and Red Sea port cities, quarantine spaces, architecture and literature, and urban histor(ies) of Africa and the Middle East, particularly in relation to colonialism and nationalism.  

In 2022, Mina Akhavan was awarded the Horizon Europe - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action and is currently working on her project RePortFlows | Port(Re)Connecting Maritime Ecosystems: Geospatial Mapping of the ‘Spaces of Flows’ in Port-City Regions at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Chair of History and Complexity, TU Delft.

Imagining ports and cities as complex networks, this 2-year project will consider how globalisation, migration, digitalisation and the Covid-19 pandemic impact planning and transport in Rotterdam and Genoa. The end goal is to propose tailored policy tools that can increase sustainability and better integrate transport and socio-economic potential with spatial and social realities.

Prior to this position, I was an Adjunct Professor and Postdoc Researcher at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU), Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi).

Since 2015, I have been working with several international and multidisciplinary teams on different projects:

2020 - today | Member of the Leiden Delft Erasmus PortCityFutures programme - coordinated by Carola Hein. 

2019-2022 | Member of the European COST Action Management Committee (MC) for Italy and the Working Group Leader (WG2) in the project: CA18214 - The Geography of New Working Spaces and the Impact on the Periphery

This Action created a network of more than 30 countries and 100 researchers. I was involved in this CA from the beginning (Grant preparation and implementation) and coordinate the WG2 for over 3 years. I co-organized several (MC and group) meetings and collaborated in preparing the deliverables (reports, working papers, journal publications and edited volumes - see my latest edited volume here: https://link.springer.com/book/9783031260193

2018-2020 | Postdoc researcher for the 2-year project MOBILAGE | Mobility and Aging: Daily Life and Welfare Supportive Networks at the Neighbourhood Level. 

The project was funded by Fondazione Cariplo- Partners: PoliMi-DAStU + the University of Groningen + University of Federico II, Naples.

2020 - 2022 | Postdoc researcher for the 2-year project HAPPY | Health, Accessibility, Public Transport Policies for Elderly

The project was funded by Fondazione Cariplo - Partners: University of Insubria + PoliMi-DAStU + University of Padova.

2016-2018 | Research assistant for two FARB projects financed by PoliMi - DAStU:

• New Working Spaces. Promises of Innovations, Effects on the Economic and Urban Context. Coordinators: Corinna Morandi and Ilaria Mariotti
• New Methods for Studying Transnational Urbanism and Architecture. Coordinator Davide Ponzini 

I have disseminated my research activities through various channels, from scientific publications to presentations at conferences, seminars, webinars and podcasts. 

Since 2012, I have presented my research work at more than 20 international and national conferences, such as AESOP, EURA, ERSA, RSA, AISRE, SIU, INU, etc.

I have published in important peer-reviewed journals in urban studies (such as Cities, European Planning Studies, and Journal of Transport Geography); I have been invited to write and co-author several book chapters. I have one monograph Port Infrastructure Developments and Port-City Interface Dynamics and have co-edited two volumes.

Matteo graduated from the interdisciplinary program “Cross-Cultural Communication” at the University of Turin in 2019. After a period spent as an international volunteer, he obtained his MSc degree in “Sociology of Policy in Practice” at the faculty “Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology” at Leiden University in 2022. His master thesis built upon four months of fieldwork to analyze the perceptions and dynamics of public and private stakeholders engaged in - and affected by - port-city relationships in Schiedam, NL.

Matteo works for the Chair History of Architecture and Urban Planning at TU Delft in the PortCityFutures Centre. He is participating in the Health Port research project (Resilient Delta/Port Kickstarter) and the research program “Water Values: Understanding Culture, Preserving Heritage, and Serving Sustainable Development”.  Health Port is a seeding study developed in collaboration with the Erasmus Medical School assessing health impacts of and in port city territories linked to multiple structural, spatial, and socio-economic factors. The projects aim at developing a scientifically balanced method to understand positive and negative impacts of ports on cities and territories across a large array of domains, as a foundation for spatial planning and social interventions. Water Values is part of a collaboration among the LDE UNESCO Chair Water, Ports and Historic Cities, ICOMOS Nederland/ISC  and other institutions interested in water management, culture and heritage, working on a Blue Paper on Valuing Water, Heritage, and Culture, a professional course, and an educational game to present at the UN Water Action Decade Midterm Review 2023. 

Maëlle Salzinger is conducting the impact analysis of the Bauhaus of the Sea Sails project under the guidance of Prof. Carola Hein. Bauhaus of the Seas Sails is a Horizon Europe project funded by the European Commission. It aims at fostering a sustainable and inclusive transition by working together with local communities through cultural and inclusive activities to foster new relations and ways to live with the sea. The vision of Bauhaus of the Seas Sails is to demonstrate and archive solutions for climate neutrality with a particular focus on coastal regions as an interface to healthy seas, ocean and water bodies. Six countries take part in the project (Portugal, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Sweden) and a total of 18 partners, with representatives from local authorities, universities, and cultural organizations. Bauhaus of the Sea Sails is the sixth EU-financed Lighthouse project which aims to develop the so-called Lighthouse Demonstrators within the EU program New European Bauhaus.

In her role, Maëlle aims to co-design, along with colleagues and partners, an innovative and flexible impact assessment framework which captures the specificities of each local context as well as their progress towards a more beautiful, sustainable and inclusive transition. She conducts research on impact evaluation methods and participatory approaches, coordinates with project partners and participants across countries, and translates results to ensure accountability, dissemination, learning and evidence for policymaking.

Before joining TU Delft, Maëlle conducted research and policy analysis on climate change adaptation, gender equality and peacemaking in international affairs at ECDPM, a Netherlands-based think tank focused on cooperation between Africa and Europe. She has co-authored 10+ publications on the above topics and participated in several evaluations of EU external action programmes.

Maëlle holds a master’s degree in international public management from Sciences Po (the Paris Institute of Political Studies), France. Additionally, she has completed training courses on project management, science writing, gender and human rights-based approaches, political economy analysis, environmental peacebuilding etc.

Publications:

Domingo and Salzinger. Les initiatives du Sénégal en faveur des compétences numériques doivent prendre en compte l'équité. Commentary, ECDPM. 25 March 2024.

Salzinger. Addressing the military carbon footprint at COP28. ECDPM Commentary. 27 November 2023.

Ronceray, Tine et al. L’agenda démocratique de la CEDEAO : Canaux, leçons et technologies numériques pour l’engagement de la société civile. Paper, ECDPM. 27 July 2023.

Salzinger and Desmidt. Climate change and conflict in the Central Sahel: A shared responsibility to support local resilience. Paper, ECDPM. 6 March 2023.

ECDPM and Particip. Strategic evaluation of the EU cooperation with the Federal Republic of Somalia (2014-2021). 6 June 2023.

Salzinger and Desmidt. Gender equality in EU external action: The gender action plan and the women, peace and security agenda. Brief, ECDPM. 17 April 2023.

Salzinger and Desmidt. Sept façons de soutenir la résilience et les réponses aux crises dans le Sahel Central. Brief, ECDPM. 20 March 2023.

Salzinger. Why feminism needs an inclusivity update. Opinion article, Mondiaal Nieuws. 8 March 2023. 

Di Ciommo, Salzinger et al. Gender equality in EU external action: Leadership from the EU headquarters. Brief, ECDPM. 06 March 2023

Domingo and Salzinger. Russia’s war propaganda and disinformation: Recentring African agency. Commentary, ECDPM. 06 March 2023.

Salzinger and Desmidt. COP27 can do more for women bearing the brunt of climate change and conflict. Commentary, ECDPM. 7 November 2022.

Salzinger, Ronceray et al. From hashtags to the streets: Digital technologies for women’s political activism. Paper, ECDPM. 27 June 2022.

Salzinger. Climate responses in the Central Sahel: Three lessons beyond COP26. Commentary, ECDPM. 09 November 2021.

Salzinger. Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Mali: Birthday Blues or Renewed Hope? Article, Agency for Peacebuilding. 2 August 2021.

Hadi El Hage is an architect, urban planner and researcher pursuing his PhD at the Department of Architecture, History of Architecture and Urban Planning at TU Delft. He holds a Masters in urban planning from University IUAV of Venice and from Tongji University in Shanghai and an M.Arch from Lebanese University. His current research focuses on the intersection of climate and health in coastal areas seeking to identify a strategy toolkit that integrates health in the design of water’s edge, while addressing all the climate challenges that coastal cities are facing.

Hadi is also affiliated with the Planning Climate Change Lab at the University IUAV of Venice that focuses on land-sea interaction and maritime spatial planning and design. At IUAV, Hadi assisted in lecturing in different studios and courses in the master’s program of Urban Planning for Transition.

Aside from his academic career, he has been working at the European Cultural Centre in Venice, Italy for 6+ years in the organization of architecture and urban planning exhibitions for the ECC Venice Architecture Biennial. He is also the lead curator of architecture public programs at the Centre, namely Shaping the City Forum.

Alankrita Sarkar is currently pursuing her Ph.D. journey at TU Delft within the Department of Architecture, History of Architecture and Urban Planning, under the guidance of Prof. Carola Hein. The research is also associated with Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University and supported by Resilient Delta and the Deltametropolis Association. Her research positions deltas among the most resource rich and environmentally dynamic ecosystems. The transnational delta between Rotterdam and Antwerp, characterised by extensive ecological and economic history stands as a compelling example. The research explores the changing relationships over history between the sea and land, humans and non-human, environmental, social and economy. Aiming towards strengthening the transnational estuarine landscape values, whilst enhancing the interplay between nature-port-city-society through co-design processes between formal and informal planning procedures.

Apart from her role at TU Delft, Alankrita serves as a Research Program Coordinator at Deltametropolis Association. She has been working with the Association since last 6 years and have been leading international/European projects and programs. Her role is to bridges the gap between research and practice, positioning the Netherlands in the European planning and emphasising cross-border thematic development focused on transitions and climate urgencies. Her interest lies in understanding the spatial design and planning systems in relation with governance, contributing to the advancement of spatial planning and design in delta territories. She has been committed for knowledge exchange and capacity building in the Netherlands, Eurodelta and Europe, learning from international networks about climate actions, planning strategies, and cross-sectoral and cross-border cooperation.

Resilience of Dwellings and the Creation of Liveable Historical Residential Areas in China

There are numerous traditional residential buildings in China, but only in the last sixty years have academics studied historic dwellings. Currently, there are four metropolises, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, in mainland China, and with a number of unique traditional residential areas, such as Hutong, Linong, and Qilou. In 1928, due to Liang Sicheng’s contribution, the first Department of Architecture in China was established and Western theories of building conservation were introduced as well. However, due to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, preservation activities were interrupted in the 1950s. Also, beginning in the middle of the twentieth century, because of their ambition to develop the economy, Chinese elites attempted to expand their cities and transformed these places in response to the demands of urbanization.

Despite learning from the experiences of other countries, an effective and harmonious development situation has not yet been established in China. The application of preservation concepts began again in the 1980s by the government; however, most contemporary architectural scholars have no clear knowledge about modern conservation theories. Even the researchers who have roots in this field might not appropriately explain and apply these theories in practice. From 1997 to 2008, some residential areas were preserved and listed as World Heritage Sites, such as the Ancient City of Pingyao and the Old Town of Lijiang. All of these sites are located in rural or suburban areas. Comparatively, in urban areas, some inhabitants are suffering from poor living conditions in high-density neighbourhoods. Indeed, this has become a common phenomenon in China’s cities. Development of modern cities is a process of capital operation. If residents who live in these historic dwellings or inhabitants who are affected by the circumstances and sites of those old buildings do not pay attention to protection issues of the traditional dwellings, then our common culture and history will eventually be eroded. The significance of protection lies not simply in displaying these historic residences, but in continually using sustainable renovation methods, and maintaining their own characteristics. Moreover, in the developing process, because of shortage of issues of funding, housing property and ambitions from governments and capitalists, attention to inhabitants’ real lives in the remaining residences will not be seriously concerned.

Accordingly, in this research, answering how to support the sustainable development of traditional residential areas will include an overview of the history of heritage, dwellings, and neighbourhood preservation, its shifting values, goals, tools, and techniques, and their influence on preservation activities over the last sixty years in China. First, this study will make an argument about the specific implications of the theories, principles and values of preservation and their changes. It will also analyze case studies— mainly in Shanghai, Pingyao and Yangzhou — to record and classify different obstacles in preserving processes and the sustainable development of historical dwellings. With these steps, this study aims to strike a balance between the preservation of historic dwelling structures and recreating approaches for continuous use in order to benefit both the economic growth in cities and inhabitants’ lives in historical dwellings.

In the last 50 years, the discovered oil flow in China shaped the built environment (urban form and architecture) and lifestyle. Compared to other countries the Chinese petroleum landscape is particular, due to its political and historical issues. Before 1988, the entire Chinese petroleum industry was organized by the central government, the Petroleum Ministry, and local oil committee. Oilfields were discovered and petroleum chemical industries were launched according to the Zeitgeist: striving for national oil independence. In 1988, the Petroleum Ministry was reorganized by the China National Petroleum Corporation, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, and China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation. Chinese petroleumscapes were partly reshaped by market influence. Now, the central government and the major three corporations intertwined together to push the development of oil industry and influence the petroleumscape.

Firstly, this research explores the evolution of the physical presences of Chinese petroleumscapes from the following viewpoints: in which manner the Chinese petroleumscape evolved by the government intersecting oil industry, to which extent the Soviet urban planning ideas influenced the Chinese petroluemscape in 1960s, and how the petroleumscape transformed after the reorganization of the administrations. In the past 50 years, numerous physical presences of oil were constructed, such as oil industrial facilities including refinery factories, oil tanks, pipelines, etc; oil headquarters, research centres, industrial ancillary facilities including hospitals, museums, and open spaces etc; and retail facility-gas stations. These facilities were planned in the cluster around the oilfields or oil-ports for easy management and efficient work. This study argues the clusters as Petropolis, because they share the regional oil infrastructures and facilities even human resources. Before 1988 the settlements of the Petropolis shifted according to the national policies. After the reorganization of oil administration, the settlements were influenced by the national policies and market.

Secondly, this research examines the transformation of mental presences of Chinese petroleumscapes from the following aspects: to which extent the Chinese petroleum mental presence was organized, how the shift of administration influenced the mental presence, and what were the changes in lifestyle. In the 1960s and 1970s, the mental presence of the Chinese petroleumscape was mainly imaginative, to promote Daqing as a study model for all Chinese industrial cities and evoke national striving for industrial development. Central government and local committees commissioned numerous artists to create paintings and photographs with the images of dedicated oil worker models or the panorama of the oil industry. These images were drawn on the walls, cited in books, and even printed on the daily commodities. After the reorganization, the mental presence tended to become more similar to other countries. The three major corporations are presented on signboards, TV shows, etc.

Planning historians explore urban structures, cultural historians study the actuality of oil, and historians of the built environment examine the regional oil influence and oil's physical presence. This research will explore these views in context.