ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The thesis is a call for spatial practitioners to realize that Europe’s ultimate purpose is not to exclude others, but rather to make borders soft. Planners and designers have a responsibility to challenge nation states’ border spaces, drawing maps in which political entities become equally important as the spaces occupied by bordercrossers.

13.8 | Ethical considerations

Essentially, I believe urban designers should be designing and planning for an open society. An open society is a society in which people of different backgrounds freely exchange goods and information. The construction of walls and fortification of borders makes me worry that we might be headed in the wrong direction. My thesis should promote a type of spatial planning and design that is inclusive and that considers migration as a phenomenon that will not be stopped by increasing border control, but that is permanent and should therefore be accommodated spatially.

I would like to thank my first supervisor, Rients Dijkstra, for his guidance, commitment and professional knowledge throughout that helped me to thoroughly develop this project. I also want to thank my second supervisor, René van der Velde, for stepping in in the second phase of the research and enriching the project with his landscape expertise. Thirdly, I thank my third supervisor, Wouter Vanstiphout, for his creative ideas and his support in the first phase of the research.

Many thanks also to Birgit Hausleitner for leading the Design of the Urban Fabrics studio and always involving me as much as possible with the activities of the regular programme that started in September.

The work would not have been the same without the time and shared insights of Inge Gobin, who volunteers at refugee support organisations in Como, Italy. Through her I was able to reach refugees and understand the complexity of the situation a little better. I owe a large thank you to her and to all the contacts she brought me in touch with.

Finally, I want to thank the Costa family for sharing their experiences of life in (Ponte-) Chiasso, for telling me which locals to speak to, accompanying me to interviews and taking pictures for me when I was unable to go because of the COVID-lockdown.