Sandra
Profile
Sandra van Assen is an urban planner and architect and an external PhD candidate at the Department of Urbanism at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology. Her PhD research focuses on the governance of quality as a spatial objective, bridging urban design, spatial planning and governance theory. A particular focus lies on how spatial quality objectives are translated into practice through quality instruments and quality governance arrangements.
Sandra’s motivation for her PhD project is rooted in professional practice, where she repeatedly encountered a gap between quality objectives and their actual influence on decision-making. In recent years, she has worked on a range of projects focused on the operationalization of spatial quality objectives through quality governance processes and instruments. This experience informs her doctoral research, which explores how spatial quality objectives are activated, reinforced or weakened within governance, planning and design processes, with attention to the underlying mechanisms through which this steering takes shape in practice.
With her PhD research, Sandra aims to contribute to a stronger, interdisciplinary knowledge base on the governance of quality as a spatial objective. To this end, she develops a conceptual and analytical framework for understanding the underlying mechanisms and instruments through which quality objectives gain influence in practice.
Together with José van Campen, Sandra initiated the Research Program Q-Factor. in which their PhD projects are combined with other research projects. Q-Factor brings together research on the interpretation of quality as a spatial objective (José) and research on how this quality is governed and operationalized as public value in practice (Sandra). Following the completion and defence of their individual PhD theses, they plan to bring together their research in a joint publication that synthesises insights into how quality as a spatial objective is enacted in practice.
More about Sandra
Sandra graduated as an architect from Delft University of Technology in 1999 and additionally completed a minor in landscape architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. In 2007, she specialized as an urban planner and founded her own practice. Sandra works at the intersection of research and practice and focuses on strengthening both the scientific knowledge base and the practical applicability of insights for planners, designers and students. Alongside her PhD research, Sandra works as an urban planning strategist, for a large municipality in the North of the Netherlands (Súdwest-Fryslân). In addition, she works as an independent expert for provincial and municipal authorities and organizations for spatial quality. In 2007 she founded her own practice, Sandra van Assen Urbanism, combining design, research and advisory work on spatial quality, sustainability and healthy urbanism. She has been a member of numerous quality teams and juries. Moreover, she is actively involved in education as a supervisor of master’s theses and as a guest lecturer at Academies of Architecture and Universities of Applied Sciences.
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