The 4CITIES Master’s Thesis
A unique piece of independent research that proves students have developed the skills and knowledge to do scientific research in the field of urban studies, the thesis consists of a well written text in English that has the potential to be published in an academic journal. Students will also demonstrate their speaking skills by defending their thesis during a public session. A thesis judged to be of very good or excellent quality is a strong indicator that the student is fit for an academic career as researcher. The thesis accounts for 30 ECTS out of the program total of 120 ECTS.
Students select their own topic of research, and should consider their personal interests, professional expectations, disciplinary background, and the capacity of 4CITIES staff to supervise a certain topic. The topic should be in the field of urban studies, and will ideally make use of a student’s previous disciplinary expertise while exploring new disciplinary grounds. The thesis should be a mix of theory and case-studies whereby students take full advantage of the European and comparative approach of the 4CITIES program. The thesis should consequently have a strong transnational and comparative angle.
Thesis Supervision
The thesis development process begins in Brussels with the selection of a topic and the pairing of students with supervisors. A series of workshops are held in Vienna, leading to the presentation of an elaborated thesis proposal. Scientific posters featuring first results from field work are presented in Copenhagen, and a final seminar on connecting empirical results with theoretical assertions takes place in Madrid before the beginning of the fourth semester. The final draft of your thesis is due in June after the fourth semester, with a public defense to be held in Vienna in early July. Along the way, various deliverables and feedback from your supervisor will keep you on track. And of course the entire teaching staff is open to speaking with you about your thesis.
Theses from previous cohorts
The titles and authors of all 4CITIES theses successfully defended in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 are listed below. Those receiving an excellent mark (18-20 in the Belgian system) are highlighted in orange and available for download.
2019 – Cohort 10
Metropolitan governance in European Conurbation: a comparative analysis of consequence of the abolishing and reconstitution of regional governance institutions of London and Copenhagen Metropolitan regions
Vincent Boannor
Private universities as urban institutions: the key relations of private higher education institutions in Berlin with their host city
Varvara Borodkina
Exhibiting the future: Relevancy and inclusivity in city museums’ city labs
Victoria Campbell
From the bed to the city: Microgeographies of homemaking on the run
Arshia Eghbali
Walking through: An analysis of six workshop participants’ reflections on their embodied experience in two urban linear parks – Superkilen and Parque Madrid Rio
Adriana Garcia Brenke
The phenomenon of supermarket housing and its relevance for housing affordability
Melis Günay
The planetary landscapes of ecology: Metabolism along the TransMountain Pipeline
Daniel Hilhorst
The Instagramization of the City: Understanding the Spatial Reflections of Digital Trends
Emma Hughes
The Nature & Extent of State and Civil Society Response to Urban Homelessness: Examining the Housing First Projects in Brussels and Vienna
Anhad Imaan
Contextual architectural practices: The case study school design in focus
Eesha Iqbal
Understanding the politics of institutionalization in alternative cultural centers: From bottom-up to where?
Soheon Kim & Sanila Pradhan
155 photos to find a river: How everyday experience shapes meanings attributed to urban rivers
Mariia Kostenko
Locating Social Innovation: The Governance of Refugee Housing in Vienna
Molly LaMorte
Expanding citizenship’ under Gobiernos del Cambio? The case of the migrant street vendors’ union and Ahora Madrid
Paola Leenhouts González-Espejo
Of placards and hashtags: dissent in physical and virtual spaces. The case of the 2017-2019 protests in Bucharest
Andrei Alberto Manca
Challenges for challengers. An empirical study of demobilizing factors influencing refugee movements in Germany
Verena Mutz
Farming in the Urban Shadow: Agricultural innovation and adaptation strategies in peri-urban Valencia and Copenhagen
Robern Padasas
Communicating the contemporary metropolis: The construction of city imaginaries in urban journalism
Natalia Pérez-Bobadilla
Can architecture be political? Analysis of spatial practices and critical theory of architecture
Sloane Pretto
The role of the urban context in the emergence and development of social innovation: The case of labour inclusion initiatives in Malmö and Medellín
Maria Alejandra Rivera
The city as an archive: A multilayered reading of the roman cityscape
Francesca Spigarolo
Urban school enclosure: investigating ‘bordering practices’ in English and Danish schools
Marcus Stevenson
Integrating informal urban settlements? Learning from Madrid and Montevideo
Felipe Suárez Giri
The Modern Movement heritage: Lessons to learn from practical conservation of the intangible heritage of modernist housing
Alexandra Tarkhanova
Pedestrian underpasses or “podzemkas” in Moscow and Bishkek: An element of Soviet urban planning and its conversion to commercial uses
Dilnoza Tasheva
Consideration of Vulnerable Groups in Limited Profit Public-Private Housing Collaborations in Vienna
Simon Unternährer
The logics of climate adaptation
Serafina Van Godtsenhoven
Contractual instruments as tools for Participation Processes? A comparative analysis of Urban Waterfront Redevelopment Projects
Brigitte Witvliet
2018 – Cohort 09
Instagram in the city: (Post-)Tourism Condition in Madrid and Berlin
Zhanna Baimukhamedova
On symbolic meaning of built university infrastructure and its interpretations by different users
Anna Katharina Beyer
Plovdiv 2019 – Cultural Governance and the Local Scene
Antonia Sophie Bourjau
Memory of 2 Cities: Representation of Medellín & New York in urban narco dramas
Anthony Calderon
Cycling promotion in Post-socialist cities. A comparative study of practices of cycling promotion in Ljubljana and Budapest
Victor Chironda
Politics with Brick and Mortar: Nation-building through architecture in Post-socialist Budapest, viewed through a Post-colonial lens
Maitri Jagdish Dore
Community Development Finance in the US and UK: Financial Inclusion or Inclusive Growth?
Mandy Eidson
Spatialities of Prefigurative Initiatives in Madrid
Maria Luisa Escobar
Coexistence and encounters in the built environment: Practices and experiences of ’living together’ in two diverse neighborhoods of Marseille
Pascale Gagnon-Boucher
The politics of international art biennials. An analysis of documenta14 in Athens and Manifesta12 in Palermo
Carolina Gatti
Digital democratic innovation in Reykjavik and Madrid: an exploration into the democratic design of online platforms in the context of the economic and political crisis
Katie Grigg
Accessing Housing: The strategies of Syrian refugees in Berlin
Charlotte Günther
Powering Social Innovation through Community Energy Initiatives? Towards a Conceptual Framework
Stephen Kent
The Importance of Playing in the City. A Comparison of Children’s Playgrounds
Kim Wan Hee
Post-socialist strategic urban planning as the meeting point of traveling ideas and intertwined geographic imaginaries. The case of Sophia City
Radoslava Kuneva
Queer Space: Inclusive or exclusive? A comparative Study of Two Public Spaces in Tehran and Madrid
Maryam Lashkari
Towards Skateboard Urbanism? Stories from Barcelona & Copenhagen
Julien Moliera
Scantiness in the Bus Rapid Transit Scheme in the European Context: Case Studies from Madrid and Leeds
Mashiat Murshida Binta Murtaza
The Spaces of the In-Between. Contested identities in the divided city of Mostar
Sara Ostojic
Displacement without placement. Street prostitution’s deracination from gentrifying neighborhoods
Adela Petrovic
Metro stations in mega cities. Socio-spatial analysis and the evolution of intra urban mobility hubs
Fausto Prezioso
The Hybrid Urban Factory: A study on mixed-use multi-storey buildings that integrate light industry and residencies in urban cores of Vienna and Paris
Rrita Pula
Walking in the city: Self and spatiality in Copenhagen and Kathmandu
Pranaya Rana
Linking Gayatri Colony and Cañada-Sector 6. The Politics of Urban Citizenship in Informal Settlements of Delhi and Madrid
Daniel Rosenblum
Freegan practices for all: Towards institutionalisation, democratisation and appropriation. A comparative analysis of two anti- food waste initiatives in Copenhagen and Paris
Noémie Siefert
Discursive dread. Construction of urban fear and the ability of public spaces to mitigate it
Maciej Świderski
Local Habits and Global Resources: Reading the urban cultural economy through the Specialty Coffee industry in Madrid and Copenhagen
Fresia Vargas Chunga
Beyond Guggenheim Effect: A Social and Political Inquiry into Museum and City – The case of Migration in the City Museum Movement in Europe
Zhang Yiwu
2017 – Cohort 08
Geographies of Transnational Urban Black Consciousness Through Artists and Activists: Mapping Self-Directed Blackness in Vienna, Brussels, and Oakland
Teju Adisa-Farrar
Collectivizing Care at the Local Level: A Critical Perspective on the Changing Role of the Social Economy in Local Care Policy
Laura Baets
Gender and the City: Intersectionality and Gender Mainstreaming
Safaa Charafi
Between @SOSCarabanchel and #BerlinMemorial: Locating Urban Memory, Conflict, and Digital Space in Berlin & Madrid
Scott Durno-Couturier
Changing Informal Neighborhoods: Social Production of Space and Reterritorialization of the Poor
Tatiana Efremenko
The Financialization of Housing in Madrid & Kyiv
Pavlo Fedoriv
Comparing the Models of Metropolitan Governance: Analysis of Metropolitan Spatial Planning in Madrid and the Ballungsraum Frankfurt RheinMain
Andres Jurado Aguilar
Urban Regeneration and Conflict
Liubov Krutenko
Perceptions of Space in Community-Organized Public Places
Nejc Kugler
Security Theaters in Istanbul and Brussels: The Spectacle of Government Ideology
Damon Major
Towards Anti-Austerity Urbanism? Housing Policy in the Spanish “Ciudades del Cambio”
Laura Martinez Alonso
Assembling the Smart City: The Networks Behind the Narrative
Juan Sebastian Orozco
Architecture of Displacement: Cities of Refuge – Sanctuary or Ghetto?
Nazia Roushan
Between Chaos and Control: An Analysis of Two Spaces of Refugee Arrival Organized by Local Volunteers in Vienna & Brussels
Rivka Saltiel
The Right to Bike: Bicycle Related Autogestion – Transformative Potentials and Limitations of Post-Capitalist Prefiguration
Lukas Schaup
Rescaling Governance, Negotiating Spatiality, and Reframing Citizenship: The Cases of Amsterdam & Islamabad
Sundas Shahid
Livability – How and for Whom? Vienna and Copenhagen According to Monocle and Mercer
Karolina Skowronek
Changing Universities and Movements of Resistance
Yannick Sonne
Reconsidering Contemporary Welfare Regimes: Scalar Transformations in the Social Policies of Housing
Christophe Verrier
Digging in Kitsch Depths: Uncovering Urban Development Projects Skopje 2014 & Inverdan
Iris Verschuren
The Impact of Urban Commons on Social Cohesion in a Neighbourhood: Comparison Between Two Terrains Vagues Appropriated by Informal Actors in Paris & Madrid
Alexandre Wilmart
EU Transnational Cooperation Programmes: Multi-level Governance and Europeanization
Wenque Yu
2016 – Cohort 07
Gentrification and Fear: Transformation of Built Emotions?
Ogül Büber
Post-socialist City and the Grassroots: A comparative study of bottom-up initiatives reappropriating vacant spaces in Budapest and Prague
Eva Esnerova
Staging Urban Europe: Bodily, discursive and scalar politics of community theatre
Peter Gehlsøj
The institutionalisation of the dirt trail: User-driven urbanism in contested spaces
Kai Giersberg
Beyond Hollywood: urban networks in film industry
Dongxia He
Political space matters: On the importance of urban spaces for the political engagement of ordinary citizens
Viktor Hildebrandt & Predrag Milic
City marathons, street races and urban governance: Street running as a new urban experience
Balint Horvath
Blurred Spaces: Shifting Exteriors
Mulghalarra Khan
Postcolonial Properties: The Production of Space beyond Dependency and Globalization in Paramaribo, Suriname
Olivier Maene
Towards Energy-Efficient Buildings: Are We Taming Wicked Problems in Existing Building Stock?
Margarita Nutfulina
Assembling the Smart City: The Networks Behind the Narrative
Juan Sebastián Orozco
Creative cluster effect: How far does it extend?
Victoria Remezkova
Urban enclosures under contemporary capitalism: An analysis of Business Improvement Districts in Hamburg and London
Harley Ronan
Copy-paste (bicycle) infrastructure: The possibility of contextless utopia?
Julie Schack
‘Ethnic landscape’ re-imagined: Imagineering diversity and neighborhood revitalization in Mjølnerparken, Copenhagen, and Rosengård, Malmö
Mariko Sugita
Reconsidering Contemporary Welfare Regimes: Scalar Transformations in the Social Policies of Housing in Vienna and Copenhagen
Christophe Verrier
The Re-birth of the Company Town: How corporations are reshaping life, work & play in the city
Razvan Zamfira & Matevz Straus
Shopping streets: Places of attachment or indifference?
Maryam Zarekeyvan
2015 – Cohort 06
Formalising the informal: Temporary use of vacant spaces
Lorena Felicia Axinte
Train station areas as new urban centralities
Veronica Conte
Another public space: A spatial analysis of migrant networks in public space
Hajra Cheema
Workers and their factories: resilient communities behind ruined localities
Sonja Dragovic
Habits in habitats: School architecture and teachers’ interactions with space in Manchester and Copenhagen
James Furlong
Commitment to pro-environmental behaviour among residents of sustainable neighbourhoods in Zaragoza and Freiburg im Breisgau
Pavel Gladkov
Density: Spatial patterns and perception
Balint Halasz
Location of social housing: Analyzing spatial patterns of social housing
Sandra Jurasszovich
Re-appropriating the city of crisis: Activism and participation in the governance of public space in Madrid and Berlin
Elina Kränzle
Tell me where you are and I will tell you who you are: Case of Muslims in Lavapiés Embajadores (Madrid) and Nørrebro (Copenhagen)
Alona Liasheva
International hub airports in Europe in the context of urban development of metropolitan capital regions: A comparative study of Copenhagen Airport Kastrup and Adolfo-Suarez Madrid Barajas Airport
Liubov Mikhailova
Barriers and opportunities of Muslim women in public spaces: Case studies of neighborhoods in Tehran and Madrid
Parissa Mokhtabad Amrei
Informal public transport: A practice of right to the city
Hala el Moussawi
Demotorisation and economic consumer culture: A contradiction in the post-modern city?
William Otchere-Darko
Local roots and transnational occupation: The potential of highly skilled return migrants to engage in new work in Budapest and Belgrade
Anja Petrovic
Urban green in European medium-sized urban areas: Analyzing the changes with a land system approach
Lucie Rosset
Spaces of interculturalism in inner-city neighborhoods: Comparative study of Nørrebro (Copenhagen) and Lavapiés (Madrid)
Ognjen Šobat
European spatial planning: From policy to project in Budapest and Vienna
Sune Wingaard Stoustrup
Tracing the democratic deficit: An Actor-Network Theory approach to urban governance networks in Madrid and Brussels
Guillén Torres
Norms in rehabilitation of port spaces into public spaces
Maëlys Waiengnier
Exploring solutions and alternatives to sprawl in two contexts: Belgium and Spain
Devon Willis
2014 – Cohort o5
The effects of architectural and planning features on sense of place as an additional explanatory factor for the process of neighbourhood marginalization
Alexander Akishin
Towards the panoptic city? The proliferation of video surveillance in Brussels and Copenhagen
Pauline De Keersmaecker & Corentin Debailleul
Housing affordability in metropolitan housing systems: The case for Brussels and Madrid
Axel Fontaine
Reality and myth of hybrid society: Diagnosing changes in behavior and urban perception in the age of geolocative media through the example of Foursquare
Daria Gilfanova
Radical planning in contexts of conflict
Anibal Hernández
Public life in mixed use developments: the postmodernist planning dream put to the test
Pepijn Kennis
Immigrants from the new EU member states: Policy reactions in Rotterdam and Vienna
Stijn Kox
The European fortress city: The socio-spatial exclusion of asylum seekers in Copenhagen, Berlin, and Madrid
Rene Kreichauf
Marketing the local: Using residence tips in destination marketing
John Mason
Provision and management of mixed tenure housing
Raphael Nagler
Reading an unordinary: A comparative study of two alternative communities in Copenhagen and Berlin
Yalda Pilehchian
Challenges to the sustainability of scaling local civic economies
Kätti Rob
Measuring social sustainability in the small-scale built environment
Louise Secher
Dura lex, sed lex: Insights from operating alternative live nightlife in Lille and Brussels
Maïna Thomas
A comparative study of the context and intentions behind the design of public space and the current spatial and visual realities in London’s South Bank and Copenhagen’s Harbourside
Kieran Toms
Built for sharing? The role of settlement attributes in the performance of carsharing stations
Peter Ulrich
Designing for safety: a comparative case study on design, safety and policy reactions in Patrimoniumshof in Rotterdam and Vincent Van Goghplein in Antwerp
Anne-Linde Van Gameren
Action and interaction in material participation: A redefinition of citizens, local governments, and mediating actors in democratic urban projects
Maud Willemen
The other dimension of living at the top: A study of contemporary residential and mixed-use towers in Brussels and Rotterdam
Hélène Ziane
2013 – Cohort 04
Between cry and demand: Class Composition and Housing Struggles in Vienna and Madrid
Jonas Aebi
Private use of public space: A comparative study in Madrid and Copenhagen
Guillermo Gonzalez Bernal
Spatial proximities and social distances in cases of vertical segregation: An evidence from Athens
Panagiotis Bourlessas
The resettlement of slum dwellers into social housing following forced eviction: A comparative analysis of cases in Istanbul and 4CITIES
Merve Cevik
The inception of planning: Encoding/decoding European UDPs
Julio Da Cruz Paulos
Crises without retail: A street level approach to a global system in Copenhagen & Dublin
Liam Duffy
A recommendation for a bicycle network in Berlin based on the guidelines of Copenhagen
Karen Etropolszky
The night to the city: Nighttime practices of socio-spatial exclusion in public spaces in Brussels and Madrid
Boris Feron
Spaces of creative autonomy? Artistic groups in contemporary urban social movements
Nina Fräser
Youth tourism in Madrid and Vienna: The lure of social media and the Internet in city marketing
Joshua Stuart Growney
Transforming urban space: Planning creative milieus with case studies from Barcelona and Vienna
Vanessa Hünnemeyer
Experiencing Libeskind’s museums: Copenhagen and Berlin
Mai Kjølsen
Order out of chaos: A comparative investigation into reappropriated indeterminate spaces in Brussels, Berlin & Madrid
Hanne Lahousse
Large train station areas in Europe as nodes and places: A comparative research of Aarhus Central Station (Aarhus, Denmark) and Austerlitz Station (Paris, France)
Louise Marzloff
Spectacular architectures versus urban conditions: Are Zaha Hadid’s architectures for Rome and Innsbruck contextual?
Clemens Nocker
Green growth networking: For urban policy learning?
Sandra Scheller
Sustainable neighbourhoods in Europe: Case studies from Malmö and Culemborg
Martin Sonck
The production of urban highways in the 21st century: Four European examples in a global context
Antoine Struelens
Transforming cities for sports mega-events: Another path to accumulation by dispossession?
Luanda Vannuchi
Compact utopias: Learning from past utopias for future eco-sustainable compact planning
Agata Walny
Social housing for the masses: Amsterdam and Vienna – The last ones standing?
Claudia Wilopo
2012 – Cohort 03
Squatters’ Movement and State: Changing Claims in Different Welfare Contexts
Ceren Akyos
Architecture on track: Station design and experience in the case of St. Pancras and Brussels Midi
Roderick Allen
Cycling urban material flows: using waste as resources – lessons from Brussels, Copenhagen, and Madrid
Aristide Athanassiadis
The urban grid: between symbolic and diabolic space
Marta Battistella
Waterways and humanity: Subjective research of urban redevelopment in Madrid and Roubaix
Elizabeth Dickman
Circular dormitories between city and private life: A comparative study of two iconic student halls in Copenhagen and Vienna
Rikke Gram Hansen
The Architecture (+art) of Signature Streets
Joshua Grigsby
Urban mega projects: Urban laboratories for new urbanity
Mohammed Hammash
Representation & perception of mapped space: The use of tourist maps in the imagining of the city
Charlotte Hofmann
Participatory budgeting and the right to the city
Wojciech Keblowski
From urban design to cultural heritage
Emilie Kleinzig
Post-Socialist or post-Fordist? The emergence of new patterns of socio-spatial polarisation in Berlin and Budapest
Bence Kovats
Power to the grassroots? A comparative study of community gardens in Madrid and Paris
Maëtte Lannuzel
Re-imaging of industrial cities: A comparative case study
Michael Luger
Social housing policy and its translation into practice: A comparative case study of public housing allocation in Helsinki
Pekka Marjamäki
Spaces for Consumption and Congregation: Topologies of Themed Consumption Spaces
Marko Marskamp
Urban carbon accounting and urban climate planning: hybridisations of nature, science, and politics
Morten Rishede Philipsen
The role of civil-organisations in the management of public parks
Constantin Scherer
Public space in motion: places of mobility as public spaces in the contemporary city
Gisèle Vervoort
2011 – Cohort 02
The role of community-based organisations in the field of socio-cultural integration: The cases of Brussels and Madrid
Aurélie Baudoux
Zinneke and Schwabenstreich: A performative approach to urban interventions
Claudia Bernhard
Unplugged City: Escaping from global networks and flows trap?
Gonzalo Cantos Mateos
Urban tourism and strategic planning: An integrated study of Alexandria and Barcelona
Muhammad el Daidamony
Railway Stations as New Spaces for Consumption
Zsuzsanna Fodroczi
The attraction of public parks in the post-modern city: An empirical study of Vienna’s Türkenschanzpark and Berlin’s Mauerpark
Corinna Friedrich
The Situationist city today: What elements of the Situationist city can be recognized in contemporary European metropolises and do these aspects bear in them potential for urban change?
Isis Frisch
Green corridors as a way to maintain and enhance urban biodiversity: how are they implemented in the field?
Nora Gosse
New developments in world heritage context: A contextual approach
Mohammed abu Hammad
Fear (less): A case study of high-rise housing estates in Vienna and Berlin
Jessica Kramer
European capital cities à la card: Selling the city via touristic city cards in Copenhagen, Madrid, and Berlin
Paula Mett
Nature and urban form: a comparative environmental history of the Hills in Perth, Western Australia, and Marka in Oslo, Norway
Christian Meyer
Re-thinking festivals: A comparative study of the integration/marginalization of art festivals in the urban regimes of Manchester, Copenhagen, and Vienna
Cecilie Sachs Olsen
Competitiveness VS. Social Balance: Gentrification as Urban Policy in Cases in Budapest and Vienna
Johannes Riegler
Spaces of Autonomy in Copenhagen and Madrid
Tina Steiger
Gentrification through market regeneration? An empirical study of Broadway Market in London and Brunnenmarkt in Vienna
Nicola Thomas
The social benefits of carfree living
Sabeth Todtli
Architecture of power in socio-spatial planning processes: the image of the network in relation to urban planning and politics
Sander Van Parijs
Urban agriculture in Copenhagen and Madrid: Practical applications and the effect of entrepreneurialism
Jacob Waltman
Crime, planning, safety: An inquiry into crime preventive physical planning in Oslo and Copenhagen
Kristoffer Westad
Architecture on display: An analysis of architecture exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2010 – between art and urban experience
Christina Zaff Juhlin
2010 – Cohort 01
Smart UniverCities: Toward a revitalized town‐gown relationship in 4CITIES (Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen, Madrid)
Cecilia Braun
The Slow City (Cittàslow) network: Decelerated cities in an accelerated world – between branding strategy and urban reality
Selina Buchka
Film and media clusters in European Cities: Case studies from Copenhagen, Vienna, and Madrid
Silvia Cazzetta
Children’s Participation in Urban Planning: A comparative study of Vienna, Copenhagen, and Madrid
Tabea Freutel
Emergence of European cross-border regions? Case of labour market integration in Copenhagen-Malmö and Vienna-Bratislava regions
Simonas Gentvilas
Belgrade and its Danube waterfront: advanced concepts and current realities
Masan Gosovic
Green roofs: sustainable answer for the future urban development?
Mariya Gyaurska
The media and the square: A Historical perspective on the mediatization of the public square
Markus Maicher
Factors influencing the development of the urban cycling: A case study of three European cities – Brussels, Copenhagen and Vienna
Jonathan Piraux
Urban energy in the framework of sustainable cities: An approach to the development of ‘smart grids’ in the cases of Spain and the Netherlands
Martina Steinkusz
