Rachel Borovska addresses the importance of designing with atmospheric elements, like wind, humidity, and temperature, in the development of cities and landscapes. Her graduation thesis Wind Woven activates wind as essential design element in her project site: an eight-kilometer long railway corridor in the city centre of Breda.
Can you (briefly) explain your choice of subject?
Wind Woven explores the potential of wind as a structuring element in urban design. Cities are constantly shaped by invisible forces, yet elements like wind are rarely considered in urban planning. I chose to focus on wind because of its critical role in regulating microclimates, dispersing heat, and supporting ecological flows. With urban heat and biodiversity loss on the rise, I wanted to explore how wind could become an active agent in creating cooler, more resilient, and more livable cities.
What or who have been your sources of inspiration for your project and can you explain this (briefly)?
I was inspired by the physicality of wind and its overlooked ecological role—especially its ability to move seeds, spores, pollen, and even spiders through the air. This airborne ecology fascinated me. I also drew from thermodynamic principles and urban climatology. Research on microclimates and urban “weather” by Prof. Dr. Sanda Lenzholzer, along with studies developed at TU Delft, and the atmospheric focus in the work of Silvia Benedito, were all important sources of insight. These perspectives deepened my understanding and helped me immerse myself in the ‘invisible’ forces that shape our environment.
Can you name and briefly describe key moments in your graduation project?
A defining moment was when I began linking the movement patterns of wind to those of water—both forces that can be studied, shaped, and integrated into the urban fabric. This comparison helped me reframe wind as something we can work with, not around. Once I began to see wind as a spatial agent—one that influences temperature, ecology, and comfort—it unlocked a layered, performative approach to design that embraces the invisible and responds to dynamic processes.
Another key moment was the presentation of the project to the municipality of Breda. Discussing Breda’s vision as a “city in the park” sparked insightful dialogue, particularly in the context of today’s densification challenges. It was a special and affirming moment that revealed a clear need—and urgency—to address wind on a broader, city-wide scale. Wind could become a guiding element in future spatial frameworks, helping to shape the future growth and expansion of cities, and influencing zoning decisions alongside green and blue networks.
Research at the city scale reveals opportunities to enhance urban ventilation and adopt climate-adaptive design. Each city has unique characteristics—like street networks, building heights, and open spaces—affecting how it responds to wind and microclimates. Therefore, interventions must be tailored to each city’s traits. These interventions can guide densification strategies, zoning, and the preservation of important landscapes for the city’s vision.
Can you (briefly) explain what design(ing) means to you?
Design, to me as a landscape architect, is about developing sensitivity to the systems and forces that shape our environment—particularly those that are not immediately visible. It is a form of translation: revealing the unseen and working with it to generate new spatial and atmospheric possibilities. The process often feels experimental, like working in a laboratory—observing environmental qualities, combining specific atmospheric or microclimatic phenomena, and allowing new conditions to emerge through design.
What could your project mean for practice? (brief reflection)
As we face intensifying climate pressures, this project offers a different perspective—one that encourages us to redesign urban environments from the invisible outward, where natural processes are treated not as constraints, but as collaborators. It invites urbanists, landscape architects, and planners to consider these dynamics when densifying, shaping public space, cooling cities, and supporting ecological processes.
A collection of guidelines for designing with wind in mind.
What hope / do you want to achieve as a designer in the near and / or the distant future?
I hope to continue exploring how climate-responsive design can enhance both urban livability and ecological resilience. In the near future, I would like to collaborate on projects that integrate microclimate awareness into urban densification strategies. In the long term, I hope to contribute to a broader cultural and planning shift—one that recognizes wind, air, and atmosphere not only as environmental factors, but as essential design elements and vital tools for spatial planning at the scale of the entire city.
The area along the 8 km railway stretch in Breda serves as a test case for three specific interventions: filtering winds from the southwest, dispersing air at the station area, and accelerating or funnelling breezes over water surfaces and under shadowy tree canopies on the eastern side of the city to help cool the warm easterly winds.
Project text
Wind Woven explores the often-overlooked influence of atmospheric elements—such as wind, humidity, and temperature—on shaping urban environments. Focused on an eight-kilometer railway corridor in Breda, an area undergoing rapid development, it investigates the critical role of urban ventilation in addressing urban heat islands and the need for cooling strategies.
The design responds to the distinct wind patterns of the Netherlands, from strong southwesterly winds in winter to warm easterly breezes in summer. It reveals how wind not only cools but also carries an entire microworld—seeds, spores, and insects—connecting ecosystems across the urban fabric. By working with these natural forces, the railway corridor is reimagined as a park-like necklace—a green-blue network weaving through the core of Breda, enhancing, filtering, and redirecting wind flows.
This vision emphasizes the importance of integrating natural processes such as wind into urban planning and landscape architecture, highlighting weather as a vital yet often silent element in the creation of resilient cities. Ultimately, Wind Woven collects insights and methodologies that can be applied across Western Europe and similar climate zones, inviting us, designers, to extend on – and dive deeper into – the invisible and silent forces that shape our environments.
Graduation
October 2022 – February 2024
Education
Academy of Architecture Amsterdam
