Rico Herzog is Best Graduate 2020 of TPM
The Delft University Fund has announced the eight TU Delft Best Graduates 2021. Rico Herzog is best graduate of TPM and competed for the TU Delft Best Graduate award with his thesis 'Cities for Citizens: Identification of Public Values and their Conflicts in Urban Space'. On 11 November the eight brand new engineers from the faculties presented their excellent graduation theses during the TU Delft Best Graduate Award Ceremony 2021.
Dean Aukje Hassoldt:
‘Rico Herzog deserves this great award for his innovative research into the design of urban areas. Urbanization poses significant challenges in spatial planning. Especially because everyone prioritizes differently when designing public space. This leads to many different value conflicts. Because of conflicting values of residents or between residents and policymakers, it can sometimes take years before a project, such as the redevelopment of a neighbourhood, starts. For his graduation project, Rico identified and mapped these value conflicts and developed a model for dealing with those conflicts. This model helps decision makers to make better decisions.’
Supervisor Trivik Verma:
‘Rico was an excellent student. He has a passion for using his knowledge to understand and support social needs. Rico has this innate ability to steer a project on his own, and at the same time, be open to learning and evolving his ideas. As a result, he developed a new methodology that is at the intersection of the highest quality of interdisciplinary work. His thesis represents both quantitative and qualitative evidence, rigorously produced as an outcome of models he designed and reconciled in stakeholder workshops with policymakers. Building on his MSc thesis work, we are currently writing a research article that we intend to submit to a leading journal in Urban Studies. We expect that this will present a new direction of research that we will be embracing in the coming years. Rico has not only completed a brilliant thesis project that demonstrates his independent, ambitious, and rigorous approach, but has also brought a new vision to pursuing collaborative scientific work at TU Delft!’
