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The Netherlands is struggling with major issues in the areas of mobility, housing construction, sustainability and climate. These great challenges result in multiple interests coming together in area development. Environmental and planning law are therefore in the spotlight.

The staircase in the Oostserre filled with students and staff. A panel with interesting names and a very special guest: Herman Hertzberger. In honour of his 90th birthday, there was a BK Talks 'Lessons' and is the exhibition 'The Hertzberger House Photographed by Johannes Schwartz for Het Nieuwe Instituut Collection' on show. A successful start to the BK Public Programs.

This Summer, Klaske Havik was awarded a Honorary Doctorate from Tampere University, Finland, "in recognition of the study of architectural writing and of texts on architecture and urban planning”.

Four students of the BK master and bachelor and two teachers have designed an artwork with dry stackable bricks for the exhibition BAKSTEEN | BRICK in the KAdE art gallery in Amersfoort. The title of the work is 'What do you want, brick?' Does a brick want to be a wall?

The International Federation of Landscape Architecture has announced Adriaan Geuze as the winner of the premier worldwide Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award in landscape architecture. Adriaan Geuze’s outstanding contributions to the promotion of the profession in conceptual and practical respects represent the best values of the IFLA world community.

“Construction law can be seen as part of a galaxy: different parties, legal frameworks and interests all influence each other,” describes professor Evelien Bruggeman. “Balancing those forcefields is paramount to give technological developments a place in society.” On 16 September, the professor of Building Law at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment will give her inaugural speech, showing how digitisation in the built environment can find a place in the galaxy of construction law and the force field of technological and societal innovation.

The number of offered and sold new-build homes in the first quarter of 2022 appears to have fallen back to the level as it was shortly after the credit crisis (2008-2013). In addition, the number of new build homes for which a building permit was granted in the first five months of 2022 was about 15% lower than in the previous year. In the owner-occupied sector, this is even more than 20%.

For the calculation of noise levels produced by road and rail traffic and industry, a noise expert uses a 3D model of the environment. This 3D model contains information about the height of the terrain, buildings and sound-reflection/absorption properties of the soil. It can be a cumbersome process to create this 3D model. Since last year, noise experts in the Netherlands can use an automatically generated country-wide 3D dataset for noise simulation that was co-developed by the 3D Geoinformation research group, Department Urbanism.

The circular watchtower that could be found last year on the corner of the Westlandseweg and Nieuwe Gracht was demolished last month. The tower will be given a special new purpose: the wood will be used in the construction of a circular pavilion, in memory of Jacques van Marken, founder and director of the former Gist Brocades factory in Delft. The pavilion will be built this autumn in the Hortus Botanicus of Delft University of Technology.

LettUs Design Team of TU Delft proposed a winning modular urban farming concept that can be tailored to the needs of a neighbourhood with poor access to healthy food, good education and the resulting lack of economic opportunities. With their design, the team won the first prize of the Urban Greenhouse Design Challenge.