News

A new collaboration with the Dutch installation sector has resulted in the creation of the Chair of Building Services Innovations. The chair will be directed to the academic development of innovative building services and support of this part of the building industry, which has a pivotal role to play in the challenges of sustainability and quality of life.

Together with producers and clients, researchers from BK Bouwkunde and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) developed a prototype circular kitchen. This kitchen can be renewed almost indefinitely and adjusted to individual preferences, meaning it is a kitchen for life.

Uta Pottgiesser has been appointed Professor of Heritage & Technology. She will continue the cutting-edge research programme on the technical aspects of architectural heritage, which is vital for the sound restoration of historical buildings.

The knowledge programme Smart Urban Regions of the Future deals with societal challenges. Two research projects from BK Bouwkunde have been funded in the latest round of the SURF knowledge programme: research into future spatial patterns of grocery shopping and research into sustainable urban riverfronts.

Spatial quality is still too often neglected in interventions to keep the water out. That is unnecessary, concludes PhD candidate Anne Loes Nillesen. First list the technical possibilities, then develop an integrated solution in consultation with all relevant parties.

During the last week of the Venice Biennale, BK Bouwkunde organised a closing ceremony of research exhibition BK Booths. Content makers, current students and colleagues, alumni, and professionals gathered at Palazzo Mora to discover the BK Booths.

The Resilient Island Foundation was founded by five students of BK Bouwkunde. Their goal is to implement a circular economy of food and waste in the world’s most isolated communities. Their first project ‘Maldives Matter’ was selected as one of the five finalists at the TEDx Award in Amsterdam, out of 200 applications.

In the eyes of many practitioners, the architectural profession is undergoing a process of devaluation. To shed light on long-term trends within the profession, BK Bouwkunde starts a sociologic study on professionalisation of practitioners in architecture in collaboration with the ArchiScienza Foundation. This foundation stimulates activities on the intersection of architecture and science in the widest sense.

Together with the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency (CHA), BK Bouwkunde TU Delft developed a digital natural stone library. The considerable collections of natural stone of both the RCE and the TU Delft are now easily accessible. Thus, identification and application of natural stone becomes more effortless for architects, conservators, and researchers.

Every year, the Dutch Ministry of Internal Affairs awards the best master thesis on the housing market. Janneke Michielsen, alumna of the faculty of TBM, was awarded the first prize. The second prize was awarded to alumnus Martijn Nawroth, who graduated with a thesis on future proofing the housing stock of the municipality of Zoetermeer.