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Last Tuesday, 2 April, TU Delft's Vision Team Wonen (Housing) presented their report 'Room for Housing: towards an integrated approach to the Dutch housing challenge’. Vision Team Wonen was set up by the Rector Magnificus in 2023 to address the growing housing crisis in the Netherlands. The team includes experts from CEG, TPM, IDE, and every department of our faculty. It was coordinated by Dr Gerard van Bortel (MBE) and Ulf Hackauf (Urbanism).

BK professors Philomena Bluyssen and Atze Boerstra joined forces with a global network of 37 fellow experts on the indoor environment. Their collective paper, published in Science, calls for improved monitoring and regulating of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in public spaces. It unequivocally states that “mandatory standards would result in immense benefits to the health and productivity of people around the world.”

The Netherlands is suffering from an ever-worsening housing crisis, but at the same time many buildings stand empty. The book ‘Transformation into Housing’, edited by four BK researchers, provides a thorough overview of the feasibility and sustainability of transforming these buildings into homes.

It is vital to address current and future challenges in the built environment as quickly as possible. Think of heat stress, loss of biodiversity, and flooding. Therefore, we invite you to follow the new MOOC Urban Ecology Design. You will learn how to contribute to a more biodiverse, nature-inclusive, and sustainable built environment by applying nature-based solutions in designs and policy.

On Friday, March 15, more than 1000 students, mostly accompanied by their parents, visited the Open Campus day. On all faculties and in the auditorium there was the possibility to learn more about the Bachelor programs of TU Delft. Because the numerus fixus of BK was closed on January 15, most of the students at our faculty were VWO 5 students.

In her inaugural address, Janina Gosseye will reflect on what the Honeywood File, published in 1929, might look like if it were written today, nearly one hundred years after the original book appeared. Who might the architect be, and how would they engage in architectural practice? What might the commission be? A mansion for a wealthy couple, or perhaps rather a large shopping centre? In her address, Gosseye will also consider what architectural historians might learn from the way in which the Honeywood File, which is an epistolary novel, was written.

It's hard to miss: as of late, a large timeline covers a wall near the Library. Its drawings, objects, articles and much more span from 1842 to the present day. This is 'Bouwkunde in Delft: A Chronology'. Although impressive, the timeline is not intended as a complete overview of the eventful history of the faculty but rather as an accessible and inspiring impression of where we came from.

How do you design cities in such a way as to allow people to live as pleasurably and healthily as possible? Professor Machiel van Dorst combines his knowledge of architecture with a background in environmental psychology. For his inaugural address, Van Dorst argues for focusing on the city at eye level: “To a certain extent, where you live determines who you are.”

Confidence in the owner-occupied housing market among housing consumers has clearly increased over the past few months. Households appear to be less sceptical about developments in the owner-occupied housing market. The number of consumers with a negative opinion is almost in balance again with the number of positively mooded households.