News

Vertical farming is the integration of high-tech agriculture in buildings. SKY HIGH researches this revolution in plant production with over 23 partners. Researchers from BK Bouwkunde received a grant of €560.000,- to explore how vertical farming can be integrated sustainably in buildings and urban energy systems.

Constructing energy neutral in warm areas is near impossible without the application of passive cooling. Use Chinese rural architecture as a best practice example, proposes PhD researcher Xiaoyu Du. This type of architecture does not need energy slurping airconditioning through the smart space lay-out.

We are quite good at recycling bottles, but other kinds of waste glass recycling have been less successful. Make cast glass out of it, says PhD researcher Faidra Oikonomopoulou. It is stronger than steel and concrete; plus, it is a great, transparent building material.

To create energy-neutral cities, we need to fundamentally change how we live in our cities. The City-zen Roadshow helps to understand that it is necessary to look at sustainability from both a technological and a societal perspective.

The project SPIDER aims to promote and strengthen active learning and teaching towards open spatial data infrastructures. The Urban Data Governance Group received an Erasmusp+ grant for the three-year project, collaborating with Bochum University of Applied Sciences, KU Leuven, Lund University, and the University of Zagreb.

Alumna Rapa Surajaras won the KuiperCompagnons Gradatuation Award 2019 for masterstudents for her thesis ‘Breathe: Redefining a zone of informal settlements for Ho Chi Minh City’. Her project was selected by the professional jury from over thirty contributions to the annual competition by magazine Blauwe Kamer.

On 25 October, Monika Chao-Duivis gave her farewell speech as professor of Building Law. The day before, she was awarded the distinction Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau for her efforts towards society through her work on building law.

Public libraries are increasingly facilitating a variety of performative opportunities. Supporting ‘making’ is becoming a common feature. The new open-access publication Atlas: Makerspaces in public libraries in the Netherlands’ takes a closer look to this development.

The research project ‘PrettyFace – Exploration of aesthetics in façade design’ has been granted funding by NWO Creative Industry KIEM. The project aims to explore aesthetical aspects of façade design, with the goal of identifying and discussing parameters. These parameters can be used to develop building products for architectural application based on aesthetical preferences.

Spatial Planning & Strategy is one of the key pillars to Urbanism at TU Delft. Over the past eleven years, the integrative approach to urbanism has further solidified under the guidance of professor Vincent Nadin. A new open-access publication celebrates the achievements of the past decade.