News

The Netherlands, recognised as a European leader in innovation, is home to more than 100 experimental environments. These environments range from controlled field labs to more open, participatory urban living labs. A consortium in which Alfons van Marrewijk (MBE) among others, has been awarded a prestigious grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to explore how various forms of innovation in field labs, such as the Green Village, urban living labs such as Engy Lab South-East in Amsterdam, and in all sorts of citizens’ initiatives, can be mainstreamed and make more impact on sustainability transitions.

On 17 September, TU Delft launched a new initiative to implement sustainable building practices across the Dutch educational landscape by bringing together educators from Dutch vocational institutions (MBO) and TU Delft lecturers.

All 24 courses in BK’s renewed bachelor’s programme are now connected to at least one Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). The most prevalent SDG in this new programme is SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), followed by SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 15 (Life on Land). In total, 14 of the 17 SDGs are linked to at least one course: a starting point for better integrating sustainability in the courses’ contents, assignments and teaching materials.

The world’s oldest and most used building material is now fashionable again, after a period of over 250 years of being ignored or scorned. After 25 years of personally trying to persuade the profession, clients and industry to use wood for many reasons, professor Alex de Rijke finally sees it emerging, ‘like Phoenix from the ashes of a coal fire’. De Rijke will deliver his inaugural address ‘A wood taxonomy for a carbon tax economy’ on Friday 25 October.

Tess Broekmans, co-owner of Urhahn urban design and strategy, delivered her inaugural address as professor of Urban Design on Friday 6 September. In it, she addressed ‘the complexity of the everyday’. After all, how can designers' visions connect better with people's everyday lives? In doing so, she also sees a new role for area developers.

An extraordinary project is underway in Indonesia's East Kalimantan province, on the island of Borneo. The hills, which were mostly covered by eucalyptus plantations just last year, are currently a tangle of roads, construction sites, pipelines, power cables... This area, comparable in size to the province of South Holland, will become Indonesia's new capital: Nusantara. Professor Steffen Nijhuis (Urbanism) visited the area as part of a delegation of the Universities Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE). He considered how LDE, and specifically Bouwkunde, can contribute to this project.

In the second quarter of 2024, the median purchase price increased by a staggering 7.2%. This makes purchase prices 13.6% higher than in the second quarter of 2023. This sharp increase is partly to compensate for the very modest price increase in the first quarter of 2024. It is also due to the scarcity in the housing market, both of existing and new-build homes, scarcity in the labour market and the large number of vacancies in the construction industry. Besides the lack of sufficient supply of homes for sale, slightly lower mortgage interest rates and strong demand for housing have been driving the current increase in purchase prices.

When you discover unexpected results during your research, you often can’t do anything with it. Because the research plan and budget didn’t allow for it. To explore these kinds of results either way, seven projects receive a small top-up grant thanks to the Impact Explorer call. This top-up will also be useful for Dr. Amy Thomas and her research about the role of gender in design of buildings and interiors.