Archive

Greenhouses use large amounts of natural gas for maintaining ideal crop growth conditions. BK Alumna Liesanne Wieleman and Jildou de Jong from the start-up Thermeleon, and researcher Martin Tenpierik received a Take-Off grant from NWO to conduct a study into the technical and financial feasibility of a new screening system, functioning as a passive heat battery. First results have shown a good potential for reducing the annual gas demand of the horticultural sector in the Netherlands.

Would spatially concentrating refugees on the micro-level help stimulate their integration? Carla Huisman has been awarded an NWA Idea Generator grant of € 50.000 to study this. Over the course of a year, she will compare the networks of Eritrean refugees living in mixed projects in Amsterdam with the networks of those living more isolated in Utrecht.

After the summer, the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment welcomes Evelien Bruggeman as the new professor of Building Law. In her view, construction is above all an interaction between public and private, management and technology. "Building law brings together different legal doctrines in a practical context, that's what makes it so interesting".

Klaske Havik has been appointed as professor of Methods of Analysis & Imagination at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. Methods of Analysis & Imagination holds a plea to pair in-depth analysis of diverse cultural, spatial and social situations with imaginative thinking about new spatial realities.

Primary school classrooms can be noisy places, making it hard for some children to concentrate and feel at ease. PhD researcher Dadi Zhang spent recent years finding out to what extent sound is experienced as noise and how it affects the well-being and performance of pupils. She’s also thought out a potential solution and decided to design a device aimed at noise reduction.

With pride we announce that BK alumnus Felipe Chaves Gonzalez was awarded the shared first prize at the Dutch Archiprix 2020 for his project ‘Permeable borders - Addressing multidimensional conflicts between polarized communities in Rio de Janeiro’.

Students Aleksandra Wróbel and Agnieszka Witaszek (Msc AUBS) and Kamil Owczarek (exchange students) designed the shelter, which can be folded and transported to the designated location on just one truck.

Francine Houben, founder and Creative Director of Mecanoo Architects, has been elected TU Delft Alumnus of the Year 2020.

Francine Houben, founder and Creative Director of Mecanoo Architects, has been elected TU Delft Alumnus of the Year 2020.

Students Aleksandra Wróbel and Agnieszka Witaszek (Msc AUBS) and Kamil Owczarek (exchange students) designed the shelter, which can be folded and transported to the designated location on just one truck.

New online platform Bouwflix will bring the building site to the lecture hall, clearly linking theory and practice. In this way, the new generation of architects and structural engineers starts with the right knowledge to hold their own on the building site. Petra van Diesfeldt (AE+T) has received a research grant of € 50.000,- as Comenius Teaching Fellow to further develop this initiative.

How can specific building components contribute to healthy circular material flows? PhD researcher Bob Geldermans took the case of non-bearing partitioning walls to explore how material properties, material flows, product design, and user benefits can contribute to circularity and flexibility in the built environment.

How can artificial intelligence (AI) accelerate scientific progress? Delft scientists will investigate this question in eight new 'TU Delft AI Labs'.

The Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at Delft University of Technology will accept ‘Expressions of Interest’ for hosting Marie Curie Individual Fellows. Excellent postdocs and recent PhD graduates who would like to apply 2020 programme are invited to join the excellent research environment at our faculty.

Students from Delft University of Technology, Erasmus University and Leiden University went into the Delft Kuyperwijk in March 2020 to research challenges and opportunities for the neighbourhood. With interviews, observations, and data analysis, they found that the district is very diverse in terms of design and population characteristics. The students then developed strategies for the challenges and development opportunities in the neighbourhood.

How have architecture and urban planning played a role in democracy over the course of the 20th century? PhD researchers Íñigo Cornago Bonal and Burcu Köken use the extensive archives of Het Nieuwe Instituut to answer this question. Their research is part of the ‘Architecture and Democracy’ programme, an initiative between the Jaap Bakema Study Centre, the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, and Het Nieuwe Instituut.

The Dutch market for owner-occupied houses and mortgages is getting off to a good start in 2020. At the same time, it is clear that the owner-occupied market will be affected by the corona crisis during the year 2020. However, it remains to be seen how big the effect will be.

Growth, innovation, and liveability in Dutch cities is the goal of Agenda Stad. Three new research projects of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment are using education to accelerate the development of innovative solutions to these social issues. As part of the 'City Deals Knowledge Making' programme, the projects are working on heritage workshops, connections between universities and municipalities, and a management game.

To maintain and keep a building in use, interventions are required at certain moments in time. It is usually up to an architect to consider what interventions are to be made. But what purposes do they actually serve? How do actions work out? How satisfactory is the result? The forty Master’s students taking the new MASTERMIND CRASH course, made a game of finding out.

Imagine this: you can control the acoustics of your environment, no matter the size and shape of the space around you, your access to electricity, and the type of sound you’d like to control. That is what the ADAM project prototype offers. With the use of mathematical models and 3D printing, amongst others, ADAM allows the creation of tailor made sound absorbers.

Urban rivers are important elements for urban ecosystems and for the migiation of the effects of climate change. Regenerating urban rivers proves a challenge, especially in dense downtown areas where there is insufficient space to develop natural riverbanks. Research project GreenQuays proposes a set of innovative vertical ecosystems to renature such quays.

How can citizens be involved in urban data issues? Within the Data Empowerment Design Studio, researchers, local residents, designers, and neighbourhood initiatives discuss and develop new ideas.

With her graduation project ‘Space for the brain’, Lauren Broshuis is the first student to graduate online from the MSc Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences. Her project advocates the inclusion of varying environmental stimuli in the built environment to account for individual preferences, guaranteeing grounds for focus and creativity for every brain.

Alfons van Marrewijk has been appointed as professor of Construction Cultures at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft. “The construction industry is packed with rituals, which people are hardly even aware of. By paying attention to the how and why of these rituals, you create space for change.”

Glass is transparent and strong, but the melting temperature is high and the material is brittle. PhD research by Clarissa Justino de Lima shows that it is possible to improve its properties.

"If employees can work at home for one or more days, they are prepared to accept greater commuting distances," says De Vos. It is one of the most important effects he discovered in his PhD research.

Research project ‘Circularcity’ explores the roles of contemporary Dutch architects regarding the circular economy in the built environment.

How can the energy transition be connected to creating a circular economy? Using a circular renovation module for the energy-retrofitting of housing offers a combined answer to the two challenges.

Heritage is important for our personal and collective experiences, also for future generations. It is not sustainable to only keep the pearls and make those more sustainable,” says Ana Pereira Roders. She and Uta Pottgiesser have been appointed next to Wessel de Jonge, creating a total of three professors on heritage at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TU Delft.

The World University Rankings by Subjects 2020, published today, places TU Delft's discipline 'Architecture and the Built Environment' in second place. Dean Dick van Gameren: "The confirmation of our position in the QS World University Ranking, even a rise to a higher position, is a more than deserved compliment for the continuous commitment and energy of our faculty community.”

Over the past few decades, Turkish immigrants have played a very visible role in Amsterdam’s public space, but this is changing rapidly. The elimination of minorities from the streetscape reflects the decline in the city’s inclusiveness, argues Ceren Sezer in her PhD research.

Energy simulation models are often used to help improve the sustainability of homes, but there is a slight problem with that: in reality, the predictions they make are often wrong. PhD researcher Paula van den Brom analysed actual and theoretical energy consumption in more than a million homes and developed a calibration method to improve the models at housing stock level.

Wednesday 18 March, National Tree Day (Nationale Boomfeestdag), will see the opening of the first climate arboretum at TU Delft.

Smart construction leads to better buildings and better cities. At least, that is the intention. But this will only happen if we learn from mistakes and work together to find solutions, says professor of Design and Construction Management Paul Chan in his inaugural address. The experts can’t create the perfect future on their own.

To measure is to know, especially in the energy transition. But, as professor Building Energy Epidemiology Laure Itard argues in her inaugural address, we will only truly benefit if we process the measurement data using automated systems. The smart use of big data can prevent energy systems from continuing to underperform.

At the end of 2019, the number of transactions in the market for existing owner-occupied homes is stabilising and purchase prices for existing owner-occupied homes are growing less rapidly. The number of new-build homes sold has even fallen slightly over the past two years.

With monumental buildings, it is often difficult to estimate the building physics of the building envelope. While modifications to for example monumental solid brick facades of residential buildings can yield the desired energy savings. Researchers from the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment received €400.000,- to develop the necessary knowledge about the facades.

Energy-efficiency is at the forefront of modern office renovations, but this often comes at the cost of comfort. So doctoral candidate Minyoung Kwon has turned things around: start by looking at the wishes of the users before you design their workplace. This does not necessarily have to result in higher energy consumption.

The small white building was designed as part of a two-year research project, built by students and meant to be learned from. The Product Development Test Lab has now found a new location at The Green Village on the TU Delft campus, where product innovations focused on digital construction, the circular economy and energy saving can be further tested.

Areas around cities are often referred to negatively with the term 'urban sprawl'. But it is precisely in these territories in-between that we can achieve many of our sustainability goals, says PhD researcher Alexander Wandl. We just have to learn to plan them better.