Archive

Ai Weiwei is a conceptual artist, political activist and philosopher from China. He was in the Netherlands for the opening of the exhibition 'Ai Weiwei. In Search of Humanity' at the Kunsthal. For lecturer Job Schroën of the master studio Extreme, this was an excellent opportunity to invite Ai Weiwei to our faculty.

PhD candidates Nail Ibrahimli and Shenglan Du are both doing research on how to advance architecture with AI. Nail builds AI models which combine photogrammetry with artwork analysis to create stylised 3D objects. Shenglan became fascinated by processing point clouds from trees, reconstructing their shapes from raw data. For her PhD, she is extending the scope to urban objects in general.

During the festive closing ceremony of BK-Archiprix, the participants for the National Archiprix, the annual competition for up-and-coming design talent, were announced. The jury selected the nine projects to participate in this prestigious Archiprix.

The Mirage is an outdoor sculpture made of more than 450 glass cylindrical columns from 70 different types of desert sand. Its realisation was no easy task and required the collaboration of hundreds of people worldwide. For the past 2 years, the TU Delft Glass Group has been working behind the scenes on the R&D of this challenging cast glass sculpture.

Did you know that many cities are also forests? You can see for yourself when you switch Google Maps to satellite mode. From this bird’s-eye view, you will notice that the average tree cover in cities often exceeds 40%, well above the lower limit of the ‘forest’ classification. Certain regions of Delft even reach 65%, which is more than most natural forests in Europe. But what kind of forest is Delft? Or, more accurately, which kinds?

Living and working in Bangladesh, “Architectural Design for Climate Adaptation” is almost more of a necessity than a choice for Marina Tabassum. She brings her personal style to it, combining knowledge of local climate, materials history, culture and community. Marina Tabassum has started as Professor at our faculty on 15 September 2023.

Today, the exhibition ‘Kom Kijken’ opens in the Oude Kerk in Delft. It celebrates both the life and work of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek as well as microbiological research as a whole. The exhibition is the culmination of over a year of effort from artists, designers, and a construction team. Integral to the project were the design and marketing by students at the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.

The second quarter of 2023 shows positive purchase price trends, as well as a higher number of mortgages taken out and homes sold. This fits within the usual seasonal pattern of the owner-occupied housing market. Therefore, this cannot yet be seen as the definitive reversal of the current correction in the owner-occupied housing market. However, there are indications that a free fall in transactions and prices is not to be expected in the coming months.

“The way we construct our buildings needs to change.” says Arjan van Timmeren professor of Environmental Technology & Design at TU Delft. Over 35% of our global greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to the built environment. A third of that amount is specifically related to the production of abiotic (non-renewable) materials such as concrete, metals and plastics. The associated challenges are not only climate related, but also concern resource scarcity, health and housing provision.

In his Delft research on the revitalization of city and country, particularly Groningen and Friesland, Zef Hemel wants to take the northern landscape with its rich history of habitation as a starting point. In the coming climate change, we must prepare for sea level rise, salinization, flooding, heat and intense drought.

De Faculteit Bouwkunde heeft twee nieuwe deeltijdhoogleraren bij de sectie Urban Design aangesteld: Anne Loes Nillesen en Tess Broekmans. Met hun praktijkervaring brengen ze waardevolle inzichten naar de academische wereld én andersom. “De TU Delft speelt een cruciale rol bij het aanpakken van grote maatschappelijke vraagstukken. Daar hebben we goede ontwerpers voor nodig.”

To mark the retirement of Thijs Asselbergs as professor of Architectural Engineering (AE&T), TU Delft's Faculty of Architecture is organising the 'Day of the New Architect' symposium in the Oostserre on Tuesday 4 July. At 16:00, Thijs will deliver his Valedictory Lecture 'about the new architect'. "I don't see this farewell as an end, but as a new beginning."

With her proposal Climate change as a game. (Co)designing with children the landscape of the future, Laura Cipriani has won the prestigious Comenius Teaching Fellowship Grant 2023. With this grant she can put her vision on educational innovation into practice.

Last Saturday the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment received the sad news that our valued and warm hearted colleague professor Tillmann Klein passed away after a long battle with cancer on 17 June 2023 in Rotterdam. Our hearts and thoughts go out to Tillmann’s wife Usch, son Jakob, family, friends, his colleagues and students. We wish them strength in this difficult time of unimaginable loss.

Shedding light on underexposed aspects of architecture and urban design in the twentieth century. That is what is envisioned by Janina Gosseye, Professor of Building Ideologies as of March 2023. She considers means such as graphic novels and oral sources to be very well suited to this. “How do political, social and economic developments influence our built environment? What does this mean for residents, commissioning parties, architects and contractors?”

On 14 June, Dick van Gameren, dean of TU Delft's Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (A+BE), Eric Uijen of Pension Fund PME and Mascha Hendrickx of Achmea Real Estate signed a cooperation agreement at the Provada real estate fair. Thanks in part to the support of PME and Achmea Real Estate, a team of scientists, including a prospective professor, at TU Delft's A+BE Faculty will be able to start honing their knowledge and expertise of designing buildings made from wood and other biobased materials.

Sustainable urbanisation, climate adaptation and biodiversity require a design approach that takes the landscape as its starting point. In short, that is what new professor Steffen Nijhuis focuses on within his teaching and research on Landscape-based Urbanism. “The landscape offers structure, ecological coherence and variety, but is also flexible and multifunctional.” Steffen further explains his research and ambition in an interview.

On Thursday 11 May, Delft University Fund organised the 2023 Marina van Damme Grant Award Ceremony. Three female Delft alumni stood the chance to win the coveted grant of €9,000. BK Alumna Ludovica Cassina did not win but she did not go home empty-handed either. Her presentation was so appreciated that she received a double runner-up prize worth €5,000, of which one is provided by alumnus Allerd Stikker via the Fortuna Fund and one by Delft University Fund.

With the BK Africa: A laboratory of the future? exhibition hosted Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft as a precursor, the exhibition in Venice brings together a selection of recent projects, research, and other initiatives that address the rapid transformation of the African continent. The work was developed by students, faculty, and partners in Africa of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.

A major challenge in the energy transition is the efficient and flexible storage and transportation of renewable energy. Batteries will play an important role in this. However, much research and innovation are still required. In order to encourage this, on Thursday 11 May 2023 TU Delft will be launching e4BatteryDelft: a brand-new platform that will focus on electrochemical storage of renewable energy – with respect for the world around us, in a way that is affordable and also totally European.

Automated technologies have driven the transformation and growth of the Dutch dairy industry. Today, this sector is questioned for its adverse effect on nature, especially in the context of the nitrogen crisis. To better address environmental problems caused by farming, it is important to understand how the use of automation and other digital technologies in this sector is affecting those places where food is produced.

In the first quarter of 2023, the downward trend in housing market prices continues. The number of homes sold in the existing housing stock also appears to be at a lower level than we were used to in previous years. Yet there is certainly no free fall in the housing market. The market is becoming calmer, giving consumers a bit more choice and increasingly they dare to bid beneath the asking price. However, the limited production of new homes in the owner-occupied sector and the continuing growth in population will keep pressure on the housing demand, making price increases more likely in the medium term.

In late November 2022, a committee of eminent experts visited the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment to form an opinion on our research (2016-2021). The committee's findings are downright positive.

Our past sometimes has controversial sides regarding heritage when it’s linked for example to the Second World War or slavery. When protecting this controversial heritage, you need to have a good plan to appreciate the different visions and sensitivities regarding this heritage. Of course, heritage experts prefer to preserve relics from the past. But what is the public opinion of people living close by this multifocal past?

Glass recycling provides opportunities for recovering materials and reducing production energy demand, but most non-container glass is currently down-cycled or landfilled at end-of-life, because glass production processes cannot accommodate the contamination and compositional variations of waste glass streams.

Nowadays, the housing crisis is high on the political agenda. But that was not the case in 2019. However, at TU Delft, the contours of the problem were already visible. Marja Elsinga (Professor of Housing Institutions & Governance) was asked to lead the 1M Homes project. The main question was: is it necessary to build an additional one million homes or can it be solved differently.

With the Groeifondsgelden (National Growth Fund), the Dutch government is investing billions in projects that will ensure long-term economic growth. Recently, the final budget was allocated for the Future-proof Living Environment program, where industrial new construction and renovation solutions are being (re)developed.

What words are needed to express what you experience when you read the IPCC reports and the newspapers? To describe a truly sustainable future? Silke Jonk (industrial ecology student TU Delft) and Elise Chalcraft (former sociology and urban studies student, EUR) created a dictionary of ten new terms. One is presented to Arjan van Timmeren professor of Environmental Technology & Design and scientific director of Resilient Delta Initiative.

Modular homes that can be quickly adapted to a family situation, cleverly reusing rubble as building material for temporary housing, setting up emergency shelters in tent camps in such a way that communities can still be together. With such housing solutions and designs came 50 students from TU Delft after an education week on earthquake-resistant building and architecture after humanitarian disasters.

The Executive Board has reappointed Professor Dick van Gameren as Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment He took office as dean on April 2019 and will begin a second four-year term on April 1 next.

Following World Water Day, there is a United Nations international conference on water in the week of March 20-24. This UN Water Conference is about accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis. Scientists and stakeholders from around the world come together at the UN Water Conference to share their knowledge. There are also several contributions from TU Delft and our faculty.

In 1923, Maison d'Artiste was designed by Cor van Eesteren and Theo van Doesburg in Paris. A world-famous design, but never built. Led by em. prof Mick Eekhout, students at the time built a prototype in 2002, which will soon be placed on the faculty's forecourt. Eekhout recently developed an innovative method by which the maison house could be realised in a 1:1 scale.

Universities in the Netherlands face a number of common challenges in managing their campuses. These include dilemmas concerning hybrid working and studying , dynamics in the numbers of incoming students, the shortage of (student) housing, sustainability and a healthy work environment. Over the next four years, the Campus NL research project will bring together these challenges to make campus management at each of the 14 Dutch universities more effective and efficient.

Currently, thousands of affected residents of Turkey and Syria are bivouacking in the icy outdoors without basic necessities. As is often the case in a disaster zone, there are insufficient suitable shelter or emergency locations to accommodate all those affected by a disaster. At the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, a team of students and experts took the initiative to use their expertise to design a modular shelter.

On the occasion of International Women's Day, with the theme of "Choice Challenge", the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Guangzhou is organising a salon exchange for female architects. The goal is to build an interactive platform between Chinese and foreign female architects and share the growth stories and valuable experiences of female architects. Caroline Newton is invited to join.

On 7 March, in the occasion of Open Education Week 2023, eight TU Delft lecturers received the award in recognition of their commitment to openly share knowledge and educational resources with the world. From our Faculty professor Carola Hein received the Award.

Excellent postdocs and recent PhD graduates who would like to apply for the Marie Sklodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (MSCA-PF-2023) are invited to express their interest. Selected candidates will receive support from our university to write a successful proposal for this call. 

No one knows exactly how Vladimir Tatlin's Tower was put together. There are only a few drawings, sketches and images of the tower. And a limited number of previously made scale models; but are they accurate? Currently, Bas Vahl (Modelling Techniques) and Peter Koorstra (Form Studies) are reconstructing and building a new scale model of this extraordinary tower in the model hall.

From February 2023, Roberto Rocco leaves the function of Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Officer, to be taken up by Robert (Bob) Gorny. Together with Cécile Calis in the new function of Community Officer, they will work as a team to help make BK an environment that fosters diversity and inclusivity in both structure and operation. We would like to look back with them on the past two years and look ahead to the coming period.