Archive

In 2024, both Master Geomatics and Master MADE were assessed. Both have a positive assessment. For Geomatics, it is stated that this programme is unique because of its focus on modelling the built environment. And at MADE, challenges of contemporary metropolitan problems are assessed as very positive.

In Nature Partner Journals, ten researchers advocate the use of imagination in tackling the climate crisis. They focus specifically on urbanising river deltas, which are of great social and economic importance and highly vulnerable to climate change. "We scientists should not merely outline doomsday scenarios," says Professor Chris Zevenbergen. "Create a vision for people to believe in and work towards.”

The inaugural event of AI Insights, Reimagining Healthcare, took place on 17 October 2024. It focussed on how AI and emerging technologies can transform healthcare spaces. The event explored architects' evolving roles, the influence of data on hospital design, and the adaptation of medical spaces to new technologies.

During the Teaching Academy's Education Day, the awards were presented for Educator of the Year and Education Team Award. The team that developed the Personal Development Weeks (Persoonlijke OntwikkelingsWeek or POW) of the Bachelor Renewal won the award for TU Delft Education Team of the Year.

DigiPedia is a new digital platform designed to offer comprehensive tutorials on software and computational methods to students and life-long learners around the globe. All conveniently housed in one location for easy access.

How do we want to live in the 21st century? Society is changing rapidly, but housing is still organised according to traditional family models. Alternative forms of living based on sharing and collectivity challenge this paradigm. Darinka Czischke has received a VIDI grant for her project 'InCommon: Reconceptualising individual and collective housing preferences' in which she explores what motivates different types of people to live collectively.

TU Delft aims to become carbon-neutral, climate-adaptive, and fully circular by 2030, with a strong focus on biodiversity and quality of life. Each faculty plays a role in this mission, with a dedicated Local Sustainability Coordinator. As of mid-October, Sultan Çetin has stepped into this role for our faculty, bringing her expertise in circular and sustainable construction to the forefront of TU Delft's sustainability goals.

NWO has awarded 102 researchers a Vidi grant in total 86,7 million euros. Eight promising TU Delft researchers from the domains Exact and Natural Sciences (ENS), Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and Applied and Technical Sciences (ATS) have been awarded. This Vidi grant up to 850,000 euros will enables the laureates to develop an innovative line of research over the next five years and further expand their own research group.

Relax with a book in an easy chair or on the sofa, reading light on and cup of tea by the side, play a game with fellow students and teachers in the living room. A fireplace would not have been out of place. From Tuesday 5 to Thursday 7 November, the Oostserre will be the focal point for the Personal Development Week (POW) for our Bachelor students. Kristel Aalbers, POW programme coordinator, explains what these reflection days are for.

The water and soil system has traditionally been an important basis for the development of mostly densely populated delta areas. Climate change also changes the existing conditions of the water and soil system; this has an impact on the future spatial economic compositions of deltas and their land use. On 8 November, Professor Anne Loes Nillesen (Urbanism) will give her inaugural address ‘Climate Adaptation; an Act of Design’.

During the festive closing ceremony on 8 October, the nine participants for the National Archiprix 2025 were officially announced. The carefully selected projects, chosen by a jury, will compete in this prestigious competition for talented young designers. The National Archiprix annually showcases the best emerging design talent in the Netherlands and will be on display at our faculty in March.

Two years after the first ideas about transforming the courtyard of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment into a Urban Climate Grove, was ready to be opened. On Tuesday 1 October 2024, during a festive opening, Dean Dick van Gameren, Frank van Vliet (Delft alderman for Climate, Culture and Public Space) and Renate Geven (Asset Manager Buitenruimte at campus real estate CREFM), planted the final plants.

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.

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded thirteen young TU Delft researchers from the Science (ENW) and Applied and Engineering Sciences (TTW) domains, a Veni grant of up to 320,000 euro.

The urban environment is constantly changing. In the city, the major transitions we are struggling with as a country and planet, such as climate, mobility, energy and housing, come together. At the same time, the city is a place where we live together and where we search with each other for practical solutions to those complex and large-scale problems. Tess Broekmans will deliver her inaugural address 'The complexity of the everyday' (De complexiteit van het alledaagse) on Friday 6 September.

Heat stress and air pollution ravages cities more and more. In a new Horizon Europe project, researchers will develop a digital twin that supports decision makers to design resilient urban areas that can cope with the changing climate. Researchers from TU Delft and 18 other partners receive the Horizon Europe grant for their project called UrbanAIR.

Housing is back on the political agenda in many European countries. Many urgent housing problems need to be solved today. The Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment is hosting and organising the ENHR congress in Delft on 26-30 August 2024. This congress focuses mainly on how these problems can be solved. The overall theme of this year's congress is therefore 'Making Housing Systems work: Evidence and Solutions.'

Dream Team ‘Space Oasis Delft’ has designed a lunar village for 150+ residents. The dwellings have elements of biomimicry, contain a self-sustaining biosphere and simulate a day-night cycle as well as seasons. Smart design choices safeguard not only the occupants' safety but also their mental well-being.

PhD candidates Tijn Croon and Alex Fernández of the MBE department have been awarded Fulbright grants to spend half a year for their research at leading U.S. institutions. Both researchers are part of the Marie Curie project RE-DWELL, which concludes this May.

On Sunday, 16 June, an independent jury announced the winners of the National Archiprix 2024. Alumna Lea Hartmeyer of the Master Track Landscape Architecture is one of the four winners with ‘The Forest Formerly Known as… Parkstad’. Julia Ravensbergen (Building Technology) and Jakub Biernacki (Architecture) received honourable mentions.

Two researchers at our faculty have received grants for their research proposals. Deepti Adlakha receives a personal grant from NWO Open Science - XS for her research on the effectiveness of City climate action plans. Henriette Bier receives a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Staff Exchange 2023 for ArchiSpace, research that aims to develop reliable and safe extraterrestrial settlements together with MSc and PhD students.

Study association Stylos is turning 130 years old. After all kinds of activities at the faculty, the time has come to share the joy with the city of Delft. So from 9 June onwards you can visit a pavilion built by students from sustainable and circular materials.

In 2023, 18,000 new-build owner-occupied houses will have been sold. This is half the number of sales in 2021. Housing production of owner-occupied houses remains a major concern, as production has been under considerable pressure for three years. Still, the new construction market seems to have reached its all-time low. In fact, during the year of 2023 a slight increase in the number of new houses sold was observed.

As Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, we are at the heart of society. Major societal issues place high demands on our future engineers for the built environment. To address these and guide educational innovations, a Vision on Education has been established. MaartenJan Hoekstra and Mieke Topsom explain what this vision entails and what it will mean for students and staff.

Greening post-war residential neighbourhoods produces the biggest urban climate and biodiversity gains. Professor Urban Design and urban planner Tess Broekmans: “Making a neighbourhood compact, increasing population density, can actually make it more liveable.”

On Thursday, 25 April 2024, Frits Seijffert, professor emeritus of Building Economics, passed away at the age of 89. As an impassioned engineer and master of calculus, he inspired many Architecture students in the 1990s. With numerous examples from his own practice, he taught the first generations of Master students in Management in the Built Environment (MBE) real estate finance.

With sorrow, we have learned of the sudden passing of former colleague and emeritus professor Jitske de Jong. We wish her husband, children, grandchildren, family, friends and other loved ones much strength in coping with this sudden loss.

Perhaps not everyone was aware, but according to the TU Delft campus multi-year plan we were supposed to leave this building in about 10 years' time. That decision has now been reversed. Our faculty Architecture and the Built Environment will - also in the long term - remain housed in this beautiful and inspiring building. The news was announced last week, along with a treat of BK Biscuits for everyone in the building.

'Meet the Professor' is an annual WIJStad initiative in which professors of TU Delft visit and teach a Delft primary school class. This year, assistant professors were also invited, resulting in no fewer than five researchers from our faculty participating: Prof Dick van Gameren, Prof Marlon Boeve, Prof Steffen Nijhuis, Dr Geertje Slingerland, and Dr Job Schroën. Thank you for joining in!

The announced event on 24 April organised by BK scholars for Palestine' and facilitated by the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, unfortunately cannot take place on TU Delft campus. Given the various signals that have reached me as dean in recent days, I and the facilitating team are not confident that we can ensure a constructive and respectful dialogue. Therefore, I have made a well-considered decision not to be able to facilitate this event.

What if students from Architecture, and Building Technology worked together with students from MBO to develop circular building products? How would a systematic exchange between them affect their learning? And would it lead to designing and making building products differently?