Research environment

Learning to Design the Built Environment of Today and Tomorrow

The world is in great need of specialists in architecture and the built environment who have academic and interdisciplinary training. Cities and regions face a wide variety of spatial and social challenges, including urban growth and transformation, circularity, climate adaptation and improving the sustainability of the existing housing stocks. The consequences of these issues need to be better investigated and understood both spatially and at different scale levels; future-proof solutions also have to be devised. 

The built environment has a huge influence on how people live: as a condition, a facilitator and a driver. The quality of buildings and the built environment is more important than ever. Ultimately, integrated spatial design and technological innovations have a significant role to play in creating a (more) resilient, fair and healthy built environment. These places, buildings and cities also represent fundamental building blocks of identity and culture. 

Our faculty curriculum is characterised on the one hand by our strong disciplinary fields – architecture, urbanism, building technology, landscape architecture, management & real estate and geo-information technology – and on the other by our integrated and collaborative approach. TU Delft-trained architectural engineers are not only investigative and analytical, but also focused on creative solutions, and they apply the most advanced research tools and digital data analysis techniques. Our students will be the future leaders in the field of the built environment: as designers, engineers, planners, managers, developers, entrepreneurs, and/or as researchers.

Our 21st-century alumni will continue to learn throughout their lives. More knowledge about how students study and how teachers teach contributes to students’ study success, to a richer study experience, to stronger student participation and to greater engagement on the part of the student. Types of blended learning that combine online and campus-based teaching are increasingly forming the basis of our faculty learning environment. Internationalisation continues to influence our student population, our teaching population and the curriculum itself, but the education we offer is, and will remain, strongly rooted in the Dutch design and construction culture.