University and MBO students build circular prototypes together
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? This was the challenge for the students of the interdisciplinary elective course ‘Circular Building Product Design’: to design a comprehensive building system using bio-based materials and then build 1:1 prototypes of these systems together with students of ROC van Amsterdam | BouwAcademie Amsterdam. The results can now be seen at The Green Village.
Within the master’s elective course 'Circular Building Product Design', students from different programs (Architecture, Building Technology, Metropolitan Analysis, Design and Engineering) work together. For one of the assignments, students were asked to design a building detail for the planned BK biobased lab at The Green Village. In groups of five, they designed a comprehensive plan for the lab including the structural system, floor slab, roof layering, external wall and windows or openings using biobased materials. Then, together with students from the ROC van Amsterdam | BouwAcademie Amsterdam, they built these designs 1:1 on the terrain of the Green Village.
The students worked for four half days on their prototypes, spread across two weeks. This hands-on experience allowed them to explore the physical and sensorial qualities of bio-based materials and the bodily experience of their transformation to building products. Furthermore, students were able to better understand the role of each party in the building process, and to craft together working protocols for organizing said process. Most importantly, materializing their design ideas gave students the opportunity to reflect on what worked and what didn’t and to learn from failure.
Photos: Marcel Bilow
Designing, engineering and making
The course coordinator Olga Ioannou comments: "The transition to a circular built environment requires architects and engineers who can determine which product best suits their goals. They may be asked to reuse existing products or create a new design using existing materials or parts of products. On the other hand, it requires knowledge of the construction industry to source materials, develop circular building products and understand how these are aligned with the design process. Therefore, we tried to develop a learning environment where architects, engineers and makers can collaborate and learn from each other. The collaboration with the ROC van Amsterdam signals our intention to address the systemic aspect of transition. We want to establish a connection between design, engineering and making."
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The Green Village provided space and helped gather the materials needed for the prototypes. The prototypes developed by the students will be on display in the Co-Creation Centre at The Green Village from 16 to 26 April.
The students were supervised by Olga Ioannou, Jan Jongert and Max Salzberger from the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment and Remon Verveer and Vincent Zijstra from the ROC van Amsterdam | BouwAcademie Amsterdam.