PULSE teaching building opens

News - 23 August 2018 - Communication

With the number of students increasing every year and the growing need to accommodate state-of-the art teaching and learning methods, TU Delft has developed its new PULSE teaching building right at the heart of the campus. Ten teaching rooms and three rooms with an informal atmosphere and special features will be available for students and lecturers in all faculties. The building will be officially opened on Thursday, 30 August.

Interactive teaching and learning

If you walk through the rooms, it soon becomes obvious that these are not classic lecture rooms, but rooms for interactive teaching and learning. In each of the ten rooms, the chairs are grouped around a table (or can be easily turned around) to enable students to work together on assignments. Almost all walls double up as whiteboards and there are numerous LCD screens to enable groups to share information. One of the rooms is even more experimental: the Technology Room. Each table has its own movable camera and two screens. This enables students to collaborate with colleagues elsewhere, for example on joint degrees – programmes that TU Delft offers in partnership with other universities.

More informal

In addition to a food market in the hall, two rooms also offer a more informal environment for people to meet. Square is a large open space where a playful variation on the ‘Spanish steps’ provides the perfect setting for discussions or inspirational lectures. The atmosphere in the Break Out is much more intimate, where students (or lecturers) can withdraw in smaller groups, secluded from their surroundings. All along the corridors, there are places for self-study, individually or in groups. The inter-faculty nature of the building encourages lecturers and students from different disciplines to meet. The building offers a total of 1,020 teaching places and 275 places to study. 

Innovation

Pulse is adjacent to the Teaching Lab opened last year by TU Delft, where lecturers can experiment and work on educational innovation. This often involves the development of interactive teaching and learning, in which students do not merely listen in the lecture room, but are expected to work much more interactively. This enables them to absorb the subject matter more easily and remember it for longer. Innovations developed in the Teaching Lab can now be put into practice in Pulse.

Design

Pulse was designed in close collaboration with students and lecturers, ensuring it effectively meets their needs. Issues discussed included the layout and facilities in the teaching rooms, preferences for catering and the atmosphere and experience of the study landscape in the building.

Energy-neutral

Pulse is the first energy-neutral building on the TU Delft campus.  A particular feature is the use of direct current, as a result of which electricity users have a direct connection to the 490 solar panels (750 m2) on the roof of the building. Climate floors and ceilings combine with underground geothermal storage and CO2-controlled ventilation to ensure the perfect environmental conditions. The direct current network in Pulse was developed in collaboration with the DC Systems, Energy Conversion & Storage research group from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS).