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Glass is transparent and strong, but the melting temperature is high and the material is brittle. PhD research by Clarissa Justino de Lima shows that it is possible to improve its properties.

Research project ‘Circularcity’ explores the roles of contemporary Dutch architects regarding the circular economy in the built environment.

Heritage is important for our personal and collective experiences, also for future generations. It is not sustainable to only keep the pearls and make those more sustainable,” says Ana Pereira Roders. She and Uta Pottgiesser have been appointed next to Wessel de Jonge, creating a total of three professors on heritage at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TU Delft.

With monumental buildings, it is often difficult to estimate the building physics of the building envelope. While modifications to for example monumental solid brick facades of residential buildings can yield the desired energy savings. Researchers from the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment received €400.000,- to develop the necessary knowledge about the facades.

Energy-efficiency is at the forefront of modern office renovations, but this often comes at the cost of comfort. So doctoral candidate Minyoung Kwon has turned things around: start by looking at the wishes of the users before you design their workplace. This does not necessarily have to result in higher energy consumption.

Residential comfort tends to be associated with pleasant temperatures, but there’s much more to it than that. PhD researcher Marco Ortiz identified the living conditions we experience as pleasant and used this research to draw up psychological profiles that can be used to design comfortable, energy-efficient houses tailored to the users’ preferences.

The new consortium IEBB stands for integrated energy transition for existing buildings and has received a 13,8 million euro grant to develop affordable and user-friendly renovation concepts in the coming years. Researchers from the faculties of Architecture and the Built Environment, Industrial Design Engineering and Applied Sciences at TU Delft are developing the necessary knowledge for, amongst others, innovative renovation concepts, digitisation of the renovation process, optimisation of heat pumps and energy performance of buildings, chain innovation and implementation.

Storage facilities of museums house over 90% of the collections of most museums. The project ‘DIPOT: Digital depot’ explores how these spaces can be made accessible through VR technologies. This would help not only to open up the collection to a broader public, but also to improve the design of future museums’ storage facilities.

Mary Lou van den Berg received the NRP Master Award for her thesis on adaptive reuse of shared heritage in the city centre of Bandung, Indonesia. The second and third prizes were received by BK alumni Ditte Gerding and Tessa Persoon, respectively.

Master students Mickaël Minghetti and Karol Wojtas explored how you can live in a spectacular yet vulnerable environment. Vectorworks rewarded their design for an eco-cabin with a $1.000,- prize and free Vectorworks software and training for the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.