News

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? 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.

It is with great sadness that we learned of the sudden passing of Kees van der Linden. We extend our deepest sympathies to his loved ones, family, and friends during this difficult time.

We have quite a housing problem to solve in the Netherlands. How is it possible we don’t have packed metropolises with skyscrapers? And will that change in the future? University of the Netherlands travelled to Rotterdam with senior lecturer in area development Tom Daamen to delve into this.

After a year-long tour as part of '100 Years of Myth Maison d'Artiste', the scale model has now returned to the faculty.

Last Tuesday, 2 April, TU Delft's Vision Team Wonen (Housing) presented their report 'Room for Housing: towards an integrated approach to the Dutch housing challenge’. Vision Team Wonen was set up by the Rector Magnificus in 2023 to address the growing housing crisis in the Netherlands. The team includes experts from CEG, TPM, IDE, and every department of our faculty. It was coordinated by Dr Gerard van Bortel (MBE) and Ulf Hackauf (Urbanism).

BK professors Philomena Bluyssen and Atze Boerstra joined forces with a global network of 37 fellow experts on the indoor environment. Their collective paper, published in Science, calls for improved monitoring and regulating of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in public spaces. It unequivocally states that “mandatory standards would result in immense benefits to the health and productivity of people around the world.”

The Netherlands is suffering from an ever-worsening housing crisis, but at the same time many buildings stand empty. The book ‘Transformation into Housing’, edited by four BK researchers, provides a thorough overview of the feasibility and sustainability of transforming these buildings into homes.