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Op donderdag 23 november presenteert het Architectural Recovery Team, ontstaan vanuit de TU Delft , het ontwerp voor een betaalbaar en aardbevingsbestendig huis voor de getroffenen van de aardbevingen in Turkije. Op basis van dit ontwerp zal in het voorjaar van 2024 een prototype worden gebouwd in een dorp in Turkije. Daarna zal het ontwerp in productie worden genomen, om Turkse inwoners die tot op heden nog geen goede woning hebben gevonden, aan een veilige en betaalbare woning van hoogwaardige kwaliteit te helpen.

Spending four days in a container to understand how people who lost their homes after the earthquake in Turkey are now living. What is it like to live in these 'shelters'? "Besides the lack of thermal insulation, there is also a lack of general insulation, because we could hear everything that was happening outside." explains Leyla van der Waarde of the Architectural Recovery Team (ART). "Our neighbors in the container camp were very hospitable and were happy for us to stay in their camp." adds Meriç Kessaf.

Last September saw the launch of Space Oasis Delft, a new Dream Team with major input from BK. Their goal: designing a fully functional habitat for more than 150 people... on the moon. "This project is so multidimensional!" says Marit Vegt, Team Manager and student at our faculty. "Besides designing, we have to incorporate engineering, 3D rendering, psychology, physical health, and even urban planning."

How can historic military systems be preserved in metropolitan areas? This, in a nutshell, is the subject of Federica Marulo's award-winning research. She recently received the Waterlines Thesis Award for her doctoral thesis.

Purchase prices rose slightly again in the third quarter of 2023, but the number of mortgages closed, and the number of homes sold stabilized. Due to the enormous tightness in the owner-occupied housing market, the widening of the maximum borrowing capacity of households immediately leads to rising sales prices. As the supply of (newly built) owner-occupied homes will remain limited in the coming months as well, the purchase price development in the coming period will also depend heavily on the changes in maximum loan capacity.

In 2024, the courtyard of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment will be transformed into an Urban Climate Grove, in the form of a tree-rich 'wadi' (Arabic for riverbed). This wadi will not only become a nicer place for students and staff, but also facilitate a whole range of new research projects. Dr Nico Tillie: "We will study all levels, from the ground to the sky and from emissions to biodiversity." And according to Dr René van der Velde, "we are going beyond the state-of-the-art... we are inventing a new type of forest."

As a child he loved making treehouses. As an architecture student he admired structures in timber most of all. He started out as a practitioner by redesigning and rebuilding his mother’s house, using discarded plywood. “That made sense because I needed material, didn’t have any money and couldn’t bear waste.” As of November 2023, Alex de Rijke is professor of Timber Architecture at TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.

On Saturday 21 October 2023 John Habraken, one of the founding fathers of Open Building and SAR (Stichting Architecten Research), passed away. John was alumnus of TU Delft and has had a major impact on multiple generations of architects since the 1960’s.

The Netherlands is struggling with major issues in the areas of mobility, housing, sustainability and climate These major challenges result in multiple interests coming together in area development. Environmental and planning law are therefore in the spotlight. On 10 November 2023, Marlon Boeve will deliver her inaugural speech, "The Environment Act and Sustainable Urban Area Development. The Proof of the Pudding.'

It cannot have been missed by anyone, but the Dutch housing market is not doing well. Numerous problems are constantly in the headlines, a " building pause" because of nitrogen, stagnant construction due to a shortage of materials or skilled manpower. A stranded rental market, not enough social housing or the rising prices of owner-occupied homes due to scarcity and higher interest rates on mortgages. The problems are numerous and complex. How to find a way out of this? Professor Peter Boelhouwer wrote an essay.