Ir. B. Valks

Ir. B. Valks

Profile

Biography

My research passion is to better understand how buildings add value to people and to organisations. I do research in the field of real estate management  and  am currently working on my PhD project on ‘smart campus tools’ which is aimed at supporting campus managers in improving the effective and efficient use of spaces on campus. Aside from my work as a researcher I am also a policy officer for the university’s department of Campus and Real Estate.  

Projects

Smart campus tools (2016 – present)

The smart campus tools project researches how universities can support their users, optimise their real estate portfolio and save energy by measuring space use real-time. The first two years of the research  have focused on exploring the subject: from defining smart campus tools and studying literature to exploring what smart campus tools are currently in use at Dutch universities, international universities and other organisations. The project is commissioned by the fourteen Dutch universities.

Designing and testing a strategy game (2012 –13)

During my graduation year I was involved in Monique Arkesteijn’s PhD project on preference-based accommodation strategy.  In her PhD, Monique proposes a methodology to improve the problem of aligning corporate real estate to the needs of an organisation. Her methodology enables the user to select the best real estate portfolio design given a set of performance criteria. My graduation project was concerned with the design of the decision-making model in one of the cases to test the methodology. 

Awards

Outstanding paper of the year award 2016 from the Journal of Corporate Real Estate

Arkesteijn, M. H., Valks, B., Binnekamp, R., Barendse, P. and De Jonge, H. (2015) 'Designing a preference-based accommodation strategy: A pilot study at Delft University of Technology', Journal of Corporate Real Estate, 17(2), 98-121. 

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Expertise

Publications