Archive

The current Dutch housing market can be described as ‘stagnant’. There is a decreasing trend within the number of transactions and the number of sold new-build homes, as well a continuing but flattening rise of housing prices in the last quarters. That can be concluded from the Monitor Housing Market for the first quarter of 2019.

Following the Spanish civil war, Franco spearheaded sweeping rural modernisation and reconstruction. During this period, Franco had 300 ‘utopian villages’ built from scratch. Doctoral candidate Jean-François Lejeune places these villages in the wider context of a distinct South European modernism, and argues for a reassessment of this controversial heritage.

Good bridge design requires perfect interaction between all parties, but that is precisely where things often go wrong in modern practice, concludes PhD researcher Joris Smits. He argues for a role as ‘design integrator’ for the architect, to combat fragmentation of the design process.

During the Green Tie Gala 2019, professor Andy van den Dobbelsteen was awarded a top 3 position in the ABN AMRO Sustainable 50. This list reflects what has happened and who contributed the most to a more sustainable built environment over the past year.

As part of the upcoming book publication ‘The city of the future’, BK researchers Tom Daamen and Hedwig van der Linden reflected on the value of research by design for urban area development. This type of design thinking can create added value for clients on different levels of the design brief.

The new Breeze Hotel will open in a few weeks in Amsterdam. The hotel is the first building to apply ‘Earth, wind, and fire natural air conditioning’, and uses natural processes to ventilate the near 200 rooms of the hotel. The concept was developed by Ben Bronsema, and presented within his PhD research in 2013. The performance of the concept will be monitored for a longer period to further enhance the system.

A broad international debate is paramount for urban planning education. To this end, the Bridge DOCS research project aims to connect students from online courses with students in on-campus classrooms. Igor Tempels Moreno Pessoa and Roberto Rocco received a Comenius Teaching Fellowship grant of € 50.000,- to develop the necessary platform. They will start with connecting first year Urbanism students with students from the MOOC ‘Rethink the city’.

Automated mobility is likely to happen and will significantly change cities. The symposium ‘Robocar and Urban Space Evolution’ looked at automated mobility in the context of sustainability, and the future of urban planning and design. A summary of the symposium and further reflections on the theme are now available through the open access publication of the same name on the BK Books platform.

Students from BK Bouwkunde and the Czech Technical University collaborated on applying computational techniques to design and build an architectural object with a complex form. The resulting ‘Dream catcher’ is a robotically woven bio-composite structure.

For a successful intervention on cultural heritage buildings, the effectiveness and compatibility of conservation materials and techniques should be assessed prior to application. The new Heritage & Technology Lab has been set up to develop and assess solutions for the conservation of historic buildings.

As of 1 April 2019, Co Verdaas has been appointed as the new dijkgraaf of the Water Board Rivierenland. The position of dijkgraaf within a water board is the equivalent of the position of mayor within a municipality council.

Dutch housing associations are very keen on sustainability, but when it comes down to it, costs are the decisive factor. This is the conclusion of Sandra Hoomans in her PhD research. “Strategic considerations on making housing stock more sustainable should also be based on ecological values.”

A trombe wall with phase-changing materials can ensure a much lower energy consumption of buildings. That becomes evident in the DoubleFace 2.0 research project. State-of-the-art technologies breathe new life into this age-old heat control method.

In the Spring semester of 2019, BK Bouwkunde welcomes Dhaka-based architect Marina Tabassum as visiting professor. Tabassum is celebrated for her focus on local culture, climate, materials and history. On 21 March, she will kick of her visiting professorship with her public lecture 'Cross-cultural approaches in architecture'.

The Dutch Royal Institute of Engineers (KIVI) will present the KIVI Academic Society Award to Andy van den Dobbelsteen, professor Climate Design & Sustainability, on 18 March, the Day of the Engineer. Van den Dobbelsteen is awarded for his years of pioneering in the field of sustainable construction and for his distinctive presence in the debate on climate change.

In the course ‘The smell of wet concrete’, bachelor students of BK Bouwkunde explore the building site. Details of the building under construction are filmed by the students, explaining in detail how the elements are created and assembled on site.

Researchers from BK Bouwkunde and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Science at TU Delft have formed a partnership to connect Humanities and Computer Sciences. They will combine their interdisciplinary skills to connect long-term historical knowledge with cutting edge computer vision, geospatial technology, and crowd sourcing technology.

Lime-bound mortars are vulnarable to damage caused by salt crystallisation, but this can be remedied. PhD researcher Sanne Granneman discovered crystallisation modifiers mixed in with the mortar can prevent them from breaking down.

The Executive Board has appointed Prof. Dick van Gameren Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment as of 1 April 2019. He is currently chairman of the Architecture Department at the same faculty.

James O’Callaghan has been appointed Professor of Architectural Glass. The Chair of Architectural Glass deals with glass in a wider context, both in the built environment and in building envelopes. It is about pushing the boundaries of materiality, performance, form, energy, and the aesthetics of architectural glass.

At the main point of intersection between the railway and the city, stations are key elements in the organisation of the intermodal transport. The new book ‘Stations as Nodes’ explores the role of stations in future metropolitan areas from a French and Dutch perspective.

Paul Chan has been appointed Professor of Design and Construction Management. The Chair addresses questions of processes that enable whole-life thinking in the development and realisation of building projects. Future practices and accompanying new technologies are looked at from a sociotechnical perspective, exploring how they can contribute to constructing better buildings and communities.

The TU Delft Glass and Transparency group received the Encouragement Glass Award from Bouwend Nederland. The award acknowledges the importance of fundamental academic glass research to develop new solutions for the future.

From mid-2013, the Dutch owner-occupied housing market recovered at a rapid pace from the crisis in the five preceding years. In a relatively short period, purchase prices rose sharply. The year 2018, however, shows a decreasing growth or even a decline in the volume on the owner-occupied housing market and on the mortgage market.

The Smart Box has won the Smart Square design competition from the Bosch Architecture Initiative and the municipality of ’s-Hertogenbosch. The design of BK Bouwkunde students Sebastiaan Vork, Nikki de Zeeuw, and Luuk Goossen was unanimously chosen from 52 entries by the jury.

The HERILAND project applies satellites and social media to provide new insights into heritage. Satellite photos quickly provide a perfect image of the development of cities and their protected areas.

As part of the Port City Futures research programme, Carola Hein and Paolo De Martino (Architecture) will make a film in collaboration with artist and filmmaker Ollie Palmer. The film will feature interviews with key players in Naples, Rotterdam, and Dunkirk together with future development scenarios provide a view into evolving port-city region relationships.

The Global Housing Study Centre will create a living lab in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to create resilient dwelling clusters for urban resettlement. The lab has been made possible with a € 500.000,- grant from the joint SDG research programme from NWO-WOTRO Science for Global Development.

The new handbook, edited by Roberto Rocco and Jan van Ballegooijen, explores 25 cases in 24 cities around the world. In each case, informal urbanisation has played a pivotal role in how people have struggled for their right to the city and for their ‘right to rights’ as citizens.

The MOR (Modular Office Renovation) team of the TU Delft, which consists of 54 students, is working on a design to renovate (a part of) an inefficient office into an apartment that produces more energy than it uses. On the 15th of January 2019, the team revealed the definitive design of this prototype. With the prototype, the team will travel to Hungary in July 2019 to participate in an international student competition for energy-efficient residences.

Spatial integration of new buildings in an existing environment is food for much discussion, while it in fact is not about words. Studies should focus on forms and patterns, if the goal is to achieve historical continuity in an urban design, concludes Jiaxiu Cai in her PhD research.

Many cities form on the banks of rivers, but that does not mean that city and water are integrated by definition. PhD researcher Claudiu Forgaci investigated how better designed river corridors can contribute to a more resilient and more liveable city.



The winning design for a new stair case of the BK Expo physically and visually connects the exhibition space with the surrounding spaces. The design by Veerle Alkemade and Sanne Sophie Hoogkamer is the winning design of the Stylos Scala design competition.

The new BK Lab for innovations offers a creative space to develop new innovations and to make cutting-edge research visible within the faculty. The new Lab, located at BG.West.200, offers a communal space where researchers can interact and push the boundaries of their research projects.

A new collaboration with the Dutch installation sector has resulted in the creation of the Chair of Building Services Innovations. The chair will be directed to the academic development of innovative building services and support of this part of the building industry, which has a pivotal role to play in the challenges of sustainability and quality of life.

Together with producers and clients, researchers from BK Bouwkunde and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) developed a prototype circular kitchen. This kitchen can be renewed almost indefinitely and adjusted to individual preferences, meaning it is a kitchen for life.

Uta Pottgiesser has been appointed Professor of Heritage & Technology. She will continue the cutting-edge research programme on the technical aspects of architectural heritage, which is vital for the sound restoration of historical buildings.

The knowledge programme Smart Urban Regions of the Future deals with societal challenges. Two research projects from BK Bouwkunde have been funded in the latest round of the SURF knowledge programme: research into future spatial patterns of grocery shopping and research into sustainable urban riverfronts.