Building technology

Does architecture still belong to the architect?

Building is getting more and more complicated. Today an architect must be able to work across multiple disciplines. A new generation of architects attach less importance to ‘authorship’. Do architects see themselves as independent...

This volume is the editorial product of the project “Gentrification and Crime. New Configurations and Challenges for the City” started by a public conference held on May 6, 2019 at the Municipal Historical Archive of Palermo. This event was organized by Locus and endorsed...

It is well-known that the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) at schools affects the health, comfort and performance of school children. Considering the need for a more effective way to improve both the IEQ in primary school classrooms and children’s satisfaction, along with the positive...

In our Architectural Engineering program we seek innovative and inspiring architectural solutions for environmental and societal issues. We are driven by the need to think differently about our building culture. Understanding existing potentials, knowing the possibilities of renewal and...

This research aims to develop user-focused design principles for energy-efficient office renovations. The goal of this is to improve the quality and comfort of workspaces without compromising on energy-saving goals. Due to increasing sustainability requirements, new ways of working and...

A book about a university docent and one of his courses – why would you do that? And what is the academic impact?

The question of impact, especially as it relates to the rapidly developing culture of publications in scientific journals, should be the topic of a separate discussion....

This research is aimed at better understanding how occupants use energy in their homes from a comfort-driven perspective, in order to propose customized environmental characteristics that could improve the occupants’ comfort while reducing energy consumption. To propose such bespoke...

Passive cooling for thermal comfort in summer is a big issue in low-energy building design. An important reason is global warming because global warming increases the number of cooling degree days. In addition, the energy demand of buildings has increased rapidly due to both the improvement of...

Glass as a material has always fascinated architects. Its inherent transparency has given us the ability to create diaphanous barriers between the interior and the exterior that allow for space and light continuity. Yet, we are just starting to understand the full potential, properties and...

With a little help from my friends

What would you think if I designed a new world, would you stand up and join me? Lend me your knowledge and I’ll design you a place that can help to make a better world.

In 1967 the Beatles made a song in which they asked each other questions:...

Early 2017 I read an old book that shed a new light on the writing of this dissertation. At that time I had been working on my dissertation on and off for over five years and the end was not in sight. Ever since I took a part-time position as a lecturer in 2012, I had been engaged in a...

The building skin has evolved enormously over the past decades. Energy performance and the environmental quality of buildings are significantly determined by the building envelope. The façade has experienced a change in its role as an adaptive climate control system that leverages the...

Over the years, the consumption of materials for construction exceeded more than half of the total materials consumed in the Netherlands, and construction waste exceeded the volume of solid waste produced by households. Since the introduction of the "Ladder van Lansink" (in the 1970’s) and the...

Adaptive building envelopes can provide improvements in building energy efficiency and economics, through their capability to change their behaviour in real time according to indooroutdoor parameters. This may be by means of materials, components or systems. As such, adaptive façades can make...

This booklet is one of three final documentations of the results of the COST-Action TU 1403 ‘ADAPTIVE FACADE NETWORK’ to be published next to the proceedings of the Final COST Conference ‘FACADE 2018 – ADAPTIVE!’ and a Special Issue of the Journal of Façade Design & Engineering (JFDE).

The book “Performance Simulation and Characterisation of Adaptive Facades” responds to the need of providing a general framework, standardised and recognised methods and tools to evaluate the performance of adaptive facades in a quantitative way, by means of numerical and experimental methods,...

The thesis ‘COOLFACADE – Architectural integration of solar cooling strategies in the building envelope’ aims to shed light on the possibilities and constraints for architectural integration of solar cooling systems in façades, in order to support the design of climate responsive architectural...

Special edition in collaboration with the International Congress on Architectural Envelopes (www.icae2018.eu), which is organise devery 3 years in San Sebastian (Basque Country, Spain).

The eleven articles found in this issue were carefully selected from 50 abstracts that will be...

The ne-xt facades conference is the official International Mid-term Conference of the European COST Action TU1403 ‘Adaptive Facades Network’, an international scientific cooperation with the aim to harmonise, share and disseminate technological knowledge on adaptive facades on the European...

Driven by the need to think differently about resources, energy, power generation, the choice of materials, and user involvement, we see the built environment in a new perspective. The program, Architectural Engineering, seeks for innovative and inspiring architectural solutions for social and...

The graduation studio of Architectural Engineering focuses on the integration of (new) technology in architecture. For this purpose, the name aE/ INTECTURE® was devised, which will be developed further as a brand in the coming years. Students start with a technical fascination and translate...

What influence does the architect have in the future? Who is the master builder of the future and is the profession definitely going towards being an architectural stylist employed by the creative or construction industry? And if the architect no longer has a dominant position, is he therefore...

Architectural Engineering brings spatial, functional, social design and technical possibilities and developments together. Subjects like product design, material research, building physics, structural mechanics, computation and model and production techniques all play a major part in...

In the early 80s, I graduated at the department lead by Professor Jaap Bakema, the man that coined the term ‘van stoel tot stad’ (from chair to city). It offered me insights into the gradations of scale and different disciplines that characterize the building industry. These different levels...

In 2008, the chair of Architectural Engineering welcomed two new professors. From the start Patrick Teuffel and Thijs Asselbergs put a strong emphasis on integration. As such, integration of technology and architecture would be the key theme running through the studio. Three years later, how...

aE, Architectural Engineering teaches technology driven architectural design. It offers the possibility to graduate on a thesis design with room for technical fascinations. Since September 2008 aE has conducted graduation studios based on a set location that are extremely complex, they cover...

In 2012, the chair of Architectural Engineering welcomed two new tutors. Integration of technology and architecture is the key theme running through the studio. In this conversation, “eminence grise” Jan Engels and the new tutors Tjalling Homans and Annebregje Snijders express their views on...

Održiva i otporna građena sredina je složen sistem čije se značenje kontinualno razvija. Cilj ove publikacije je da problemu održivosti i otpornosti pristupi kroz sistematsko istraživanje različitih segmenata i razmera izgrađenog okruženja, odnosno da predstavljanjem preglednih radova...

With the aim to limit the number of ineffective designs, this dissertation has investigated the impact of architectural design strategies on improving the energy performance of and thermal comfort in high-rise office buildings in temperate, sub-tropical and tropical climates. As the...

Dit boek is geschreven naar aanleiding van de ministeriële publicatie ‘Rijksbreed programma Circulaire Economie’ uit september 2016, waarin de ambitieuze doelstelling wordt uitgesproken dat Nederland zich voor 2050 moet ontwikkelen naar een volledig circulaire economie.

Juist in deze...

Today, humankind is completely dependent on energy. Energy is indispensable for growth and life on Earth, and it is also of key importance for living comfortably – for heating, lighting, cooling, ventilation, operation of machines and appliances, for transport, etc. The major energy-generating...

Sustainability and resilience have become indispensable parts of the contemporary debate over the built environment. Although recognised as imperatives, the complexity and the variety of interpretations of sustainability and resilience have raised the necessity to again rethink their notion in...

The silhouettes of the great European metropolises are characterised by a high density of high-rise facades made of glass, metal or stone. On one hand this density stands for economic power and good employment values. On the other hand, the large sound-reflecting surfaces in the...

The springing up of freeform architecture and structures introduces many challenges to structural engineers. The main challenge is to generate structural forms with high structural efficiency subject to the architectural space constraints during the conceptual structural design process.

This pioneering research focuses on Biomimetic Interactive Architecture using “Computation”, “Embodiment”, and “Biology” to generate an intimate embodied convergence to propose a novel rule-based design framework for creating organic...

Paper is a fascinating material that we encounter every day in different variants: tissues, paper towels, packaging material, wall paper or even fillers of doors. Despite radical changes in production technology, the material, which has been known to mankind for almost two thousand years,...

Façade technology of the 20th century is related to the dissolution of the massive wall into a separation of structure and façade. Looking at the development of façade technology, after 60 years of curtain wall systems, 30 years of element-façade systems and ten years of experience with the...

Pneumatic structures are thoroughly investigated and developed during the 1960s. However, the energy crisis and aesthetic developments impeded the use of these structures as a mainstream construction method. Nowadays, they are typically used in special areas of architecture and design....

Based on the experiences of efnMOBILE 1.0 the hands-on student workshop activities and exhibitions took place in different evironments and locations encouraging new technologies and methodologies. Like efnMOBILE 1.0 the new workshop series efnMOBILE 2.0 provides the European Facade Network...

Homes are renovated a number of times during their lifespan. Although we can regard each of these renovations as new, it is more prudent to implement a future-proof solution to renovation. Current renovation practice focuses on renovating to meet current demand. Many of the renovations are...

Preparation for fossil fuel substitution in the building sector persists as an essential subject in architectural engineering. Since the building sector still remains as one of the three major global end energy consumer – climate change is closely related to construction and design.

We...