Well into the twentieth century, brick and stone were the materials used. Bricklaying and stonemasonry were the construction technologies employed for the exterior walls of virtually all major structures. However, with the rise in quality of life, the massive walls alone became incapable of fulfilling all the developed needs. Adjacent systems and layers had then to be attached to the massive layer. Nowadays, the external wall is usually composed of a layered construction. Each external...
Construction is responsible for about 20 per cent of total carbon dioxide emissions and 30 per cent of energy demand; this ranks it alongside the chemical and transport industries among the biggest polluters. Sustainability is therefore one of the most significant issues for designers and architects, as well as a challenging field for innovation and research.DASHgoes in search of the ideal eco house: from solar houses to Superuse, from Cradle-to- Cradle to support-infill systems and...
Dick van Gameren, Dirk van den Heuvel, Frederique van Andel (Volume editor)
What are the reasons for architects in different times, regions and circumstances harking back to images, forms or construction methods from the past? And what means do architects employ in order to achieve the intended effect? These are the pivotal questions in this sixth issue of DASH. Reverting to the architectural past is hardly a new phenomenon. Old forms have served as inspiration at many junctures in the history of architecture: as a protest against dominant views, as a means to...
Dick van Gameren, Harald Mooij, Annenies Kraaij (Volume editor)
This edition of DASH searches for about the best floor plan between standard and ideal. One that meets the (changing) needs of the resident, and is optimal for architects and real estate entrepreneurs. A housing that meets both individual needs, but also benefits from the production scale and technical advantages of standard housing. Is a merger of these requests possible?DASH investigates and comes up with new ideas.
Though mass customization has for some time been the magic word...
Dick van Gameren, Frederique van Andel, Olv Klijn (Volume editor)
The second issue of DASH focuses on the emergence of the luxury city apartment. The articles range from historical explorations of luxurious apartments built in Paris and London in the late 19th century and the full-service apartments realized in The Hague in the early 20th century to the emergence of enclaves for the wealthy in Brazil. There is also an article comparing the Dutch market with the market in Berlin and an account of the turbulent history of a luxury apartment complex in the...
Dick van Gameren, Dirk van den Heuvel (Volume editor)
The urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon and the dependency of buildings onÀ¨fossil fuels were the two main issues that formed this dissertation. UHI results in higher air temperatures in dense urban areas compared with their suburbs and rural surroundings. This phenomenon affects human health through thermal discomfort. Furthermore, in the Netherlands, it is estimated that by 2050 the air temperature could be up to 2.3°C warmer as compared to the period of 1981-2010. Besides, the energy...
The aim of this research is to provide an outline to address questions with regard to the transformation of planning in China that has occurred after the 1980s. The research is using “planning evolution” as the main research skeleton. The starting point is to investigate to what extent Chinese urban planning has developed after the opening up and other reforms under the state-led and market-driven modes of Chinese reformation, and to investigate how the different modes and various...
This issue of A+BE focuses on area-based asset management of housing associations. In this thesis you can find out how housing associations establish coherent intentions regarding the housing stock in neighbourhoods and what planning approaches they are using. Since their independence in the nineties of the last century housing associations have developed to social enterprises that are committed to a broad field of activity.
Nowadays, organisations must cope with the pressure of cost reduction and efficiency in order to succeed in a highly competitive business environment. However, drivers to improve social interaction and employee’s performance and as such to contribute to organisational goals and objectives make it necessary to be concerned with other performance criteria as well, such as effectiveness, flexibility, employee satisfaction, productivity and creativity. There is a growing need for performance...
An understanding of cities as open systems whose agents act on them simultaneously from below and above, influencing urban processes by their interaction with them and with each other, is replacing the simplistic debate on urban participation which asks whether cities should be organized bottom-up or top-down. This conceptualization of cities as complex systems calls for new collaborative city-making methods: a combination of collaborative planning (which already embraces various agencies...
Rapid and deep changes in society, the economy and policy over the last decades ˬare having an increasing impact on the delivery of social housing in North Western Europe. These changes are transforming the way in which social housing providers perform their task and are reshaping their relationships with the State, communities and with other market actors. The combination of continued State withdrawal from service provision, the deep and persistent effects of the global financial crisis...
‘The joint residents’ initiative aimed at renewable energy optimization has been increasing in The Netherlands. This is evident from the survey carried out for this study during 2012 of ‘renewable energy residents initiative’ in The Netherlands, as well as the changing government policy. The engineering sector is contributing to this development by introducing new types of energy systems for housing complexes with multiple households.
The starting point of the research is the need to refurbish existing residential building stock, in order to reduce its energy demand, which accounts for over one fourth of the energy consumption in the European Union. Refurbishment is a necessary step to reach the ambitious energy and decarbonisation targets for 2020 and 2050 that require an eventual reduction up to 90% in CO2 emissions. In this context, the rate and depth of refurbishment need to grow. The number of building to be...
This dissertation argues that the floods following extreme precipitation result notˬonly from very heavy rainfall but also from the significant impact of human activities on natural water systems. While most literature emphasises that the increasing magnitude of storm rainfall extends beyond the original protection standards of hydrologic facilities in highly populated delta cities. Based on the knowledge of urban morphology, this study analyses how human systems have affected the...
Recent deregulation of laws on hospital real estate in the Netherlands implies that healthcare institutions have more opportunities to make independent accommodation choices, but at the same time have themselves become responsible for the risks associated with the investment. In addition, accommodation costs have become an integral part of the costs of healthcare. This sheds new light on the alignment between the organisation of healthcare and accommodation: care institutions themselves...
Previous experiences have shown that the implementation of planning policy does not always lead to the originally intended territorial management outcomes. This issueˬis particularly crucial when policy ideas, institutions, models and programmes are transferred into places with different cultural settings without adaptations (Knieling and Othengrafen 2009b; Sanyal 2005). These unexpected consequences in planning practice and management outcomes have brought a significant amount of...
This dissertation is the reflection of the research study into urban planning structures of historic industrial complexes. The study’s aim has been to promote recognition and acknowledgement of these structures as the carriers of cultural-historical values in spatial transformation.
Apart from object value, industrial heritage also has ensemble value. Being “the field of study into the material culture remains of industrial production and technology”, the field of Industrial...
Central to this dissertation are client driven housing management from housing associations in The Netherlands and the empowerment effects this management has on its tenants. The central issue includes what client driven housing management is (definition), in which ways this can be devised, what the envisioned effects are and which effects this management successfully accomplishes. These are answered by means of seven sub questions. The focal point of this research shifts from an...
The starting point of this study concerns the origins of the polycentric nature of contemporary cities in the western area of the Netherlands, commonly known as ‘the Randstad’. Within the disciplines of planning and urban design the Randstad is considered a textbook example of a polycentric urban hierarchy. Yet, although quite a popular topic, very little is actually known about the driving forces that have given shape to existing urban hierarchies throughout the world. Moreover, the...
Building new towns seems to be a rational regionalization approach that releases pressure from overly burdened large cities. This strategy was developed in Western Europe in the middle of twentieth century. Since the 1990s, the European new town model has been widely implemented in China. However, the author questions the feasibility of the large-scale, hasty new town developments. The study of worldwide new town experiences, especially European and Chinese cases, demonstrates that many...
Due to its complexity, the evolution of cities is something that is difficult to predict and planning new developments for cities is therefore a difficult task. This complexity can be identified on two levels: on a micro level, it emerges from the multiple relations between the many components and actors in cities, whereas on a macro level it stems from the geographical, social and economic relations between cities. However, many of these relations can be measured.
This dissertation shows the potential of Additive Manufacturing (AM) for the development of building envelopes: AM will change the way of designing facades, how we engineer and produce them. To achieve today’s demands from those future envelopes, we have to find new solutions.
New technologies offer one possible way to do so. They open new approaches in designing, producing and processing building construction and facades. Finding the one capable of having big impact is difficult —...
Curtain wall constructions are one of the most applied facade constructions today. Independently attached to the primary load bearing structure of the building they protect the building’s interior from external climate conditions and allow great design freedom.
With continuously rising requirements in terms of energy savings the constructional principle has reached its limits and strategies for improvement are needed.
Incrementally evolved over time it is closely related to...
This publication provides an overview of TU Delft’s and Berlage’s most significant research achievements in the field of architecture and the built environment, produced over the years 2003—2009. The publication is produced in preparation for the Dutch 2010 research assessment exercise Architecture and the Built Environment.
It is the first joint publication by Architecture, OTB and Berlage and hints clearly at stronger future ties between the three institutes, which are...
Looking at Central European building projects illustrates an awareness of sustainability and the need to save energy. This trend is based on the finiteness of natural resources, and is thus wise to follow. Developments in this region including passive house technologies, and energy plus solutions that create more energy than they use have become realisable. But it is not increasing technological knowledge alone that supported these developments; the Central European climate makes it...
Central to this research lays the concept of private sector-led urban development projects (Heurkens, 2010). Such projects involve project developers taking a leading role and local authorities adopting a facilitating role, in managing the development of an urban area, based on a clear public-private role division. Such a development strategy is quite common in Anglo-Saxon urban development practices, but is less known in Continental European practices. Nonetheless, since the beginning of...
Besides the efforts that are of descriptive and celebrative nature, studies related to Sri Lanka’s historical built heritage are largely to view material remains in historical, sociological, socio-historical and semiological perspectives. But there is hardly any serious attempt to view such material remains from a technical-analytical approach to understand the compositional aspects of their designs. The 5th century AC royal complex at Sigiriya is no exception in this regard.
The initiative of this study derived from my concern of two critical urban issues in China today: housing and urban renewal. In the recent two decades, the Chinese urban housing stock underwent a significant, if not extreme, transformation. From 1949 to 1998, the urban housing stock in China largely depended on the public sector, and a large amount of public housing areas were developed under the socialistic public housing system in Beijing and other Chinese cities. Yet in 1998, a radical...
The aim of the research presented in this thesis was to infer design-related insights and guidelines to improve the use and effectiveness of home energy management systems (HEMS). This was done through an empirical evaluation of the longitudinal effectiveness of these devices and an exploration of factors that influence their use and effectiveness. Three case studies executed with three different HEMS in households, a life cycle assessment (LCA) on those three HEMS, as well as a reflection...
This publication provides an overview of TU Delft’s most significant research achievements in the field of architecture and the built environment during the years 2010—2012. It is the first presentation of the joint research portfolio of the Faculty of Architecture and OTB Research Institute since their integration into the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. As such the portfolio holds a strong promise for the future. In a time when the economy seems to be finally picking...
Climate change can no longer be ignored. It is globally recognised that the evidence for climate change is unequivocal and that action needs to be taken in order to address its negative effects.
These effects, such as warmer and drier summers and more extreme rainfall, may threaten the quality of life of those living in urban environments. To limit these threats, a number of climate change adaptation measures can be taken to pre-empt the negative effects of climate change.
The purpose of this research is to discover the needs a value assessment and the preceding research should fulfill, so that they may serve as a useful framework for the development and reviewing of a conservation plan for a monument. This objective has been prompted by recent developments in Dutch conservation practice and the demand resulting from this for a new understanding and process of valuation for built heritage.
In the Netherlands, but also elsewhere, the development of the...
This dissertation investigates: How urban design can be described as a collective cognitive activity in a complex living environment; How urban designers move across scales in their search for coherence; How urban designers, while moving across scales, can be subject to a variety of misconceptions and biases; How isovists and patterns can be used as design instruments to mitigate the negative effects of these misconceptions and biases; And, how urban design practice, and the concept of...
In its parallel pursuit of an increased competitivity for design offices and more pleasurable and easier workflows for designers, artificial design intelligence is a technical, intellectual, and political challenge. While human-machine cooperation has become commonplace through Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools, a more improved collaboration and better support appear possible only through an endeavor into a kind of artificial design intelligence, which is more sensitive to the human...
The residential neighbourhood is thought to affect residents because of presumed neighbourhood effects; the independent effects of a neighbourhood’s characteristics on the life chances of its residents. An enormous body of research has tried to measure neighbourhood effects, however, there are no clear conclusions on how much, if any, effect the neighbourhood has on its residents. There is non-random selection of people into neighbourhoods which causes a bias in the modelling of...
Since the 1980s China has experienced unprecedented urbanisation as a result of a series of reforms promoting rapid economic development. Shanghai, like the other big cities along China’s coastline, has witnessed extraordinary growth in its economy and population with industrial development and rural-to-urban migration generating extensive urban expansion. Shanghai’s GDP growth rate has been over 10 per cent for more than 15 years. Its population in 2013 was estimated at 23.47 million,...
Landscape design research is important for cultivating spatial intelligence in landscape architecture. This study explores GIS (geographic information systems) as a tool for landscape design research - investigating landscape designs to understand them as architectonic compositions (architectonic plan analysis). The concept ‘composition’ refers to a conceivable arrangement, an architectural expression of a mental construct that is legible and open to interpretation. Landscape architectonic...
Die jí¼ngste Deregulierung der Gesetze in den Niederlanden in Bezug auf Krankenhausimmobilien impliziert dass Institutionen der Gesundheitspflege mehr Mãglichkeiten haben Einrichtungsentscheidungen zu treffen, wobei sie jedoch gleichzeitig selbst die Verantwortung fí¼r die Risiken in Verbindung mit den Investitionen í¼bernehmen mí¼ssen. Zusätzlich wurden Einrichtungskosten integraler Bestandteil der Kosten der Gesundheitsversorgung. Dies gibt Aufschluss í¼ber die Angleichung zwischen der...
High-tech development–which lies at the very heart of the processes of economic growth–has been recognised by many developed and developing countries as a strategic instrument to enhance and sustain their competitiveness in the global economic network. Although the concept of high-tech development differs between countries, many share the underlying assumption that the core of high-tech development is to create a sound environment where innovation thrives. This ideology implies a...
Navigation services have gained much importance for all kinds of human activities ranging from tourist navigation to support of rescue teams in disaster management. However, despite the considerable amount of route guidance research that has been performed, many issues that are related to navigation for first responders still need to be addressed.
During disasters, emergencies can result in different types of moving obstacles (e.g., fires, plumes, floods), which make some parts of...
For establishing main lines of their future development, governments on several levels of government prepare spatial development visions, for assessing individual plans and initiatives against the background of a desired direction of development. Such strategic visions help to avoid the necessity to start considering again and again the question which direction long-term development should take. The European Commission promotes making such development strategies, hoping this leads to...
Since its origin, the railway station has had a complicated relationship with the city, demanding periodical updates, particularly regarding spatial issues. With the aim of improving the liveability of station areas, current redevelopment projects are reconceptualising them as balanced transport ‘nodes’ and ‘places’ in the city. However, the proposed spatial solutions do not fully support the sought after economic, social and environmental performances. These intentions continue to be...
This doctoral thesis presents research on the integration and transfer of knowledge from the specialized field of urban microclimatology into the generic field of urban design. Both fields are studied in order to identify crosslinks and reveal gaps. The main research question of the research is: How can the design of urban neighbourhoods contribute to microclimates that support physical well-being and what kind of information and form of presentation does the urban designer need in order...
European Social Housing Organisations (SHOs) are currently facing challenging times. The ageing of their housing stock and the economic crisis, which has affected both their finances and the finances of their tenants, are testing their capacity to stick to their aim of providing decent and affordable housing. Housing renovation projects offer the possibility of upgrading the health and comfort levels of their old housing stock to current standards and improve energy efficiency, and this...
The research reported in this dissertation contains three complementary and overlapping parts:
One, “findings”: It assesses the factors of urban morphology that contribute to increased rates of greenhouse gas emissions per capita, and the ways they interact. It finds a significant but underrepresented set of factors, distinct from but relating the factors at the individual building scale and the scale of regional transportation systems.
Spatial planning is increasingly being considered as an important mechanism in coping with flood risk due to climate change. One of the reasons for this is that engineering approaches are increasingly expensive and cannot provide complete certainty of protection against climate-related floods. The thesis examines whether and how spatial planning is used in urban areas to promote resilience to flood risk and climate change. In this study, planning is considered as the regulation of physical...
