BK BOOKS

About the New Architect

2023-09-04T09:50:34+00:00

With over 40 years of experience as a lecturer, architect and driver of architectural policy, Thijs Asselbergs looks ahead in About the new architect. In response to conversations with students, Asselbergs shares his personal perspective on the profession and explains how ‘the new architect’ should be shaped.

In 2008, when Thijs Asselbergs had just taken up his position as professor at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), the investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed. It ushered in the financial crisis, which had an enormous impact on the construction industry and architecture. Over half of the architects at the time lost assignments or quit altogether. This led to a rise in small architectural firms with all kinds of new forms of collaboration. What does the future of architecture look like after that turbulent history? Which challenges await the current generation of architects in times of far-reaching economic and climatic changes? And what is the difference between the old and the new architect?

Architectural Education In Times Of Uncertainty

2023-07-24T11:50:13+00:00

Architecture and, by extension, architectural education are severely challenged by the scale and magnitude as well as the complexity of current criticalities. The climate breakdown, the loss of biodiversity, and the impending resource depletion call for a radical rethinking of what is inherent to architecture, but also of how architecture relates to the economy, society, and nature. The certainties our profession has long relied upon are becoming less and less convincing. Technology alone seems unable to provide us with credible answers for our troubled present; a new paradigm is still at large, further contributing to an ever-growing sense of instability. What will the future look like? Uncertainty takes over as a condition of being while knowing that any decisions we make will be imperfect, just like our view of the world is imperfect. But should we account for uncertainty as a vulnerability? Or can uncertainty free us at last from our pre-established notions and biases towards the making of a new architecture that is informed by a completely different set of principles and values? How are architectural education and pedagogy then affected by this predicament?

Small Museums Change

2023-06-14T13:00:36+00:00

What is a ‘small museum’? In this book, the term ‘small’ refers to a museum with a maximum of two ‘normally’ paid full-time functions and further completely staffed by volunteers. People are placed in the centre of the definition, as they should be.

aE Journal 2023/2024

2023-06-08T10:52:51+00:00

Architectural Engineering Graduation Studio (aE Studio) started 15 years ago. It was intended as an architectural design studio for master student with a technical fascination. It started in 2008 from the department that was then still called Building Technology. Bouwkunde and bouwkunst coincide. If technology is the answer what is the design question? The basis is formed by optimal integration of climate design, structural design and building physics, including the increasingly strong developments from parametric design. Starting research from the perspective of the making or climatizing and then coming up with an assignment that anticipates current spatial issues. Lifting the world by devising innovative solutions designed across the scales and visualizing, presenting and discussing them from the perspective of an aEsthetic ingenuity.

Since the start of aE Studio, we have been accountable to the faculty community by publishing this journal every year. This is the thirteenth volume that is once again widely distributed within TU Delft and beyond. It is a platform for graduating students and an exchange tool for lecturers and researchers. Design research is presented at current locations on the basis of themes. aE always works together with external architects, engineering firms, government, builders and manufacturers of building components. We deliberately bring such parties into our faculty so that students, but also the creative industry can learn from each other. Working on integral innovative solutions that can stimulate the manufacturing industry. Addressing the complex sustainability issues at play. Anticipating the need to implement circularity in process and design product.

aE brings together many innovative aspects that a world in transition needs and which form a design challenge for new architects. We not only work with researchers and teachers from building technology, but also from management of the built environment. We look for entrepreneurial challenges and stimulate new architects to take responsibility for what they design.

And of course, we think across the scales. That is why we are proud of our collaborations with Landscape Architecture and Urbanism. We want to be able to optimally integrate nature, while harvesting water, food and energy in the built environment. We want to help thinking about how water problems can be optimally solved in the delta by making it an integral part of the
task. We want to get rid of twentieth century solutions that are no longer desired due to climate change, scarcity of materials or a lack of adaptability. The 21st century calls for new ways of thinking and design that must be thought through by new architects/engineers. We would like to share such new inspiring examples. That is why this journal is full of inspiration and design ideas for a more future-proof earth!

The Ecological Turn

2022-08-02T07:58:38+00:00

How does the ecological thinking affect architects, designers and the design culture itself? The Anthropocene is a geological event, but also a political one that lies in overcoming the idea of crisis. Acknowledging this change means rethinking the very ecology of the project in environmental and atmospheric terms. The changes we face don’t depend on missing balances, but on compromises reached between conservation and exploitation. The Anthropocene is in our suggested reading the time of the end of our representations and the time of the beginning of other narratives that belong to a non-linear dimension. Anthropocene is a category which has the merit of challenging our conventions in an oblique manner by reconnecting the history of mankind with the history of the Earth. In this respect, design visions can be the tool for activating new relations. Within this process of change, how do the figures of architects and designers rethink their role, their knowledge, experimenting with new design approaches? The conference wants to explore these issues from different points of view, in particular the “socio-bio-geosphere in its uncertain becoming by making the disciplines of the project communicate and by varying the scale of analysis, from the molecular scale of the environmental effects on our heritage, to that of the world’s flow of goods and capital.

Transit Stations

2023-08-04T14:46:58+00:00

The City of Innovations Project ‘Walk-IN Stations’ is organized around speculating and projecting on future scenarios for the South of Rotterdam. Students are invited to reflect on the importance of transport networks within and extending from the city. In considering the way these networks have shaped the city through weaving the urbanities of the city center(s) and suburban areas and how they will further shape the future urban territories, this elective positions itself as a negotiation between architecture, network infrastructure, public realm, policy & governance and the territory. Stations are architectural objects which connect an area to the city’s territorial plane and have the potential to generate new urban dynamics. In the compact city the station no longer is simply the space to access mobility networks, in this informed by their dry pragmatism, but becomes an urban place of sociality and encounter - an extended public space beyond mobility itself. Furthermore, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management has developed a vision on the future of Public Transport (towards 2040)1 based on new mobilities and Door-to-Door solutions. The vision was followed by the “Handelingsperspectief”, intended as an instrument to jointly map the current and future needs of PT nodes and their surroundings2. The stations of the future become hubs3, where you can transfer from one mode of transport to another. Hubs are also destinations in themselves, places to meet up, to work, to exercise, to eat. How are new mobility solutions integrated in the current system and take shape at public transport nodes, in the context of low car inner-cities (Autoluw) like in Rotterdam? Which relationships and cross-fertilizations can be significant for the design of the future urban stations in Rotterdam? How should these stations be developed in order to act as public places for collective action? How could one create an optimal mobility chain by decreasing transition friction, increasing quality of the space at station locations? This elective will attempt to answer those questions through research-by-design process, conducted by the students and tutors of Complex Projects in close collaboration with the City of Rotterdam, and enjoys the contribution of the University of Gustave Eiffel, Delta Metropool Association, De Zwarte Hond and PosadMaxwan experts on station developments.

The elective course City of Innovations is scheduled in Q3, between MSc1 design studio and MSc2 research and design studio. It attracts students from different tracks, from architecture and landscape architecture to urban planning, urbanism and management. City of Innovations guides research-by-design projects focusing on mobility and public space challenges. Teachers and students work together exploring the increasingly complex world that demands increasingly complex projects, in design and also in the way of designing.

The studio is organized with the method of charrette (period of intense design activity and short-term design project, usually developed in teams), focusing on 3 stations with different characters in Rotterdam Zuid. Research is done per station, in groups of 12 students; followed by a “stakeholder workshop”, students conclude the research result into spatial criteria and quality requirements. Departing from different priorities, the students split into smaller groups to develop different approaches for a more sustainable and inclusive station developed within the implementation of the new mobility method.

LA.X

2022-11-02T13:25:17+00:00

This book is about the first ten years of the master track in Landscape Architecture at the Department of Urbanism in the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft. It delves into the personal, educational, didactical, organizational and, above all, substantive dimensions of the teaching of this appealing and highly relevant discipline at the academic level.

The book has three parts. The first part — PROFILE — discusses the context and events that led up to the development of the master track and influenced its further development — from the very first landscape architecture related appointments and initiatives in the 1940s to the first day in September 2010 when the programme began with seven participants, and on to the celebration of its tenth anniversary in 2021. Infographics show the numbers and profiles of the student population and illustrate the structure of the master curriculum.

The second section — WORK — contains snapshots of drawings, photos, collages and other graphic material produced by our students. The images are loosely grouped according to the five stages in the design process: exploring, understanding, conceptualizing, modifying and engineering the landscape. Interspersed with this kaleidoscopic variety of images you will find a series of short essays on key topics in landscape architecture education written by the present staff of the Landscape Architecture section.

Finally, at the end of the book you will find a few lists — PEOPLE — of all those involved: students, staff and guest lecturers. They are the ones who made and still make the master track such a wonderful community to belong to.

Over the past ten years the master track has remained relatively small, with an average of 25 to 30 new students each year. It is this limited number that has enabled staff and students to get to know each other so well. Our staff still keep in touch with many alumni from all over the world who now work in private practice or the public sector, are studying for their PhD or have taken up a teaching position. Staff and alumni met again during an online gathering last summer as part of our tenth anniversary celebration. It was great to listen to their stories and hear them talking about the projects they are working on.

Landscape architecture is a crucial profession with much to offer for meeting the current challenges in the spatial domain in the Netherlands and abroad. The Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment has therefore whole-heartedly supported the establishment of the master track and will continue to do so in the efforts of the section and the department to further develop, both in terms of capacity and content. Ten years on, we see evidence that those trained in Delft have a lot to offer and can help to make our planet healthier and our everyday landscape more beautiful. We are proud of what the section has achieved so far.

This is also the place to extend my fullest appreciation to the members of the Landscape Architecture section who have devoted their time and energy to building up a solid curriculum and worldwide network. In particular, I thank Inge Bobbink, who has been responsible for coordinating the track during all those years. She has generously borne a substantial share of the formal and informal responsibilities for organizing the track and developing the content of higher education in landscape architecture at Delft.

Compiling a book such as this, which depends on pulling together contributions from a wide variety of sources, has not been an easy task, especially during the Covid pandemic. Inge Bobbink and Bieke Cattoor, thank you for your commitment in the process of coordination. Thank you very much, staff and student assistants for your contributions, thank you Hans Gremmen for your dedicated design work and Derek Middleton for carefully translating. You have all done a great job!

And all of us hope that you, reader, will enjoy it!

aE Journal 2022/2023

2022-04-07T19:22:23+00:00

In the Architectural Engineering graduation studio we are looking for innovative solutions in engineered architectural design, while encouraging students to explore their role as architects in facing today’s challenges. Understanding existing potentials, knowing the possibilities of renewal and discovering how to design, innovate and initiate change are central themes in the aE/Intecture graduation studio. Under the guidance of a team of enthusiastic (guest) lecturers and tutors, students search for innovative technical solutions for diverse problems in various contexts. The three main research by design domains promoted in the aE / Intecture studio are ‘Make’ , ‘Flow’ and ‘Stock’, as described below on this page. Each domain requires a different approach and offers unique design solutions, while creating multiple value for the built environment together.

Building with Nature perspectives

2021-11-19T14:17:12+00:00

This publication offers an overview of the latest cross-disciplinary developments in the field of Building with Nature (BwN) for the protection of coastal regions. The key philosophy of BwN is the employment of natural processes to serve societal goals, such as flood safety. The starting point is a systems-based approach, making interventions that employ the shaping forces of the natural system to perform measures by self-regulation. Initial pilots of this innovative approach originate from coastal engineering, with the Sand Motor along the coast of South Holland as one of the prime examples. From here, the BwN approach has evolved into a new generation of nature-based hydraulic solutions, such as mangrove forests, coastal reefs, and green dikes.

Dealing with Heritage

2021-11-19T14:00:15+00:00

It is an honor to introduce this book, which brings together a number of very important aspects of the restoration architect's profession, with this short statement.

Dealing with heritage requires that the restoration architect makes well-considered and definable choices. It should not only be about conservation, but attention must and may also be paid to making heritage future-proof. When it comes to making heritage future-proof, we still stand at the start of a major (sustainability) transition, in which making interventions will be indispensable. Such interventions are made possible by recognizing and utilizing the opportunities that heritage offers, but they should always be made from a view that places the preservation of the core values of the heritage centrally.

The core values of heritage take many forms and can range from physical architectural manifestations to social, cultural and historical significance. In all cases, they involve dealing with the materials that the heritage is composed of. Having knowledge of these materials plays a crucial role in the choices to be made, both in the area of conservation to preserve what already exists, as well as in choices for restoration, improvement or renewal. That this knowledge goes beyond the physical outward appearance, as perceived by the admirers of heritage, is also emphasized by the examples in this book. Knowledge of the substance, forms of decay, methods of conservation and application of new techniques requires research, and without this research we as restoration architects would never be able to make well-considered choices.

Research into especially the 'invisible' damage phenomena in materials, as described in this book, still requires more attention. As certified restoration architects it is our task to recognize this, to call in specialists at an early stage of a project, and to consider options with as broad a team as possible. The methods with which to determine the degree of damage and decay as objectively as possible, as are being developed continuously by among others 'Heritage & Architecture' at Delft University of Technology, offer good tools.

I am a restoration advisor and currently chairman of the ‘Vereniging van Architecten Werkzaam in de Restauratie’ (Association of Architects Working in Restoration, VAWR), an association whose members are specialists who have all chosen to be tested and recognized in the field of dealing with monuments. On behalf of our members I would like to draw attention to the specific mastery of our profession based on Knowledge, Ethics, Vision and Management. Much attention is drawn to precisely these four pillars in this book as well. I hope that the readers of this book, regardless of their background, will gain a great deal of knowledge and appreciation for the need for research, but above all that they will also become more interested in our beautiful and multifaceted profession.