Bnieuws 50/09 - Patterns (2016/17)

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INDEPENDENT PERIODICAL OF THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT TU DELFT

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Colofon

Bnieuws Volume 50 Issue 09 04 July 2017 Contact Room BG.Midden.140 Julianalaan 134 2628 BL Delft bnieuws-bk@tudelft.nl

CREATE­­: STUDENT PROJECTS 08

Bachelor

Editorial Team Nadine van den Berg Lydia Giokari Ruiying Liu Noortje Weenink

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Urbanism / Landscape

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Building Technology

Contributors Ola Gordowy Yafim Simanovsky Pierijn van der Putt

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Architecture

Cover Working Place

by Nadine van den Berg Editorial Advice Board Robert Nottrot Pierijn van der Putt Marcello Soeleman Ivan Thung Linda van Keeken Next Deadline 14th of August Bnieuws Volume 51 Issue 01 Printed by Druk. Tan Heck 1.350 copies © All rights reserved.

Although all content is treated with great care, errors may occur.

EXPLORE 28

Artefact: My Pen

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Visité

SPEAK 06

Variations on a Wall

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We Have a New Urban Agenda: What Now?

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The Indesem: Beyond the Curriculum

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Peter Russell’s 10 Rules for Life

Editorial

PATTERNS

The year is over! Almost. The ambiguous ending of the final semester makes our faculty an strange place to encounter. While some BK Citizens are showered with flowers and champagne after graduating, others make excessive use of the XL opening hours to walk the last and hardest mile, wrapping up their projects before enjoying their (temporary) freedom of the summer break. The mishmash of happiness, stress, relief, desperation and exhileration reveals the beautiful blend of everything that is part of the design process, and all that BK City has to offer.

We face countless paradoxes (is a community inclusive or exclusive?), challenges (gentrification, anyone?) and pour our heart and soul into our projects. The design process is a constant battle between scales, concepts and practicalities. We change our floor plans and sections a hundred times, only to find that they do not fit the climate or technical regulations. We get knocked down, drink a beer at Bouwpub, and get back up again. We live, we learn.

By giving a diverse group of students and their tutors a platform to speak about their experiences during their projects, in this issue we can take a walk in the shoes of people who move through the BK Streets we might not know so much about. Their answers reveal the charm of the BK Salad Bowl. While everyone has their own fascinations, way of working, et cetera, in the end we all deal with similar questions and challenges about the future of the built environment. Every single person contributes in their own, unique way to a bigger picture that we might not yet comprehend.

In line with this, Roberto Rocco dives into how the New Urban Agenda should change our education to produce the designers and planners needed for the challenges of our generation.

Thomas Dillon speaks about this year’s biannual International Design Seminar, based on four pillars regarding densification of cities: growth, shift, segregration and social interaction.

To students breaking their backs on the last straws: we hope you find some comfort in the struggles of your fellow students. For graduate students we have some good news too: Peter Russell concludes this issue with us a smart trick to impress your future boss.

See you next year!

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#Bnieuwd

Exhibition / LANDSCAPE GRADUATION EXHIBITION This annual event will show graduation work by Landscape Architecture students of the 20162017 academic year. All visitors will have the possibility to see and hear how the projects came to be and how these young professionals address challenges of the future.

Exhibition / SETH PRICE - SOCIAL SYNTHETIC The Stedelijk Museum hosts the first survey of the American artist Seth Price. The show is an overview of his artistic career so far, encompassing more than 140 works made since 2000.

Stedelijk Museum / 15.04 – 03.09.2017

BK Expo / 05.07.2017 / 15.30

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Kunstfestival / FACADE Middelburg viert haar 800-jarig bestaan en pakt groots uit met het kunstfestival Facade. Ga op tour door oude steegjes, neus door de Zeeuwse stadsarchieven en kijk je ogen uit op allerlei kunst– en architectuurtentoonstellingen.

Exhibition / EDWARD KRASINSKI The Stedelijk Museum presents the first retrospective in the Netherlands of Edward Krasinski (1925 – 2004), one of the most notable Eastern European artists of the 20th century and a leading figure in the Polish avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s.

facade2017.nl / Middelburg / 14.07 – 05.11.2017

Stedelijk Museum / 24.06 – 15.10.2017

#Bnieuwd

Exhibition / HET NIEUWE INSTITUUT AND DE STIJL To mark the De Stijl centenary, which is being celebrated under the theme ‘100 years of De Stijl. From Mondriaan to Dutch Design’, PostNL has joined forces with Het Nieuwe Instituut and the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague to produce a set of ten postage stamps. This summer’s pop-in expo at Het Nieuwe Instituut will show the context in which this stamp collection was made.

To do / HOUR OF MUSIC ON THE ORGAN Listen to an hour of music on the monumental organ of the Old Church in Delft.

Het Nieuwe Instituut / 11.07 – 03.09.2017

08.07.2017 / 15.30

Old Church Delft /

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Exhibition / ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIORS. THE DESIRE FOR STYLE The architecture and interiors of De Stijl are famous around the world. Dutch architects and designers like Gerrit Rietveld, Cornelis van Eesteren and J.J.P. Oud blazed the trail for generations of progressive thinkers who came after them. This summer, the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and Het Nieuwe Instituut present an overview of drawings, architectural models and examples of furniture by members of the influential art movement.

Het Nieuwe Instituut / 10.06 – 17.09.2017

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Strawberry fields, wall and systems...

There's no halting that unrelenting beat of the two-year programme (speaking for internationals of course).

You're in, you're processed, and you'll be out, before you can catch your breath. Those wonderful dreams, endless possiblities are only half-savoured. In a world of efficiency, education too is industrialised. Write things into procedures, rubrics, regulations so that all will follow and produce the same results as the paradigms that inspired these rules. —I stand corrected, it's not just for the internationals. Once systems are set up, all must follow. C. Kingma (Bnieuws 50.07) dreamt of an intellectual utopia.

InDeSem, launched in '62, still rallying to go beyond curriculum. Nowadays universities are ranked,

according to anything but the resource that is the key to education: the quality of educators. They compete with systems, not with those who actually educate. For institution of education, this is utterly bizzare. Design institutions dazzle you with portfolios of ever commonplace graphic prowess; but they don't seem to really say how they come into being.

So we set out to find good projects to conclude this year in the way of not catalogues, but conversations. In good conversations, you see the shapes of a lively field of diverse minds, working together and surprising each other, in spite of the systems.

Trendspotting Trendspotting in hindsight is easy. We have seen utopian thinking come and go, avant-garde movements rise and fall. We have seen rational objectives being countered by postmodern eclecticism and the spectacle. We heard countless conceptual one-liners in the 90s and 00s, until the financial crisis called for a more nuanced approach. But contemporary trendspotting—it’s a tricky thing. There is a risk of condescentment. Is the project only chosen or developed in a certain way because its hip?

Is it just another brick in the wall? As a bystander, we’re often quick to criticise, and thereby ignore the hardship of the author and the qualities the design has to offer. It is easy to say a floor plan or a model looks ugly, while neglecting the spatial qualities of the building. But when we get a little more nuanced, categorisation and trenspotting offers a valuable assessment regarding the contemporary discourse. In this issue, however, we do not offer critique. Instead, students speak about what they learned, how they learned, what they liked most and how they wanted to continue. It is up to you, our readers, to interpret and spot any (coincidential) resemblances and trends.

A teacher-student duet The majority of the students we interview refer to the fruitful relationships with their tutors. The tutors give helpful feedback and critical questions of the student's ideas, which is indispensable to achieving good results. Not because students are not capable to create on their own, but because the questioning and encouragement of a tutor keeps the student from both arrogance and loneliness. The effect goes both ways. Tutors get to see their ideas realised with quality execution at the hands of their students, or honest reports of failure. Ideas, they would not have the intellectual resource to put to the test. In all creative fields, countless students and teachers inspire each other to achieve sometimes great inventions. The creative and productive relationship between a student and a tutor is like a "duet" of mutual understanding and support.

Such should be the model for our Faculty. A business-like model will sterilise any potential greatness. Along the ongoing survey for the best teacher of the year by Stylos, we might consider an award for the most unhelpful teacher of the year—to give food for thought and place for improvement.

What’s next?

A 2015 RIBA survey showed that 80% of graduates lack the knowledge to build what they design, and that theoretical knowledge of recent graduates well exceeds their practical abilities. Should this worry us? In considering where our professional path will lead a few years after graduation, we are often faced with a maze of priorities and decisions involving strange lands, financial stress and personal frustration. What happens in a post-TU world? As much as we’ve grown and learned here, it’s worth asking the right questions and thinking about what we actually want to transform ourselves into over the next period of our lives. We must remember that our first job after university will not be our last.

As professionals of architecture there are options in a wide range of design fields that can use our skills and compensate us equally. And the skills we gain now will most likely determine our path forward. Architecture often seems to be a very restricting space because it overwhelms our lives completely, but as we now fly out of our academic nest, we see a beautiful horizon stretching in front of us.

TIME TRAVEL THROUGH ROTTERDAM TO REDISCOVER THE CULTURAL HERITAGE BSC BK3ON3 | STAD EN OPENBARE RUIMTE

student chloë oosterwoud

What is your project in twenty words? In one word?

It is a stimulus to re-discover and re-appreciate the cultural heritage of Rotterdam. It’s also a connector of the different parts of the city.

What do you like most about it?

When people think about Rotterdam, they think of a modern city. The project shows that Rotterdam, in addition to its modern architectural highlights, has historical architectural highlights as well. It puts them in the spotlights, which they deserve.

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rather than designing and I missed the creative part.

What I also like about the project is that it looks like a real travel through time. The route consists of several parts of Rotterdam, each representing another period in time. It runs from the modern Rotterdam Central Station to the old ‘Scheepsvaartkwartier’ located next to the Maas.

How did your tutor shape your work?

My tutor saw that I had designed a lot of street furniture and said I had to bundle it into a catalog.

That’s when I came up with the idea to create variant pieces of street furniture for every part of the route.

Combining this with the historical context, it led to my concept: a time travel through Rotterdam.

During the project, what did you want your next project to be?

A building. This course was more focused on analysing

Name a book/song/movie on your mind during the project.

Capricious (Crooked Colours rework) by Tokio Myers.

WALKABILITY ROTTERDAM REORGANIZING URBAN SPACE BSC BK3ON3 | STAD EN OPENBARE RUIMTE

student luuk goossen

What is your project in twenty words? In one word?

Walkable urban spaces and routes designed at a human scale using virtual reality. In one word: Walkability.

What do you like most about it?

The fact that it has been designed using virtual reality and geomatical tools. During the design phase, I would constantly evaluate my decisions at a 1:1 scale in order to add a human scale with lots of variation. The live implementation of geomatical tools during the process gave me a lot of feedback and objective information to base my decisions on.

During the project, what did you want your next project to be?

I actually wanted to start working on an architectural design project again. I liked that this project stayed very conceptual, but I missed the level of detailing that

you would normally see in architectural projects compared to urban design projects.

How did your tutor shape your work?

By constantly insisting me to keep explaining the decisions that I made and asking if this would be the perfect solution to the problem. They’ve helped me to stay critical and get the most out of my concept.

Name a book/song/movie on your mind during the project.

During this project, I was also busy setting up a student radio station which broadcasted during the deadline (BK-FM). My own radio show featured a lot of 00’s sing alongs, so those have definitely been in my mind. I also like to listen to uplifting trance music or film scores while designing.

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RE-TERRITORIALIZATION

student filippo lafleur

What is your project in twenty words? In one word?

The project is about the relationships, interlinks and exchanges between pattern of urbanizations and the biosphere.

In one word: RELATIONS.

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What do you like most about it?

What I like most about it is that it addresses the fundamental question of our relationship with the natural environment both in an opportunistic, technical and imaginative way. The fact that it advocates for small scale urban and landscape operations guided by a large scale vision materialized through a territorial framework. The latter is where the natural and the anthropic domain are conceived and projected synthetically, synergistically and as mutually supporting systems.

What did you want your next project to be after it?

I dream about a possible implementation of this territorial strategy. In this sense the strength of the project also lies in its ability to link administrative scales, governance (planning) and design (urban, landscape, civil & hydraulic engineering operations).

Name a book/song/movie you relate to this project— Book: Landscape as Infrastructure, Urbanism beyond engineering, by Pierre Belanger. tutor tahena k. bacchin

What is the project in twenty words? In one word?

Transcalar (space and time) urban landscape infrastructure design. It regards the development of

A VISION FOR MILAN URBAN REGION MSC URBANISM GRADUATION | DELTA URBANISM

projective strategies for the Milan Region on spatial quality, landscape cohesion and urban water management (green/blue infrastructure).

—Re-Territorialism/ Infrastructure Space.

What do you like most about it?

The development of genealogies of adaptation where Filippo explored an array of possible changes in urban form (composition and configuration) to accommodate different contingencies in time. His genealogies of adaptation delivered a method to explore the concept of deep uncertainties (climate/ socio-economic scenarios) in design and planning.

What do you see in her project that can be transferred into a graduation project / a professional career?

The thorough approach to urban landscape design and planning, the systemic reading and projection of the territory and its value (environmental, socioeconomic and cultural) in time. And the interdisciplinarity and methodological value of his work.

How did you work together to shape this work?

With Filippo I had the opportunity to continue advancing the approach, theory and methods developed in my own PhD research and specially learn about the specificity of the Milan Region and its narrative informing his concept of re-territorialism.

After his graduation we continue to work together in research and education activities.

What book/song/movie do you relate to this project?

Authors Pierre Bélanger and James Corner.

THE EDIBLE STRIP RECONFIGURING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPES AND THE CITY MSC URBANISM Q2 | DESIGNING URBAN ENVIRONMENTS

student grace abou jaoude

What is your project in twenty words? In one word?

It to alleviate the social, economic, and environmental conditions in Rotterdam South through sustainable productive landscapes and green infrastructure. In one word: Regenerative.

What do you like most about it?

The project reconfigures the relationship between productive landscapes and the city of Rotterdam. The significant components are the introduction of productive efficiencies, the diversification strategies, and the green and blue infrastructure that contribute to sustainable densified neighborhoods. The project also ameliorates the resident’s environmental and health conditions, provides them with jobs, as well as improves the quality of life in Rotterdam South.

How did your tutor shape your work?

Dr. Victor Munoz Sanz has guided me thoroughly throughout the project. I was always challenged and motivated at each and every step to improve my work.

His constructive feedback helped shape and guide the design process. I was able to understand and reflect on the whole process as well as explore and make the right decisions . I am thankful for his guidance and I find myself lucky that I had the opportunity to learn from him.

What book/song/movie do you relate to this project?

Song: Kifak Inta by Fairuz. tutor victor muñoz sanz

What is the project in twenty words? In one word?

The Edible Strip is about the design of an urban block as a social and productive infrastructure. In one word: Integration.

What do you like most about it?

It is not yet another project of urban agriculture. In order to achieve meaningful and significant social impact through sustainable production and the creation of new employment opportunities for

vulnerable communities in Rotterdam South, her project goes beyond the usual ideas of introducing community gardens or making productive underutilized spaces. In her design, urban form, social and programmatic diversity, and the different strategies for urban agricultural production—and their technical and infrastructural solutions—are fully integrated and intensified, maximizing the use of resources and productive efficiencies; the Edible Strip is a prototype that, if replicated, would bring urban agriculture closer to the aspiration of achieving economies of scale.

What do you see in her project that can be transferred into a graduation project / a professional career?

I think the themes explored in Grace’s project could perfectly be the foundation of a graduation project in which she could go deeper into the question of how design must negotiate with and can affect issues like logistics, networks, production technologies, management, and the future of work.

How did you work together to shape this work?

In my studios I try to push students to avoid remaining in the realm of words and good intentions, translate their vision to maps, diagrams, sections, and design ideas, and have the discussion around these. With Grace, and many other of the students in that group, this actually happened, and that was the key to take her project to a higher level of precision and craft.

What project/person does this one reminds you of?

Lateral Office (Mason White + Lola Sheppard).

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GROWING CARBON-SCAPES IN GROWING AMA FROM EMISSIONS TO CIRCULARITY MSC URBANISM Q3 | SPATIAL STRATEGIES FOR THE GLOBAL METROPOLIS

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students carolina eboli, jiangzhou song, lewis liu, vaggy georgali

What is the project in twenty words? In one word?

A regional strategy aiming to lower the ecological footprint with “carbon-scapes�, namely, a set of interventions shaping a hybrid, sustainable landscape where reduction and reuse of CO2 are the main principles. Four words: Dystopia/Doable/Framing/ Realizable.

What did you want your next project to be after it?

Some of us were seduced by regional design and its potential and dynamics, whereas others felt they wanted to dive into small-scale design solutions of such weird concepts. Maybe the next project will be more down-to-earth and more stakeholder-involving, more than a design studio could be.

What do you like most about it?

It is the vision and the process. By pushing reality to the edge, we were able to detach it from the common perspective and take it to an extreme. This made our story strong yet believable, no matter how ambitious it may sounded at first. We took a stand with this proposal, forcing the reader to leave their comfort zone and critically think on how to deal with past decisions looking onto the future. We believe that we found a practical and reasonable way to reply to a stereotyped problem. In fact, there was a crucial point that we decided to be bold and come up with a single, simple (for us) proposal. Sometimes you just have to pick just one thing, take a stand and go for it through design. Indeed, this is the power of design to steer changes in large scale and complexity.

How did your tutor shape your work?

The theoretical course helped us build the structure all along the process. On the other hand, our tutors helped to balance our proposal in terms of planning, design and social qualities, pointing out how the story should be consistent and what were the gaps we were facing along its development, making the proposal consistent and down to earth. Besides, references, cases and literature are their best tool of tutoring contributing significantly to the final result.

What book/song/movie do you relate to this project?

Songs: Time by Hans Zimmer; All Is Violent All Is Bright by God Is an Astronaut; Space oddity by David Bowie; Citizens by Alice Russell.

tutor lei qu

What is the project in twenty words? In one word?

It is about creating a new landscape for the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area while reducing and reusing CO2 emission. In one word: Carbon-scape.

What do you like most about it?

It is an evidence-based and imaginative regional design proposal. The significance of this project is its perfect combination of research and design.

What do you see in her project that can be transferred into a graduation project / a professional career?

The specific focus of this project on CO2 emission and its broader framework of circular economy are both topics that worth to be further studied as a graduation project, or even a direction to follow as expertise for professional career.

How did you work together to shape this work?

This group worked quite independently throughout the quarter (Q3). They took the initiative to explore issues and possibilities related to ecological footprint in the region, with tools of both research and design.

Besides, three tutors are involved in the work, providing feedback from spatial planning (Lei Qu), urban design (Hamed Khosravi) and governance (Marcin Dabrowski) respectively. Such mixed expertise in the tutors’ team contributed to shaping a balanced project that covers all aspects related to regional design.

What project/person does this one reminds you of?

Interestingly, the project reminds me most the Dutch traditional windmills, which could be seen as part of an infrastructure system that provides conditions for future development and at the same time creates unique landscape.

PIN(K) A PLACE DISCLOSING LANDSCAPE MSC LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE Q4 | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE ON SITE

What is it like on site now?

Right now, it’s really relaxed because we’re done with the main project. All the explaining to people and taking care of the crowd is over. The tables are gone which feels kind of empty. During the project, we had around 500-600 visitors daily. We’ve got so many positive responses. And the hours, days, went really fast. The weather was very nice, and since we work outside all day that can be very comfortable.

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What are you making? Who is it for?

We’re making an interactive art installation for the visitors of Oerol Festival on the Wadden Sea island Terschelling. It consists of two parts: In the forest, we ask visitors to find the place that gives them the strongest feeling, pin it with a pink stick and document the experience by describing the feeling & place and making a picture with a pinhole camera. The second part is outside the forest, where visitors can find our archive. There they can share their findings in the forest and also look into the findings of the other visitors. The forest gradually became full with the sticks, which gave off a magical ambience and revealed the kind of places people preferred. We hoped to impress upon the visitors the sense of place by directing them inwards to their own feelings. We also tried to make a research out of the project on how people perceive a place, especially a forest.

How does being on site changes your feeling as a designer, the design materials and process? ☺ Tim: You feel the challenge of actually building the design and have to think quickly on solving the problems. We can’t plan everything in the studio, because there are a lot of unforeseen challenges. ✌ Michelle: On site laat je het gemakkelijker op je afkomen, en dan maakt het niet meer zoveel uit. ✌ Ilya: You have to come up with solutions that do not change the nature of the project, solutions that you can find on site—especially concerning the materials. ☻ Max: Being on site made me realize how important it is to think the design through to the last screw. Still your design needs to have a kind of “resilience” to adapt to those unexpected changes without losing its essence.

✌ Fede: On site people do what you didn’t expect.

They even changed our project. But I think it’s way better. ❁ V: Being in the studio and designing has something fictional or unreal to it, until it is actually realized. So this experience can trigger more imagination. ☀ Liang: You get closer to nature, air, soil, weather etc. I felt much more excited to do something, compared to sitting behind my computer.

How are you planning to bring “the site” back here?

The project we did and the installation would easily be put in any place. Anywhere we could ask people to pin the place and describe their feelings. And we could do a similar research on complete different locations with different types of people. ✍ A pity you didn’t mention bringing “the sense of place” of Terschelling & Oerol back to us (一_一)

The elective Landscape Architecture ON Site revolves around the realization of a temporary, interactive "design-and-build project in a landscape setting. Students research, conceptualize and construct real-life installations for a festival public. The recurring focus is the concept of place: how landscape forms specific places and how the designer can evoke a "sense of place". This year the focus is on landscape perception, and its role in placemaking and place attachment. More at iopm2017.wordpress.com

the project and the actual interaction with people. ♥ Jan Gerk: Yes, I think a project like this could become a very interesting research, since you can get a lot of input from the people visiting your project. Next to that I also was very interested in the whole idea of placemaking and environmental psychology. ✍ Seems it’s not the course’s value you disagree on, but rather what makes a graduation project …

Do you want projects like this for graduation or for the rest of your career? Why? ಠ_ಠ) W: No, because I don’t think it’s a project of a lifelong cause. It’s more like something you can do in between but not something you’ll do all the time. ☛ Liang: Probably not, because graduation project you spend a whole year. I want to do something related to my further curiosity. ♠ Ilya: I would not choose a project like this for graduation as I believe that it loses its temporary value. But I would be really excited to be part of such projects during my career. ♠ Max: Not for graduation. But of course I would love to work in an explorative transit zone between experience and design, creating a better understanding of our environment and thus bring forth more knowledge about “good” designs.

ಠ⌣ಠ) V: Yes. I like the link between art &

architecture and psychology & philosophy. ☛ Lin: Yes, I started with the idea to find out how an installation works. Now I would like to know more about relation between society & culture and their influence on people’s feelings. ♥ Fede: yes, because, you do not get bored easily. I like the ephemerality of

What book/song/movie do you relate to this project?

Michelle: A Horse With No Name—being alone and thinking about what you want to do. People in the project did the same. Michelle’s aunt: A Forest by the Cure. Tim: Secret Life of Walter Mitty: about getting to the unknown and explore. V: Harry Potter II—the part about the spiders.

Lukas: Groundhog Day—everyday endless story-telling … Fede: The Moment by Tame Impala— everyday I didn’t know what was going to happen.

Lin: Alone and Drinking Under the Moon by Li Bai. Max: Working Man by Rush. W: Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles.

Jan Gerk: Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler— someone always shower with this song on in the morning and it’s just stuck in my head.

Many thanks to the course coordinator Denise Puccinini for her support. The students involved are: Bella Bluemink, Eva Ventura, Eva Willemsen, Federica Sanchez, Ge Hong, Ilya Tasioula, Jan Gerk de Boer, Joey Liang, Lukas Kropp, Maël Vanhelsuwé, Max Einert, Michelle Siemerink, Qingyun Lin, Timothy Radhitya Djagiri, Yao Lu. Interview and editing by Ruiying Liu.

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MUDEFY DEFYING MUD ON FESTIVALS MSC BUILDING TECHNOLOGY | BUCKY LAB

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students anne bruggen, thomas latjes and jerry pollux

tutor marcel bilow

What is your project in twenty words?

Mudefy defies mud on festivals. It absorbs the rain and keeps the grass healthy. No more dirt, no more dirty feet.

What is the project in twenty words? In one word?

While we were searching for structures to improve on festivals, these three started to find a solution to fight the rain. In one word: outofthebox.

What do you like most about it?

Mudefy is cheap, fast and all components are biodegradable. Also, it is very easy to distribute on any festival terrain. The festival experience will improve, especially in the Netherlands, where rain, and thus mud, is an all too familiar sight. Mudefy will be tested at Lowlands this summer, so anyone curious should come and have a look!

What do you like most about it?

The team had a great concept, which was entirely out of the box and actually also out of our works scope, but able to convince us as mentors but also the client—MOJO. At the end they performed in a way which is rather unusual for an Building Technology student dealing with chemicals.

During the project, what did you want your next project to be?

During the project, we were thinking about looking to create a new, custom-made polymer, based on algae, to further improve biodegradability and to match it even better with the application on festivals in specific.

How did your tutor shape your work?

Marcel shaped our work by getting us through some difficult decision points in the process and saving us from taking on too much work. For example, at one point we were determined to build a film set for our promotion movie ourselves. Marcel convinced us this might not be such a good idea and we should just use the wall.

What book/song/movie do you relate to this project?

There can only be one answer to this question, the theme song for our product movie: Uplifting Africa (don’t worry if you have never heard of it).

What do you see in her project that can be transferred into a professional career?

The way they performed their research and development shows that they are able to tackle any kind of problem - even outside their professional scope How did you work together to shape this work?

We worked together within the regular supervision during the studio times. Every now and then they needed to be pulled back, otherwise their precision and dedication would have created them a time problem.

What project/person does this one reminds you of?

Hmm… honestly this one is one of its kind!

And therefore one of the reasons why it’s mentioned here!

PD LAB A LABORATORY FOR FUTURE BUILDING INNOVATIONS MSC BUILDING TECHNOLOGY | GRADUATION

student jeroen van der veen

What is your project in twenty words? In one word?

A ‘got out of hand’ graduation project resulting into a full scale maquette.

What do you like most about it?

I think it was (and is) the best learning process. The project started from finding solutions for a cnc-milled modular cladding system resulting in being the project manager starting at 07.00 at a rainy building-site. That was great because I’m not that good at doing the same thing for a long time. When building I was most amazed by the amount (almost 40, named in the wall of fame in the lab) of students volunteering to help realising the project. I hope it will lead to more ideas and projects from within our faculty being realised.

During the project, what did you want your next project to be?

At many moments, one that has as little as possible to do with this one. ;) How did your tutor shape your work?

That must be Marcel Bilow, I share his passion for a ‘get you hands dirty approach’: when you can’t solve it, make it. In discussions about the project with him he seems to try to talk about everything but the project.

This may sound like a waste of time, but it’s actually amusingly inspiring and leads to fresh ideas.

What book/song/movie do you relate to this project?

Let It Happen by Tame Impala. Good building music. tutor marcel bilow

What is the project in twenty words? In one word?

Jeroen developed a fully cnc milled and digitally engineerd facade for a modular prefab house / digitalmasterbuilder What do you like most about it?

He started to work from day one with prototypes but also developed a theoretic methodology to judge this

product development at the same time.

What do you see in her project that can be transferred into a professional career?

Passion, innovation and dedications all skills that are highly awarded within the profession.

How did you work together to shape this work?

We worked on a regular basis in the studio, but also next to the tools and prototypes in the workshop.

What project/person does this one reminds you of?

Nadia Remerswal’s concrete casting system, but also the project of Nick de Haan, who worked hand in hand with Jeroen.

As you may have noticed, the 1:1 PD Lab is currently at show at the west wing of our faculty.

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HOUSE IN ANTWERP THE DESIGN OF SUBURB MODERN BOURGEOIS DWELLINGS MSC1 INTERIORS BUILDINGS CITIES | THE HOUSE IN THE CITY

student feng wang

What is your project in twenty words? In one word?

A dynamic interior space with varied natural light conditions.Similar sized “rooms” without boundaries grow from the spatial and structural core of each apartment: the fire place. In one word: movement.

What do you like most about it?

The interior route is occupied with desultory contact with the surrounding greenery.

During the project, what did you want your next project to be?

Darker.

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How did your tutor shape your work?

They started the project by introducing the inspiring reference architect (Luigi Caccia Dominioni), and constantly pushed me further with patience and endless models.

What book/song/movie do you relate to this project?

Book: In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki. tutor dirk somers

What project/person does this one reminds you of?

I will start with the last question. The studio was named ‘learning from Luigi Caccia Dominioni’. A Milanese postwar architect who managed to merge collective housing with bourgeois luxury.

What is the project in twenty words? In one word?

Like all students, Feng developed an idea on domestic richness to a vertically arranged apartment building.

What do you like most about it?

Feng designed a great building. What I like about it most is the middle room of each apartment. The floor plans have a strong connection to the outside, yet the middle room puts a lot of weight in the centre. All the rooms connect to the centre space, giving the shallow building a great sense of depth.

What do you see in her project that can be transferred into a graduation project / a professional career?

During the studio we talked a lot about the deplorable split between domestic culture and collective housing.

I think all students understood that it is better to approach the apartment building from the rich culture of the house. Too often collective housing is developed from schemes, structures or forms.

How did you work together to shape this work?

The studio started with a series of short exercises that focused on Caccia Dominioni. Slowly this developed into contemporary considerations on housing. Feng was a very enthusiastic student who developed his design steadily. Even after a good evaluation, he would go one searching for more improvements. For Feng good is not good enough, which is good!

THE HANGING GARDENS OF IJMUIDEN VERTICAL ALLOTMENT WITH AQUAPONICS SYSTEM MSC1 METHODS & ANALYSIS | COMMONS BASED

student devant asawla

What is your project in twenty words? In one word?

Community based allotment on the site of an existing bunker where water is harvested, filtered and re-used in the production of food. In one word: Regenerative.

What do you like most about it?

The project thrives from a careful balance between tectonic, environmental and architectural components.

I have always had an interest in self sustainability and different methods of food production. How can a natural resource such as water become integral to a piece of architecture and the core element of the design. The hybrid timber structure gives a suggestion of how architecture and energy can coexist. The design helps in defining a social space with no boundaries, very much indebted to its context and surrounding landscape.

During the project, what did you want your next project to be?

To further explore how energy systems can be read in the architecture we design. Also the exploration of freely accessible public spaces; for me, public domain today is becoming too saturated by the architect. We need to take a step back and let the users step up.

How did your tutor shape your work?

Gave me the encouragement to really engage with the tectonic and environmental components of the design, while continuously refining the architecture. The medium of hand drawing allowed me to follow my own method of thinking and representation; resulting in ten large format line drawings for print.

What book/song/movie do you relate to this project?

Book: Walden, or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau.

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BORDER PRISONERS RETHINKING PRISON TYPOLOGY IN THE U.S. - MEXICAN BORDER CONDITION MSC4 COMPLEX PROJECTS | BORDERS | GRADUATION

student paul de wilde

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What is your project about in twenty words?

The border wall disconnects the people of the United States and Mexico. Border Prisoners is a project that uses the border in order to unite the countries rather than to separate them.

During the project, what did you want your next project to be?

STUDIO44X, the architecture firm I started two years ago with my fellow student Coco van Weelden. Since we graduated we are fully dedicated to our studio.

In one word?

Reconciliation.

How did your tutor shape your work?

Tanner was my main tutor during the first half of the project. He really motivated me to develop a meaningful and compelling project. Sebastian joined in halfway, he is super sharp and knew how to give directions when I needed them.

What is significant about it?

The aim of my project is to address the absurd border condition between the U.S. and Mexico and at the same time question the inhumane prison situations in the two countries. Border Prisoners are both Mexican and American prisoners, brought together in one humane environment right on the border. It’s relevant and urgent to address these issues, especially now that Trump is elected president; his policy towards the border and prisons is catastrophic.

What book/song/movie do you relate to this project?

Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash. Great song.

Great lyrics. And it’s about a prison.

MUSEUM OF THE 20TH CENTURY ART EXTENDING THE NEUE NATIONALGALERIE MSC4 INTERIORS BUILDINGS CITIES | GRADUATION

student boris popma

What is your project about in twenty words?

Extending the Neue Nationalgalerie: making spaces for exhibition that resonate the content and environments of twentieth century art.

In one word?

Specificity.

How did your tutor shape your work?

By supporting my choice of references, by discussing translations from concepts of art to architectural gestures and by frustrating me with questions on form and structure.

What book/song/movie do you relate to this project?

Book: Ausschnitt by Ludwig Leo.

What do you like most about it?

The formal aesthetic properties of the whole concur with the expedient application and presence of structure and material in the interior, causing generic and ambiguous environments for art.

During the project, what did you want your next project to be?

I thought that a museum would make sense.

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APOSTOLIC NUNCIATURE OF THE HOLY SEE

A MOMENT OF CONTEMPLATION IN A COLLECTION OF TACTILE SPACES MSC1 ARCHITECTURE & PUBLIC BUILDING | ARCHITECTURE AND POWER (BORDER CONDITIONS)

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student evgenia vlachaki

tutors marc schoonderbeek, fatma çulhaoglu and

What is your project in twenty words? In one word?

A welcoming architecture devised to attract the public to the grounds of the Nunciature, inviting a moment of contemplation on the island in a collection of tactile spaces which allow for different experiences. In one word: exploration.

oscar rommens text by filippo maria doria

During the project, what did you want your next project to be?

Having intervened in a very public landscape with this scheme, I wanted my next project to address a wider area of urban space where I would challenge myself to address a larger part of a community in ways that could improve the quality of the everyday experience, not merely exceptional events or programs.

How did your tutors shape your work?

By exposing me with inspiring examples of existing projects relative to public space, public buildings and materiality, my tutors supported me in constantly questioning my design moves and in finding the appropriate language of materializing my intentions through experimentation.

What book/song/movie do you relate to this project?

Book: The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre.

(... )

Evgenia’s project began as a tracing of the layers of ideological power accumulated in the city of Bucharest, Romania. These traces of past and current ideologies are distilled in an set of symbolical shapes and reabsorbed onto the site, a small peninsula in Parc Carol. This decision is the initial architectural marking of the site, as well as its involvement in the broader discourse on power that unfolds at the urban scale.

However, this set of shapes is dismissed in favour of a cluster of pavilion-sized structures based on the topography of the site. In perforating the ground of the peninsula the buildings develop in two domains, namely: a lighter over ground level (rammed earth) and an heavier reinforced concrete underground podium. In my opinion, the most interesting aspect of the project, although only partially developed in the final version, is the redefinition of the site ground. In this redefinition lays possibility for considering the whole site as domain of architectural intervention.

More specifically, the possibility arises for an architectural reconstruction of the peninsula in the form of an Island. However, the projection of the site as an island, its isolation from the surrounding, would not rest on the site’s initial conformation, that is, being almost completely separated from the mainland; but on having been inscribed in the scope of a single architectural order.

E. In de tijd dat ik bouwkunde studeerde, beheerde de faculteit een aantal werkruimtes voor afstudeerders. Het atelier waar ik terechtkwam, lag op de eerste verdieping van een gebouw aan het Mijnbouwplein, aan de voet van de Bastiaansbrug.

Zo’n twaalf mensen zaten daar, in verschillende fasen van het afstuderen. Er was een koffiezetapparaat en een ijskast en verder een hele serie bureaus waarvan je je er een kon toe-eigenen.

En er was E. E. zat al op het atelier aan het Mijnbouwplein toen ik er binnenkwam. Hóe lang al weet ik niet maar ik vermoed een flinke tijd. E. was er altijd en hij bepaalde met zijn sjaaltje, z’n sjekkies en zijn serieuze praatjes voor een belangrijk deel de sfeer. En met die weke muziek van Air, waar ik tot de dag van vandaag een stuip van krijg.

E. was de ideale figuur om een hekel aan te krijgen. Te serieus. Te veel met architectuur bezig. Toen we op een zeker moment met een man of zes gezamenlijk opgingen richting ons afstuderen en E. door een no-go werd teruggeworpen, lachten we heimelijk.

Een half jaar na mijn afstuderen was ik weer eens in Delft en besloot ik impulsief om nog eens het atelier binnen te wandelen. Toen ik de deur openduwde, schoot E. overeind van zijn bureau om het hoekje, waar hij had liggen slapen. Hij was er nog steeds! En nog steeds met die ruk-muziek.

Hoofdschuddend liep ik de trap weer af, mijn beeld bevestigd van een vastgelopen figuur.

Maar toen ik weer het zonlicht instapte, herinnerde ik me plotseling dat toen ik het atelier betrok, een jaar daarvoor, ik helemaal niets had behalve een paar schetsjes. Ik had vooral niet de durf om van een van die schetsjes iets te maken. Het was E. die met z’n sjekkie en z’n sjaaltje naar die schetsjes had gekeken, er één enthousiast had aangewezen en had gezegd: “Gaaf man, die moet je doen.”

Pierijn van der Putt / Docent Architectuur

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Speak

WE HAVE A NEW URBAN AGENDA: WHAT NOW? Words & Images Roberto Rocco

Between 7 and 9 June, the department of Urbanism organised an Urban Thinker Campus (UTC) to discuss how to integrate the New Urban Agenda into higher education. But what is a UTC and what is the New Urban Agenda, and why should it be integrated into higher education? Why should we care about it at all?

Let’s start with Habitat III, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development that took place in the historic city of Quito, the capital of Ecuador, in October 2016.

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Contrary to what you might think, this was not a boring gathering of arrogant technocrats discussing cities from their desks. It was a colourful, lively and oftentimes overwhelming festival of all kinds of people and institutions working to make cities liveable, fairer and sustainable all over the world. Numbers vary, but as many as 45,000 people attended the conference based in a park in Quito, with universities and conference centres around the city overflowing with parallel and alternative events.

The two previous Habitat conferences had a great influence on the way we think about cities. It is important that we understand how, so we can foresee the influence of Habitat III. Habitat I took place in Vancouver in 1976, four years after the momentous 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the world had witnessed unprecedented urban growth and governments started to notice the negative effects of rapid and unplanned urbanization.

In Vancouver, governments recognized the impact of rapid urbanisation on the well-being of people, but the emphasis was largely on the provision of housing and services, often based on very technical discourses which put national governments at centre stage, and left local authorities out of the equation.

This happened well before the report that has shaped our understanding of the relationship between human settlements and the environment was released: ‘Our Common Future’, also known as the Brundtland Report, was published in 1987, and

District of Cabuçu (left), in the extreme eastern peripheral area of São Paulo (Brazil), where citizens have little access to services and infrastructure. In contrast with the central area of São Paulo (right).

launched the idea that we must seek “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

If you are young, it might be difficult to imagine that before that report, talking about sustainability was seen as something of an oddity. The emphasis was on growth, production and technological progress.

This was the world before the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), a world locked in the Cold War stalemate, with two main competing and mutually exclusive narratives about the path to take and the danger of a nuclear holocaust looming in the horizon. Those who warned about the dangers of unsustainable urbanisation to the environment were not taken seriously enough.

This scenario had changed substantially when Habitat II took place in Istanbul in 1996, also four years after another crucial gathering concerned with the environment, the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit of 1992. Habitat II was popularly known as the ‘City Summit’ and recognised that cities are engines of growth, but sustainable urbanisation should be a priority.

It also called for a bigger role for local governments and citizen participation, giving rise to a wave of

devolution and participatory policies. Cities (and citizens) finally started to take centre stage.

20 years down the road, and a lot has changed. The effects of climate change are now undeniable and the world is more interconnected than ever. Humanity has come to the realisation that the resources of our planet are indeed finite, and many governments have taken serious steps towards renewable energy sources, while humanity has become, for the first time in history, predominantly urban.

Habitat III in Quito and its outcome document, the New Urban Agenda, take all this in stock and reinforce the idea that sustainable urbanisation is an engine for development. But urban sustainability here is much more holistic, embracing its three essential elements: environmental, social and economic.

The NUA seeks to create a mutually reinforcing relationship between sustainable urbanization and development, but it pays much more attention to the social and political aspects that underscore sustainability.

The idea is that by addressing Sustainable Development Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable), we can

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The central areas of São Paulo (Brazil), with informal commerce, locally known as “ambulantes”.

address most of the other SDGs agreed by the United Nations in 2015.

If we wish to ensure “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, then we must find the political, economic and technological tools that will allow that to happen.

The NUA also introduces three ‘enablers’ for sustainable cities: local fiscal systems, urban planning, and basic services and infrastructure. In doing so, the NUA explicitly recognises the role of spatial planning and urban design as crucial tools that can steer and coordinate the efforts of a large number of stakeholders with conflicting interests towards agreed goals.

Because the NUA is a binding document agreed and

signed by UN member states, it does have the potential to influence policy-making. According to some, it offers the first comprehensive approach to sustainable urban development for many countries.

The NUA has important shortcomings. Among other issues, it fails to spell out the ‘right to the city’ in its text, although it is very much implicit in several passages. Its main deficiency, however, is a lack of provisions to tackle the causes of some urban issues: financialisation of housing provision, extreme income disparities, red tapping that hinders the deprived households, etc. Many would argue that these issues are beyond what the New Urban Agenda can do.

I don’t agree with the critique that says the New Urban Agenda is too generic, however. It needs to be generic if it intends to speak to almost two hundred countries with very different urbanisation processes.

I also don’t agree with the opinion that it is too top down, simply because this is not true. The NUA is the result of a long and arduous process of negotiation and input collection form a myriad of stakeholder from all over the world.

Bouwkunde is not lagging behind, as demonstrated by the many studios and research groups dealing with issues of global urban development, and more recently, with the three As initiative promoted by our Dean, Peter Russell.

Obviously, some countries were more successful in incorporating citizens in the discussion than others, but independent NGOs were active everywhere collecting input from citizens, and Urban Thinkers Campuses like the one we organised were one of their tools.

The ‘A is for Africa!’ initiative, for example, is seeking for active partnerships with African institutions to help train young African professionals and aims to bring BK closer to Africa. The is ‘A is for Agility’ initiative has also an important role to play in helping educate young generations of designers and planners from the Global South.

UTCs are UN-Habitat sponsored open platforms for critical exchange between urban researchers, professionals, and decision-makers who want to have a real influence on urban development. They are also a platform for consensus-making among partners engaged in specific actions to make cities more sustainable, inclusive and fair. In the run-up to the New Urban Agenda, Urban Thinkers Campuses were instrumental to collect input from grassroots.

Now, Urban Thinkers Campuses are being organised again to discuss what became the main issue arising after the enactment of the NUA: IMPLEMENTATION. In the current round, 77 UTCs are being organised around the world, but the one organised at TU Delft is the only one exclusively dedicated to a key element in the implementation of the New Urban Agenda: EDUCATION. This is because the university is fully aware of its key role in preparing the young professionals and critical citizens who will implement the NUA in the next 20 years, and has fully embraced Sustainable Development Goals and specially SDG 11 in its own vision.

One important step in this direction was the creation of Delft Global Initiative, the university’s “portal, platform and booster for Science and Technology for Global Development”.

BK’s UTC was titled “Education for the City We Need” and gathered almost 40 professionals, educators and policy-makers to discuss how to best integrate the NUA in higher education, during three days of intense debate and exchange.

The outcome of the UTC will be made available in its website: utctudelft.org and in a publication to be launched in the second semester of 2017.

This article was prepared by Roberto Rocco, senior assistant professor of Spatial Planning and Strategy, department of Urbanism. You can contact him via r.c.rocco@tudelft.nl.

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Artefact

MY PEN

By Peter Russell

I am an architect. I ended up becoming Mr. Computer because I embraced the computer early on. This allowed me to complete the first “digital Master thesis” at my university in 1990. My secret is and was: my pen. Yes, computers are great at getting the unhappy work out of the way, but they cannot replace the happy parts.

The artefact that is most important to me is my pen. The ability to transform my thoughts to paper is a magical experience. There are times when I know what I have to draw in that I see it already in my mind’s eye and then I draw it. It becomes special though, when through the act of drawing, an idea comes truly to fruition. It is then that the act of drawing becomes visual thinking. It is why I always have a pen at hand and why I am always astonished when a colleague or student does not.

To be clear: it is not just any pen. The type of pen is important. When I draw in my sketchbook, I usually use a felt-tipped pen. Currently, I prefer the “Tradio” pens by Pentel, but I have been through many different ones in my life: some good, some horrible. I used to own a brilliant rollerpen from Japan that I sadly misplaced before noting its name and manufacturer. I treasure the Omas fountain pen my former boss gave me (because I said I wanted to stay at his office when everyone else was abandoning ship). I cannot stand a ballpoint pen, except to sign something unimportant. For the important stuff, I have my Omas for me personally and a lovely Lamy fountain pen for work.

But to draw, it has to be a felt-tip: on heavier paper with some grain and some weight.

And the pen needs some friction—not too slippery. This is my biggest hurdle to using electronic devices: their slipperiness. I do have an Apple Pencil and the Paper53 App just might be the answer – except that it is still nothing like drawing on paper. Maybe it is the sound of the pen on the paper that is missing on the iPad. From this artefact –­­my pen – I’ve developed ideas, thoughts, diagrams that explain those thoughts, structures, explanations, solutions, mistakes, clarity and a search to understand in a way that uses eyeballs instead of ears. And—it has created life—the characters I created as a cartoonist in school are part of the legacy of my pen. And though I cherish some of my sketches, in the end the drawings I make are not as important as the ability to make them.

Peter Russel nominated Eddy from Sodexo to write the next Artefact.

< Dimensions: L= 148 – 200 mm, Ø= 10 – 20 mm

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Speak

THE INDESEM, BEYOND THE CURRICULUM Words & Images Thomas Dillon

The International Design Seminar, or INDESEM in short, is held every two years at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment here at TU Delft. The first edition was organized in 1962 by a group of students in search of an additional challenge beyond the constraints of the curriculum.

In every edition of INDESEM, students and renowned professionals from practice and academia from all over the world tackle an important current issue that has influence on our profession. The fundamental idea of the seminar is to create an environment where students and professionals can debate and exchange ideas about the position of the architect, planner and designer within the current society. The outcome can contribute to the current architectural and planning discussion.

This year’s INDESEM 2017, “Crowded”, addressed the effects of the densification of cities. This presents challenges and new opportunities for the world’s current designers.

In this we identify four primary pillars: Growth, Shift, segregation and social interaction.

Growth The world population is increasing, and so is our lifespan. In a century our global lifespan has increasing 50% to the current 60 years, and we’re expected to make even more gains.

Additionally, our population has increased fourfold and is expected to reach 11 billion by 2100. This increases our demand for resources dramatically while we’re already aware they will be insufficient considering our current lifestyles.

Shift As our numbers increase, so does our mobility, with unprecedented numbers starting to migrate. This not only increases the ongoing rural to urban shift but also the international migrations. These shifts ask for design solutions for housing the increasing populations, but also taking into account the unexpected consequences.

Segregation Within our societies the increasing inequality in income and opportunity is becoming larger and more evident. Our living environment is one of the facets of our lives most affected by this clearly financial divide.

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Tutoring during the Seminar.

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However, it does not stop there. Apart from our incomes we have also segregated ourselves around along the lines of beliefs, social status, education, and ethnicity. This seems to result in socially incohesive cities and creates physical and non-physical barriers.

Social interaction Where in the past our social lives revolved mostly around our own houses or neighborhoods, the advent of digitalization and the ongoing data revolution have already drastically started to change our lives. We may now feel more connected to individuals across the world than those across the street, further increasing our desire to segregate.

While surrounding ourselves with those similar to us to escape from the frictions in physical social interaction, we are starting to feel an increasing unease. And yet we feel crowded.

Our vision When discussing these themes, the designers, architects and urbanists, have often remained quiet or unheard by the wider society, while it is us who

actually can respond to the spatial dimension of these challenges. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re often not expected or even dissuaded to thread in the realm of the political or sociological as we are not politicians or sociologists.

This we perceive as a lost opportunity, since we believe we as designers of the built environment certainly can make a positive contribution.

For such a far reaching theme it proved to be paramount to go beyond what either academics, the practice or government had to offer in ways of tackling these challenges. The boundaries of the curriculum are often too constraining to even conceive of the idea of going beyond our field.

In an attempt to bridge this gap between academia, the practice and the government we chose a multidisciplinary approach in which the participants (the new generation of architects, urbanists and designers) work on design proposals with input from the practice, academia and government that respond to these challenges.

The Seminar The sense of cooperation and dedication to the

Students working on their proposals.

subject, shown by the participants from over 23 countries, the tutors and the speakers alike created an atmosphere of free exchange of ideas, that is, unfortunately, quite difficult to replicate within an official curriculum.

Unobstructed by preconceptions of what design proposals should be like, most groups produced inspiring works, upon which future proposals could expand. The variety in the concepts and approaches to the challenges was greater than the projects within the curriculum generally allow and truly challenged the current reality. In the end we were even able to feature our 1:1000 model at the opening of the Rotterdam Architecture month.

For the students and the curriculum As mentioned earlier, it would prove to be quite difficult to integrate or replicate INDESEM in the curriculum as most of its success relies on motivation and dedication of students not primarily focused on credits, both organizing and participating in the event.

So the best way to experience this, is to actually participate.

We would like to suggest however to include at least one INDESEM element to the curriculum: The Design Freedom. During INDESEM students were free to choose their own mode of expression and we have seen, as in many other editions, that this leads to the most inspiring designs and the greatest degree of experimentation.

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Tiemen & Arthur

VISITÉ

Thijs Asselbergs (1956) is professor of the chair of Architectural Engineering since 2008 and director of Thijs Asselbergs architectuurcentrale.

bookshelf forms his ‘personal memory’ and is the heart of their study room, occupying half of the ground floor of a former orphanage in Haarlem.

Items Thijs is holding the first issue of Items, the magazine he founded during his graduation in Delft. The

Ever dreamt of moving? “Once I proposed my wife to sell the house, build a pavilion and live in our garden.”

The Rules

PETER RUSSELL’S 10 RULES FOR LIFE Words Peter Russell

As a dean, I have had the privilege to give speeches to freshly graduated students, in Delft and elsewhere. Young people who are about to start their careers. In the end, these talks come down to a few nuggets of information. I have pared these down to ten rules and will share them with you in Bnieuws over the coming months.

Rule #7: Be at work before your boss. (it will make her nervous).

My father, John Mahlon Russell, only ever (officially) offered me his advice on two occasions and this is one of them. It is brilliant in that it reflects the snakiest and canniest logic—you only have to be at work a few minutes before your boss—not hours. Just being there before she or he arrives shows your dedication to your work and they’ll never ask you how long you’ve been there because that would be embarrassing.

This is the same logic as the two hikers who see a bear running at them. The first one immediately takes off his boots and puts on his sneakers. The second one asks, “You don’t think you can run faster than a bear, do you?”. The first one responds, “No, I just have to run faster than you”. In a similar vein, the Formula 1 engineer Colin Chapman used to say that if his cars held together even a few metres after the race was over, they were overbuilt. He was talking about the optimalisation of materials and endurance. Being at work before your boss is about being smart, efficient and savvy with your time.

Being at work before your boss is above all about discipline. It is about caring about your work; it is about being responsible for your part of the project. It is also about using your time and effort wisely. It doesn’t make sense to be at work two hours before everybody else, but it might make sense to be there 20 minutes earlier to have that first cup of coffee and get that one important phone call taken care of before the “office day” gets going.

And yes, it will make your boss nervous, but in a good way—that’s your job—make your boss pleasantly nervous. Demonstrate your commitment with your attention, your efficiency and your smile: “Hi Boss!”

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Bnieuws VOLUME 50 EDITION 09