Bnieuws 54/05 - Colours (2020-2021)

B 54/05

Colofon Bnieuws Volume 54 Issue 05 April 2021 Contact Room BG.Midden.140 Julianalaan 134 2628 BL Delft bnieuws-bk@tudelft.nl Editorial Team Federico Ruiz Inez Margaux Spaargaren Robert van Overveld Oliwia Jackowska Jonas Althuis Alessandro Rognoni

CONTENTS 04

50 Shades of Clay

08 P-618 11

Inclusive Design is the Norm

14

The Sky is Not Blue

17

A Lack of Exposure

19

Thoughts on Green

22

The Morning Sun

24

A Shitty Architectural Autobiography

Printed by Druk. Tan Heck

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50 Euros for the Pleasures: Sex Workers in Red-Light Districts

© All rights reserved.

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

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Artefact: Erik Ootes

32

The Berlage Questionnaire: Francesca Torzo

Contributors Lucie Castillo-Ros Valentin Zech Carmen Wientjes Erik Ootes Maria Christopoulou Georgia Katsi Cover Editorial Team

Bnieuws.nl

Editorial

COLOURS Have you ever asked yourselves why there isn’t much blue food?

Science tells us that a combination of pigments with the inability to produce blue is present in any given fruit or vegetable. A different, more instinctive answer, is that blue is a colour that doesn’t look particularly tasty (apart from blue ice-lollies, which are great).

On the other hand, the colour of watermelon looks the way watermelon tastes. When we see it, combined with the white of its juicy reflections and the black of the seeds, our brains automatically simulate its flavour.

Nature constantly exchanges information with us through the means of colour. Hence, as humans, we pretend to be able to see every shade of the natural spectrum. That is not true. Insects, for example, can perceive colours that we cannot see, with eyes able to catch a deeper spectrum, distinguishing ultraviolet flowers that, to us, would look the same as any other flower. In our anthropocentric mindset, we struggle to acknowledge how much our perception of the world is relative to our limitations.

Despite this, colours have had, and still hold, a decisive role as signs and symbols with which we communicate. We have given them names, simplified and catalogued their differences. In order to control and reproduce them by our own means, we have introduced “colour spaces”, where they can be identified numerically by coordinates.

Architects, who are quickly becoming Photoshoppers, use RGB, CMYK, HSV models as ordinary instruments of their practice. By these means we created our own illusory colour world.

Exploring colours; their multifaceted appearances and misleading characters has proven interesting. In this issue, we delve into colour’s political meaning, its disparate symbolisms, and look at the shades of our everyday life. We asked our contributors to write about a colour of their own interest, and challenged ourselves to do the same. You will read about pink prisons (pg. 8), purple design (pg. 11), light blue photographs (pg.

17), green McDonald’s (pg. 19), the golden sun (pg. 22), brown shits (pg. 24), red light districts (pg.27), and more.

With this edition, Bnieuws hopes to make your life a bit more colourful. Enjoy!

#Bnieuwd TO WATCH / LIFE IN COLOUR WITH DAVID ATTENBOROUGH For the new Netflix series, the 94-year-old British biologist and TV-maker David Attenborough went into the rainforests of Costa Rica and the Scottish highlands, among other places, filming with cameras specially developed for the documentary.

As the title suggests, Life in Colour is about how animals use their colours: from the stripes on a Bengal tiger to the violet signals on the wings of a butterfly.

2021 - present Stream: NETFLIX

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To do / Berlin Design Week Berlin Design Week is an 11-day event that hosts a programme of exhibitions, showrooms, talks, guided tours, workshops, screenings and conferences.

The theme for the 2021 edition is New Traditions and explores how design could contribute to the evolution of structures and processes in a post-pandemic world.

The event also features Design Pool, a trade show where studios and designers present their products from across the home and lifestyle accessories, furniture and lighting sectors.

26.05.2021 - 06.05.2021 Location: Berlin, Germany Website: www.berlindesignweek.com

To listen / COLOURS*STUDIOS Colours is a unique aesthetic music platform showingcasing exceptional talent from all around the globe, focused on promoting the most distinctive new artits and original sounds. In the context of an increasingly fragmented and saturated scene we seek to provide clarity and clam, offering a minimalistic stage to shine a spotlight on the artists and give them the opportunity to present their music without distraction.

ALL COLOURS, NO GENRES. Location: YOUTUBE

#Bnieuwd To do / INDESEM (International Design Seminar) What happens to the architect when the Datascape takes over? The Datascape method does not diminish the role of an architect, but it does change the character. A Datascape makes decisions in the design process, determines the importance of specific parameters and direction of the process flow, and specifies the preliminary design characteristics. But will never affect the results of intermediate analyses, thanks to the architect’s knowledge and experience, to oversee the design’s progress of the Datascape.

INDESEM.21 explores three scenarios for the intersection between data and architecture today and in the future.

29.05.2021- 03.05.2021 Join their lectures at INDESEM.NL

To do / DATAPOLIS Season 4 of DATAPOLIS weekly lecture program is out. The first one started at 21st of April and will continue to give lectures till the beginning of June. These lectures are organized by the chair of Complex Projects.

What is the 'cloud'? By entering the information age, we - humans- have exploded our relationship with the world. We are today living in a world where data, algorithms and the 'cloud' are at the centre of our daily activities while we have increasingly become fully committed to stay connected with each other regardless of time zones, geograpies or political boarders...

21.04.2021 - 02.06.2021 Location: https://tudelft.zoom

Latest / INSTAGRAM Keep updated on our recommendations on upcoming events through our instagram account.

Don’t forget that our voice is also yours, so send us or tag us with anything you’d like to share with our followers. Feel free to contact us via instagram or facebook! @bnieuws on Instagram / search Bnieuws on Facebook.

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From the editors

50 SHADES OF CLAY Words and images Jonas Althuis

You don't have to look far to find a brick building in the Netherlands, they're almost everywhere. For centuries, the brick has been a constant; governments have risen and fallen, crises have collapsed the economy, society has changed, but bricks remain. The use of brick is one of the reasons that there are so many century-old historic city centres in the Netherlands; bricks are robust. They don't rot, they're not flammable, they barely weaken over time. So how did bricks come to dominate the built environment of the Netherlands? Where do they get their diverse red, brown and yellow tones from? And what does the future of bricks look like?

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Brick buildings are so ubiquitous in the Netherlands, that they've become easy to miss; they blend into the built environment of this country like camouflage. This makes it easy to write off bricks as a boring or generic material, something I've caught myself doing throughout my design projects. "What a plain material", I would think, choosing instead for newer and more technologically advanced alternatives. In an effort to change my stubborn thinking, and perhaps atone for my ignorance, I've decided to re-discover bricks; exploring their history, how they're made, and why they're so commonplace in the Netherlands. In search of answers, I spoke with Koen Mulder; a teacher at the faculty that is specialised in building-technology. Regarding his qualifications, Koen's faculty nickname says enough, it's 'Mr. Brick'. It's from him that most of my new-found knowledge about bricks comes from.

The history of bricks Baking clay is something humankind has been doing for thousands of years to produce things. From pots, jugs or cups, to figurines and statues, to roof tiles, and of course, bricks. In the middle ages, bricks were made where clay was readily available; typically close to where a building would be built, so that transport distance was minimal. In the 16th century and onwards, brick production became more structured and was clustered around the Dutch rivers that contain the most clay; the IJssel, the Waal and the Rijn. The central area of the Netherlands therefore became the most important brick production hub of the country; bricks produced here were even exported to neighbouring countries. Throughout the centuries, the brick industry continued to grow; in the period of 1850 to 1965, more than 107 billion bricks were produced in the Netherlands. The majority of these are still in a building somewhere today.

Brick dominance Besides the widespread availability of clay for brick production, how did bricks become such a dominant building material in the Netherlands?

That has to do with climate. In north west European countries such as Denmark, Great Britain and the Netherlands, the relatively mild sea climate means that it freezes occasionally, even more so historically than nowadays, but it never freezes for long periods of time. This means that the porous bricks in these countries, made of river clay, aren't damaged by frost that can form inside when they get moist from rain or snow, meaning that brick walls can be left exposed. In countries with colder climates, brick walls have to be covered with an extra layer to stop moisture getting in, which is why you see exposed brick façades much less often in such countries.

Germany is a good example of this. Of course, local building history and culture have an important role to play in this as well.

Where bricks get their colour Bricks are made by first drying and then baking clay; the specific process by which this is done dictates the colour and quality. When the clay is still in the ground or riverbed before it is extracted, it can absorb different minerals that affect the colour when baked. Specifically, it's the proportion between iron oxide and lime that has the most significant impact on the final colour of the brick. With more iron oxide, the brick gets a dark brown or red hue; with more lime, the brick becomes yellow. The result of all this is that, as long as they are the same colour, all the bricks in the buildings around you were likely made with clay coming from the same area, which is quite poetic.

The future of bricks Bricks have an undecided future. They remain a very popular material, but they are not the most sustainable. It costs a great amount of energy to make bricks; they need to be baked at high temperatures for days on end. Besides that, they're heavy and therefore costly to transport. They are typically also laid one by one by a mason, a time consuming process. When a brick building is decommissioned, it's nearly impossible to re-use the bricks. It's not exactly the material of the future, and modern interpretations that have attempted to tackle these problems, such as stone-strips, seem to have lost all of the qualities that we do like about bricks; their robustness, their historic identity, the character and craftsmanship that comes with being hand lain. If it's up to Koen Mulder, we should look at bricks differently; appreciating them for their longevity and identity. We could change the way we design with bricks to be more flexible for future use. The brick walls of our new buildings could be part of the urban fabric, belonging to the public realm rather than to the building. In this way, we could change the 'building' behind this brick wall when necessary, rather than demolishing it in its entirety. The brick wall itself could remain for centuries.

On the next page; a collage that shows the diversity in colours that bricks can have, compiled digitally from more than 50 photos of brick walls in Schiedam.

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Pen pal

P-618 Words Lucie Castillo-Ros

What comes to your mind upon hearing the word pink? Did you think of a prison?

This is the story of Baker-Miller Pink, a shade of pink chosen for its calming abilities and used in carceral facilities. Let’s dive into the bizarre tale of this colour and its unconventional application.

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The story of Baker-Miller Pink begins in 1969.

Newly graduated in psychology from the University of New Mexico, Alexander G. Schauss comes across the work of Swiss psychotherapist Max Lüscher (1923-2017). In his research “Colour as an aid in psychological diagnosis” (Lüscher,1947) , he presents the Lüscher colour test, which aims to establish someone’s ‘current’ emotional state based on their colour preferences. Upon reading this theory, Schauss starts to wonder: if our emotions can be visually and universally represented by colours, could colours retrospectively influence our emotions? The following 10 years will see Schauss perform a series of research experiments on the influence of colours on human behaviours. In 1978, one of his experiments covers the muscular reaction of individuals when presented an 18 by 24 inch monochromatic cardboard plate. Some of the results suggest a ‘relaxing’ effect of the colour pink on the subjects. Schauss wakes up one night with a thought: what if pink could reduce human aggressivity?1 From this point onward, his work will focus on pink and its potential applications. After experimenting on hundreds of shades upon himself and other subjects, he identifies a particular shade as the most efficient in “reducing hyperexcitability”2. This shade he names P-618.

Baker-Miller Pink or P-618| RGB: (255, 145, 175).

But to demonstrate his new theory, he needs an environment to test it. However, the connotation of pink as a feminine colour presents a difficulty to find a correctional facility to perform his planned experiments. This was until Commander Baker and Gene Miller, officers at the Naval Correctional Center in Seattle, came into the picture. After attending Schauss’ classes on innovative treatments techniques and correctional research, and without his knowledge, Baker and Miller take the initiative of painting in Schauss’ pink the interior of one admissions cell: P-618 becomes the Baker-Miller Pink. After 156 days of monitoring, they will find a 100% reduction of erratic or hostile behaviours incidents since the redesign of the cell. Following this initial result, additional research is performed at John Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore.

Experiments continue throughout the end of the 1970s in a few other correctional facilities, youth probation centres as well as psychological centres.

Most facilities show a mixed to drastic reduction of aggressive behaviour due to the presence of Baker-Miller Pink. At least, these are the results Schauss’ 1985 article “The Physiological Effect of Colour on the Suppression of Human Aggression: Research on Baker-Miller Pink” present. Indeed, despite these positive results, many contemporaries of Schauss highlight questionable or even inadequate methods of research and data recording practices, and the existence of conflicting results. The outcome

Photo of a pink prison, unknown location.

of counter-studies performed by other researchers even contradict Schauss’ results.3 Many will attempt to repeat the initial experiments’ results, still to this day without success. However, such potential discovery is soon spread through the papers and many penitential facilities, hoping to reduce the number of aggressive behaviours amongst their convicts, starts using P-618, alas often becoming a tool to the oppression of the inmates by their warders. But this is a subject for another article…

In spite of the scepticism amongst the scientific community on the potential impact of colours on the human body and mind, these subjects are still explored in many domains like psychology or neuroscience. In 2009, Esther M. Sternberg, professor of medicine and director of Research at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine of the University of Arizona, presents her book Healing Spaces. In its second chapter, she develops on the many studies performed to this day on visual stimuli and their potential impact on immune responses: in other words, can we design spaces to help us heal through what we see, including light, colours, and

textures? Unfortunately, the answer to this question is not a simple one, nor is it one, but rather multiple.

Nonetheless, new data is created every year and could potentially corroborate some of Schauss’ hypotheses.

At this point, one should ask the difficult question: even if it were possible to assess and confirm perfectly scientifically the effects of the colour on a person’s behaviour, would it be possible to distinguish between a direct physical effect, and psycho-social affect? When you think of pink, do you think of the colour itself, or are you influenced by the social construct which dictates pink as a feminine and calm colour? What if I told you that, until the 1930s, pink was a colour that prevailed in male clothing and represented strength and power?

Would Schauss’ result have been so positive in a culture where pink represented aggressivity?

Therefore, it is important to re-contextualise colour psychology as a modern Euro-centred discipline that often fails to recognise the specific cultural basis of it results. If some applications of these theories seem difficult to refute, they are equally hard to prove

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truthful. Yet, their impact on our appreciation of Baker-Miller shade alleged calming properties have colours is undeniable. For instance, despite his test become part of a social construct and can be used as being widely discredited by the psychologist a tool to represent ideas and ideals, or for profession, Lüscher’s notion advertisement purposes. of emotions and colours is Baker-Miller Pink is a now widely spread amongst product that is, still to this the general public. We all day and despite its had one of those rings, which questionable scientific basis, allegedly changed colour marketed for its beneficial according to one’s mood! effects: a ‘scientifically This is equally true amongst proven’ calming colour. the architecture and interior design professions. Who has In 2017, fan favourite not heard a ‘let’s make the celebrity Kendall Jenner, Image from Paddington 2, pink clothes of the inmates. interior calmer by adding explains through her social blue tones’, or ‘this building will be busy and social, media that she painted one of her walls in a specific it should be of a bright colour like red or orange’? shade of pink, as it is ‘proven’ to have calming When filming Paddington 2, set in a carceral facility, effects, and even reduce appetite. Guess what this which colour is introduced to the inmate’s clothes, colour was? and symbolises their evolution to become better people? Pink! Whether conscious references or not, Seems like we have not seen the last of Baker-Miller these uses prove that colour psychology and the Pink!

Notes: 1. Alexander Schauss, “The Physiological Effect of Colour on the Suppression of Human Aggression: Research on Baker-Miller Pink” (American Institute for Biosocial Research, 1985), https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/236843504_The_Physiological_Effect_of_ Colour_on_the_Suppression_of_Human_Aggression_ Research_on_Baker-Miller_Pink.

2. Ibid.

3. James E Gilliam and David Unruh, “The Effects of Baker-Miller Pink on Biological, Physical and Cognitive Behaviour,” 1988.

From the editors

INCLUSIVE DESIGN IS THE NORM Words Inez Spaargaren

What does the colour purple mean? The first thing that came to my mind was a Friday where young people wear purple clothing once a year, called Purple Friday. On Purple Friday sexual diversity is celebrated. They stand firm for their fellow youth who are bullied or feel marginalized because of their orientation.

By wearing purple, they show support for the LGBTQ group. Many schools in the Netherlands are currently striving to be inclusive: accessible to all. But when they hear the school bell, will the environment outside of school also be inclusive, accessible to all?

The American equivalent, Spirit Day, originated in 2010 to show solidarity to gay youth, as the attention on social media was focused on their high suicide rates. Purple was chosen as the representative because in the rainbow flag, it indicated spirit and enthusiasm. To give young people a helping hand.

For the new generation of young people, I think the message we should send is to bring all sexual orientations in mutual respect, and that includes the Purple community. Now that diversity emphasizes differences; inclusivity will strengthen interconnectedness.

Inclusivity is an increasingly important notion in schools, at universities and at work. But building inclusivity is not limited to institutions; a big question mark about inclusive design is also emerging in the built environment.

The ever-increasing diversity in cities reinforces the need for a built environment that supports inclusiveness. There are special assistance programs for the blind and visually impaired, deaf and hard of hearing and hospital patients already in some public buildings. One of such examples includes viewing art through a multi-sensory experience. This is an excellent example for in the built environment, designers should be more committed to inclusiveness because it will foster diverse public. It should not be the case that people are denied access or cannot enter on practical grounds, such as wheelchair users at a museum without an elevator. Or without a 'restriction'-as well as having black skin. For architects and urban planners an example to design according to the statement: the built environment should be as inviting and accessible to all.

Inclusive design should be accessible for all types of users: children, adults, all ages, all genders and gender identities, all nationalities, sexual orientations and levels of abilitythe list could go on and on.

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The Friendship Park, Marcelo Roux + Gaston Cuna

This park is free of any obstacles and entirely dedicated for all children and youth that are physically or mentally challenged.

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Diversity starts very simply by urban planners and designers. They often assume only existing, dominant uses in public spaces. Examples of this could be designing a soccer field in a square, men (dominant user) like to kick a ball around, while women's wishes remain invisible. The desires of women and girls in public space often include good lighting, a central location and good visibility instead.

To achieve an inclusive design, spaces should be barrier-free and as convenient to use as possible. These spaces should also have the potential to make all individuals more confident and energized. To improve the ratio of functional to optional use of public space, there need to be a mix of elements and functions that all individuals like to use.

By designing more for these diverse groups you support to meet and simultaneously combine optional activities, therefore a lot of benefits can be gained for the increasing diversity in cities.

The future perspective could be, when the youth who are familiar with Purple Friday leave their school environment, lots of public spaces are merged into inclusiveness design. The message of Purple Friday will then not be lost, and the new generation of young people will be stimulated as ever in an inclusive built environment, and hopefully not think in different groups anymore. They will perhaps become the first genuinely inclusive generation. I think we can only celebrate that some architectural firms are taking the lead in this complex issue. Inclusive or universal design has only just begun to become the norm, but hey - better late than never!

Regent Park Aquatic Centre, Maclennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects

Casa MAC, SO SO Studio

The area was infamous for low-income groups, but because of the Regent Park it boosted towards a beloved community house.

It became a safe space for all kinds of people.

Baotou Vanke Central Park, ZAP associates SO SO Studio used textured stone tiles to help the user identify different spaces and navigate the house. The linear layout of the house makes it easy for the user to specify the rooms and get accustomed to them.

Modular homes, Shed KM and Urban Splash

This park, broad, with organically curved paths, offers flexible movement for differently-abled pedestrians. Several interactive zones ensure activity engagement for all age groups.

These home units have identical façades, but the interiors are flexible. They can be modified by the owner or user based on their needs, and hence these housing units are genuinely inclusive.

How have you incorporated inclusivity into your designs? Feel free to share, we're curious to see!

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From the editors

THE SKY IS NOT BLUE Words Robert van Overveld

If you would tell an ancient Greek that you have a blue iPhone, he would probably not understand you. Why? Because the word blue didn’t even exist, nor did the iPhone. If you would tell a Dutchmen in 1100 that the sky is blue, he would probably laugh. Why? Well, because it’s white, to him at least. The colour blue has quite a history, so let’s take a look.

For most of human history, blue was not a colour, which is surprising since we nowadays consider many things as blue; the planet, water and even the sky. All of it is explained by the fact that our eyes only have evolved enough to see this colour in the last 1000 years.

You never heard this before? That’s no surprise since this is not true. Even the first people could perfectly well see the colour blue, making it even more interesting why most civilisations didn’t even have a word for it.

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Let’s start with thinking about all the things that are truly blue in our natural world. It’s not that easy. The world is predominantly other colours. For instance, there are only a few blue animals. Funny enough, even those are not really blue. The blue is created by a visual effect of the skin or feather structure. As far as we know, only one animal creates true blue pigment; a butterfly called Obrina Olivewing. As for plants, about 10% of the plants are nowadays considered blue, but it’s often not this intense blue, rather a bit purple-ish. The colour blue is just rare in nature, which is part of the explanations why people didn’t have and didn’t need a word for it.

Imagine how mind-blowing it must have been if people would encounter an intense blue object. This happened in Afghanistan, where people found a deep-blue metamorphic rock. This rock was traded to the ancient Egyptians and Chinese for staggering amounts of money or goods, who were able to subtract pigment from it. Since it was such a rarity, only the most important things were painted blue. Cleopatra used it as an eye-shadow and, in later times, painters used it as the colour of heaven and for the cloak of the Virgin Mary. Blue became linked with holiness but was, most of the time, still not considered a colour.

To understand this, we need to look at the history of colours. Colours were just not as important as they are now. Most early cultures had three colours; white, black and red.

Those were used descriptively, meaning that white would translate to shining or blinding, for example. Two thousand years ago, the sky was as blue as we can see it now

on a sunny day, but people simply connected it to white since that’s what the sky does; shine and blind. The night was black, and the day was white. The fact that we call the sky and water blue is also a bit ambiguous since both are not really blue. They sometimes appear to be blue, but can easily also be grey and green. In other words, our use of the colour blue is often not very logical either, merely a habit.

At some point, varying from place to place, green and yellow were added to the colour scheme since those two are very frequently seen in nature. It took a long time before blue was considered a colour, arguably not until the invention of the prism by Rene Descartes. Till that time, blue was often connected to the colour green or black. This is also the reason why blue and green are the same word in many old languages.

Among commoners, blue as a colour was only truly grounded after Diesbach and Dippels’ colour mixing mistake at the beginning of the 18th century. The two men were trying to make red but accidentally mixed in iron, which led to a blue pigment. They called it Prussian Blue, which was linked to the Prussian army that gladly used the new colour in their uniforms.

Since then, the use of the colour exploded, especially after the invention of synthetic ultramarine in 1826. Today, you can see blue anywhere and everywhere. It’s the colour that symbolises power, holiness and depression. It’s the colour that was linked to girls before it was assigned to boys. It’s the colour that dominates my wardrobe and what gave Walter White his fame. It’s Nemo’s best friend and the music that kept slaves going during the harshest conditions. But above all, it’s the song that still gets stuck inside our brain every time we hear it: “I’m blue da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di”.

Need some recommendations for colourful content to inspire you? Check out #Bnieuwd on pages 2 and 3.

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Collage of photographs by Philippe Ruault of Lacaton&Vassal's interiors, compiled by Alessandro Rognoni.

From the editors

A LACK OF EXPOSURE Words Alessandro Rognoni

Philippe Ruault’s sterile visuals for Lacaton&Vassal are an alternative to a world of inebriating architectural images.

I recently watched a film called “Rendez-Vous in Paris”, shot in 1996 by Eric Rohmer, where a painter guides a Swedish tourist around Paris. “I like the lack of colours here” the painter tells her as they walk down an alleyway. Then, pointing at a painted door frame: “That grey is too blue, it’s not a Paris grey”. When asked why he says: “I don't know.”

Later, I found myself inexperienced in thinking of cities in terms of colour. I also realised how difficult it is to relate to the two in immediate ways, not being able to assign a definite colour even to the places of my childhood. While this is not the case of most architecture, which we remember by specific colours, I realised that I shared the same uncertainty when thinking about the buildings of the 2021 Pritzker winners Lacaton&Vassal. In particular, this was the case of those images of their buildings which I came across to through the years.

As I later found out, these were taken by their trusted photographer Philippe Ruault.

Writing on Lacaton&Vassal’s work in terms of photography will probably sound irrelevant, considering the hugely significant agenda that they have brought forward in the past decades.

Nevertheless, the moment a practice wins the Pritzker Price is also one in which images of contemporary architecture migrate from magazines to newspapers, reaching a wider “uninterested” public (the prize is regarded as the “Nobel of architecture”).

In such context, images come to play a role more significant than what one might think.

This year however, the photographs met by ordinary newspaper readers and social media were strangely unfashionable. Ruault’s images are in fact different from most of his fellow photographers in the industry. They lack post-production, appear stale, and somehow bi-dimensional. They seem impassive to the architecture they portray, but despite all, they are effective in mysterious ways. Lastly, they all show up in the same, inexplicable light blue.

Ruault’s light blue is the kind that appears almost grey. Other times it is the way we see grey. It epitomizes an atmosphere similar to the Paris of Rohmer’s film, escaping from a realm in which colour is intentional, yet not falling into the fashion of the monochrome (also the product of intent).

More importantly, in our own environment, this light-blue somehow represents a lack of control over colour itself. It is what we only perceive the sky to look like, and exemplifies the illusion of reflection and refractions, elements of space that are outside our jurisdiction as designers. Most of all, it represents an unedited version of our reality, a lack of manipulation of the images of our everyday life, something that instead keeps happening all around us at a concerning scale. From Instagram to Marvel films, from commercial rendering to Dezeen, we are bombarded by manipulated images to such a degree that we somehow remain unsatisfied with the flatness of our real environment.

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space, both in the public and private realm. Such generosity, which appeals to our deep desire for a personal appropriation of the built environment, results in fact from a great attention to scale. In similar ways, the improvisational quality of Ruault’s photography might hide his outstanding care for the details of everyday life. Just like his client’s buildings, these are images not promising more than what they show.

Lacaton&Vassal, 53 habitations HLM, Saint Nazaire. Photo: © Philippe Ruault.

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The inexpressive images of Philippe Ruault are eye-opening because they offer an alternative to a culture of over-saturation, which is by now much consolidated in architectural practice. His photographs of Lacaton&Vassal’s interiors escape any attempt to bring in artificial control over colour and texture, and to wield light by over-regulating his lenses’ exposure. Their “light-blueness” also results from avoiding the tendency for this specific camera position satisfying that particular weather condition, a fashion too common to architectural photography and its virtuous quest for atmosphere. Of course, we should accept that photography is, a priori, an illusory practice. Despite that, the way we see these interiors seems to come closer to the way they look like.

We should not be surprised that such a blind approach to photography is associated with the work of Lacaton&Vassal. The French studio’s research for a responsible philosophy of material and cost management has not simply resulted in a practice able to act intelligently within the politics of social housing and public space, but has allowed them to propose an uncommon spatial aesthetic. This is one of cheap materials, exposed concrete, and corrugated surfaces, while also favouring attention to lightness, openness and generosity of living

Want to see more projects by the 2021 Pritzker Prize laureates? Check out their website: www.lacatonvassal.com.

In some respect, it is the realm of images which distinguishes Lacaton&Vassal’s work from those practices who were mostly inspired by their architecture. From the masters of “austerity chic” to the more engaged “new realists” operating in France, many of these architects have employed the means of photography and rendering to somehow compensate on the more oppressive aspects of their energy-efficient artefacts (often extracting the most exquisite reflection from their building’s corrugated galvanized steel). While such a strategy might help to legitimize their intentions to future clients, it goes against the real value of images as frames of public reference.

The honesty of Lacaton&Vassal’s photography re-establishes a personal and intimate way of treating expectation. For this reason, when I find myself thinking of a future manner of dwelling which is truly carbon neutral, my mind immediately lingers on their interiors. They trigger in me a sense of both improvement and sacrifice. This sacrificial quality ought to be a crucial element behind the construction of those images of sustainability that architecture aims to disseminate within an uninterested public. In truth, a truly uncontaminated architecture is one that supports a truly non-contaminating life, one that we eventually have to adapt to.

Pen pal

THOUGHTS ON GREEN Words Valentin Zech

Colour is about collective memory, about emotional associations. A single colour can mean countless different things depending on its context and our brains are extremely quick in decoding that underlying meaning. This is never explicitly taught to us, we just know. And since the context defines the meaning of a colour, we all know differently, depending on our background. Below, an attempt to show some of the many facets of green.

Green is Islam.

Green is clean.

Green is hip.

Green is Irish.

Green is balance.

Green is sick.

Green is politics.

Green is wine.

Green is deadly.

Green is healthy.

In Islam, one prayer in the al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the prophet’s mosque, is equal to 1.000 prayers in any regular mosque. Visible from afar, a huge green dome covers the tomb of the last prophet Muhammad - the key figure in Islamic tradition.

Green is said to have been the prophet’s favourite colour and the colour of most of his clothing. This has two symbolic reasons: firstly, in the context of the early days of the Islam - a hot and dry desert in Arabia - green oases meant health and prosperity for the people. This positive association later led to green being used as the symbol for paradise in both Islamic writing and imagery.

Secondly, green forms the middle of the colour spectrum. It sits right in between the cold, short-waved blue and the hot, longwaved red light. The Islam connects this balanced quality of green to one of its most fundamental teachings: to live in moderation, in balanced, far from extremes.

The importance of the symbolism associated with green can still be seen today, in the flags of many countries with an Islamic majority: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and many more.

Green pigments are actually among the hardest to produce. There was a lot of experimentation throughout history, including the infamous Scheele’s Green that was so toxic it is said to have given Napoleon stomach cancer. The Romans had a slightly more elegant way to make green colour: they dipped copper plates into wine, making the plates turn green. A similar process can still be witnessed today in architecture. Rain pipes

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Green is screen.

Green is money.

Greenwashing isn't green.

Green is yes.

Green is envy.

Green is go.

Green is mold.

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Green is racing.

Green is surgery.

Green is war.

Green is land.

Green is nature.

Green is a name.

Green is wisdom.

Green is urban.

and roofs are often made from copper plates that will, exposed to rain and air, develop turquoise-green patina over the years. This is simply a form of oxidation, not so different from rusting or burning. The Romans just scraped off that green layer and used it to paint frescos and walls.

These days, everyone seems to be trying very hard to save our planet. Pick any big company that is on top of its marketing and you’ll find a sustainability section on their website, praising their initiatives and efforts to be sustainable. In fact, often, sustainability and green are the first words to strike your attention. Nestle has it. Mercedes has it. EasyJet has it. So do Shell, BP and Maersk.

Companies like these pay teams of marketing experts to do the seemingly impossible: making a fundamentally unsustainable business model look like a responsible and green concept. Just a few months ago, some of the biggest timber companies in Europe were fined millions because they made illegal non competition agreements for cutting down the last bits of untouched forest on our continent. These areas in Romania should be protected meticulously, but are used for making cheap furniture (among other uses) and sold in yellow-blue boxes outside most cities. In the decades leading up to the discovery of this disaster, the same companies worked very hard in making their controversial chipboard products seem like an environmentally friendly option. A textbook example of what green-washing is all about.

Off to the better news: The European green deal shows that there is an ambition to tackle the issue: ‘companies that call themselves green unrightfully should be fined’. Hopefully, there will be strict rules in the near future that helps us as consumers to know which companies are actually trying to drive change.

Many of the meanings we connect with green, especially the positive ones, come from the same source: basically all plants are green. We connect green to trees and forests, to freshly cut lawns, to peaceful walks through nature. As most people know, the green colour comes from the pigment chlorophyll. It allows leaves to absorb light and, together with water, turn it into sugars that give the plant its energy.

You might have noticed that there are some trees that carry red leaves, the blood-maple for example. The reason for this is our love for the exceptional. In nature, these mutations don’t

Green is beer.

Green is citizenship.

Green is luck.

Green is a new deal.

Green is McDonalds.

Green is reincarnation.

Green is drugs.

Green is tea.

Green is stone.

Green is

?

survive very long, because their red leaves slow down photosynthesis and let the tree grow much slower than their green neighbours. The red pigment acts as a type of sunscreen protecting young leaves from too much sun. After just a few days however, an enzyme breaks down the red anthocyanins and the leaves reveal their usual green colour. The blood-maple and his red tree friends have a faulty metabolism that disables the production of this enzyme. Humans keep them alive, especially in parks and gardens, because their atypical red colour breaks with the green mainstream. We always want the rare and exceptional, even if it actually means the tree is sick.

McDonald’s pulled off a smart and daring publicity stunt for their European branch. Their burger restaurants in the US have been looking similar since the yellow M was first introduced in the 60s. Yellow on Red. The main logo, the TV commercials, the clown, the employee’s clothes - the yellow and red colour combination have been burnt into the collective memory for cheap and fast burgers. The American concept took over Europe very quickly, nowadays it’s impossible to go anywhere without coming across one of their restaurants.

In 2009, McDonald’s decided to change their strategy: They changed the main colour from red to green. The concept was first put into practice at 100 restaurants in Germany, changing all advertisement to green designs, the furniture to imitation wood and the employees‘ clothes to forest colours, brown and dark green. The transition should make everything feel healthier. Slowly and quietly, this premise has expanded to all of their marketing in Europe, health-washing McDonald’s’ fatty and sugary ‘food’.

Valentin is doing his master's in Architecture at the faculty. Follow him on Instagram at @valentinzech.

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The Morning Sun Carmen Wientjes Oil on board London, 2020

I take in the golden sun as I go for my morning run.

I observe the city.

Quiet streets, a few strangers around.

Still subcluded, bathing in the morning light.

I take in the golden sun as I go for my morning run.

Light falling on my skin, sun low on the horizon.

Wind caresses my face as headwind is trying to push me back.

As the sun smiles at me, I increase in speed.

In that moment of greeting the sun, for the first time once again,

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Time stands still.

I become most aware of the changes around me.

How the night has disappeared in the rise of the morning, how the darkness and stars have transformed into the brightest blue sky, how the sun rays are already disappearing since turning a corner.

Constant change in the constance.

I take in the golden sun as I go for my morning run.

My knees heavy, grounding me.

As the sun smiles at me, my heart raises.

The Morning Sun; a painting and accompanying words were submitted to Bnieuws by Carmen as contribution for Colours. Interested in contributing to a future edition?

Contact us at our email: bnieuws-bk@tudelft.nl.

From the editors

A SHITTY ARCHITECTURAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY Words Federico Ruiz

Shit is brown. It is also one of those things that unites us as humanity, and yet we as architects and urbanists avoid talking about it. I don’t talk about it, in good part because my grandma told me that politics, religion and human excretions were not things to be discussed with others. However, the way architects design toilets might be the best clue to understand their view on this earthly matter.

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In my training as an architect there were several times when I had to design those spaces for relief. These were peculiar moments in which the grotesque sounds and fumes of our bodies had to be neutralised through architectural solutions such as “natural ventilation” or “acoustic insulation”. Today I realise that we architects are constantly talking about what we think a good dump should be, feel, (not) smell and sound like, even if we don’t like to use words to discuss this messy issue.

In fact, I believe that the relevance of this matter transcends the simple task of sending bowel creations into the underground world of drainage pipes. For many slaves of capitalism such as myself, the toilet represents one of the few spaces for personal reflection, a place for total consciousness of one’s body and its volcanic workings. If everything is going well, it is there where the best ideas and most memorable epiphanies come to our bored brains. This is, of course, when our visit to the porcelain throne is not accompanied by the alienating presence of a smartphone. Doing so, apart from turning your phone into a petri dish for the growth of who knows what, is taking away the possibility of a transcendental experience.

Although I will not be discussing the relationship between our bottoms and brains (I still believe there is a connection, though), I will try to understand what I think of defecation through the best evidence I have got: the toilet plans of some of the projects I designed during my bachelor years, as well as some memorable toilets I have encountered throughout my life.

Training ground The first picture shows the main bathroom of the apartment where I grew up. This space makes me very emotional: there I learnt to push and flush. Lit by two windows, turquoise coloured appliances and lime-yellow tiles on the walls create a vibrant, yet peaceful atmosphere. A randomly placed image of a fish made with coloured mortar decorates the floor, making it an ideal focus for one’s attention while waiting for the miracle to happen. Despite this richness, there are some issues with the tiles; namely, there are some small misalignments and incorrect modulations that my imagination has magnified. In fact, those mistakes made me conscious of how important it is to be careful when detailing bathrooms, especially those areas that the user will be facing while doing the deed. The pooping human is a careful beholder that should never be underestimated.

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Gas chamber We have all designed one of these. This specific one comes from a second year studio that focused on producing houses despite their quality. The teachers, musty admirers of Le Corbusier, wanted us to replicate his Unité d’Habitation in Marseille with some minor alterations. Legitimised by the old master, they would not hesitate to tell us that the bathrooms needed to be moved away from windows.

Despised, toilets became coffins where people went to suffocate in their own fumes.

High fashion Milan, 2016. The Fondazione Prada, designed by OMA, had been inaugurated one year earlier. I was not expecting anything special from the toilets; if they had spent that much money in putting gold leaf

and aluminium foam cladding for the project’s facades, I could imagine that costs were reduced in the lavatories. I was wrong, of course. Metal grates were used in the floor, walls, and ceilings. Some were green, some black, others had a transparent sheet of polycarbonate on top, or a mirror behind.

The toilet seats were a single piece of steel, reminding of a post-industrial techno club, but with a fancy twist. Prada, Milan and Koolhaas, a holy trinity of fashion, were also represented in these faecal cubicles. It was, in fact, a space where one’s stool was treated as a luxury Prada purse. I liked that.

Funerary shock This is part of a design for a funeral home that I did in my fifth year. Too many poetic intentions in the ground floor forced me to squeeze all the service spaces in the basement, with slightly disturbing consequences... In fact, the toilets where the mourners were supposed to release their sorrows was next to space for embalming and putting makeup on cadavers. Because of this, and despite my efforts, a sequence of wrong turns could have led to gruesome encounters between living and dead which, at the same time, might have required another visit to the toilet. Through this mistake I learned that there is a fragile peace that comes after discharging one’s bowels that should not be disturbed. Surprises are to be avoided, and a quiet transition to the outside world must be ensured.

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Excremental cathedral These are the plan and section of a bathroom and clothes-washing space of a support facility for the homeless. It is a small part of a larger design of four buildings I made for my bachelors’ thesis. Although the scale of this project did not allow for further detailing, some ideas are clear enough to discuss.

Cubicles are large and equipped enough to be called rooms. A symmetrical configuration emphasizes monumentality, and the sound of falling water coming from a Louis-Kahn-inspired pond quiets the mind and relaxes the sphincters. The roof is curved, letting plenty of natural light and air into the space, and giving it the aura of an excremental cathedral.

Above, kids play in a park, unaware of the shit show taking place underneath.

So, what is a good crap? Or better, where should it happen? At this point, it should be clear that I think of toilets as temples for celebrating those bodies that do their best to expel their worst. This was not always the case, of course, but I am glad to say that I see evolution in the way I conceive dumping grounds. The repercussions of this in my practice as an urbanist are yet to be seen, although the idea of turd-based urbanism sounds inspiring. What I now know is that there is still plenty to learn and many toilets to reflect upon.

What's your experience with designing the humble domain of the toilet? Share it with us!

From the editors

50 EUROS FOR THE PLEASURES: SEX WORKERS IN RED-LIGHT DISTRICTS Words Oliwia Jackowska

Prostitution and sex services have always been lining the urban fabric around the world. Sex work has been dubbed the oldest profession in history. This article explores the contradicting ideas on sex work and why we should be talking about it.

In a political discussion about women’s rights in Poland, after a nearly total abortion ban in the country, I was told that “if a man loses his job, he becomes homeless; a woman always has the option to sell sex, and the strong market demand for their services makes women privileged”. This, quite frankly, ridiculous comment inspired me to explore why still mostly women find work in prostitution, and what role does this play in the protection of women’s rights? There are very few topics that spark such polarised responses either in academic studies, public opinion or political actions. Many different actors involved in the discussions are biased and present contradicting images of reality. Even the relevant data is often unverifiable. The stigmatisation of prostitution makes it impossible to resolve the core problems – ensuring the safety and independence of sex workers.

The red-light district in Amsterdam is a popular tourist destination, and I have walked through it whenever visiting the city. Other red-light districts are scattered around the world, with some of the most known located in Thailand. The combination of the legality and regulation of prostitution in these districts, is one of the two approaches debated by the EU parliament in tackling the illegal sexual activities and human trafficking. The other one is described as abolitionist – the supporters of which argue that human trafficking and prostitution are

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A sex worker sits behind her window in Amsterdam’s red-light district. Source: Paul Vreeker / Reuters

interlinked and sex work should be completely de-legalised. However forward-thinking and liberating the legalisation of prostitution might seem though, there are a lot of issues that you don’t see at first glance.

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First of all, creating red-light districts in the city and confining public sex activity to one area does not serve the celebration of sexuality, but rather it limits the dirt within the boundaries of its district. This ensures better spatial control over the activities. You could argue that it helps the police to protect the safety of the workers, but it also greatly reduces the opportunities for services to be performed on the sex worker’s own terms. Confinement to bars, clubs or rooms located in a specific area increases the competition for space and limits the creative control over their activity. According to an article by Humanity in Action, it costs around 90 to 150 Euros to rent a room for an eight-hour shift, which means that sex workers in Amsterdam’s red-light district need at least four to five clients per day in order to be able to pay the rent.

“IT’S KIND OF LIKE WINDOW SHOPPING FOR CLOTHES, BUT WITH GIRLS INSIDE” This is how a blogger described his experience of “fulfilling a lifelong dream” and paying for sex services in Amsterdam. Personally, I fail to believe that women in shop-fronts, displayed like any other advertised product represents the real image of freedom and female sexual liberation?

Another problem faced by sex workers in Netherlands is the lack of identity protection. To run their business legally, which involves employing a pimp and paying the rent, they need to register with the government. However, it is unclear what the data from registration is used for and who has access to it. With the stigmatisation of prostitution in society, the access to such data by potential future employers

could limit the sex workers’ options for an alternative career. This lack of anonymity, combined with high costs of running a business legally, and competition for spaces makes more and more sex workers risk their personal safety and choose the illegal path instead.

With everything considered, Amsterdam still represents a good step towards tackling sexual exploitation in a reasonable way. In most of the world, street workers are just part of the urban reality, and considered a taboo, their safety is rarely discussed. The subject of prostitution and sexual exploitation is extremely gendered, and still needs to be addressed as a protection of women’s rights. You could argue that men can also be sex workers, and their rights need to be addressed as well. However, to truly tackle these problems the underlying bias and general context needs to be better uncovered.

The EU reports on human trafficking in 2016 show that 77% of registered victims in EU (excluding UK data) were female, and 95% of all people trafficked specifically for sexual exploitation were women and girls. Men constitute the majority of victims trafficked for labour exploitation.

According to some literature, women entering prostitution are often linked to vulnerability, homelessness and limited access to legal employment due to discrimination. Linked to this data, most of the EU member states, feminist groups and politicians advocate for abolition of prostitution.

They recognise that such activity often puts women in high risks of physical and psychological harm, and even risks of death. In contrast to that, the sex worker and human rights organizations have repeatedly advocated for decriminalization of prostitution. When all forms of prostitution are illegal, the sex workers are far more reluctant to report abuse or other under-age workers as they fear being arrested as well. This affects the actual safety of women, and makes human trafficking even more difficult to uncover.

I find this lack of consensus on the basic principles, the biggest challenge for the future of sex workers.

There are some examples that show the dissonance between these realities. The EU parliament shares that 89% of sex workers have no other possibility for economic survival, even though they wish to escape prostitution. However, as pointed out by Maggie McNeill, a retired call girl now turned writer, many of these reports are distorted due to the fact that women interviewed are usually found in jail or drug addiction facilities.

Invisible at first, there is a strong distinction between those who enter prostitution due to vulnerability and those who actually wish to perform the work. The sex-workers-by-choice struggle therefore with increasing competition, having to fight with the stigma, and experiencing lack of support for building truly independent businesses. Sex workers, along with physical services, often also provide psychological support, as this is what returning customers search for. An interesting representation of a sex-worker-feminist was portrayed in a Netflix series Easy. Sally is a Chicago based writer who also works as an escort to pay her bills. She invites the customers to her own apartment and the interactions often show a strong emotional bond, which she builds with the men through conversation and physical touch. The character was portrayed by Karley Sciortino, who is an outspoken activist for sexual liberation, who also recently wrote an article

describing her appreciation for Sally’s character.

Other outspoken sex workers and activists often advocate for regulations to be consulted with them, as the bias and discrimination often causes assumptions, which then find their way into the law enforcement.

Why red-light districts? In symbolism, the colour red represents passion and sexuality, but also seduction and evil. The female body has been seen in history and in many religions only in two contexts: as an instrument for bearing children, and as a dangerous instrument to lure men towards evil and sin. On top of this, the unbalanced power relations in society, especially referring to financial resources, affect both men and women, and perpetuate the image of women selling and men buying sex. Some experts argue that prostitution in effect reinforces this gender stereotype with men having potentially an unlimited access to women’s bodies, depending on their economic status.

All in all, the debate on prostitution is especially challenging. It involves bias, assumptions, social injustices, discrimination and lack of understanding.

As I mentioned in the beginning, prostitution has always been lining the urban fabric. It is time for policy makers, urbanists, architects and designers to finally include sex workers in their drawings, plans and policies, and provide them with safety and independence that they need.

Literature: Belingar, B. (2016, February 2). How I had Sex with Amsterdam Prostitute; Cruz, J., & van Iterson, S. The Audacity of Tolerance: A Critical Analysis of Legalized Prostitution in Amsterdam’s Red Light District . Humanity in Action Nederland; European Commission. (2018). Data collection on trafficking in human beings in the EU: Final report; Schulze, E., Isabel Novo Canto, S., Mason, P., & Skalin, M. (2014). Sexual exploitation and prostitution and its Sexy Enticing Girls; Red-light district window lights. Source: LawNow Magazine.

impact on gender equality - study.

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Artefact

MY GIANT Words Erik Ootes

‘Artefact’ is a recurring two-page spread, which features a beloved object presented by one of the BK City staff members. Every month, the author passes the ‘Artefact’ contributorship to the next. Last month, Ulf Hackauf nominated logistics manager Erik Ootes, who works at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.

Almost every Dutch person has at least one, a bicycle. They are now available in an increasing number of shapes, models and sizes. Just as the electric version of the car is on the rise, the development of bicycles has gained momentum. Most bicycles that are sold are now equipped with electric assistance.

My favourite bike - I have 5 of them myself - is the one that you still have to push all by yourself: my racing bike.

I bought my current racing bike, a Giant, in January 2016. It has a carbon frame, which makes it light and stiff and it reacts well to steering movements and accelerates quickly.

Two of my brothers bought one of those at the same time and since then we have formed a cycling group. The bikes strengthen our family bond and inspire us to take on new challenges.

This makes the bike much more than a means of transport. Sometimes it has that function, as it did in the time before Covid-19. Every week, I would make sure that my bicycle was at the Bouwkunde office on Friday and then I would take the train to Delft.

In the afternoon, at the end of the working week, I would change my outfit into my fast suit, put my normal clothes in a rucksack and, enjoying the green surroundings, cover the 52 kilometres home as fast as was responsibly possible.

Fortunately, cycling turned out to be an activity that was not influenced by the Covid-19 measures we have been facing . So in my spare time, the bicycle brings me to places where I otherwise could not go to or it enables me to experience the environment more vividly than if I visit that place by car, for example.

In the past 5 years, the bicycle has helped me to conquer many mountain cols in the Alps or Pyrenees and to explore and extend my own limits, but even more to deepen and strengthen the bonds of friendship with family and friends.

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The Berlage x Bnieuws

THE BERLAGE QUESTIONNAIRE: FRANCESCA TORZO Words Maria Christopoulou and Georgia Katsi

Based on the late-nineteenth-century parlour game, made fabulous by answers from Marcel Proust, The Berlage Questionnaire is a series of questions posed to guests after their public online lecture about their lives, thoughts, values, and experiences to reveal their wit, character, and personality.

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Your favourite character in history. Oh madre mia! I am fascinated by so many historical characters. I am so fond of history that I could go on forever. I’m proud of Martin Luther King and what he stood for.

Your favourite virtue. Honesty—which is the ground for freedom.

The building you’d like to wake up in. The courtyard of Castel del Monte in Puglia. I think I need spring, so maybe it’s also seasonal, because I don’t have one favourite place, I have many, I really am for plurality.

Your most influential teacher. Isabella Linceto, who was my high school Italian teacher and she loved Dante.

Your favourite architectural text. I keep on reading over and over again Vitruvius’s De architectura and Alberti’s De re aedificatoria. They are brilliant and full of humour; and I accompany them with Vasari’s Le Vite.

Your idea of earthly happiness. I need an open view with a space for a little bit of soil where plants can grow out of control and be alive, extremely beautiful, and elegant.

Your favourite colour. My team jokes with me that when it comes to my favourite colour, as all colours that exist around me are messy as life. I have troubles with many colours related to oil painting as they lack mist and are invasive to the eye. It’s great when you can dim your eyes to something, like in Piero della Francesca’s work.

The last book you read. There’s three of them: Francesco Biamonti, he’s from Liguria and seems a little bit tremendous in novels, but his writing is rapid, cinemagraphic like Nabokov. And then I’ve been rereading Metamorphosis by Ovid and Ides of March by Thorton Wilder.

Your ideal collaborator. Limpid terse people that are brave and have grace.

The natural gift you would like to possess. Being able to sing.

Your favourite city to live in. I need the sea, I need openness. I accidentally ended up in Genova, but I’m grateful to live in Italy. You are surrounded by beauty and there is good food, plants grow, and that is gorgeous. Maybe trivial, but quality of life matters for me.

The person you would like to invite to the dinner table. Fernando Távora.

Your favourite indulgence. Dancing.

Your favourite musician. Impossible to answer.

The building material you like the least. Glue— especially when used to apply bricks to insulation.

That’s indecent!

The questionnaire was adopted by Berlage students Maria Christopoulou and Georgia Katsi after Francesca Torzo’s remote lecture on March 4, 2021, as part of the Berlage Keynotes.

BECOME A PEN PAL! We are always searching for new voices to join and contribute to Bnieuws. Whether your talents are in writing, drawing, photography, graphic design, or you’re filled with a range of skills, we would love to hear from you if you have any ideas for the faculty periodical. If you would like to be on our contributors list, simply send an email with your ideas to: bnieuws-BK@tudelft.nl

NEXT ISSUE: OPTIMISM VS. PESSIMISM. Over the past year we have all learnt that sometimes things do not turn out the way we expect. When writing or designing however, we sometimes project personal bias onto our work. Based on our own experiences and individual preferences, we can have either a more positive or negative perspective. This new double-sided edition will explore the themes and subjects in the spectrum of optimism and pessimism.

Bnieuws 54/06 due June 2021.

Bnieuws INDEPENDENT PERIODICAL OF THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT TU DELFT VOLUME 54 ISSUE 05