452 research outputs found
Sort by
Architecture and the Built Environment: Research in Context 2003-2009
Get PDFThis publication provides an overview of TU Delft’s and Berlage’s most significant research achievements in the field of architecture and the built environment, produced over the years 2003—2009. The publication is produced in preparation for the Dutch 2010 research assessment exercise Architecture and the Built Environment.
It is the first joint publication by Architecture, OTB and Berlage and hints clearly at stronger future ties between the three institutes, which are strategically positioned in the Rotterdam/Delft cluster of creative industries in architecture and urbanism
Hotterdam: How space is making Rotterdam warmer, how this affects the health of its inhabitants, and what can be done about it.
Get PDFHeat waves will occur in Rotterdam with greater frequency in the future. Those affected most will be the elderly — a group that is growing in size. In the light of the Paris heat wave of August 2003 and the one in Rotterdam in July 2006, mortality rates among the elderly in particular are likely to rise in the summer.
Method
The aim of the Hotterdam research project was to gain a better understanding of urban heat. The heat was measured and the surface energy balance modelled from that perspective. Social and physical features of the city we identified in detail with the help of satellite images, GIS and 3D models. We determined the links between urban heat/surface energy balance and the social/physical features of Rotterdam by multivariable regression analysis. The crucial elements of the heat problem were then clustered and illustrated on a social and a physical heat map.
Results
The research project produced two heat maps, an atlas of underlying data and a set of adaptation measures which, when combined, will make the city of Rotterdam and its inhabitants more aware and less vulnerable to heat wave-related health effects.
Conclusion
In different ways, the pre-war districts of the city (North, South, and West) are warmer and more vulnerable to urban heat than are other areas of Rotterdam. The temperature readings that we carried out confirm these findings as far as outdoor temperatures are concerned. Indoor temperatures vary widely. Homes seem to have their particular dynamics, in which the house’s age plays a role. The above-average mortality of those aged 75 and over during the July 2006 heat wave in Rotterdam can be explained by a) the concentration of people in this age group, b) the age of the homes they live in, and c) the sum of sensible heat and ground heat flux.
A diverse mix of impervious surfaces, surface water, foliage, building envelopes and shade make one area or district warmer than another. Adaptation measures are in the hands of residents, home owners and the local council alike, and relate to changing behaviour, physical measures for homes, and urban design respectively
Heritage-based design
Get PDFThis book addresses the question of how to design in a historical context. How to get a grip on a site? How can a designer incorporate actual qualities of the heritage in the design? In three chapters, it is described how the conservation of heritage has increasingly become an issue of planning and intervention, with the specific cultural heritage qualities of a site as the starting point for transformation.
There are several different approaches to embed the design in the site: focussing on the designed past, the designed presence and the non-designed presence. The better the essences of the meaning of the cultural heritage (substance, structure and narrative) are exposed, the better the design can focus on these. However accurately the different process steps are adhered to — in the end the quality of the design will determine the degree of success: it’s a thin line between a disaster and a brilliant intervention. The design challenge is to give a site new vitality while at the same time preserving its value.
Over the past decade, my office has dealt with all kinds of interventions and new developments. In teams of designers and historians, we have analysed buildings, areas and landscapes to discover their visible and invisible qualities. How did they become what they are today? What were the ideas and ideals at the time of their realisation? To what extent has a site withstood the test of time, and how can the concepts, structures and stories from the past be deployed in current challenges? We gradually try to get to the core: the legacy for the future and the exact nature of the assignment — viewed from the perspective of the cultural heritage value. Defining that value is a design on its own, just like history itself is. It is a creative process, in which the views and opinions of others carry considerable weight, but where you as the specialist will have to make the final assessment to arrive at decisions and legitimation. This will create a heritage base for the design to respond to and build upon.
There is no lack of good intentions to integrate heritage in a design. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that heritage values are safe in the hands of an architect. Far too often one gets the impression that the designer makes light of the job, by haphazardly including a couple of ancient relics or some monumental fragments (cherry picking), or by forcing a format or a blueprint onto a special site. Designers also frequently limit the cultural heritage aspect to their own visual perception and display an almost hostile attitude towards the views and interpretations of the heritage sector. The underlying reasons for such an attitude are to be found in the history of modern architecture, where for a century or more the past has been regarded as an impediment for the designer. With such a background, it is difficult to relate to cultural heritage with an open mind. Fortunately, this is a rearguard action. These days, a diversity of designers all illustrate in their own way what can be won by architecture when it is nourished by the heritage. By leaving space in the design for what is already there, by getting inspiration from the stories of others, and making use of what is available, the circumstances will be created for the heritage to survive an intervention and, moreover, to derive new meaning and values from it.
A good example of responding to a site is designer Piet Hein Eek’s factory in Eindhoven. With a high degree of open-mindedness, he lets the existing quality speak for itself, at the same time linking it to his own universe and the Piet Hein Eek brand. This serves to refresh the site and to make it attractive for new target groups. Robert Winkel (Mei Architects) takes a different approach: he uses the cultural heritage framework to explore the boundaries of a possible intervention. While doing the utmost justice to the cultural heritage value, he carries out radical interventions such as the creation of large openings (Jobsveem, Rotterdam) or enormous superstructures (Fenixloodsen (warehouses), Rotterdam). These are extreme interventions, with the presence of the heritage remaining the dominant factor; it becomes as it were a free-rider on the renovation to provide it with new significance, prominence and visibility in the city. This respectful attitude towards the cultural heritage value, without running away from renewal, can also be seen in the many transformations carried out by diederendirrix architects. It is not a coincidence that all these architects operate in Rotterdam and Eindhoven: modern cities in the midst of transformation, where the architectural image is not yet fully solidified but where history is visible, with a decisive influence on the quality and the potential of the city. The challenge is to also give the poetry of the site an effective voice in the design.
At the stations of the Dutch Railways, the heritage cannot possibly be regarded as something static. By virtue of their function, they are dynamic sites, with growing numbers of travellers and major changes in programming. In De Collectie (The Collection), the railway sector has established a number of outstanding stations, with the aim of including the heritage values in the transition processes which are inherent to stations. Thanks to De Collectie, the uniformity of interventions is broken and network demands (speed, capacity, safety, commerce) are increasingly better and more obviously aligned with the existing quality and the spatial logic of each separate outstanding station ensemble. On less dynamic sites, where the architectural image is much more fixed, the design brief shifts to the interior (churches), technology (upgrading of offices) or to combining different functions in an often far from the obvious way.
The design on or around heritage is all about open-mindedness, doing justice to the cultural heritage value, daring to opt for a radical intervention if necessary, making history visible in the innovative city, and responding to the poetry of the site — and all this in appropriate measures. The architectural style (modern or traditional, contrast or symbiosis) does not really matter all that much, as long as the attitude is to design on the basis of the existing qualities and to carefully develop the detailed design
HISTORY URBANISM RESILIENCE VOLUME 02: The Urban Fabric
Get PDFThe 17th conference (2016, Delft) of the International Planning History Society (IPHS) and its proceedings place presentations from different continents and on varied topics side by side, providing insight into state-of-the art research in the field of planning history and offering a glimpse of new approaches, themes, papers and books to come.
VOLUME 02: The Urban Fabri
HISTORY URBANISM RESILIENCE VOLUME 05: Historical Perspectives
Get PDFThe 17th conference (2016, Delft) of the International Planning History Society (IPHS) and its proceedings place presentations from different continents and on varied topics side by side, providing insight into state-of-the art research in the field of planning history and offering a glimpse of new approaches, themes, papers and books to come.
VOLUME 05: Historical Perspective
Prototypes and paradigms: Architectural research vis-í -vis research-by-design
Get PDFAfter 10 years of exploring the possibilities and ways to integrate Research-by-Design into Architecture Design Studio Teaching and PhD Theses in Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urbanism at various universities in Europe and around the world, the time has come to investigate these matured/maturing research approaches in relation to existing paradigms of architectural research & design. DR_SoM is reporting from a series of academic workshops and seminars, organised by ARENA, an international network for architectural research
Advancing the manufacture of complex geometry GFRC for today's building envelopes
Get PDFThin-walled glass fibre reinforced concrete (GFRC) panels are being used as the primary cladding material on many landmark buildings especially in the last decade. GFRC is an ideal material for building envelopes because it is durable, it can resist fire and the environmental impact is low compared to other materials, because the base materials used in the production of GFRC are widely available throughout the world. Thin-walled GFRC was initially developed as a cladding material in the 1970s and 1980s where the majority of the available research lies.
The introduction of 3D CAD software has enabled the design of buildings with complex shapes that, in the past, would have been rationalised to meet budget and time constraints. However, when GFRC has been proposed for buildings with a complex free-form geometry it has been replaced with alternative materials such as glass reinforced plastic (GFRP) due to the high cost and time required to fabricate suitable GFRC panels using conventional manufacturing methods. The literature showed that empirical performance characterization of GFRC had not been researched in detail regarding the limits of functionality or any systematic approach to understanding their use in complex geometry building envelopes.
As a first step the key architectural demands, the main barriers and limitations in the manufacture of complex geometry thin-walled GFRC were identified by interviewing and visiting manufacturers, designers and key buildings. This identified the key barrier to be the process of producing the mould for casting the complex geometry GFRC panels. Solutions to resolve them were tested over several stages for each of the main production methods most suited for the manufacture of thin-walled GFRC, namely; the automated premixed method, the premixed method and the sprayed method. The results from the laboratory testing over all the stages, and the prototype structure manufactured with the identified solution from the testing, answered the main research question:
How can the manufacture of complex geometry thin-walled GFRC be advanced to meet today’s architectural demands?
So, the architectural demands for thin-walled GFRC cladding were identified, together with a clearly defined range of complexity of thin-walled GFRC panels. The key demands were; a smooth surface texture, no visual fibres in the surface, minimal air-bubbles or voids, consistent colour across all thin-walled GRFC elements, no visible cracks, and the need for edge-returns and panel offsets. The suitability of selected production methods were evaluated against these demands. Firstly the automated premixed method was tested on a flexible table, (single reconfigurable mould surface, with computer controlled actuators capable of forming free-formed geometries). This showed that the flexible table alone would not meet the requirements for an edge-return, with the manufacturing speed required, to produce many unique shaped panels within normal building project time-schedules. Following this test a solution was proposed that used the flexible table to produce free-formed shaped moulds using fast curing foam, enabling moulds to be produced within hours allowing more rapid utilization of the flexible table.
This solution was first tested for the premixed method by casting positive and negative mould parts enabling an edge-return to be cast because flexible tables are only able to produce moulds with a continuous surface. The new mould solution for complex geometry shapes also demonstrated that it was difficult to avoid air-bubbles and voids when casting the GFRC panels using the premixed method. So a second mould solution was developed for the sprayed method. This resolved the challenges of forming an edge-barrier on the mould, while allowing an edge-return to be successfully cast on a double curved panel that met the key architectural demands.
From the research and the tests it was possible to devise a fully automated process for the manufacture of complex geometry thin-walled GFRC, comprised of:
— Stage 1: Initial architectural geometric concept. — Stage 2: Panelization and geometric offsetting. — Stage 3: Identifying the right production method. — Stage 4: Casting process. — Stage 5: Transportation and Installation.
Solutions for each of these stages all contributed to advances that will enable current and future free-form thin-walled GFRC architectural designs to be realised.
The contribution to knowledge from the tests and the resulting automated process was used to produce the moulds for 9 unique double curved elements to form each row of a 10m tall self-supporting thin-walled shell. This show-cased how the identified solution enabled a faster and more cost effective method to produce free-form thin-walled GFRC panels. One of the main conclusions of the research showed that the sprayed method currently provides most flexibility in the manufacture of complex geometry thin-walled GFRC panels when the identified architectural demands must be met.
To advance the manufacture of complex geometry thin-walled panels further a fully automated and digital manufacturing process must be developed. As identified in the research this can be done by upgrading current automated premixed production lines by integrating the new solution for complex geometry shaped moulds into the production line and automatically spaying the GFRC onto the mould.
When fully developed this fully automated method would enable free-form shell elements to be produced, that may also incorporate insulation, allowing segments for a self-supporting free-form shell to be constructed.
With this research the current architectural knowledge base has been advanced in terms of complex geometry thin-walled GFRC for building envelopes. The identified solutions should allow building with complex geometries to be realised using thin-walled GFRC as the envelope cladding
OverHolland 14/15: Architectural studies for the Dutch city
Get PDFThis latest issue of OverHolland takes a closer look at architectural designs, to mark two events in autumn 2013: the publication of the research results of the Renewing city renewal project, an initiative by the architecture firm De Nijl in partnerÂship with Delft University of Technology’s Faculty of Architecture and the KEI knowledge centre for urban renewal (now part of Platform 31); and the DOGMA 11 Projects + 1 exhibition in a temporary pavilion in the grounds of the Faculty of ArchitecÂture in Delft.
This issue sheds light on current architecÂtural practices in the public realm in the form of exhibitions, publications and specific interventions in existing urban areas. University research and education can play an important part here. In the Renewing city renewal project, graduation work by students at the Faculty of Architecture in Delft greatly contributed to the exploration of potential assignments, and persuaded the Amsterdam, Leiden, The Hague and Rotterdam city councils to consider specific proposals.
Four architecture firms from outside the Netherlands were invited to draw up the proposals, and were challenged to confront their often unusual experience of city renewal with Dutch practice. The results of the project were presented at an exhibition in Delft and Leiden, and published in a book entitled Vernieuwing van de stadsvernieuwing: pleidooi voor ontwerpkracht, edited by Henk Engel, Endry van Velzen and Olof van de Wal (Haarlem, trancityxValiz, 2013). An English version: Renewing City Renewal: A call for strong design, Delft, BK Books, 2014, can be found on the Internet.
In this issue of OverHolland, Roberto Cavallo presents two graduation projects that were part of the Renewing city renewal project: Floris van der Zee’s Amsterdam-Oost: parallellisme. Routeontwikkeling als stedelijke vernieuwingsstrategie (‘East Amsterdam: Parallelism. Route development as urban renewal strategy’) and Hyeonsu Yang’s Muiderpoort Station Renewed.
A recent design by each of the four foreign firms that took part in the project is also presented here: Fusi & Ammann’s model dwelling for the International Building Exhibition (IBA) in Hamburg, East’s Park House in London, De Smet Vermeulen’s residential care centre and children’s daycare centre in Antwerp, and 51N4E’s conversion of Kortrijk’s Buda Factory into an art centre.
This series of interventions in urban areas has been followed by a recent proposal by the architecture firm Dogma entitled Live forever: the return of the factory. Proposal for a living/working unití© d’habitation for 1600 inhabitants at the Balti Station area, Tallinn, 2013, the twelfth project on display at the DOGMA 11 Projects + 1 exhibition. Stefano Milani reviews the book on the other eleven projects (Pier Vittorio Aureli and Martino Tattara, DOGMA 11 Projects, London, AA, 2013). Milani focuses in particular on Aureli’s work with PhD students at the Berlage Centre for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design (‘the Berlage’), which has been part of the Faculty of Architecture in Delft since 2012. He considers it most important that the combination of theoretiÂcal reflection and design launched by Aureli has been adopted and pursued by the Faculty.
As a followÂup to his article in OverHolland 12/13, ‘The space of cartography’, Gabriel Carrascal Aguirre explains layering in cartography: ‘Stacking spatial information. Some reflections about layering and its origins’.
In the Polemics section, Jaap Evert Abrahamse reviews Cor Wagenaar’s Town Planning in the Netherlands since 1800, and Herman van Bergeijk reviews Eddy Verbaan’s De woonplaats van de faam: grondslagen van de stadsbeschrijving in de zeventiende-eeuwse Republiek (‘The home of fame: basic principles of urban description in the seventeenthÂcentury Dutch Republic’) and Raingard Esser’s The politics of memory: the writing of partition in the seventeenth-century Low Countries
OverHolland 4: Architectural studies for the Dutch city
Get PDFIn the fourth edition of OverHolland, the research into the architectonic makeup of the capital is extended to infrastructural projects. Just like other buildings, infrastructural works also manifest themselves expressly in the city as artefacts with an unmistakable physical and material presence. Bridges, dikes, overpasses and tunnels for cars, trains or subways contribute to the built-up identity of the city just as much as public buildings and residential areas. The projects analysed in this edition of OverHolland illustrate this view. The main role of the design in similar urban artefacts is discussed by François Claessens and Endry van Velzen under the denominator ‘the urban project’. Instead of a design and urban planning approach, which often remains abstract and vague due to its large scale, the authors make a case for an approach to urban transformation on the medium scale that works with concrete proposals open to discussion. Next, three articles hold the concrete architectonic form of a few large infrastructural projects in Amsterdam up to the light. Ed Taverne discusses the early 20th century breakthrough of the Raadhuisstraat against the background of the attention for the city’s image in the painting as well as the architecture of that era. Then, the attention is focussed on two current projects, which, given their size and signiï¬ cance, exceed the scale of the city by far. Roberto Cavallo analyses the current transformation of Amsterdam Central Station, which he places in a series of interventions since its original construction at the end of the 19th century. Filip Geerts lines up the developments of the everexpanding structure of Schiphol. This book also features architectonic interventions in obsolete industrial buildings. By analysing a few design proposals for the Tate Modern in London, Tamara Rogic´ attempts to formulate various architectonic approaches for dealing with existing artefacts. Finally, under the heading Polemen, Henk Engel gives his critical view of the recent Team X research at the Delft University of Technology, with an adaptation of the lecture delivered at the Keeping the language of modern architecture alive congress, held in Delft in January 2006
OverHolland 8: Architectural studies for the Dutch city
Get PDFVolume 8 opens with the first section of a study of the organization of design and building practice in the cities of Holland. In this article, the second section of which will appear in the next volume of OverHolland, Gea van Essen and Merlijn Hurx identify a few basic tendencies in the development of design and building practice in the cities of Holland from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Their work fills a gap in contemporary architectural and building history; the inquiries thus far in this field have mainly focused on specialized topics, and until now no general survey has been published. In the first section, the emphasis is on church building in the fifteenth century and the municipal Public Works in the centuries that followed.
The next three articles focus on more recent practices of architecture. As a sequel to the design studies for Dutch cities published in OverÂHolland 7, these contributions highlight the critical potential of architectural design. In ‘Empty Whole: The design of the warehouse district of the city’, the architects Stefano Milani, Filip Geerts, Arek Seredyn, and Radek Brunecky present their design contribution to the newly planned northern Italian city of VeMa. They take the theme of the ideal city and scrutinize it polemically, in the light of the traditions of rationalism and realism in architecture. The architects’ design shows that these currents of thought are still influential among the young generation.
Another sign that rationalism coupled with realism is still alive and kicking among the current generation of architects, and may even be entering a new phase, is the contribution by the architect and theoretician Pier Vittorio Aureli. We publish a chapter from his book The Project of AutonÂomy. Politics and Architecture within and against Capitalism (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008). Aureli dares to exhume the work of Aldo Rossi, which many have pronounced dead. He grapples with Rossi’s concept of the political, a previously underexamined and often poorly understood aspect of the Italian architect’s thinking. Aureli arrives at a plausible understanding of this concept by linking it to Italian political and philosophical debates from the 1960s, particularly the work of Mario Tronti.
Emre Altí¼rk’s inquiry also focuses on the 1960s period in Italian architecture. He describes the transformation that then took place in the role of representation in the profession. In some schools of architecture of the period, architectural drawing acquired a nontraditional role and purpose. Altí¼rk concentrates on attempts by architects to use drawing as a means of social criticism.
The last two articles investigate the current state of research on Dutch heritage in the domain of spatial planning and architecture. Point of departure for the article by Jaap Evert Abrahamse, Henk Baas and Reinout Rutte is the recent report entitled Erfgoedbalans, which provides a national overview of three areas: built heritage, the manmade landscape, and archaeological heritage. The authors take a highly critical stance, especially with regard to the lack of synthesis, the theoretical framework, and the limited pool of research relevant to the report.
The closing book review by Reinout Rutte sounds a similar note. In the section Polemen, he evaluates the flood of historical city atlases and city monographs published in the Netherlands in recent years. As in the case of the Erfgoedbalans, Rutte notes a preponderance of specialized descriptive studies and a deplorable lack of synthesizing and comparative surveys