BookRxiv

Building Data

2023-01-29T20:01:30+01:00

Ninth Annual Conference November 2019 - Jaap Bakema Study Centre

This year’s annual conference of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre (JBSC) revisits the broad topic of the digital. This time the focus is on the vast amount of data that are being generated and stored, and how to view this overload in light of new possibilities for architectural design and construction, archival and heritage practices, knowledge curation and dissemination through storytelling.

The questions around digital data and especially open data leave much to explore and discover, specifically at the scale level of the building. Even if urban and media studies have completely embraced the discourse around data, what remains an open question is the impact on architectural design and the building project. The intermediary object between the scale of the user carrying around and interacting with the massively available microtechnologies and the larger territorial scale of interconnected urban spaces, both public and private, has largely been disregarded.

This became also clear from the responses to our call that we sent out. It generated surprising propositions opening up new avenues we had not quite expected, from building analysis to co-creation formats as design tools, diversity and inclusion questions and data curation as historical research. The selected papers are clustered under the headings of Subjectivities, Hybridisation, Inclusions, and Precedents.

Contributors do not address data and its collection as an autonomous field, they all discuss data in relation to contextualisation and alternative operativity, beyond the conventional questions of optimisation. Data are not a given, or a neutral outcome of surveillance, measuring and research, they are always curated. Data need narratives and narrators, to make sense. How to curate data, and by whom exactly and why, thus become crucial questions to assess the potential of data for architectural design, their value and meaning.

Fritz Schumacher & Heinrich Tessenow

2022-09-20T21:11:08+02:00

This series includes both Inaugural Speeches and other studies that deal with the built environment and that have a strong historical point of departure. The Chair of History is the driving force behind the series.

Inaugural speeches have long been unique moments in the careers of academics in many countries: As an important moment in the career they offer a moment to pause, to reflect, and to envision new approaches. Planners and architects in particular have used such speeches to tie together insights into design work and education and to offer a programmatic view on their own operating within the academic community. Prepared with great care for a university and general audience, inaugural lectures also offer later researchers insight into the thoughts of these scholars at a specific moment in time. Material gathered for and notes written on the occasion of these lectures can help such researchers understand the work habits and thought processes of their authors, perhaps even their relationships with colleagues and students. This series offers inaugural lectures - translated into English and contextualized with scholarly introductions – and other seminal studies to unlock information for comparative research and set the stage for new investigations. The expanded series continues with the inaugural speeches of the German architects Fritz Schumacher and Heinrich Tessenow. Although they were held at different institutions, both speeches were given at Dresden. For Schumacher it was, more or less, the beginning of an interesting career, for Tessenow it meant the return to Germany after that he had taught some years in Austria. Both had made a name for themselves. Especially Schumacher was a well-known figure in the Dutch architectural world due to the exhibition of his work that was held in the Hague in 1922. He was in contact with many Dutch colleagues and visited J.J.P. Oud in Rotterdam. Also Tessenow came to the Netherlands and was shown the Hoek van Holland complex of J.J.P. Oud by the architect himself. The speeches are introduced by an essay of Hartmut Frank.

If the Past Teaches, What Does the Future Learn?

2022-07-11T15:01:06+02:00

How can we transform urban environments to encourage durability and mediate the social price of myriad risks and vulnerability?Our work here is to build a bridge from archaeology to mainstream architectural and design theory. The study of places, landscapes, and regions links the two fields. Architecture can be shaped and enhanced by the long-term cultural and geographic perspective afforded by archaeology; architecture can offer archaeology a ride into the future. We hope that our efforts are novel enough to be inspiring and connected enough to allow existing concepts to be furthered.

The bridge unites three domains: material, social, and aesthetic. We look to the past to find material technologies—new engineering and conceptual solutions to an array of problems—and the past obliges with many examples. However, these technologies in their material aspects are only part of the story. The archaeologist sees them as playing a role in a system. This system, while mechanically functional, is also profoundly social: it includes administrative structures, but also innumerable other kinds of relationships—kin groups, neighborhoods, genders—that mirror the embedded relations between humans and nature. As in architecture, systems include semantics and aesthetics: not only are these forms pleasing to the eye, but they also tell stories of history and place and give identity and meaning to the lives in which they are enmeshed. This multi-functionality and multi-vocality are inherent in past systems.

DESIGN STRUGGLES

2022-09-21T10:02:56+02:00

Design Struggles critically assesses the complicity of design in creating, perpetuating, and reinforcing social, political, and environmental problems — both today and in the past. The book proposes to brush the discipline against the grain, by problematizing Western notions of design, fostering situated, decolonial, and queer-feminist modes of disciplinary self-critique.

In order to reimagine design as an unbound, ambiguous, and unfinished practice, this publication gathers a diverse array of perspectives, ranging from social and cultural theory, design history, design activism, sociology, and anthropology, to critical and political studies, with a focus on looking at design through the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, culture, class, and beyond.

It combines robust scholarly insights with engaging and accessible modes of conveyance and storytelling by bringing together an urgent and expansive array of voices and views from those engaged in struggles with, against, or around the design field.

The Observers Observed

2023-01-29T19:41:29+01:00

Eighth Annual Conference November 2019 - Jaap Bakema Study Centre

To put together the programme for our annual conference has always been exciting and challenging. Part of the process is to formulate the thematic and call for papers, to review the incoming proposals of colleagues, design the session panels, and invite special guests and keynote speakers. For the eighth edition of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre Conference, the question of ethnography in architecture was quite a natural choice in hindsight. It emerged from educational concerns at our university in Delft, just as it ties in with new archival research projects at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam around questions of decolonising our heritage and architectural collection, and socio-ecological concepts in the current architecture and urbanism discourse. The conference also naturally builds on earlier projects realised by the Jaap Bakema Study Centre, TU Delft and Het Nieuwe Instituut, including the exhibitions ‘Structuralism’ of 2014 and ‘Habitat: Expanding Architecture’ of 2018.

The conference would not be possible without the help of many people. It was organised by a working committee, which included my colleagues Nelson Mota and Vanessa Grossman who work with me in the Dwelling chair and develop the special Global Housing programme, postdoc researcher Alejandro Campos Uribe, and PhD-candidates Rohan Varma and Fatma Tanis, who is also the coordinator of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre. The Advisory Board and its members Tom Avermaete, Hetty Berens, Maristella Casciato, Carola Hein, and Georg Vrachliotis helped and supported the committee throughout the reviewing and selection process. In conclusion, I would like to thank everyone for their work, just as I want to express my gratitude to the participants, the authors of the papers included in these proceedings, and to the two involved institutions, the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TU Delft, and Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, who enable the work of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre.

Powerskin Conference Proceedings

2021-04-07T20:54:57+02:00

The building skin has evolved enormously over the past decades. The energy performance and environmental quality of both the interior and exterior of buildings are primarily determined by the building envelope. The façade has experienced a change in its role as an adaptive climate control system that leverages the synergies between form, material, mechanical and energy systems towards an architectural integration of energy generation. The PowerSKIN Conference aims to address the role of building skins to accomplish a carbonneutral building stock. The focus of the PowerSKIN issue 2021 deals with the question of whether simplicity and robustness stay in contradiction to good performance of buildings skins or whether they even complement each other: simplicity vs performance?

As an international scientific event - usually held at the BAU trade fair in Munich - the PowerSKIN Conference builds a bridge between science and practice, between research and construction, and between the latest developments and innovations for the façade of the future. Topics such as building operation, embodied energy, energy generation and storage in the context of the three conference sessions envelope, energy and environment are considered:

– Envelope: The building envelope as an interface for the interaction between indoor and outdoor environment. This topic is focused on function, technical development and material properties.

– Energy: New concepts, accomplished projects, and visions for the interaction between building structure, envelope and energy technologies.

– Environment: Façades or elements of façades, which aim to provide highly comfortable surroundings where environmental control strategies as well as energy generation and/or storage are an integrated part of an active skin.

The Technical University of Munich, TU Darmstadt, and TU Delft are signing responsible for the organisation of the conference. It is the third event of a biennial series: April 9th 2021, architects, engineers, and scientists present their latest developments and research projects for public discussion and reflection. For the first time, the conference will be a virtual event. On the one hand, this is a pity, as conferences are also about meeting people and social interaction; on the other hand, it offers the possibility that we can reach more people who connect from all over the world.

Living Stations

2021-02-04T15:25:34+01:00

Due to the growing demand for mobility (as a primary need for people to get to work, to obtain personal care or to go travelling), cities continue to be faced with new urban challenges. Stations represent, along mobility networks, not only transportation nodes (transfer points) but also architectural objects which connect an area to the city’s territorial plane and which have the potential to generate new urban dynamics. In the ‘compact city’ the station is simply no longer the space to access mobility networks, as informed by their dry pragmatism, but becomes an urban place of sociality and encounter - an extended public space beyond mobility itself. Which relationships and cross-fertilizations can be significant for the design of the future living stations in the Municipality of Rotterdam? How ought these stations to be conceived in order to act as public places for collective action? Which (archetypical) devices can be designed to give a shape to the ambitions for these stations? The station as a public space and catalyzer for urban interventions in the metropolitan area of Rotterdam is the focus of the research initiative presented in this publication. City of Innovations Project – Living Stations is organized around speculating and forecasting on future scenarios for the city of Rotterdam. ‘What is the future of Rotterdam with the arrival of a new metro circle line system?’ In the past fifty years, every decade of Rotterdam urban planning has seen its complementary metro strategy, with profound connections with the spatial planning and architectural themes. Considering the urban trends of densification and the new move to the city, a new complementary strategy is required. The plans to realize 50.000 new homes between the city center and the suburban residential districts in the next 20 years go together with the development of a new metro circle line consisting of 16 new stations; 6 of which will connect the new metro line to the existing network. Students of the elective City of Innovations Project (AR0109) have been asked to develop ambitious but plausible urban and architectural proposals for selected locations under the guidance of tutors from the Municipality of Rotterdam and Complex Projects. The Grand Paris Express metro project in France has inspired the course’s approach. Following the critical essays on the strategic role of the infrastructural project for city development interventions, the ‘10 Visions X 5 Locations’ chapter is a systematization of the work of 35 master’s students with input from designers of the City of Rotterdam and experts and academic from the University of Gustave Eiffel in Paris. The research-through-design process conducted in the City of Innovations project - Living Stations consists of documenting and analyzing the present urban conditions of selected station locations in the City of Rotterdam and proposing design solutions and visualizations of the predicted development of these locations.

Reimagining Heerenstraat

2021-02-11T22:24:54+01:00

In 2016, the Government of Suriname, financed by a loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), launched the Paramaribo Urban Rehabilitation Program (PURP), which contributes to the socio-economic revitalisation of Paramaribo’s historic inner city. It aims to attract new residents and commercial activities to the centre of Paramaribo, to restore value to its cultural heritage, to reduce traffic congestion and to strengthen the institutional framework for managing its sustainable development. The program also aims for a climate-smart approach to infrastructural interventions.

From July 29 to August 2, 2019, Luiz de Carvalho Filho and Santiago del Hierro, from the Department of Urbanism of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft, visited Paramaribo to explore the possible topics for a Workshop Program in support of PURP to be carried out in November 2019. This Technical Cooperation would take place in coordination with IDB and the Government of Suriname, particularly the Ministry of Education’s Directorate of Culture. The cooperation would be realised as part of the fall semester of the European Post-master in Urbanism (EMU), in parallel to a research and design studio for the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area.

In contrast to the approach to Amsterdam, students in the Paramaribo Workshop shifted in scale from a metropolitan understanding of the city, to a neighbourhood perspective where spatial justice was addressed through social participation and a local understanding of what makes urban space lively, inclusive and safe. Paramaribo and Amsterdam are cities that have a strong relationship due to a shared colonial history. Their relationship has continued to remain very active even since the independence of Suriname in 1975, when a high percentage of the population of Paramaribo emigrated to the Netherlands. In this sense, the workshop also included the perspective of Dutch-Surinamese citizens who experience both places as home. This helped us broaden our understanding of how urban liveliness is experienced in different Surinamese contexts. Input from The Black Archives, the Grote Surinam Exhibition and the Bijlmer Museum in Amsterdam was integrated into the workshop’s preliminary research.

Between 3 and 8 November, during the workshop week in Paramaribo, TU Delft students, together with local stakeholders, focused on the analysis of local conditions and possible strategies that can support a sustainable revitalisation of the Heerenstraat, a street with enormous potential to become one of the Historic Inner City’s most iconic destinations due to its inherent beauty and the public activities that the community is continuously organising.

By focusing on the interaction of various layers on an intervention at a smaller scale (the Heerenstraat and its adjacent buildings and public spaces), the workshop aimed at understanding and visualising a concrete roadmap towards a more lively, active and safe space in this specific case study within the Historic Inner City.

Repositioning Architecture in the Digital

2023-01-29T19:24:42+01:00

Seventh Annual Conference November 2019 - Jaap Bakema Study Centre

This year’s conference of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre aims to critically explore the interplay between architecture and digital culture since the 1970s. How has the emergent data society materialized in architecture? What new typologies have been developed? And what role did architecture play in the emerging discussion about artificial intelligence?

Due to the pandemic, this year’s edition of our annual Jaap Bakema Study Centre conference has to be very different from our previous events. Usually, we announce a call for papers in the spring, but spring this year saw the first lockdown in the Netherlands and many other countries. Now, with the second wave of the virus still gaining momentum, we are in a (partial) lockdown situation once again.

With this in mind, we have decided to organise a series of online workshops and keynotes with invited speakers. Together with Georg Vrachliotis, this fall appointed as full professor of the theory of architecture and digital culture at TU Delft, we have developed a programme around current research questions that probe the interrelations between the digital and architecture. This follows up on the earlier events of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre’s Total Space programme.

Gentrification and Crime

2021-02-07T22:01:51+01:00

This volume is the editorial product of the project “Gentrification and Crime. New Configurations and Challenges for the City” started by a public conference held on May 6, 2019 at the Municipal Historical Archive of Palermo. This event was organized by Locus and endorsed by private and public bodies. During the conference, four presentations were given by distinguished academics of main fields investigated: Giovanni Semi, Marco Picone, Adam Asmundo, Antonio La Spina. Journalist Elvira Terranova moderated the event.

This publication was born from the desire to investigate gentrification and crime through a multidisciplinary approach. It draws inspiration from the urban sociologist Henri Lefebvre and his fundamental work The Production of Space on how the subject in its corporeality and in its interactions with the other integrates and produces spaces.

The people involved in the project stem from different fields: geographers, urban sociologists and criminologists, architects and urban planners, historians, and other representatives of civil society. That being said, given this project’s cross-disciplinary nature, contributors are given some creative freedom to flesh-out their own conceptualizations. As such, it is appropriate to cultivate an understanding of the intellectual framework and foundation underpinning this work.

Foundries of the Future

2021-02-11T15:38:01+01:00

This book attempts to shed light on the ways manufacturing can address urban challenges, it exposes constraints for the manufacturing sector and provides fifty patterns for working with urban manufacturing. This book has been written as a manual to help politicians, public authorities, planners, designers and community organisations to be able to plan, discuss and collaborate by developing more productive urban manufacturing. The book is split into two parts.

We first cover an abridged history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, noting how European cities evolved rapidly by harnessing manufacturing, and then how the late twentieth century led to a radical shift in how cities work and think. We’re now at a crossroads between actors that do not see the need for manufacturing in cities and those that consider it vital for a prosperous urban future. Part of the tension comes from the fact that manufacturing is considered a ‘weak land use’ compared to activities such as real-estate development, which has been considered more financially attractive by many actors in the private and public sector. This real estate-oriented development narrative is increasingly regarded as short-sighted, but will not change without an alternative vision. We have therefore elaborated a narrative on how urban manufacturing responds to four specific challenges facing cities and how in turn manufacturing needs cities. In practice, planning and design for a topic like this is highly challenging.

The second part of the book is intended as a handbook. By synthesising our research and fieldwork conducted in a number of cities, we have encountered many similarities in terms of problems, challenges and solutions for urban manufacturing. Inspired by the seminal 1977 book, ‘A Pattern Language’ we have translated our findings into fifty patterns which help render the diversity of issues concerning manufacturing more tangible. As both teamwork and negotiation are necessary, exercises and methods are provided to use the patterns. Finally, we have set out twelve key action areas as possible starting points for supporting urban manufacturing.

The Story of the Bucky Lab

2021-02-11T15:19:14+01:00

A book about a university docent and one of his courses – why would you do that? And what is the academic impact?

The question of impact, especially as it relates to the rapidly developing culture of publications in scientific journals, should be the topic of a separate discussion. With all of the related advantages and disadvantages it could fill an entire book – however, not this one. And yes, buildings do impact the user, the environment and the planner – those already active in the field, as well as the next generation that learns from the results and will enter their own discussion for future developments. A friend of Marcel Bilow’s and mine, Thomas Auer, known for his exceptional work as climate engineer with the company Transsolar in Stuttgart, Germany, has, for example, certainly made an impact, influencing and inspiring generations of architects and engineers. Faced with the decision of whether or not to continue spending the majority of his time with projects rather than as a teacher and researcher at TU Munich he based his decision on the premise: you can best multiply impact by affecting the next generation, buildings alone cannot achieve it.

And affecting the next generation is the motivation for this book because it is the motivation for Marcel Bilow’s work and his approach to teaching, be it about a concrete product to be developed or an individual’s experience. It is about teaching students to physically exercise practical application rather than merely thinking about it: we can contemplate a hole in a wooden plank; however, actually creating it, experiencing the consequences and identifying limits and failures is the most valuable aspect. Any and all construction is based hereupon, a combination of both: the activity of constructing itself but also constructive thinking, thoroughly understanding a solution – essential skills that any architect needs to experience.

And the tool to accomplish this is, of course, a practical, hands-on course. Going conform with the generally established tradition in construction-related university subjects at TU Delft of having students build small projects, the faculty at TU Delft has a history of conducting hands-on courses. But Marcel Bilow certainly breathed new life into these courses that are part of the Master’s program at the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft: by setting up the Bucky Lab. Buckminster Fuller, constructor and inventor served as inspiration, for the name as well as for the program: to be able to think, conceive and realize sensible and practical solutions. It is, therefore, no surprise that Marcel became known as Dr. Bucky Lab.

Is there more to the course? Yes, there is another, very important part that goes beyond practical application. It's all about stimulating the students’ desire to make things better, to introduce technical developments into construction, and to utilize new methods if they make sense in a given context.

The course is designed to make the students look for traditional as well as non- traditional, out of the box ideas. With his constant questioning, continuously asking "Why?" Marcel Bilow drives his students to question every single step they take in a project, every design decision they make along the way, every choice of material. The course requires them to generate initial concepts that will be revisited, re-evaluated, redefined several times as they learn to focus on the important, justify their decisions and gain knowledge in conceptualizing and ultimately realizing their ideas. The experiences gained in the course are valuable for any project the students work on during their studies or in their later professional lives.

Marcel Bilow has a brilliant mind, he is extremely motivated and motivating, sometimes a little stubborn but always driven by an innate desire to understand and, above all, to share his knowledge and experience. And this is what he does in the Bucky Lab, a course that is coined by his convictions and approach to disseminating knowledge as well as by interdisciplinary work that is embedded in and connected to the overall curriculum.

ARCHITECTURE AND DEMOCRACY 1965–1989

2023-01-29T11:48:50+01:00

Sixth Annual Conference November 2019 - Jaap Bakema Study Centre

The Jaap Bakema Study Centre was established in 2013 as a collaboration between Het Nieuwe Instituut and TU Delft’s Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. The goal was and is to instigate academic research in the fields of architecture and urban planning based on the rich holdings of the State Collection of Dutch Architecture and Urbanism, which is accommodated by Het Nieuwe Instituut. Not only between Delft and Rotterdam, but also together with third parties depending on the scope of each project. In 2019 and 2020 the Jaap Bakema Study Centre collaborates with the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon for the museological project ‘Art on Display 1949–69’, which revisits the special relationship between art and architecture and the involved conceptual exchanges between the two disciplines.

This year’s edition, Architecture and Democracy, focuses on the years 1965 to 1989, in which welfare state arrangements were contested by counterculture movements and the rise of populism. While government institutions sought a proper response, urban renewal and city repair became a new field of work for architects and planners. The focus on Architecture and Democracy was chosen in connection with the start of the new PhD-programme of the same name. Starting in 2018, the research group Architecture, Culture and Modernity was established at TU Delft by my colleague Jorge Mejia Hernandez and myself. The new PhD-programme Architecture and Democracy is at the core of the group’s research work. It reframes much of our long-lasting interest in the post-war histories of architecture and planning, modern architecture and the welfare state.

For the purpose of the conference and the overall research programme the two terms of Architecture and Democracy are deliberately juxtaposed next to one another. Their interrelationships are manifold as they are complicated. The collection of twenty papers, the archive presentations and the keynote lecture by Esra Akcan, that make up the full programme of the conference make this crystal clear in a most eloquent way. Looking at the contributions brought to the conference, the question of the place of democracy in architecture and vice versa, is answered by investigations into social justice and how this plays out into space, especially urban space, by ways of contestation, appropriation, planning and design, from practices of direct democracy and participation to the critique of institutional policies. To refocus once again on the political and ideological dimensions of architecture, is in function of a reflection on and a speculation about the societal relevance of our work. And as such, it also aims to critically probe the autonomy of the architectural discipline, to redefine the values of our work, and to explore the possibilities of alternatives to current models of knowledge production.

Built Utopias in the Countryside

2021-02-11T14:27:22+01:00

Anchored by Hüppauf and Umbach’s notion of Vernacular Modernism and focusing on architecture and urbanism during Franco’s dictatorship from 1939 to 1975, this thesis challenges the hegemonic and Northern-oriented narrative of urban modernity. It develops arguments about the reciprocal influences between the urban and the rural that characterize Spanish modernity, and analyzes the intense architectural and urban debates that resulted from the crisis of 1898, as they focused on the importance of vernacular architecture, in particular the Mediterranean one, in the definition of an “other modernity.”

This search culminated before 1936 with the “Lessons of Ibiza,” and was revived at the beginning of the 1950s, when architects like Coderch, Fisac, Bohigas, and the cosigners of the Manifiesto de la Alhambra brought back the discourse of the modern vernacular as a politically acceptable form of Spanish modernity, and extended its field of application from the individual house and the rural architecture to the urban conditions, including social and middle-class housing. The core of the dissertation addresses the 20th century phenomenon of the modern agricultural village as built emergence of a rural paradigm of modernity in parallel or alternative to the metropolitan condition. In doing so, it interrogates the question of tradition, modernity, and national identity in urban form between the 1920s and the 1960s.

Regarding Spain, it studies the actuation of the two Institutes that were created to implement the Francoist policy of post-war reconstruction and interior colonization—the Dirección General de Regiones Devastadas, and the Instituto Nacional de Colonización. It examines the ideological, political, urban, and architectural principles of Franco’s reconstruction of the devastated countryside, as well as his grand “hydro-social dream” of modernization of the countryside. It analyzes their role in national-building policies in liaison with the early 20th-century Regenerationist Movement of Joaquín Costa, the first works of hydraulic infrastructure under Primo de Rivera, and the aborted agrarian reform of the Second Republic.

Inspired by the Zionist colonization of Palestine and Mussolini’s reclaiming of the Pontine Marshes, Falangist planners developed a national strategy of “interior colonization” that, along with the reclamation and irrigation of extensive and unproductive river basins, entailed the construction of three hundred modern villages or pueblos between 1940 and 1971. Each village was designed as a “rural utopia,” centered on a plaza mayor and the church, which embodied the political ideal of civil life under the nationalcatholic regime and evolved from a traditional town design in the 1940s to an increasingly abstract and modern vision, anchored on the concept of the “Heart of the City” after 1952.

The program was an important catalyst for the development of Spanish modern architecture after the first period of autarchy and an effective incubator for a new generation of architects, including Alejandro de la Sota, José Luis Fernández del Amo, and others. Between tradition and modernity, these architects reinvented the pueblos as platforms of urban and architectonic experimentation in their search for a depurated rural vernacular and a modern urban form. Whereas abstraction was the primary design tool that Fernández del Amo deployed to the limits of the continuity of urban form, de la Sota reversed the fundamental reference to the countryside that characterizes Spanish surrealism to bring surrealism within the process of rural modernization in Franco’s Spain.

Colour, Form and Space

2021-02-09T09:38:05+01:00

This book on the Rietveld Schröder House (by Gerrit Th. Rietveld, 1924) sheds light on the thorough restorations of its exterior (1970s) and interior (1980s), and the principles for the furnishing when it opened as a museum house for the public, in 1987.

Since the restorations, carried out by architect Bertus Mulder (b. 1929), the house is once more a shining manifesto of De Stijl and modernist living. Few realize that this is one of the first examples of a restored modern heritage building.

The Rietveld Schröder House is also a milestone in the history of modern heritage restoration and a manifesto for the concern for modern heritage in the Netherlands. This study was made possible by a Keeping It Modern Grant from The Getty Foundation.

Anne Lacaton

2021-02-11T14:13:41+01:00

Anne Lacaton has been a visiting professor at the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment during the Fall Semester 2016-2017, hosted by the Chair of Heritage & Design. In the professional field of Heritage & Design the starting point for design is not just a functional brief and a blank sheet of paper but the challenge of an existing spatial setting and cultural-historical context. It is a dynamic and innovative field in architecture that deals with the architectural re-interpretation, adaptive reuse and restoration of historic buildings.

This book reports on her workshops and studios during her time at TU Delft. It presents re-use projects at different scales, in different situations and with different programs.

These projects generated reflection along with pertinent and inventive ideas that made it possible to overturn the situations in a positive manner, to change the approach and bring forth interesting solutions, a new situational intelligence and a new intelligence towards thinking about architecture and the urban situation.

In these projects, what is initially seen as obsolete and as a constraint or restriction through an opening of the mind and a change in outlook and approach, becomes an opportunity, a chance and an asset. If you look at a situation without a frame or filter and with an open spirit, a building that no longer has a purpose and is a hindrance becomes a liberty.

The students adhered to this specific approach: No longer looking at something existing as imperfect, constraining, obsolete, not beautiful etc., but instead as a resource, a component, a stratum/layer and a basis for creativity.

The idea of drawing value from everything existing, producing richness with less money but with the greater means and parameters offered by existing situations. Extending the story to do better and more of it. A process of regeneration, extension, adaption and re-use rather than replacement.

This way of seeing, thinking, projecting is not really widespread. Making new, remove and replace, restarting from the empty remains mostly the way of doing; whereas the superposition, addition, combination, overlapping, infiltration, appear accurate, contemporary, rich, innovative.

Therefore, with regard to this work of the semester and to conclude the guest invitation, I think it’s important to collect and publish these ideas and positions by students and teachers involved with the semester’s work.

We hope that this booklet will leave a trace and a lasting material for reflection and discussion.

Pregledi održivosti i otpornosti građene sredine

2021-02-11T19:34:54+01:00

Održiva i otporna građena sredina je složen sistem čije se značenje kontinualno razvija. Cilj ove publikacije je da problemu održivosti i otpornosti pristupi kroz sistematsko istraživanje različitih segmenata i razmera izgrađenog okruženja, odnosno da predstavljanjem preglednih radova (poglavlja), među kojima je uspostavljena odgovarajuća funkcionalna veza, podstakne razvoj specijalizovanog znanja, podigne kritičku svest o potrebi za interdisciplinarnim i transdiciplinarnim istraživanjem i ojača vezu između univerzitetskog obrazovanja i naučnog istraživanja. Analiza razvoja održivosti i otpornosti, istraživanje aktuelnih pitanja i predviđanja o mogućoj održivoj i otpornoj budućnosti zajedno omogućavaju sveobuhvatno razumevanje ovih koncepata i njihovih međusobnih odnosa u kontekstu građene sredine.

Publikacija je izbor recenziranih radova, objavljenih na engleskom jeziku u okviru tematske serije pod naslovom Reviews of Sustainability and Resilience of the Built Environment for Education, Research and Design. I pomenuta serija i ova publikacija predstavljaju rezultate Erazmus+ projekta Stvaranje mreže laboratorija znanja za održive i otporne sredine (skr. en. KLABS), koji je posvećen uspostavljanju sveobuhvatne obrazovne platforme u okviru drugog ciklusa visokog obrazovanja na prostoru zapadnog Balkana. Širi cilj svih KLABS publikacija je bio da se razviju pregledi održivosti i otpornosti građene sredine, korisni za studente, nastavnike, istraživače i stručnjake koji se ovim važnim temama bave na međunarodnom nivou.

Publikacija se sastoji iz dva dela. Prvi se bavi održivošću i otpornošću urbanog prostora a drugi nivoom zgrada. Istraživanje počinje teorijskim pregledom istorijske i savremene debate o problemu urbanizacije u svrhu razumevanja i novih tumačenja (urbane) održivosti. Zatim se tumače poreklo, istorija i razvoj koncepta otpornosti, evolucija njegove definicije, tipovi i ključni principi. U trećem poglavlju istraživanje je usmereno na neka fundamentalna pitanja u okviru socio-kulturološke ravni građene sredine. Sledeće poglavlje pruža pregled pojmova i strategija koncepata „efikasnosti resursa“ i „otpornosti“, prikazuje njihova zajednička područja delovanja, kao i potencijalne protivrečnosti i suprotnosti, u svrhu nalaženja uzajamne ravnoteže i davanja doprinosa ispunjavanju širih ciljeva održivosti. Istraživanje alternativnih modela potrošnje, potrebnih za postizanje održivih urbanih transformacija, predstavlja predmet petog poglavlja u okviru ove publikacije. U nastavku se pažnja usmerava na rekonstrukciju trenutnog naučnog istraživanja i nalaženje ograničenja i mogućnosti inicijativa koje su do sada preduzete, kao i na sintezu metodoloških i praktičnih predloga, kako bi se javnoj upravi i lokalnim organima ponudio „praktičan način” stvaranja efikasnijih klimatskih politika i planova. „Pouka Milana”, u sedmom poglavlju, pokazuje kako aktivno uključivanje poljoprivrednika može pomoći javnim politikama, štiteći zajedničko dobro u teškim okolnostima i dajući povod za alternativne načine planiranja; ona naročito može da inspiriše istraživanje u kontekstima gde su otvoreni prostori oko gradova ugroženi, a uključivanje u proces donošenja odluka predstavlja cilj koji treba postići. U poslednjem poglavlju prvog dela elaboriraju se definicija, klasifikacija i kritička analiza uticaja braunfilda na okruženje i definišu ciljevi održivosti koje treba postići kroz njihovu obnovu i ponovni razvoj.

Drugi deo publikacije počinje uspostavljanjem veze između efikasnog korišćenja prirodnih resursa i smanjenja ekoloških uticaja zgrada. Ovde se daje pregled sadašnjih trendova i izazova u pogledu upotrebe energije, materijala, vode i zemljišta i promišljaju mogući scenariji efikasne budućnosti u kojoj bi šire socijalne i ekonomske sheme postale relevantnije za uspešno projektovanje ekološki ispravnih zgrada. Fokus se, zatim, usmerava na analizu složenosti i dinamike klimatskih promena kao ključnih faktora u oblikovanju strategija za projektovanje zgrada otpornih na delovanje klime. Na osnovu značaja sagledanih rizika, varijabilnosti i neizvesnosti u vezi sa klimatskim promenama izvodi se opšti projektantski okvir, obrazlaže značenje termina „transponovani regionalizam“ i diskutuje odnos između otpornosti i adaptacije zgrada u (ne)izvesnoj klimatskoj budućnosti. U trećem poglavlju drugog dela istražuju se međusobni odnosi održive arhitekture i arhitekture otporne na promenu klime tako što se upoređuju njihovi osnovni postulati i analiziraju ključni ciljevi, kroz prizmu uzajamnih (ne)konzistentnosti. Sledeće poglavlje obrazlaže hijerarhijski pristup projektovanju održivih zgrada i daje pregled niza aktivnih i pasivnih projektantskih mera koje su, pre svega, u funkciji postizanja energetske efikasnosti, poput toplotne zaštite, ostvarivanja solarnih dobitaka, disipacije toplote, generisanja toplote, aktivnog ventilisanja i hlađenja, kao i generisanja električne energije iz obnovljivih izvora. Energetska svojstva i toplotni komfor u zgradama, u petom poglavlju drugog dela, razmatrani su sa aspekta uticaja materijala. Na primeru karakterističnih tipova stambenih zgrada sa područja Beograda, koje su prikazane i analizirane, razmatran je stepen zadovoljavanja ukupnih zahteva komfora, kao i međuzavisnost koja postoji između različitih tipova komfora (toplotnog, vazdušnog, zvučnog i svetlosnog). Poslednje poglavlje prikazuje činjenice i primere koji su relevantni za razumevanje i primenu metodologije ocene životnog ciklusa u različitim projektantskim i inženjerskim okvirima. Ovde se detaljno analizira struktura metode ocene životnog ciklusa (en. Life Cycle Assessment – LCA), koja se koristi za kvantifikovanje ekoloških uticaja.

sustainable and resilient building design

2021-03-12T19:58:29+01:00

The challenges to which contemporary building design needs to respond grow steadily. They originate from the influence of changing environmental conditions on buildings, as well as from the need to reduce the impact of buildings on the environment. The increasing complexity requires the continual revision of design principles and their harmonisation with current scientific findings, technological development, and environmental, social, and economic factors. It is precisely these issues that form the backbone of the thematic book, Sustainable and Resilient Building Design: Approaches, Methods, and Tools.

The purpose of this book is to present ongoing research from the universities involved in the project Creating the Network of Knowledge Labs for Sustainable and Resilient Environments (KLABS). The book starts with the exploration of the origin, development, and the state-of-the-art notions of environmental design and resource efficiency. Subsequently, climate change complexity and dynamics are studied, and the design strategy for climate-proof buildings is articulated. The investigation into the resilience of buildings is further deepened by examining a case study of fire protection. The book then investigates interrelations between sustainable and resilient building design, compares their key postulates and objectives, and searches for the possibilities of their integration into an outreaching approach. The fifth article in the book deals with potentials and constraints in relation to the assessment of the sustainability (and resilience) of buildings. It critically analyses different existing building certification models, their development paths, systems, and processes, and compares them with the general objectives of building ratings. The subsequent paper outlines the basis and the meaning of the risk and its management system, and provides an overview of different visual, auxiliary, and statistical risk assessment methods and tools.

Following the studies of the meanings of sustainable and resilient buildings, the book focuses on the aspects of building components and materials. Here, the life cycle assessment (LCA) method for quantifying the environmental impact of building products is introduced and analysed in detail, followed by a comprehensive comparative overview of the LCA-based software and databases that enable both individual assessment and the comparison of different design alternatives. The impact of climate and pollution on the resilience of building materials is analysed using the examples of stone, wood, concrete, and ceramic materials. Accordingly, the contribution of traditional and alternative building materials to the reduction of negative environmental impact is discussed and depicted through different examples.

The book subsequently addresses existing building stock, in which environmental, social, and economic benefits of building refurbishment are outlined by different case studies. Further on, a method for the upgrade of existing buildings, described as ‘integrated rehabilitation’, is deliberated and supported by best practice examples of exoskeleton architectural prosthesis. The final paper reflects on the principles of regenerative design, reveals the significance of biological entities, and recognises the need to assign to buildings and their elements a more advanced role towards natural systems in human environments.

energy

2021-03-12T19:56:41+01:00

The use of energy in buildings is a complex problem, but it can be reduced and alleviated by making appropriate decisions. Therefore, architects face a major and responsible task of designing the built environment in such a way that its energy dependence will be reduced to a minimum, while at the same time being able to provide comfortable living conditions. Today, architects have many tools at their disposal, facilitating the design process and simultaneously ensuring proper assessment in the early stages of building design.

The purpose of this book is to present ongoing research from the universities involved in the project Creating the Network of Knowledge Labs for Sustainable and Resilient Environments (KLABS). This book attempts to highlight the problem of energy use in buildings and propose certain solutions. It consists of nine chapters, organised in three parts. The gathering of chapters into parts serves to identify the different themes that the designer needs to consider, namely energy resources, energy use and comfort, and energy efficiency.

Part 1, entitled “Sustainable and Resilient Energy Resources,” sets off by informing the reader about the basic principles of energy sources, production, and use. The chapters give an overview of all forms of energies and energy cycle from resources to end users and evaluate the resilience of renewable energy systems. This information is essential to realise that the building, as an energy consumer, is part of a greater system and the decisions can be made at different levels.

Part 2, entitled “Energy and Comfort in the Built Environment”, explain the relationship between energy use and thermal comfort in buildings and how it is predicted. Buildings consume energy to meet the users’ needs and to provide comfort. The appropriate selection of materials has a direct impact on the thermal properties of a building. Moreover, comfort is affected by parameters such as temperature, humidity, air movement, air quality, lighting, and noise. Understanding and calculating those conditions are valuable skills for the designers.

After the basics of energy use in buildings have been explained, Part 3, entitled “Energy Saving Strategies” aims to provide information and tools that enable an energy- and environmentally-conscious design. This part is the most extensive as it aims to cover different design aspects. Firstly, passive and active measures that the building design needs to include are explained. Those measures are seen from the perspective of heat flow and generation. The Passive House concept, which is explained in the second chapter of Part 3, is a design approach that successfully incorporates such measures, resulting in low energy use by the building. Other considerations that the following chapters cover are solar control, embodied energy and CO2 emissions, and finally economic evaluation. The energy saving strategies explained in this book, despite not being exhaustive, provide basic knowledge that the designer can use and build upon during the design of new buildings and existing building upgrades.

In the context of sustainability and resilience of the built environment, the reduction of energy demand is crucial. This book aims to provide a basic understanding of the energy flows in buildings and the subsequent impact for the building’s operation and its occupants. Most importantly, it covers the principles that need to be taken into account in energy efficient building design and demonstrates their effectiveness.

Designers are shaping the built environment and it is their task to make energy-conscious and informed decisions that result in comfortable and resilient buildings.

integrated urban planning

2021-03-12T19:53:57+01:00

The purpose of the book on integrated urban planning (IUP) is to present ongoing research from the universities involved in the project Creating the Network of Knowledge Labs for Sustainable and Resilient Environments (KLABS).

Although sustainability and resilience have been largely explored in many complex social-ecological systems, they have only recently been applied in the context of cities. Both concepts are useful when seeking an integrated approach to urban planning as they help to look at the city as an interconnected, multi-dimensional system. Analysing the sustainability and the resilience of urban systems involves looking at environmental, social and economic aspects, as well as at those related to technology, culture and institutional structures.

Sustainability, resilience as well as integrated urban development are all focused on process. Their objectives are typically defined around the ongoing operation of the process and they can change during the time. Therefore, building a sustainable and resilient city is a collective endeavor that is about mindsets just as much as about physical structures and their operation, where capacity to anticipate and plan for the future, to learn and to adapt are paramount.

The papers published in this book show that the recent and current research in those institutions focuses on the directions of development of IUP, the processes that support sustainable and resilient use of natural resources and their application in the Western Balkan and some other European countries. Each essay aims to provide an overview of key aspects of the research topic.

The division of the book into three parts - directions, resources and territories - underlines how the challenges that the contemporary city poses can be dealt with more effectively by integrating different paradigms, concepts and trends of urban development and governance; taking into account the numerous problems linked to the availability and exploitation of the main natural and non-natural resources; and looking at the city and the territory as systems in constant transformation, not reducible within rigid dichotomies such as urban/rural, dense/sprawled, formal/informal, etc.

realms of urban design

2021-03-12T19:45:55+01:00

The traditional thematic realms of urban design, such as liveability, social interaction, and quality of urban life, considered to be closely related to urban form and specifically to public space, have long since been recognised as important, and have given the discipline a certain identity. The book Realms of Urban Design: Mapping Sustainability is certainly rooted in this fundamental urban design thinking, but its main contribution belongs to the second part of the book’s title – discourse on sustainability. Its chapters, considered as a whole, put forward the importance of the discipline and the designerly way of thinking in the context of the discussion about unprecedented environmental transformation.

The eleven chapters of the book represent the major sustainability concerns that the authors have seen as being related to the urban design discipline in their specific professional and environmental contexts. Therefore, the chapters as an entity could be seen as an act of mapping the sustainability issues that are coming “from the front” of urban design research and practice at the universities involved in the project Creating the Network of Knowledge Labs for Sustainable and Resilient Environments (KLABS). They show disciplinary, mostly methodological, concerns with the larger scales in comparison to those of the neighbourhoods and public space that are traditionally connected to urban design; with the collective or common nature of urban space; and with the distinctive, underused spaces coming not only as a legacy of the 20th century, but also as an important by-product of contemporary economic trends.

Reflections on Urban, Regional and National Space - Three Essays

2021-12-22T16:07:41+01:00

Nishiyama Uzo-, educated as an architect between 1930 and 1933, was a key figure in Japanese urban planning. He was a prolific writer who influenced a whole generation of Japanese urban planners and his interpretations of foreign planning and local practice still influence Japanese planning theory and practice today.

Nishiyama’s first publications date to the 1930s, and his last ones appeared in the 1990s, spanning a period of enormous political and spatial changes. The three articles translated here, originally published in the 1940s in professional magazines, show how Nishiyama developed his theoretical models based on a social approach to architecture and planning, focusing on land use and land control rather than aesthetic preferences. They provide insight into Nishiyama’s early thinking, his analysis of foreign examples, his reflection on large-scale regional and national spatial organization, and his architectural and urban visions, providing a remarkable and fascinating insight into the state of planning in Japan.

These texts call scholarly attention to the writing of a global planning history and invite the reader to engage with a major figure in planning who is largely unknown outside Japan; to reconsider Japanese planning history; and to work towards a truly global planning history. How does Nishiyama compare to the great urban planners of the past in the West, such as Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford, or Werner Hegemann? Many more translations will be necessary to answer this question.

sustainability and resilience

2021-03-12T19:49:54+01:00

Sustainability and resilience have become indispensable parts of the contemporary debate over the built environment. Although recognised as imperatives, the complexity and the variety of interpretations of sustainability and resilience have raised the necessity to again rethink their notion in the context of the built environment and to reframe the state-of-the-art body of knowledge. The book Sustainability and Resilience: Socio-Spatial Perspective so begins with the exploration of the broadest conceptual frame-of-reference of issues related to sustainability, and the re-establishment of the connection between the built environment and the conditions that are vital to its functioning, primarily in relation to energy, land use, climate, and economy. Subsequent discussion on resilience as a term, approach, and philosophy aims to conceptualise an interpretation of key resilience concepts, explain relationships and links among them, and propose the classification of resilience as applicable to the context of urban studies.

By studying the processes of transition of the built environment, the book then reveals a coherent formula of ‘thinking sustainability + resilience’ aimed at improving the ability to respond to disruptions and hazards while enhancing human and environmental welfare. The necessity to integrate the two approaches is further accented as a result of a deliberative discourse on the notions of ‘social sustainability’, ‘sustainable community’, and ‘socio-cultural resilience’. The potential of measuring sustainable development and urban sustainability on the basis of defined social, human, and, additionally, natural and economic values is presented though an overview of different wellknown indicators and the identification of a currently relevant tangible framework of sustainable development.

Correspondingly, the role of policies and governance is demonstrated on the case of climate-proof cities. In this way, the consideration of approaches to sustainability and resilience of the urban environment is rounded, and the focus of the book is shifted towards an urban/rural dichotomy and the sustainability prospects of identified forms-in-between, and, subsequently, towards the exploration of values, challenges, and the socio-cultural role in achieving sustainability for rural areas. In the final chapters, the book offers several peculiarised socio-spatial perspectives, from defining the path towards more resilient communities and sustainable spaces based on a shared wellbeing, to proposing the approach to define community resilience as an intentional action that aims to respond to, and influence, the course of social and economic change, to deliberating the notion of a ’healthy place’ and questioning its optimal scale in the built environment.

The study of sustainability and resilience in this book is concluded by drawing a parallel between environmental, economic, and social determinants of the built environment and the determinants that are relevant to human health and well-being.

PROTOTYPING efnMOBILE

2021-03-05T18:56:25+01:00

This edition of Imagine is about a mobile workshop concept, which is and has been travelling across Europe. It links several universities that are members of the European Facade Network, which is developing a closeknit cadre of facade designers and specialists. What is interesting is to see how this workshop is fostering this network by serving as a platform to test concepts through the realisation of 1:1 mockups. Of course, none of the concepts are perfect or even properly functional, but it is the experience and the knowledge gained that are the real products – and once in a while good ideas do come out of it and voila: facade innovation is literally at hand!

Rapids 2.0

2021-03-05T18:59:05+01:00

The imagine series, developed at our faculty at TU Delft, is a book series championing ideas, concepts and physically built results. It is for designers and architects: to inspire them and to create a culture of imagination. At the start, the editors needed to promise the publisher a series of ten books and started with imagine 01, “Façades”, in 2008. The series continued with volumes about interesting (“Concretable”, 08), relevant (“Energy”, 05) and unusual aspects of architecture (“Deflateables”, 02, which dealt with vacuum constructions, and “Rapids”, 04, which took a first look into the world of additive manufacturing for buildings, something we now call 3D-printing).

Now, with number 10 we have completed the cycle. It is again about the development and the potentials of additive manufacturing for the built environment. This technology is developing very rapidly and promises to be revolutionary for the construction of buildings. It has the potential to truly bring mass-customization on a detail level. And it is interesting to see how imagine 04, “Rapids”, helped to accelerate this development – some of the ideas mentioned in that issue felt really naive and impossible at the time. Today, a few years later, our colleagues at MIT refer to these books and are now printing with glass! This is what the book series was meant to do: to showcase potentials and to imagine possibilities.

Hotterdam

2021-02-03T20:33:19+01:00

Heat 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, homeowners and the local council alike, and relate to changing behaviour, physical measures for homes, and urban design respectively.

Town Planning for Australia

2021-12-23T18:49:31+01:00

George Taylor’s Town Planning for Australia was the first dedicated book on the subject of urban planning published in Australia. Journalistic and ideological in style, it sets out a robust vision for a specifically Australian approach to planning and development of towns in a young country.

Taylor was a controversial figure, a political activist and publisher who brought the NSW Town Planning Association into existence and played a key role in promoting planning into the 1920s. His wife Florence Taylor was the first female qualified architect and trained engineer in Australia, and also an important figure in the history of planning and publishing in Australia.

Concretable

2021-03-05T18:53:00+01:00

This volume of Imagine demonstrates in an impressive manner the many facets of the material concrete, and introduces unusual approaches for sustainable buildings. It becomes clear how, with concrete, we can expand the architectural design vocabulary and align it with today’s technical requirements. The authors document how creative collaboration and unconventional thought experiments between architects thinking outside the box and imaginative engineers can produce entirely new and surprising ideas for the use of the building material concrete. Herewith, concrete proves its transformation ability and great potential for innovation.

Reimagining Housing

2021-03-05T12:51:08+01:00

This volume of the imagine book series is called reimagine housing because our intent is to identify new approaches for the refurbishment of existing buildings with a focus on residential housing. It’s that simple – and that complex!

The topic can be divided into several aspects which are reflected in the individual chapters of this book. Firstly, the technical background of a building and its energetic performance (this goes without saying!). A following chapter discusses the energetic value of existing constructions by evaluating the embodied energy of the overall construction, as well as the potential of building materials with lower embodied energy due to more sustainable production methods (an interesting new topic!). Then we have to study the potential and beauty of reuse – exemplified by some well executed cases which are divided into the following five categories: “restore,” “keep the spirit,” “refresh,” “spice it up” and “all new.” If we succeed in restoring a building’s spirit in one or other way and create a building that is appreciated and requires less operating energy and hence less carbon emission und low operational costs, we have addressed all relevant aspects.

What is the best way to go about this? We will not succeed if newly developed methods are only made accessible via formal descriptions or regulations. Knowledge needs to be spread in an accessible manner to entice people to do good: because it will provide better solutions, possibly even at no extra cost! This is the goal of the imagine book series in general – it is made for designers and users, manufactures and decision makers – expressing ways in which things can work in an aesthetic, technical, imaginative and resourceful manner. The books are intended to convince us to think differently and follow new paths.

Reimagining the envelope

2021-03-05T08:50:34+01:00

This volume of the imagine book series focuses on the building envelope, specifically the reuse of buildings and their envelope: There are many buildings that have an aesthetic, societal and built environmental value which needs to be recognized and transferred into up-to-date conditions. There are two main reasons to tackle such challenges; on the one hand the pure fact that someone asks us to (if we will not do the job, who will and how?), and on the other hand the potential of existing buildings for future functionalities, uses and users. And this is where the concept of the imagine book series and this volume in particular come into play: To inspire, to identify potential and opportunities, and to not hesitate to strive for unusual, maybe strange and unexpected solutions.

Energy

2021-03-04T22:46:33+01:00

Climate design and climate engineering are nowadays standard in the design process. The more successful we are in this, the less energy we need to run the building during its useful life and we can focus instead on an additional aspect: the embodied energy – the energy we need for the material production and construction process. Interestingly, the reduction in energy used in a climate-efficient building during its lifetime is equal to the energy consumption necessary to produce and install the building. This aspect triggers us to reconsider the design potentials of focusing on less energy in the construction. Which materials make sense energy-wise? Do we need to build with simple materials for 500 years or should we go high-tech and design the complete life cycle for a perfect reuse with maximum recyclable materials? Or should we build out of materials that can be used as energy after being a building? This publication focuses on the embodied energy aspects of building materials, their life cycle and their potentials for reuse as energy or in construction, and presents some far-reaching design ideas.

Performance driven envelopes

2021-03-03T13:51:45+01:00

The impact of climate design on architecture is obvious. But design trends are currently attempting to implement climate design merely as an additional item in architectonic planning. The alternative is to start with an architectural attitude that will produce a comprehensively integrated design. To achieve this, design teams must accept the equal importance of all relevant aspects and have an understanding of the demands they make. This Imagine book is related to a series of lectures given at the TU Delft and a workshop in which international professionals and students from various disciplines took part with the intention of creating an ambience deliberately oriented toward the generation of an integrated, performancedriven envelope.

Rapids

2021-03-03T20:26:52+01:00

Processes of construction are related to available technologies of production and assembly. IT has made a deep impact on design possibilities and the control of production logistics, enabling feats such as freeform architecture and increasingly precise elaboration. Alternately, the idea of Rapid Prototyping and Rapid Manufacturing Technology provides the chance to create one-off components and elements for architecture. We now have the opportunity to design and construct without the disadvantages of production resistance and assembly needs - to realise genuine IT-driven architecture.

Deflate-ables

2021-03-02T13:26:31+01:00

Pneumatic structures have been thoroughly investigated and developed during the 1960s. However, the energy crisis and aesthetic developments stopped the process of employing these structures as a mainstream construction method. Nowadays these structures are typically used in special areas of architecture and design. Imagine-Deflateables concentrates on the very limited knowledge of vacuum constructions and develops a range of aesthetic, technical and functional design possibilities. Until today, there has been a very limited number of designs developed and realized using pressurized constructions – despite the fact that this technology could lead to positive aspects: the air pressure of the earth can be used as a stabilizing and form-giving parameter, creating a specific and inspiring shape. In addition, the very nature of this technology offers varying degrees of thermal and acoustic insulation. There are of course weak points such as potential leakage and the need for high pressurization of the construction; but new material technologies and specific structural concepts will provide solutions to overcome these issues. Exploiting the possibilities of extremely light and, at the same time, energetically active constructions, deflateables are one of the promising fields of architectural and design developments. The chance to create structures that can move and react to requests such as user and climate requirements as well as formative demands, lifts this topic onto the level of a realistic and usable technology for as yet unknown design possibilities.

Façades

2021-03-01T20:31:55+01:00

Façade technology of the 20th century is related to the dissolution of the massive wall into a separation of structure and façade. Looking at the development of façade technology, after 60 years of curtain wall systems, 30 years of element-façade systems and ten years of experience with the integration of environmental services in double façades, it can be concluded that the peak of optimisation has been reached. No further technical developments can be expected by continuing to apply extra layers for each additional technical function. Understanding façades - or better envelopes - as part of an integral building, we have to see that creating the future envelope has to be done on a ’network’ basis: employing systems - but also methods of thinking - which provide the possibility to develop different aspects simultaneously and combine them as required. The envelope has to be seen as a functional part of the entire building, serving a part of the demand by providing the necessary technologies and qualities. In this regard, we have to withdraw from material and structure-orientated thinking and construction – we have to develop the envelope as a hybrid system: materials, technologies and production processes have to be integrated into the summation and combined into an all-encompassing result. Façades comprise various themes covering strategic, material and technological developments. Aspects such as function integration, networking of elements, new structures and materials as well as the addition of functions to existing structures will be investigated and explained in 85 or so concrete ideas.