Archive for Delft
May 13, 2008 at 3:03 pm · Filed under Delft
[image: RTV West]
Its unbelievable, but it is happening. My school, Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft, my own little (big actually) temple for architecture is burning down.
This morning around 9:00 a water pipe sprung on the 6th or 7th floor, causing a short circuit in the coffee machine a floor below, which set the fire. Al people are out the building, everybody is save. But the firefighters have left the building cause the construction is in danger, and there is a serious hazard the building might collapse.
If the building totally burns down, including an amazing architecture library, the model collection, a historic collection of architect designed chairs and of course all the computers with their data (cause not everybody will have an off-site back up). And all the student work, especially the grad-students with massive amount of time invested in model-making. And lets not forget the beautiful building itself designed by Van den Broek en Bakema (you learn to love it throughout you study, its part of the education itself).
It’s crazy, luckily nobody got hurt, but that the place will be gone where so much history happened, and where I spent 8 fundamental years of my life is at the moment un-graspable.
February 16, 2008 at 11:22 pm · Filed under Beirut, Delft, Archis
17:00 till 19:00 19 February, Grote Vergaderzaal, Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft
An event on how to work as a designer/architect in (post) conflict areas and contested spaces. Presenting work from the ‘Public Space’ summer workshop held last summer in Beirut and the MSc Studio Border Conditions (TU Delft) reflects on 5 years of work and research. Afterwards an open discussion will be held.
Special Guest: Michael Stanton (practicing architect and teacher at American University of Beirut and coordinator of the Public Space summer workshop at Studio Beirut.
Archis, Studio Beirut, Studio Border Conditions and Partizan Publik will be present.
The event is supported by ARGUS
December 13, 2007 at 1:43 am · Filed under Delft
NEWSFLASH from the Faculty of Architecture at the TU Delft (Netherlands): Winy Maas will start a very ambitious studio/research project at the Faculty. In collaboration with the Delft School of Design (PHd studio of the Faculty), the Berlage Institute (Rotterdam) and MVRDV.
So first what is this Why Factory, their mission statement:
The Why Factory (T?F) is a exploratory body that analyzes, theorizes and constructs future cities. T?F is an independent entity of a network, operating from the purity and beauty of sicence and fiction.
Besides the proposed circus of lectures, exhibitions, multimedia and a quarterly publication the first concrete projects is the launch of two Master 2 studio’s (second semester, 1st year Master of Architecture). Titles are The Green Dream and World Wonders.
The Green Dream (some excerpts ):
The New Green project intends to be both constructive and imaginative. Whether we will be comparing environmental standards, designing a city, or building a car, we will use environmental aspects to project new qualities, and, maybe further new urban cultures. In the end we want to see our environment as a source of inspiration rather than a necessary burden.
(…)
Green is becoming more and more omnipresent within our discipline. Today we are required to provide designs, that save energy and do not pollute the air … It turns out that the environmental knowledge in architecture is very technical and there is little place for aesthetics and imagination. Does the ecological building have its proper representation, going beyond the straw roof? Or beyond technocratic images produced by corporate architectural offices?
World Wonders (some excerpts):
World Wonders is a design studio, which proposes new man-made monuments by questioning what constitutes the ‘wonder’. Understanding and (re)defining the parameters of wonder is the fundamental aspect of this project.
all the excerpts are from the introductory flyer of T?F (pdf) from T?F website
I have to say, the ambitions and the questions asked are compelling. Idea machine Winy Maas is on a roll, now we’ll just have to wait and see what happens and if it can live up to the expectations. But with getting Maas into the Architecture faculty of Delft, the new Faculty dean Wytze Patijn continues to build up the prestige of the Faculty. Hans Beunderman (former dean) brought in Kas Oosterhuis and has put the research and theory department on the academic map with founding the DSD, which even has it’s own studio space in NYC (which has been hardly used yet since it’s inauguration (early summer 2007)). A more uplifting note is that the DSD launched their own academic journal Footprint (pdf versions for free!), which looks quite promising, I scanned the articles, of which I’ll certainly read a few.
July 3, 2007 at 1:17 pm · Filed under Delft
Delft School of Design, New York.
very nice… Delft’s ambition in the theory department rooting.
I decided not to do any PHd, but now, I might have to reconsider with this tempting forsight on Essex street 131
Delft School of Design dsd.tudelft.nl
