Want to talk with us on the current challenges of architecture and how these are affecting architectural education? Join us from 2-4 November, live here in Delft for the ‘Architectural Education in Times of Uncertainty’ Symposium. The event unfolds over three days with discussions on the integration of circularity in current curricula, new types of collaboration, transitions in pedagogy and learning in extreme complexity with an amazing line up. For more information and registrations please visit our website.
This paper represents our CBE Hub approach towards developing a scheme of what constitutes content for teaching circularity, how the goals for integrating it into the curricula can be formulated, and what type of pedagogy is suited to support the integration.
After months working on the ‘Scales to Aspects’ diagram, we were finally able to put it to test. From Sunday, July 10 to Tuesday, July 12 we held a Summer School on Circularity in the Built Environment here at TU Delft. We used Binckhorst as a case study, a post industrial area in the Hague currently transitioning to a residential/commercial area.
So, how can we achieve a circular transition? Is it just by using circular building products or circular building practices for the new buildings? Or do we also need to consider how pushing the industry away from the city will affect our circular goals? Where will all necessary materials come from? And what would be the role(s) of the local citizens?
The ‘Scales to Aspects’ model developed here by the CBE Hub was scrutinized by forty participants from all over the world using the input of twelve guest lecturers and the CBE Hub group; four new visions were created for a more circular transition for Binckhorst based on its specific context. In the following months we’ll study the results of what has been an amazing experience for all of us here at BK TU Delft and we’ll make sure to keep this conversation going. A big thanks to everyone who helped make this possible.
We at the Circular Built Environment Hub (CBE Hub) of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, at TU Delft are happy to announce the new dates for our Summer School on Circularity in the Built Environment. The event will take place July 10-12 (Sunday to Tuesday) in Delft.
The topic of scales remains our main focus: for the past year we have worked extensively with our group to determine how circularity manifests at different scales and how the scales interrelate. We look forward to sharing this input with you and to getting your feedback.
An amazing line up of colleagues and guests will give you the opportunity to deepen your understanding of the theoretical aspects of circularity and circular economy and to learn from current examples from practice and our research. Our definitive program will be uploaded shortly on our website. We will also be visiting Binckhorst, a district in the Hague that aspires to become an exemplary circular redevelopment for South Holland with mixed residential-commercial and industrial uses. We will use this district as a case study to contextualize our discourse.
Students from all levels of education (BSc, MSc) as well as PhD researchers and professionals are welcome to participate. Only limited spots are available.
Stay tuned for more information or visit our website
Always good to know you are not alone, this has been a relief to read. I copy here:
we need to decolonize/decarbonize (…) the old elitist models need new energy, new insight and new material (…) the school educates, while training is a lifelong process happening after that (…) people in practice are sitting at the table with eight different disciplines, all: talking to each other, not worried about their boundaries and not siloing knowledge production in the way that many universities still insist on (…) How do we invert growth and our relationship to waste? How do we wrestle with the curious paradox that our relationship to technology – hijacked by capital – got us into this mess in the first place, and yet only technology can get us out of it? (…) We may be faced with knowledge we do not recognise (…) generosity pertains to economies of love that undo the transactional. How to decentre the perception of difference is the important question (…) let the perimeter of the discipline dissolve
A new, fully online Profed course on Circular Economy at an advanced level will be available by TU Delft, October 7. Come join us at the “Circular Building Products for a Sustainable Built Environment” online course, register now and enhance your learning on Circular Economy.
The course is suitable for architects, product designers, managers, supply chain actors and other professionals working towards the development of future products used to create sustainable, circular buildings. TU Delft’s Circular Built Environment hub (CBE) has designed and developed this course working with leading industry and research partners, to achieve a higher level of applicability and relevance. It is based on real world case studies and provides you with the tools to create new products and business models. It will help you to fully understand the complexity of the task and to be able to evaluate existing circular approaches. You won’t be alone: a group of highly qualified people will support your learning throughout the course. For more information please visit our page.
After a very successful second re-run, our MOOC has been launched again last Monday! This is a self-paced MOOC, so you can start any time and also follow it in your own time. If you are a student, a working professional in the field of architecture, urban design and engineering and you want to know more about the circular economy, join the course and the instructors from our department will guide you through.
About this course
Building construction is one of the most waste producing sectors. In the European Union, construction alone accounts for approximately 30% of the raw material input. In addition, the different life-cycle stages of buildings, from construction to end-of-life, cause a significant environmental impact related to energy consumption, waste generation and direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions.
The Circular Economy model offers guidelines and principles for promoting more sustainable building construction and reducing the impact on our environment. If you are interested in taking your first steps in transitioning to a more sustainable manner of construction, then this course is for you!
In this course you will become familiar with circularity as a systemic, multi-disciplinary approach, concerned with the different scale, from material to product, building, city, and region.
Some aspects of circularity that will be included in this course are maximizing reuse and recycle levels by closing the material loops. You will also learn how the Circular Economy can help to realign business incentives in supply chains, and how consumers can be engaged and contribute to the transition through new business models enabling circular design, reuse, repair, remanufacturing and recycling of building components.
In addition, you will learn how architecture and urban design can be adapted according to the principles of the Circular Economy and ensure that construction is more sustainable. You will also learn from case studies how companies already profitably incorporate this new theory into the design, construction and operation of the built environment.
What you’ll learn
At the end of the course you will be able to:
Recognize the principles of circularity and their application to the built environment
Identify the scales of the built environment from materials and products to cities and regions
Identify the life-cycle phases of building products and how they can be circular
Discuss design principles in building of products and key aspects such as stakeholders, incentives, time-frames, business models
Discuss the circular design and development approach for buildings and recognize the impact of a building on society and the environment during its life-cycle
Recognize the flows at different city scales and how they differ depending on the actors and the local context
Reflect on the complexity and variety of possible circular solutions in terms of energy, water and waste management
Analyze and map the different stages and value webs of building materials at the regional level
Reflect on possible environmental impacts of the different building life-cycle stages and activities along the value web
Explore the potential of intervening to steer the value web towards more circularity
You can start learning all about the circular economy by clicking this link right now! Also, if you are interested in the work that is going on in the field of circularity, have a look at the Circular Built Environment Hub.
As we have seen above, the self defining nature is a means of maintaining authority, in the one instance over society, in the other over students. Teachers set the problems and provide the means to solve them. The fact that theories are developed in artificial environments means that their behaviour become entirely predictable. As Argyris and Schön note;
..techniques make self fulfilling prophecies for the professions. These techniques tend to be used to achieve a self-reinforcing system that maintain constancy…The artificial environments are designed to enable the professions to realise objectives as he sees them control the task, render the behaviour of others predictable, and thereby control it.
The same level of control is equally apparent in the profession of the teacher. It may be seen therefore that self-defining rational theory also leads to self-fulfilling theory. Nietzsche is withering in his critique of the rational mind’s pursuit of the truth and its apparent limitations:
If somebody hides a thing behind a bush, seeks it out and finds it in the self-same place, then there is not much to boast of respecting this seeking and finding; thus, however, matters stand with the pursuit of seeking and finding ‘truth’ within the realm of reason.
What this points to is the dangers of the closed circuit. Theory guides practice which in turn becomes the basis for theory; at best this a refining process in pursuit of the perfected theory defining a universal truth; at worst it becomes like a dog chasing his tail. This system generates a mirroring effect, whereby the precepts of the theory are reflected in the actions of practice.
Jeremy Till, Contingent Theory: The Educator as Ironist, 1996. Full article available here (highlighting is mine)
The question for the coming autumn is resolutely not how can we recreate the architecture studio online. It is how we can liberate our discipline from the assumption that an ill-defined space, time, pedagogy and culture is the only way to teach design. It is an opportunity to re-construct architecture education in a more critical, inclusive and democratic way. (highlighting is mine)
Last Easter, Yorgos (husband and studio partner) oversaw the construction of a treehouse in Tzoumerka. We have just received this wonderful video from BOULOUKI, the collective responsible for the workshop, and we are very proud and happy to share it with you all. Design-build workshops -once well planned- can become incredible tools for learning. Well done BOULOUKI and well done to all the students and craftsmen who participated.
“Shelters” project combined two workshops in tandem in the neighboring mountain refuges of Tzoumerka, during 1-6 of May 2019. The first one titled “Rearranging the traditional wood-fired oven” was about constructing an oven in the mountain refuge of Melissourgoi, using local stone, bricks, clay, pumice stone, lime and salt, as building materials. In the mountain refuge of Pramanta, the workshop was about using timber as the main material in order to “Introduce a tree-house in Tzoumerka”. During both workshops, apart from the site work and hands-on experience guided by 4 experienced masons, the 20 participants had the opportunity to attend a series of lectures and presentations given by reputable professors and teams related to the field of construction and commons.
(…) alternative teaching model called Studio One (Offered at University of California (UC) Berkeley’s Department of Architecture in the College of Environmental Design), which seeks to facilitate new dynamic links between architecture and other disciplines based on the interplay between fundamental research, design exploration, and practical application (…) At the core of this class is the study of biological structures and the development of bio-inspired construction principles for architectural design(…) he curriculum itself is designed to mediate between education and research. Aside from gaining basic knowledge within their own fields, the students also gain experience outside of their comfort zones by learning from other disciplines (…) In the first semester, students work individually or in small groups. In the second semester, the students join forces and build one project together as a team (…) the class is also supported by a wide network of academic research institutions as well as professionals inside and outside the building industry (…) With its partners, Studio One is contributing to a newly-formed, campus-wide teaching and research initiative called Design Innovation from Nature (…) the key idea behind biomimetics or bio-inspiration is not the imitation of natural forms and shapes but the transfer of functional principles to technological applications (…) To implement these biomimetic concepts, the students approached the work in the class from two directions as defined (…) The first, called “biology push”, relates to a bottom-up approach. The second is referred to as “technology pull” and describes a top-down process. While the term “biology push” describes a development that is initiated from basic knowledge in biology, “technology pull” refers to the aim of solving a certain technical problem in order to improve an already existing design solution or process.
Students worked on 4 separate case studies drawing from the study of natural forms: an Insect-Inspired Lightweight Facade; a Plant-Inspired Kinetic Facade Shading System and two research pavilions (2017, 2018)
Schleicher, S., Kontominas, G., Makker, T., Tatli, I. & Yavaribajestani, Y. (2019). Studio One: A New Teaching Model for Exploring Bio-Inspired Design and Fabrication. In Biomimetics (Basel) 4(2), 34. doi: 10.3390/biomimetics4020034
connecting data to information to knowledge 