The jury of the international ideas competition for a new TU Delft Architecture faculty building has announced a shortlist of eight nominations. Together they cover a wide range of high-quality concepts and ideas for inclusion in the new building. They provide ammunition for an interesting discussion, Chief Government Architect and jury chair Liesbeth van der Pol says. The prize winners and those worthy of special mention will be announced at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in Rotterdam on 14 March.
The nominees ideas, along with the findings of the TU Delft think-tank which looked at the future of the faculty and TU Delft campus, lay inspiring foundations for creating concrete plans for the future.
The nominations are, in order of registration
Green-Housed Culture, Marc Bringer (1972, architect), Ilham Laraqui – Paris, France
A world without objects, Gijs Raggers (1973, architect) – Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Learning and creating, Olli Raila (1983, student), Heikki Muntola, Heikki Riitahuhta, Mikko Jakonen, Eetu Arponen – Oulo, Finland
Post Ignem, Tom Haelvoet (1984, architect), Eveline Hanssens – Wondelgem, Belgium
BK City, not a metaphor, Henk Engel (1949, architect), Erik van den Berg, Marius van der Meulen – Delft, the Netherlands
Ego Eco-System, Marc Koehler (1977, architect), Martijn de Geus, Miriam Tocino, Stepan Havlik, Carlos Franco, Hans Smolenaers – Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Vertical Forum, Elsbeth Ronner (1984, student), Mick van Gemert – Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Amalgam, Laura Alvares (1977, architect) – Amsterdam, the Netherlands
TU Delft received 466 entries for the international open ideas competition Building for Bouwkunde. The task was to come up with a concept for the educational building of the future and the facultys place in Mekelpark (TU Delfts campus) and Delft. The international jury assessed the entries in mid-January. The open nature of the competition resulted in a plethora of ideas for the new building. The jury was impressed by the quality of the proposals. Most entries kept to the old Architecture facultys location, sometimes with a clear reference to the old building. Others branched out and proposed other sites on the campus where the faculty could become a cohesive factor for TU Delft. A number of entries uses existing buildings and by doing so refer, explicitly or otherwise, to empty but significant buildings and to the facultys current accommodation. The nominations reflect the wide range of ideas
The entries were assessed according to three criteria: visionary power, architectural quality, economic and ecological feasibility. The wealth of ideas, originality and innovative concepts was overwhelming. In architectural terms, many of the plans were extraordinarily well thought through. Among the remarkable concepts with respect to architecture education of the future there were proposals for flexible educational buildings, designed to adapt to changes in education over the course of the years. In addition to sustainability, the social and educational functions of the building were recurring themes in many of the entries. Sustainability, for instance, was reflected in special attention to the climate, energy management and the cohesion between indoor and outdoor areas, but also in feasible proposals for reusing existing buildings.
The jury comprised: Liesbeth van der Pol – chair, Chief Government Architect, Rahul Mehrotra- architect, Professor Department of Architecture MIT, USA, Yung Ho Chang – architect, Professor and Head Department of Architecture MIT, USA, Herman Hertzberger – architect, Professor Emeritus at TU Delft, Kees Kaan – architect, Professor TU Delft,Ole Bouman – director of Netherlands Architecture Institute Rotterdam, Leanne Reijnen – architecture student at TU Delft, Herma de Wijn – secretary, architect