Campus qualities and landmarks

But, for a small densely populated location in the western Netherlands it is not a dense urban campus. The spacious modern campus is organised along a broad, park-like boulevard called Mekelpark, named for a former professor and World War 2 resistance fighter.

History
The university was founded in 1842 as a Royal Academy to train civil engineers in Delft’s historical centre. Twenty years later it became a polytechnic school before ultimately becoming an institute of technology at the start of the 20th century. New buildings were added in the historic centre and to the south east of the canal around the town centre to accommodate steadily growing student numbers. This migration south was reinforced when student numbers after WW2 grew to more than 5,000. “Like in many towns, such as Utrecht and Rotterdam, a new city outside the old centre was planned, coupled with a policy of making higher education accessible to all,” said Dr. Frank van der Hoeven, associate professor of urban design and Director of Research at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (BK).

Delft gained its legal University of Technology status in 1986 and now has new challenges ahead. The farm cottage and barn on Rotterdamseweg behind the Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EWI) faculty belong to the university and are remnants of the polder’s former agricultural function. The Jaffa cemetery between the Aula and BK is another remnant. Herman van Bergeijk, associate professor at the History of Architecture and Urban Planning department at BK says a new main building was planned on the spot where the cemetery is, but it could not be purchased from the municipality.

George Tzovlas, of the Facility Management and Real Estate department, says the campus made for baby boomers and cars is changing into a university for millenials. The task for his department is to make the campus a living experience and reduce space while making buildings more efficient and better addressing user’s needs.

Univer-city
Alexandra den Heijer, associate professor at BK, believes that visitors and newcomers encounter unconnected, closed islands when they arrive on campus. But there is a move to adapt this legacy and promote physical networking among the faculties to promote innovation. The aim is to turn the closed faculty cells inside out to showcase their activities and inspire collaboration.

Den Heijer sees a lot of potential in maximising the public, in-between spaces within and outside the faculty buildings. Her theory is that the university community and tourists are drawn to “attractive public space, densely populated areas that encourage social encounters or at least give a sense of place.” Dr. Van der Hoeven agrees, emphasising that you can freely enter most TU Delft buildings and it would be good if more people became aware of this accessibility to attractive facilities. He believes the heart of the campus is the first half of the Mekelpark between the library and the EWI faculty. It works very well with enough entrances which ensure the presence of people and liveliness. Den Heijer also underlines how close the campus is to Delft’s historic town centre, Amsterdam and Schiphol Airport and even the seaside by The Hague.

Existing Icons

Aula Conference Centre
Considered architecturally challenged by some, resembling a colossal squatting frog or a spaceship, the Aula building is the face of the university, the setting for most ceremonial events and PhD defences. “The Aula project was going to be bigger,” said Van Bergeijk. “It also had a high rise building on top of it housing all the administration,” Van der Hoeven said. “The ground floor canteen was originally designed for bike parking, explaining its low ceiling and difficult acoustics and air quality.” Love it or hate it, the brutalist, concrete landmark is a listed monument, a challenge to the future from the 1960s. The massive auditorium, seating 1,300, cantilevers out 30 metres. It is supported by two piers which are not structurally necessary and are only there to make it look stable.

Library
The Library building was one of the first interventions to upgrade the campus for the future. From the outside it is an artificial grassy hill resulting from tilting the ground plane up 13 degrees. Despite the giant 41 metre cone sticking out of the roof, the concept of the building as a landscape and its low profile are considered deferential gestures to the concrete Aula built before it. The skewed entrance stairs have a stretched tread and riser proportion, to slow you down before going into a space of concentration. Its popular central hall is used as study centre, with the printed books stacked out of the way on four levels at the rear blue wall.

BK
Built from 1917-1925 and originally planned as a chemistry faculty, the building was unused until 1948. The chemistry function explains the tower for water storage. After the war it became TU Delft’s main building until it was sold to be converted into flats. But after the previous 13 storey BK faculty was destroyed by fire in 2008, the building was retrieved and fitted out as a replacement in a record six months. Luckily the property developer, affected by the financial crisis, agreed to return it. This vibrant hive of creativity is a complex of wings organised around the central corridor going from east to west. Van der Hoeven said it’s not called BK City for nothing. Its corridor is like the bustling, narrow street of a medieval town.

EWI
The 22 storey campus icon visible for miles around, with its shifted glazed slabs, blue and red livery and big clocks, opened in 1969. “The EWI location was first made available for BK, but the new architecture faculty project was taking too long and so they switched plots,” said Van Bergeijk. The building has an uncertain future, as it is unsuitable for academic purposes, expensive to maintain and needs a costly renovation to upgrade it. But according to Van der Hoeven it has clear heritage value and has been a campus icon since completion.

New additions

PULSE
The new PULSE building (Practise, Unite, Learn, Share & Explore) nestled between the Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (3mE) building and Industrial Design Engineering (IO) will be a testing ground for novel educational methods. Delivery is planned for the spring of 2017. Conceived as an inter-faculty educational centre, its spaces will flexibly accommodate new formats of interactive knowledge transfer, also providing a place for self-study and a restaurant. Equipped with an intelligent management system, this state of the art building will be energy neutral with high energy and sustainability performance scores.

Applied Sciences Faculty
From its location between the Aula and Civil Engineering and Geosciences, the Applied Sciences faculty (TNW) will move to a brand new building located in Technopolis science park to the south of campus. Located between the Reactor Institute Delft and Aerospace Engineering (LR), the building boasts a grand, naturally lit central atrium. Housing the Biotechnology, Chemical Engineering and Bionanoscience departments together, the improved functionality and bigger, safer, modern labs in the same building will create an interface to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration.

Extension of Sports and Culture facilities
In summer 2016 at the southern end of the campus a partially covered multifunctional central hall will couple the existing cultural centre to the sport buildings. Existing spaces will receive a facelift and the project will add a new large sport hall, with three smaller spaces for combat sports, dance and aerobics and meditation as well as extra storage and changing rooms with showers. <<