End user segments
Learning to adapt the built environment
What role can academia play in future-proofing our homes and cities? We went in search of some answers – and it proved to be an education.
There’s a school of thought which says academia can teach us valuable lessons about the built environment.
Spend 30 minutes with university professor Dirk van Gameren and the foundations are laid for so many fascinating avenues of exploration, that becoming a student again seems like quite an enticing prospect.
Dirk is Professor of Dwelling in the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft in the Netherlands – a role he’s held since 2006. Widely regarded as one of the top three architecture schools in the world, it has around 3,000 students and 700 staff members (Dirk himself is an alumnus and graduated cum laude in 1988).
Justifiably proud of the university’s global reputation, he’s quick to acknowledge that many of today’s biggest societal challenges are related to the built environment. Although rewind 20 years, and many thought it was job done. “I remember when I started here, we held a seminar on housing design and quite a few people argued that we didn’t need to discuss it anymore because we knew how to do it,” recalls Dirk. “They thought it was all fine and we’d solved everything.
“The whole landscape of the built environment has changed drastically since then and what we teach here has become the center of attention again. Because now we’re really seeing the effects of climate change and the necessity of the energy transition. We also have socio-economic factors to consider. For example, our cities have become unaffordable for many people, so we need to figure out how we can design, build and manage our cities and buildings in such a way that everyone can benefit. These are all huge issues.”
Expanding cities
Winner of the prestigious Aga Khan Award in 2007 in recognition of his design for the Dutch Embassy in Ethiopia, Dirk also manages an international teaching and research network aimed at tackling the problem of affordable housing in rapidly expanding cities in Asia and Africa. So the experience and knowledge he’s able to share with his students – the professionals of the future – is invaluable.
“It’s all about addressing the challenges the world is facing,” he explains. “For example, we know that the construction industry is a major contributor to climate change, so we need to rethink not only how we design the built environment as a whole, but also the building materials that are being used.
“Obviously, one of the key ideas we’re looking at is circularity. How can we stop using the planet’s resources and focus on reuse instead? It’s also about designing buildings that can be changed in the future and used for something else. Certainly in the Netherlands, we’ve created a demolition culture – if something doesn't work anymore, we knock it down and build something new. We’re now gradually saying goodbye to that and thinking more about how we can make our design more future-proof than it’s been in the past.”
Driving innovation
The focus on building materials is clearly an opportunity for AkzoNobel. As a major global supplier of paints and coatings, around 60% of our revenue is connected to construction, which means we’re playing a critical role in driving innovation and helping the built environment become more resilient and sustainable.
“We’re starting to see very interesting developments with regard to creating new materials from waste,” continues Dirk. “How do we design and build with renewable, bio-based materials? It’s something that no doubt will also be of interest to AkzoNobel. At the university, we’ve now taken over the botanical garden from our colleagues because we see it as a test ground for researching bio-based materials. That’s the way to go, rather than taking resources out of our natural environment.”
The importance of circularity and using renewable materials are already part of our own product development – and have been for some time. For example, as well as reusing industrial residue to make paint at one of our sites in Brazil, we were also the first major manufacturer to launch a range of recycled paint, made from the waste of other people’s paint tins.
Building design
Color is another area where we excel, and it’s an important part of the curriculum at TU Delft. “It’s always been an area of study here at the university,” adds Dirk. “It involves really delving into the actual design of a building and in the work we do, we look at the way architects use color and explore how it influences their design.”
It was never really in doubt, but academia’s role in helping to improve the built environment can’t be underestimated. The ambition is clear, the ideas are abundant and the urgency is palpable. It’s about advancing scientific and technical knowledge on the one hand, while encouraging creativity and problem-solving on the other. The big question is, what developments can we expect to see, given the scale of the challenges being faced?
“There isn’t just one solution for each issue,” replies Dirk. “We have to come up with various solutions together. The ambition is certainly there and, among our students, I see a strong desire to figure out how we can contribute to making the world more habitable for everyone. They’re also really keen to look beyond their own context to embrace a more global view. They want to hear how people around the world are trying to address issues such as poverty and climate change. Because, like AkzoNobel, we’re in a unique position to help shape the future of the place where we all live.”
