The design of a modular and reusable biocomposite railway footbridge

In a constantly evolving urban environment, it is important that we design structures with future adaptability in mind. Bridges for example can have very long life spans, but within their life span their use might change or even become obsolete. Disposing of the bridge, which can still be in perfectly good shape, would be a terrible waste of...

Hoptille - from Stigma to Charisma: Image enhancing transformation of post-modern architecture while retaining its identity

This graduation thesis was executed within the studio New Heritage in which the question was raised whether postmodern architecture can be valued as heritage. Multiple postmodern neighbourhoods suffer from a stigma. Outsiders have a negative image where insiders are much more positive about their neighbourhood. This master thesis focusses on the...

Katoenveem: from cotton warehouse to creative hub

Katoenveem is a former cotton warehouse in the Merwe-Vierhavens area of Rotterdam. As a harbour heritage site it has a high cultural and historical value due to its unique past function and the systems that were installed for the transshipment of cotton, but also for the innovative construction method that was used and the resulting overall...

Design of a multi-use, demountable, timber arena: A research in re-usable timber structures

The goal of this thesis is to research multi-purpose, re-usable timber structures as a step towards sustainable construction. To reach it, the work was divided into four parts. <br/>The project starts with an introduction explaining the motivations behind this work. It continues by grounding the problem in the context of major sports events....

Portable dwellings for temporarily unused areas

The current building environment has a lack of adaptability, which means that buildings are often demolished and rebuilt. In almost all cases, biological and technical materials are mixed by using glues, adhesives or wet seals, therefore materials can hardly be reused, if at all.<br/><br/>After demolishing, there are not always instantly new...

Assessment of component connections based on the design of disassembly strategy

This paper uses different classification methods to make an overview of different demountable connections in current architecture practices. Then based on the typologies and literature research, it built an assessment system to evaluate the connections in a circular building economy.

Design for Disassembly - a way to minimize building waste: A design for a transformation of an office building into dwellings taking into account circularity, demonstrating how circularity offers freedom for (non-traditional) households

This graduation is part of a double degree for the master Architecture and the master Construction, Management and Engineering. Research has been conducted into the field of circularity and specifically on design for disassembly as a way to minimize building waste and on improving implementation of circularity by studying the building process...

The Future Building Envelope: Circular and Adaptive: A strategy for designing demountable unitized curtain walls, with an application on 4 adaptive concepts

This report includes all the research conducted during the last phase of the Master of Science Building Engineering within the faculty of Civil Engineering. The main aim is to form a strategy for designing demountable unitized curtain walls; one that could actually be used in practice by future engineers and architects. This is why this...

Future proof buildings: Sustainable refurbishment of 1960’s high rise residential flats.

The built environment has an important role to play in sustainable development. The Dutch government estimates that the build environment is responsible for 50% of resources used, 40% energy use, 30% of water use, 35% of CO2 production and 40% of the total waste production in the Netherlands. Because of these relatively high numbers, changes in...

Conceptual design of a demountable, reusable composite flooring system: Structural behaviour and environmental advantages

There is currently increasing interest in making a transition towards a circular economy, to improve resource efficiency and to reduce harmful emissions to the environment. The European Union adopted a Circular Economy package in 2015, while the Dutch government introduced a programme to achieve a circular economy by 2050. The construction...

FabField - structural design and development for CNC-milled based wood construction

Urban fast charging stations: A design of efficient public charging infrastructure for large numbers of electric vehicles in cities

How could urban areas provide public charging infrastructure for the rapidly increasing number of electric vehicles? The objective of this research is to develop a tool that helps municipalities and market players to understand the need for public charging infrastructure, and to design an efficient solution for charging large numbers of electric...

Grandstand Design for Disassembly

This work contains the technical report about the research in how to design and construct a demountable grandstand. The design itself is a modular structure which can be demounted and transported to different locations and to be reused multiple times. With the modular design any event organiser can decide what arrangement and capacity the...

Technical feasibility of a demountable floating body for a demountable stadium

Stadiums which are built for large events like, the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup are often not used after the events. Next to that is land space in urban areas becoming scarce in the near future. Therefore multiple use of land will become more important. A solution for the empty stadiums is to make use of demountable stadiums. These...