FULL SCALE PROTOTYPE LABORATORY FOR ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS

The faculty of Architecture at the TU Delft owns a Laboratory for full scale material prototypes since 1995. It has been modeled after the ‘Design & Build’ Octatube company at Delft owned by prof. Mick Eekhout. ‘Design & Build’ combines the abilities of architects and engineers with those of the producing industry. With an architect on the wheel, the right of say goes up to the very building on site. On the other hand, producing and assembling leads to information that designers usually do not have. Especially in case of experimental projects and undertakings. But also in case of young students without any experience in the field. They were never in contact with real building. Practice work is not obligatory any more in the dense educational program.
So the ‘Design & Build’ experiences were mirrored into an educational ‘Design, Engineer, Produce and Install’ study module. This module is situated in the first semester of the 4th year, the beginning of the 2-year master course after 3 years of Bachelor study. It is the first time that students have to work with their hands with real materials. They get lessons in machining of metal, welding, bending etcetera, to work with aluminum and steel and the learning to work with glass: float-glass and fully tempered glass. In groups of 25 students they all have to make a design for a façade system and a mock-up version max 2x2m2; these designs are subject of an internal competition, after which 3 to 5 prototypes are engineered, produced and assembled in groups of 5 to 8 students per prototype. So each student has a task, the elements they have to produce have to fit, which is not easy, they have to communicate and make drawings for that order.

Not astonishing that the young engineers after graduation often say that “they saw the light in the prototype module”. They are other students after the prototype stands, more serious, more conscious, more aware of the role of creativity in the material world of technology. And they are proud of their prototypes.