Where?

B 55/03

Colofon Bnieuws Volume 55 Issue 03 February 2022 Contact Room BG.Midden.140 Julianalaan 134 2628 BL Delft bnieuws-bk@tudelft.nl

CONTENTS 04

The Flawed Notion of a Separate Here and There

07

Six Sides Make a Home

08

Guess!

10

Goal Meets World

Contributors Matt Roberts Ugne Koelewijn Ksenija Onufrijeva The Datum Collective

12

Shooting at the Verge

17

Where am I?

Cover Editorial Team

18

Physical or Intangible?

Printed by Druk. Tan Heck

20

South-Limburg!

24

Where Is...

27

I Feel Out of Place

31

Artefact: Public Plinth

Editorial Team Inez Margaux Spaargaren Robert van Overveld Oliwia Jackowska Jonas Althuis Alessandro Rognoni Tuyen Le

© All rights reserved.

Although all content is treated with great care, errors may occur.

Bnieuws.nl

Editorial

WHERE? Welcome to here! Welcome to the edition of Bnieuws that is about everything displaced, relocated, adjusted and connected. Welcome to the space of this small booklet, where we explore the dimensions of our own locations across the globe and within the mind.

So... where have you been? Did you drift away into a mysterious location of your new project or did you live the life of a school kid in that shitty new Netflix series you just binged? Possibly, during the break you travelled to one of the exciting locations in Europe, because you wanted to get away from the gloomy Dutch winter. Either way, you chose to abandon a certain place to go to another one. Because as much as the question "where?" enquires about a specific location, it most of all informs us on "where not".

Many of us lived around the world, and we chose to come here, to Delft, in order to pursue new things in life, but also to leave the old ones behind. Where we are, we miss the family, our friends from around the globe, and we look back at the memories of places that are no longer our abodes. While the absence can crack a void, we are here and now, and this is our opportunity.

We open this edition with The Flawed Notion of a Separate Here and There (p. 04), which makes a case for the complexity of the world through interdependencies. The most distant events, in both space and time, prompt effects that could not have been accounted for. Some effects, however, do not need to be global to make an impact.

Shooting at the Verge (p.12) portrays the processes of urban expansion and their influence on the cinematic portraits of the urban periphery. The unclaimed in-between space exists also in the ethereal situations you might find yourself as you follow the bizarre journey in Guess! (p.08). But again, don't be fooled that the places we talk about need to be geographically determined. The Modernist movement, for instance, did not seem to account for local identity, prompting the question of: Physical or Intangible? (p.18). Interestingly, positioning can also relate to where we find ourselves in the context of our lives as we face the milestone of a new year; a year of both prospect and hopelessness. Goal Meets World (p.10) reports on the fact that just as moving through places, we often anticipate abandoning the old self in the past year with excitement, launching the new one with impossible ambition. There is, however, an objective that Bnieuws already achieved this year. We are excited to share the collaborative piece Where is... (p.24) by the editorial team of Iowa based student magazine DATUM. Finally, we close back with the notion of "nowhereness", but here the absence is not voluntary. I Feel out of Place (p.27) challenges the lack of visual representation of the diversity of people in architectural drawings and its harmful consequences.

Buckle up, and let us take you away on a journey through this new edition!

#Bnieuwd

To listen / THE EAST IS A PODCAST This podcast is a mash-up of expert analysis, relevant extracts from texts, and archival audio. In each episode, guest helps to gain a critical lens on the past, present and future West Asia and North Africa. Curated by Sina Rahmani.

Available on Spotify

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To do / BK TALKS: DISSEMINATE Next month, members of the BNieuws Team will moderate the BK Talk "Disseminate", where the present and future of editorial practices in design will be discussed, bringing to the table a group of renowned professionals from the publishing world.

10.03.22. 18:00 Orange Hall, TU Delft BK

To watch (live) / BUILDING BEYOND As part of the Bartlett International Lecture Series, this talk will see Barbara Imhof, space architect and design researcher, and Sonya Dyer, artist and writer, join host Luke Olsen to discuss extreme realities and fictions of living in deep space.

09 March 2022. 6:00 pm–7:30 pm More info on https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/ events/2022/mar/building-beyond-bartlett-international-lectures

#Bnieuwd To watch / LE NOTTI DI CABIRIA Federico Fellini's 1957 film is now available on MUBI.nl.

Subject of one of our articles this month ("Shooting at the Edge") the film follows the story of Cabiria, an irrepressible, fiercely independent sex worker who moves through the sea of Rome’s humanity, relying on her own indomitable spirit to stay standing. With an unforgettable final scene, "Le Notti di Cabiria" is one of the most profound representations of post-war Rome.

Available on Mubi.nl

To read / DESIGN IN DIALOGUE: 51N4E, ENDEAVOUR, DENKSTATT Recently published, this issue by Ruby Press focuses on the question of how design processes can be shaped through dialogue, to give different actors the opportunity to add, remove or change something in an attempt to exceed the expectations of everyone involved

To do/ RINUS VAN DE VELDE AT THE BOZAR Take a trip to Brussels to see the new exhibit on Belgian artist Rinus Van de Velde at the Bozar! A self-proclaimed armchair voyager, Van de Velde , through sculpture, installation and film, narrates tales of semi-heroic quests and adventures articulated around his imaginary travels and his fictitious encounters with figures of recent art history.

18.02.21 - 16..05.21 Bozar, Brussels

Latest / BNIEUWS.NL Don't forget to check out our website. You'll find all the old issues in the archive, for hours and hours reading pleasure! And follow us on INSTAGRAM for updates :) @bnieuws on Instagram / bnieuws.nl

03

Pen Pal

THE FLAWED NOTION OF A SEPARATE HERE AND THERE Words Matt Roberts

Some ideas appear so straightforward that we simply take them for granted and rarely, if ever, question them. The existence of - and difference between - here and there, and the related terms of now and then, are just a few of those concepts that most of us likely never think about in depth.

04

Now, to be clear, I am not about to argue there is no such thing as here or there - that would be ridiculous - they do exist. However, over the course of this article, I will attempt to spin a particular narrative that - perhaps - illustrates how sometimes a distinction between here and there, and now and then, is not quite as simple as it seems and that thinking in this dichotomous way could prevent us from properly addressing urgent future challenges.

First of all, I want you to take a look at the two images below, taken from a very interesting article written by Dr. Craig McClain of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. At a glance the image on the left looks like it might be a visualisation of North America under the very worst predicted

effects of climate change. Thankfully however, this is not the case. It is North America - obviously - Only not in some dystopian future, but as it appeared around 100 million years ago at the height of the Cretaceous period. A few things have stayed the same since that time, but the vast majority have changed dramatically. Most obviously in relation to this article, the southern coast of North America no longer cuts right through the middle of the modernday states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas. Curiously though, the outline of the Cretaceous period coastline is conspicuously apparent on the map to the right, not as a physical feature but as a socio-political feature. A county-level map of US election results in the southern states shows this connection very clearly.

North America 100 million years ago, and - approximately - the same area today showing county-level election results for the 2008 presidential election, source: McClain, 2012

Formerly coastal areas tend to vote Democrat (blue) and areas which during the Cretaceous were either further inland or further out to sea trend Republican (red). These results appear to track incredibly closely to the prehistoric coastline, but how can that be? Is it pure chance? Not quite…

During the Cretaceous period the tropical sea that lapped on the southern coast of North America was teeming with marine life, one species in particular thrived there, microscopic plankton. Over the course of hundreds of thousands of years layers of these dead plankton amassed within a small band along the coast. Their carbonate skeletons have since morphed into chalk, a base rock with specific properties that makes agricultural land developed atop it incredibly fertile and productive. In comparatively - more recent times (since the arrival of European settlers) these fertile agricultural areas on this ‘thin’ formerly-coastal strip of the North American continent hosted more productive agricultural land than neighbouring areas, and with more productive agricultural land there came a correspondingly greater demand for labourers.

Bearing in mind that these agricultural lands were first intensively cultivated only a few hundred years ago in the southern US, the majority of these lands were used for the production of cotton, and the additional workforce was supplied through the exploitation of enslaved people, who were overwhelmingly black.

The large black population of these areas in the past has translated, through descendants staying where they were born, into these areas having large black populations today. Black Americans, owing to socio-cultural reasons I will not be addressing here, tend to vote democrat (blue on figure 2) more so than their compatriots and because of that, counties which have a majority (or significant minority) black population tend to appear blue on election maps.

Thus, it is perfectly possible to rationalise the effect of a prehistoric tropical sea on the present day

political situation in the US; a separation of 100 million years between now and then but, in other senses, very little separation at all.

Following on from that revelation I want to rewind just a little to those plantations, and the route that their produced crop, cotton, might well have historically taken which brings us to Manchester in the UK. Nicknamed 'Cottonopolis' in the late 19th century the city was synonymous with the manufacture of cotton products - at the time it was processing upwards of 30% of global supply. An often-repeated anecdote that the city held a competitive advantage over every other thanks to its exceptionally rainy and humid climate (which prevented the cotton threads from drying out and breaking), is sadly - and no doubt surprisingly for those of us who have ever had the pleasure of visiting the city - completely untrue.

So, Manchester's once thriving textile industry isn't entirely attributable to a special quirk of physical geography, but there were a whole host of other (almost) unique circumstances that led to Cottonopolis: Manchester and the areas around it had a rich history creating flax and wool-based textiles, due in part to the ideal soil and weather conditions; the nearby city of Liverpool had played a pivotal role in the North Atlantic slave trade fostering strong connections with the southern US and Caribbean where raw cotton was produced; the exploitation of the British Empire had brought great wealth to the nation and financed an era of industrial innovation; and crucially, the discovery and large scale mining of nearby coalfields (thanks once again to deceased prehistoric life) provided the key ingredients to support Manchester's cotton industry. These few globe-spanning Manchestercentred circumstances arguably led to the birth of the industrial revolution and the system of mass production which, for better or worse (I’ll get to that in a minute), defines our world today.

05

Could things have happened differently, of course they could have! But the probability of things happening the way they did was significantly increased by a huge variety of diverse external factors, some caused by humans and others by climatic and geological systems out of human control.

06

So, we have followed a slightly undulating story which has managed to link prehistoric tropical seas to the Industrial revolution and contemporary US political geography - so what? The takeaway from both of these stories is that places and systems across space and through time do not exist in isolation. Any idea of a real separation between here and there is imagined, there are different places of course, but they are connected and events in one have implications, eventually, for all others. This has been highlighted recently by the pandemic, but in no instance is this more true, or more urgent, than with respect to climate change – which we can all thank the industrial revolution for kick-starting! (See, everything in this article is somehow connected, there really is no escape from the lack of separation between here and there!)

melting of more ice sheets, in a vicious cycle which humans may stand no chance of preventing…

That would be a very pessimistic way to end this article, wouldn’t it? It has decayed shockingly quickly from a demonstration of the futility in defining here and there, through the use of a few ‘interesting’ examples, into something much more, shall we say, “existentially threatening” – and that is never a nice place to leave a piece of text. So, to clarify, there is still hope. A relatively small number of companies and individuals (some of whom own spaceships…) are responsible for the vast majority of humanity’s emissions. More importantly than reducing our own emissions (which we should definitely still try to do!) we must hold to account those who are disproportionately putting the rest of us at risk: by consciously choosing which organisations we buy things from; by protesting whenever the chance arises; and by voting for parties and individuals that recognise the urgency of the challenge before us irrespective of whether we live here or there – because ultimately we all live here, on Earth, together.

Matt is a final-year student in MSc MADE, which is an

The effects of climate change are global, paying no respect to the distinction between here or there (unless there happens to be a different planet, which for most of us is not a reasonable, or very desirable, option). Even under the conditions of the most ambitious international agreements to tackle emissions there is huge potential for catastrophic changes in weather systems. And worryingly, as we have seen earlier in this article, human actions are not always entirely responsible for developments.

Occasionally prehistoric events can play important roles. Climate change-driven melting in the Arctic has been shown to release huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which for millions of years had been sequestered in the ice sheets. These previously sequestered gases are now contributing further to climate change, and the

interdisciplinary program between TU Delft and Wageningen University.

McClain, C. "How presidential elections are impacted by a 100 million year old coastline.

Schofield, J. "Was rain the reason behind Manchester's cotton industry success?."

Williams, Mike, and Douglas Anthony Farnie. Cotton Mills In Greater Manchester.

Lindsay, Maizland. "Global Climate Agreements: Successes And Failures".

UiT The Arctic University of Norway. "Methane Release Rapidly Increases In The Wake Of The Melting Ice Sheets".

Six Sides Make a Home It has been decided for us ages ago: six sides make a home.

We come from restless wanderers, still we find our refuge in self-made confinement.

‘My cave is bigger than yours, cleaner, too.’ ‘Mine has high ceilings and room for two cars.’ ‘Mine is stuccoed masterfully, inside and out.’ ‘My cave is airconditioned, even!’

These six sides are my landmark.

It’s coordinates I invite my friends with.

It’s a stash of memories I don’t want to forget.

It’s a hideout that helps me remember where I left the remainder of me.

Six sides, to be painted purple, to keep my bed dry and my body warm, to provide rest for my restless mind and comfort when uncomfortable moments strike.

And whenever we wondered where we could belong, we took six sides and made them our home.

Ugne Koelewijn

07

From the editors

GUESS! Words and Images Jonas Althuis

You're sitting at your desk on a rainy Tuesday morning when all of a sudden everything goes black. The voice of your roommate just starting to ask you if you want a cup of coffee starts to fade away as you're sucked into a dark void. A numbness starts to creep up your legs, starting at your toes and slowly making its way upwards. As it approaches your torso you think "this is it, it's really happening".

A burst of memories shoot into your head as you reflect on the life you've had; "It's been nice," you think to yourself, "I've had a good life, I'm content with the things I’ve done and who I was as a person."

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As you start to pity yourself for dying at the young age of 23, you see a bright light in the distance. You close your eyes but it's so bright that your eyelids can't stop it. It's getting closer and closer. With a thud you're suddenly laying in the middle of a street. You hear the screeching of tires as the light continues approaching. You realise a car is seconds away from running you over and think "If I wasn't already dead, now I'm definitely dead." The car swerves to avoid you and you hear the angry voice of the driver within, screaming obscenities at you as it takes off into the distance. "What language was that?" you wonder as you feel your consciousness sluggishly return to your brain. An intense wave of nausea wrapped in dread starts to creep up from your stomach. Before you know it, the scrambled eggs on toast you had for breakfast are lying on the street in front of you. You feel better.

"Where the f@*$ am I?" you begin to wonder as you look around, searching for clues. A dubiously constructed cinder block building stands on the side of the road. It looks like a shop of sorts, but the sun-washed sign above it's door is unintelligible. You recognise the letters but the words they form simply don't make any sense. A man is dutifully sweeping the steps leading to the door of the shop, but he doesn't seem to notice you. On the other side of the road you see a dense wall of foliage, palm trees peeking out of the top at erratic intervals. It's night time, but the warm humidity of the air around you is comforting. Your eyes continue wondering, until they fall on a familiar red octagonal street sign. Instead of the "STOP" you're accustomed to seeing on this sign, it reads "PARE". You start walking towards the sign and see that a bigger road lies beyond it.

You suddenly notice the sound of a ticking clock somewhere in your auditory periphery.

You look around you, but don't see any obvious sources of the sound. The ticking grows louder and more obnoxious; it seems as though the sound is appearing out of thin air,

mocking you. As you continue to look around, now growing somewhat anxious, you hesitantly mutter the word "Italy" under your breath, with little confidence.

"INCORRECT!", a robotic voice thunders from the heavens. "S*&$", you think, "humid, warm, luscious…?" With even less confidence than the first time, you mutter "Mexico…?"

"INCORRECT!", the voice returns.

The ticking clock speeds up and grows louder as your mind starts racing, searching for any clue as to where you are. Some distance down the larger road you see a sign, but it's too far away to read. Desperate, you start sprinting towards it, until you can start to make out the words. The top line reads "Curitiba - 274 km", below that, "São Paulo - 677 km". You stare intensely at the sign. "São Paulo?", you think, "That's in Brazil, I'm in Brazil!". You suddenly see that a new pair of headlights is approaching. They're getting uncomfortably close. "BRAZIL! SÃO PAULO!" you yell at the top of your lungs as you brace for impact. Everything goes black. The deafening honk of the car fades off into the distance and once again you feel a numbness in your toes.

The robotic voice returns, this time in a gentler tone. "Correct!" it says, before continuing with, "943 Points. Your guess was 677 km from the correct location. Would you like to continue to the next round?"

Satisfied with your score, and the fact that you're still alive, you contemplate doing another round. You quickly decide against it though, and mutter a soft, "no thank you."

As you do so, you find yourself back at your desk. It's still raining outside. A steaming cup of coffee is now sitting next to you on the desk, as if you were never gone. You turn your attention to your laptop, where you notice an open webpage on your browser. It's a URL you don't recognise, but it feels oddly familiar; www.geoguessr.com.

"Hmm," you think to yourself, "maybe I should do another round."

09

BK Report

GOAL MEETS WORLD Words Tuyen Le

Hello world, we are approaching March of 2022, and looking over the Dutch horizon, wildflowers are blooming, the wind is gusting through these frail tree branches. Pondering on these thoughts, what were you doing last December?

Where were you in February 2021? Do you remember the last time you made a goal? As we roll into the year of 2022, with most having aged two whole COVID years, a lot of people dread the question - So… what is your new year resolution?

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Once asked, the questions become a competitive game of goal-making, manifesting, and unrealistic endeavours. Through a quick lookup on the Google trend for “New Year Resolution” from the last five years, there is a serious spike in interest for the term around December, January, and February. The scale is measured based on people's interest over time, where 100 is peak popularity, and the number descends as the trend fades away. Interestingly, comparing 2018 to 2020 Google trend, the interest spike is at 100 in the year 2018, and it is only at 78 in the year 2020.

2018

2019

2020

2021

Quit smoking

2022

Google search analysis for "New Year Resolution" from 2018 - 2022.

A reasonable amount of goals is healthy, and this pandemic has changed the perception of goals and new year resolution to many. For instance, a person’s 2022 new year resolution is no longer about travelling to Europe, but about being kinder to their mental health. The preliminary act of goal-making brings motivation and encouragement to us all, but usually when these goals meet the world, they are forgotten almost a month later.

New year resolution, emphasising on the “year” provokes a delusional quality to how much we can achieve. The practice of over-prescribing goals converts these rushes of adrenaline to stress, and as we are occupied with the daily life happenings, we forget about the initial aspiration we set for ourselves, and taking this “risk” can bring more harm than good to the new year.

Here is a selection of anonymous new year resolutions (2021 and 2022), from students in the BK and beyond. These fragments of goals and comments may have crossed your mind, and encourage you to think further (or look back) at your collection of resolutions.

Confront with myself

Be better at drumming and read more

Take myself out on more dates, more movies alone, more nice meals alone, finding more things I enjoy alone

Take more time for myself, read more, eat no meat, spend more time outside

To slow down, be in the present moment more.

Less online, more offline activities. deactivate social medias, write a journal, have sports fixed in my schedule, drink 2L of water, don’t stay up late during school week days.

Finish my architecture registration exams!

I don't do resolutions because they've been proven not to work. My theme for this year is experience. There are a lot of new scary things in my life and there is less pressure for me if I just say to myself: go and experience what it is/how it feels.

Get a nose ring :)

Learning dutch, meeting the love of my life, visiting new places and self-improvement.

Be Happy

Be comfortable in my own company Practice mindfulness and be more confident

Align my mind, heart, body, and soul

To love myself more (I think)

Humility - To not take myself so seriously all the time. Last year, I felt like I was able to find confidence, but this year I’ve realised that maturing is about constantly learning and unlearning things about yourself so you can continue to grow.

I hope to practice more “humility” and find myself in situations that will help me grow!

To get into grad school

Form deeper connections with people around me. Focus on my career goals and trying to make it in the US!!!

To be happy and get things done To successfully and honestly express my feelings.

Learn basic Cantonese so I can talk to my boyfriend’s grandmother when I meet her! Mainly to offer help around the house.

Gain weight

Work harder

Start an internship and move to a different country

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I decided not to make one this year, I think its good to try and have good intentions throughout the year.

Rather than resolutions, I feel like that word makes it seem like we have to “solve” whatever issue in our lives - I try to think of it as “new year goals.” Almost like a checkpoint. My new year goal is to appreciate the little things in life and continue seeing everything, even mundane little things, as beautiful moments in life happening around me. And cooking new foods at least once a month.

Work on forming my own opinions more & being less influenced by the opinions of others

I want to gain weight and have not achieved that goal yet.

From the Editors

SHOOTING AT THE VERGE Words Alessandro Rognoni

Urban cinematic realism is a phenomenon that we share globally. This is because all cities, in different ways, have experienced the same processes of expansion and sprawling, offering a chance for filmmakers around the world to portray the romantic, traumatic and dramatic conditions of the urban periphery.

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First scene from "Le Notti di Cabiria" (1957).

Along the Urbanised Tevere Cabiria and her blind date stand in the middle of a barren grass field, romantically leaning to one another, laughing and strolling on arid ground. From where the camera stands, this wasteland is seen before and beyond them. Further, in the background, the horizon is shielded by buildings, with deep balconies casting shadows on their concrete façades.

Those who have watched “Nights of Cabiria” might remember the rest of the first scene. The mysterious man, revealing himself as an impostor, snatches the purse out of Cabiria’s hands before throwing her in the river Tevere. Later she would be rescued by the inhabitants of the wasteland or, in other words, the southern outskirts of post-war Rome. Those who have watched will also know the rest of the story: Cabiria, an irrepressible, fiercely independent sex worker moves through the sea of Rome’s humanity, relying on her own indomitable spirit to stay standing. A great film for exercising one’s perception of post-war Italy. However, nothing more than the first scene is needed to understand the condition of the Italian capital in the 1950s. The space between us and Cabiria, and between her and buildings in the background, is one left behind by undisciplined urbanisation, and by the abusive forces that dictated the way Rome was expanded from its consolidated centre, and made into a developmental city. A city that, at least until the 70’s, repeatedly presented a new version of itself in its periphery.

In truth, the Rome that director Federico Fellini portrayed in 1957 was already far different from the one he had encountered twenty years earlier, when he first arrived there at the age of 19. Before his move, the severe and eradicative forces of fascist urbanism had reshaped the historic centre, opening it up to serve as ground for public (and military) parades. In a city at its first intense encounter with modernity, Fellini found an eccentric social sphere made of artists, comedians and writers; a society of

intellectual silliness against the political purity of the regime. After the War, following the country’s economic boom and the advent of celebrity tourism in Rome, this community quickly mutated into the mundane, cosmopolitan society of fun and decadence of the 1960’s “Dolce Vita”.

At the same time, economic growth and transformation brought thousands from the countryside to the city, seeking jobs. Many independent entrepreneurs, by moving within the cracks of a recovering economy, took advantage of the inability of the government to accommodate these new tenants. Large plots of dismissed rural land, running along highways projecting from the city centre, were bought by private investors and subsequently illegally parcelled to get the most profit out of available soil. With construction taking place, the city expanded irregularly, leaving large areas of unused wasteland in between residential developments.

Fellini positioned himself (and his camera) in relation to this empty space. To him, things suddenly became clearer: first, the historic centre as a stage for bourgeoisie mundanity and aristocratic decay, where interior and exterior merge into one theatrical set. And then the urban periphery, the site of confrontation with the modern city, and the modern character, seeking for happiness. Thanks to his work, we realise that the act of filming becomes historically relevant to the development of cities in their urban periphery, particularly as an act of positioning. But it is by looking beyond him that we discover how, in the last few decades, the connection between filmmakers and urban sprawl has been a recurring one.

Continues on next page >

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Abbas Kiarostami. "Taste of Cherry" (1997)

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Towards a global realism Often an interesting ground to filmmakers, we can think of the urban periphery as a contingent boundary, between city and countryside, steadily subject to disappearance under urbanisation. It is a result of late-20th century global urban sprawling, taking place at different moments depending on country; a phenomenon connected to those politics of globalisation that allowed for investment in the housing sector, to accommodate (as in the Roman case) an all-out migration to the metropolis.

All of this, at the same time, ran parallel to a history of cinematic realism: after WWII, more and more crews abandoned film sets, moving their equipment to the built environment. Here, they suddenly found themselves shooting within the physical limitations of crowded, oddly lit, and politically saturated urban spaces.

Within this context, the film-camera arguably became a global machine in itself, due to its comprehensive use around the world. Yet, it was also a machine compliant to different types of appropriation, less geographically specific. It was employed just as sensibly in different places to portray vernacular images, whether in Japan, Nigeria, Brazil or otherwise. It lacked, therefore, purely Western connotations and values.

Yet, its modesty might also come from the circumstances in which it operates in the city, as an object in space. We almost never see the film camera in films, giving up to the illusion of the narrator’s eye. By virtue of this illusion, the film camera is able to disappear in space. Differently to the photo camera, its motion provides duration, presenting us pasts and futures, showing (and not implying) where we have been, and where we are going. Because of this, we forget its position.

By some defined as global neo-realism1, this international movement followed a kind of urge to move cameras to the city. The term “realism” refers then to a desire to create aesthetics out of reality, and to portray conditions of urban struggle, joy, play and change. A global desire, taking different cinematic forms according to where, in the world, it occurred.

Satyajit Ray and Suhashini Mulay shooting in Calcutta in 1975

Bi Gan. "Kaili Blues" (2015)

However, despite its apparent invisibility, the film camera is still very much a physical object, often of considerable size and weight. Placed in the city, it confronts the physicality of other things, of walls, benches, cars, and people. And then, in the urban periphery, it finds an ambiguous position, still part of the city but somehow in detachment, able to look at it as an object, from a ground that is at times less dense of obstacles. As in Nights of Cabiria, here it produces exceptional meanings.

In Abbas Kiarostami’s "Taste of Cherry" (1997) for instance, as we follow Mr Badii’s attempt to find someone to bury him after his planned suicide, we get an understanding of Tehran from both his car’s exterior and interior, as it sweeps through the mountains defining the city’s northern edge. Here we get a glimpse of the many towers being built on elevated plinths, the result of the never-ending housing crisis which followed the devaluation of the Iranian currency in the 1970’s. As we also encounter the processes of extraction of soil occurring just at the edge of the city, we eventually gain an image of Tehran of multifaceted political significance.

as dimensional reference in relation to the street, we discover a system of dependencies between the city and its surrounding roadside villages, once connected exclusively by river. As the camera transitions from the road to the alley, and later to the house, the bridge, the square etc, we are offered an impression of a village under steady urbanisation, a condition shared by thousands of others in today’s Chinese hinterland.

These are just two examples of how filmmakers historically dealt with the urban periphery; positioning their camera either at the edge of the city or, even more significantly, at the edge of urbanisation. These films help us realise how positioning, either of a camera or of oneself, is to designers a fundamental urban act. Where we position ourselves in the city might contribute to what we discern from it, how we interpret it, and, finally, what we might make of it.

1

Robert Sklar, Saverio Giovacchini. "Global Neorealism:

The Transnational History of a Film Style" (2011).

The mentioned film "Le Notti di Cabiria" is available on

In the more recent "Kaili Blues" (2015), shot by Bi Gan in and around Kaili City of the Guizhou province, a 45 minutes long single-take follows Mr. Chen on his journey out of the city, in an attempt to find his kidnapped nephew. With the camera acting

MUBI.nl. If you enjoy films (about places) as much as us, please join our BKino screening events at the faculty!

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Use a mirror to get the anwsers!

ANTWERP - Port House - Zaha Hadid Architects LONDON - 30 St Mary Axe Tower - Foster + Partners BERLIN - Berliner Fernsehturm - Hermann Henselmann COPENHAGEN - 8 House - BIG PARIS - Foundation Louis Vuitton - Frank Gehry ROTTERDAM - Museumplein skate spot

Pen Pal

PHYSICAL OR INTANGIBLE? Words and Images Ksenija Onufrijeva

Starting with the modernist movement, the idea of architectural identity as seen in the local values of vernacularity went into processes of deconstruction, and turning into international style. This transition created a range of buildings that would be adaptable within numerous urban contexts in terms of their independent position within that same urban surrounding. Not always can these buildings adapt to the way the contextual interaction develops though – the context itself might either accept the new-built intruder or reject it over time.

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The three buildings – UNESCO Headquarters in Paris (1958), Y-block in Oslo (1969-2020) and the World Trade centre in Riga (1974) – were designed to represent new art of building with "freedom, expressed in a wealth of forms"1.

Even though designed in a new modernist fashion with a seemingly similar starting point in terms of their representativeness and contextual independence within the historical surrounding, the three siblings developed very different story lines.

Firstly, designed in Paris and approved by an international architectural committee including Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and Eero Saarinen, the "three-pointed-star"2 preserved its function and power over time, becoming a landmark. While it was carefully kept and restored in 2009 to fit the contemporary standards of energy-efficiency and technical properties, the other two buildings were not as lucky to get honours to the same extent. The Y-block, even though seen as a unique monument of art created in collaboration between Norwegian architect Erling Viksjø and Pablo Picasso, was recently demolished due to a redevelopment plan of the Government Quarter after a terrorist attack on the district in 2011. Ironically, just before the attack that caused the later change of the building’s image and led to its demolition, the Y-block was about to be granted protection by the Directorate of Cultural Heritage.3Even after the continuous debates and protests, the Norwegian three-pointed star got torn down to develop a safer and "greener, more functional and more accessible urban space" in the Government Quarters. 4

The youngest of all three, the former Communist Party Central Committee headquarters, later a World Trade Centre and then an office block in Riga has also been recently fighting for its existence and preservation as Modernist heritage of international value due to another contextual conflict created by the socio-political changes and prejudices.

Built in the communist period, the building is largely seen as a symbol of the country’s lost independence and a "ghost of communism"5. Even though the design was inspired by the Parisian older brother and was aiming to bring an opposite value - contemporary international ideas - and go hand in hand with the Western innovations and new architectural movement.

Thus, a question of "where" becomes more of an ephemeral dimension, bringing contextualism within the intangible, fluid realm. It is rather important how the public relates certain events and history to buildings, which substitutes the importance of the physical urban context. "Where" flows into the domain of time – once a proclamation of power, a building may later become a manifesto of cruelty and erasing it would mean liberation and even political change. Similar "star-buildings" might be found in Athens, Bucharest, and other cities around the world – some of them seen as monuments, and some being erased as unwanted reminiscence.

1. Choay, F., Courier, UNESCO’s new headquarters: A new art of building, 1958, from (www.unesdoc.unesco.org) 2. Architectuul, UNESCO building, from (www.architectuul.com) 3. Ministry of Local and Regional Development of Norway, White paper on the new government building complex, from (www.regjeringen.no).

4. Ministry of Local and Regional Development of Norway, Why demolish the Y-block?, from (www.regjeringen.no).

5. Latvijas Sabiedriskie Mediji, Koalīcija vienojas Rīgas akustisko koncertzāli būvēt Pasaules tirzniecības centra vietā, from (www.lsm.lv).

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From the editors

SOUTH-LIMBURG! Words and Images Robert van Overveld

Perhaps you already know this part of the country, perhaps you don't; The South of Limburg. In 2016 rewarded with the best touristic destination in the world by the World Travel & Tourism Council. Also, the region which earned about 80% of the GNP in parts of the 20th century. It happens to be the place I grew up in and where I walked, cycled and enjoyed myself many times. So with today's theme "where?", I decided to take you to this unique place.

First things first; The small bubble all the way down is the south of Limburg. The main cities are Maastricht and Heerlen. Approximately 600.000 live here in the region. Both Belgium and Germany are close at hand, which means that people can profit from three countries, which is great. The area has been used by the Romans and was Charlemagne's (Important European king) backyard in the early Middle Ages.

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When asking my grandmother about Limburg, she explains that this southern part of the country was quite the place to be in the 60’s and 70’s. Coming from Rotterdam, she was excited to live here. About 80% of the GDP was earned by the coal mines that were located here, and the population was profiting from that—a sort of golden age of the region.

Even housing and education was taken care of by the mine, and people were getting a good income as well. The brotherhood that existed because of the shared days undergrounds was very strong. This union among people echoed in other domains as well and has been the backbone of the region. Nevertheless, has been challenged in the last decades. About 47 years ago, the mines closed. Since then, many things have changed. The closing of the mines left a hole tough to fill in the region, of which struggle is shown by its shrinking population and degrading purpose since then.

Nevertheless, one will still feel very welcome in the south, still known for its warm character. When entering the deep south of the Netherlands, one will quickly see another plate on the table and be offered some food. That's why it's often compared to Mediterranean cultures. That's also why the word "bourgondisch" is often mentioned when people talk about this region, referring to a more loose focus on good food and drinks. "Hollander" (Dutchmen) is, on the contrary, used for cheap-goat and we talk about "haagse kopjes", a small amount of coffee that one would get in The Hague.

If you know a few things about Limburg, then one of them might be our “interesting” accent and dialect. The dialect is very different from standard Dutch and is considered a second-degree language (out of three, where the third degree is a full-on language). Many people recognise a certain singing in the dialect. This singing is not just mere singing, rather the result of a complex balance between intonation and tones. It results in 16 different tones, where standard Dutch only has one. It gets even more complicated considering that every town has their own words and expressions. Different town inhabitants are able to understand each other, but one will directly know where someone is from. Let me give a few examples of what it's like:

"Huuj Peat, wietsjaaf!"

"Jotda"

translation: Stop horse, a cafe!

Good then

Meaning: Let's take a break

Alrighty then

"Sjuuf ens ing bats" Move a bum cheek Can you move a bit?

"Auwaja, mos se doa kieke" (no word), you have to look there Goodness, do you see that?

"Souwpoete sind ut!"

Dirty annoying children they are Little shits!

"Viedel op naksche erm" Quarter on naked arm I don't have a watch

"Krien ut kopshoggelde va dich" You are giving me a headache You're tiring

"Klinge batteraafjes" Little batavier Little hellions

"Ich han ut koaht, wie laat is ut" I'm cold, what time is it?

I'm cold, what time is it?

"Koom noe maar, ouw sjup" Just come on, old spade oh you, just let's go

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And let’s not avoid the many cultural associations the province has, from carnival to scouting, from choirs to local traditions (like hiding the largest tree in the forest for others to find). These associations are important to people, sometimes even more important than family. Everyone takes part in them, from teenagers to 90-year-old, which is quite unique I think.

Carnival is the most famous get together in the southern provinces. It's a week full of dressing up, colourful parades and drinking. People prepare their festive wagons (serving in the parades) the whole year-round. In November the season officially starts, and many coming togethers follow.

The most important week starts before the Christian fasting period, somewhere in February.

It's these associations, like carnival, and the dialect, that keep the region's culture together. Unfortunately, since individualism also reached Limburg, there has been a decline in the number of these associations. Neither does globalism help with keeping these dialects alive. A big part of the culture will get lost might this trend continue.

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What probably won’t get lost are the beautiful nature views in the region.

The south of Limburg consists of rolling hills and many sceneries reminiscent of Southern France, which results in an unusual Dutch experience. As mentioned before, the area received the prize for best touristic destination in the world. The region is full of idyllic towns, castles, amazing cycle and walking routes, good restaurants, historical museums and a beautifully designed zoo. The area is also home to many caves that one must see when visiting, for example in Valkenburg or Maastricht. If you travel by car or bike, I recommend touring the "Mergelland route", which takes you to beautiful views and old traditional artisan houses.

What to conclude? Well, the reason why I wrote this article is partly due to the negative reactions places outside the Randstad sometimes get. When corona hit, I kept my travels closer to home, which I enjoyed quite well. I realised that I’m still a stranger to these places, and the folks around here.

The negative reactions are mainly “Wat de boer niet kent dat..” (unknown makes unloved) reactions. In other words, I hope to have appealed to you to book a weekend close by next time. Regarding climate change, that’s the best choice anyways :).

Photo credit: Gerard Mahieu

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Pen Pal

WHERE IS...

Words The Datum Collective Images Tuyen Le and Alessandro Rognoni

As we were invited to write for Bnieuws, at the TU Delft on the topic of Where, as a collective we found ourselves speculating on the situational qualities of questions of where. Where provides the possibility to question a specific site or geography whether physical or metaphysical, both important for architecture and its makers. Where, unlike the questions of who and what, begin to situate us on the continuum of history and the future. It allows us to self-position ourselves and ask where we stand as an individual and as an industry, and clear the fields of vision that are intentionally blocked out. Where, engages us in a critical self-positioning, asking where do we stand in current times as the world is in constant shift, with the pandemic, excessive environmental damage, and political conflicts. Below you will read some takes that depart from the questions of Where is.. and speculate the essential questions of CARE, COLLECTIVE, and BEAUTY.

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Seven architects at SHoP Architects in New York signaled their > agreement to unionise (2021) 7

Where is Care...

Where is Collective

Bell Hooks famously writes in her book, All about love, that we don't care as much as we critique. This rings true for most architectural academic practices that are deeply rooted in critique-oriented pedagogies. These are riven with many kinds of subjectivities, especially in the fields of design where there is never a right answer. It begs the question, where is care in architectural practices? Care as a pedagogical tool, allows for a different method of approaching learning, and understanding architecture, that is rooted in cultivating the inquisitiveness we all hold. Care provides a method to extend our understanding beyond, and utilize it as an ethical framework of practice in the industry.

Where do collectives dwell in architecture?

Where can we find mutual support in such a competitive field?

Where can minorities find solidarity without ostracisation and displacement?

Where are the unions?

By Samarth Vachhrajani

Care is not experienced or practiced within the industry, as academic practices have heavily relied on criticising over time, leaving that as the only “productive” option for learning, designing, and making architecture. A practice that is so collective, requiring collaboration across disciplines, care can be an instrumental method of self-positioning and situating ourselves in current times. Datum Issue 12 was titled CARE, mainly focused on exploring how care can be a form of practice in the architecture academy and industry. Since then, we have focused on calling ourselves, not just Datum, but DATUM COLLECTIVE. This was to recognize the collective nature of our work, and also that care is a collective and communal practice (not just domestic / singular).

By Mae Murphy

The term collective can be defined as ‘belonging or relating to all members of a group’. Recently the Datum group adopted the term to our identity. The presence of this word has started conversations questioning the role of solidarity and collectives in the architecture and design industry in and out of academic settings. In school we have the unique opportunity to surround ourselves with resources and people in the same shoes as us: hundreds of architecture students house in one building, a support system for people learning about architecture and the conditions we are trained to withstand. When we seek employment opportunities often only one or two new hires join a firm. We are spread thin, therefore, weakening the collective unit.

Datum, Bnieuws, and other student-led organizations are outlets to connect students with professionals and to collectively question the role of the architect. Perhaps this cross-continent connection is the beginning of a new collective between radical students.

The collective power of uniting together proves to be a route for change. The newly formed Architectural Workers United (AWU) group and New York SHoP Architects’ attempt at unionisation are examples of collectives joining together to change traditional working conditions. Unfortunately, SHoP architects were unable to form a union within the 130 person office. While we do not know the exact reason the union failed, we can acknowledge the spark it ignited within the industry and the power created when joining together. We cannot let this movement die. Collective is where we can make the change.

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Where is Beauty

By Arden Stapella

The architect informs space, rendering our consciousness of the noetic in the medium of the phenomenal. The observer perceives its likeness.

This is where beauty is manifest, in the awareness that this communion facilitates.

Architecture is an expression of the structure and pattern that is craved by the perceiver. They experience the world around them, persuaded by the elements selected, apprehending the forms provided by the architect.

DATUM is a journal of A/architecture and design founded and edited by students at Iowa State University (Ames, Iowa, USA). The publication is a medium for critical academic discourse through the exchange of bold design and progressive ideas.

Follow their work at <datumcollective.org> 26

We are given a formal context in which to be intelligible. The beauty is beheld when it enters into awareness. Without this reciprocity- being and thought - beauty cannot exist.

In architecture, the assemblage of building elements transcends its physical constituency through perception. Walls and columns become objects of evocation, erected by memory, formed by emotion.

The observer becomes the architect, and this version of the building becomes reality.

From the editors

I FEEL OUT OF PLACE Words and Images Tuyen Le

We are currently living, working, eating, sleeping, yawning, crying in an enclosed space. Every single built space we have is operated or inhabited by humans.

Heck, you are probably reading this comfortably inside a well-lit building. Thinking further into this, before the brick and mortar phase of this very space you’re sitting in, through the expertise of architects and engineers, we can rely on computer renderings and the scale figures plotted in the scene to be convinced that “yes, this space looks comfortable and meaningful to future users.” This article is here to contribute some awareness to the underlying bias we have for the polished world of architecture rendering. It is impossible to represent architecture without representing the human, yet, in present day, adding people into an architecture render is the last thing on an architect’s task list.

Like a lacklustre cherry on top, architectural designers tend to put little effort into choosing the appropriate scale figures to represent their design.

Whilst these figures uphold the best version of us, designers never consider their existence further than a measuring tool. Thus, the issue of diversity dawns upon them only post-rendering, resulting in situations where there is zero people of colour in a scene. The lack of diversity in scale figures has come up as a contemporary issue, some partial explanations for this matter are: people just don’t care, or seeing white-abled human figures equals to a safe/approachable area. Through this short ridicule, I hope you can reinvestigate your own decision in plotting human figures for your next project, as well as thinking critically at the renderings you would see later on.

The turning point of today’s architectural representation stemmed from the modernist perception of the human-building relationship.

The post-war era greatly influenced the modernist thinkers to opt for capable human figures, ones that can handle new technology, can adapt to the

revamped metropolitan, and ultimately, are not locking the building. The result of this brought us to an idealised form of scale figure that is masculine and faceless. These features reinforce the gendered functionality of most built spaces during modernism: robust, productive, and capable. We don’t know who this person is, nor their ethnicity, their life story, their comfort level, their feelings, and whether or not they wish to be there. But all is none of our concern, it is their anonymity that make them versatile for all kinds of scenarios that the architects then have set up. The beginning of scale figures in architecture established the model citizen for many other renderings during this era, faceless and anonymous.1

Gropius & Meyer, The Chicago Tribune (1922)

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During the age of Lumion and V-Ray, most of them exist as an army of scale figures, lining up next to each other on the webs, quietly waiting to be included in the next hot architecture renderings. In the schematic phase of a project, architects turn to the existing site for its community, landmarks, and inhabitants. As empowering as the strength-based approach to design, the final renderings usually illustrate a sleek, mint condition, with neatly dressed figurines staged and posed to the architects’ liking. It is evident that scale figures now give contextual clues to the area demographic. However, the effect of an idealised version of scale makes it challenging to find people of colour in this army of predominantly Caucasian scale figures, as they are assumed as the main occupants to high-end architecture projects.

We should recognize the issues of the normalised components of a good render, in this case, focusing on the majority of Caucasian and heteronormative figures in renderings. Featuring the wrong demographic is also considered a “sin” in lack of representation in renderings. For instance, Fosters+Partners designed a new headquarters for VietinBank, located in Hanoi, Vietnam (my home country), disappointingly, the key render did not feature any Vietnamese/Asian people (first row).

Actions taken to build more inclusive public space would be obsolete if the renderings failed to represent the neighbourhood diversity. Those community engagement workshops would be nothing more than lip-service and false promises if the renderings failed to represent the people that will actually use the space. Usually preoccupied with HVAC and structural details, architects forget that representations in rendering scenes, at the least, must reflect the pre-existing community and public space that allow the project to exist and prosper.

ADDING AN “ETHNIC” SECTION TO A CUT-OUT FIGURE WEBSITE SOMEHOW PASSED THE BARE MINIMUM FOR DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION.

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The lack of diversity in architecture renderings synchronises with the stock photos industry, where it is also occupied by a homogeneous demographic of white figures, with the token person of colour in group shots.

Dreamstime Stocks, Happy diverse professional business team stand in office looking at camera, smiling young and old multiracial workers.

On MrCutOut.com, a free png page for scale figures, There are six sections for ethnicity, followed by the number of figures they each have: African (1,422), Asian (982), Indian (63), Hispanic (1,804), Arabic (137), and Caucasian (6,073). The bias on this web page is that they fail to realise the imbalance in their “human resources”, where the sum of all other ethnicities combined can’t even match up with the single Caucasian ethnicity. Through this insight, the question on inclusivity persists through superficial intervention, even if it is the last thing to do for an architectural rendering, does it mean we design for human, using human as reference, scale, and inspiration, yet, we neglect our/human’s own background and existing cultural pride?

The final question to ponder on is “why does adding figures to the render the last thing on the list?”

Maybe the act of making a folder of human figures that represent the project’s demographic can be a solution. Not only does this relieve the architect off of the last-minute stress, it can be the first step to a more conscious representation process. Besides building one’s own figure army ahead of time, one can opt for a human figure website with more diversity, a few recognizable ones are vector_vault, black-img, escalalatina, and nonscandinavia. Until today, the resources for people of colour cut-outs are still sparse, so it is necessary to have more engagement and contributions to these websites.

Stemming from this subtle issue within architecture rendering, it allures a larger lack of representation in the architecture curriculum. A responsible choice in who/what you show in a render is crucial and contributes to the larger awareness of this systematic issue we as a discipline endures.

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Colomina, Beatriz and Mark Wigley, Are We Human?:

The Archaeology of Design (2016).

Fosters+Partners, VietinBank Business Center in Hanoi, Vietnam (2010).

Gort Scott, Harrow New Civic Center in London, England (2018).

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Bryan Fan and Shelley Xu, Flamingo Observation Tower in Abu Dhabi, UAE (2018).

Fosters+Partners, Acciona Ombú in Madrid, Spain (2020).

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Artefact

PUBLIC PLINTH Images Ron Barten Words Alessandro Rognoni and Ron Barten

Ron Barten’s photographs are part of his personal research for the Interiors Building Cities graduation studio at TU Delft. They portray the streetscape of Rotterdam with a careful eye, looking at how the city indirectly converses with its citizens, either through text, signs, graffiti, labels, and symbols. Such a diversity of languages often occurs in the space of two metres, on the buildings’ plinth. Here, the formal language of the landlord intersects with the informal response of who dwells in the city. A discussion that changes over time; a confrontation, questioning to whom the street really belongs.

Eendrachtsplein

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MIDNIGHT

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Plinth language signs 01 1:10 A3 21/10/06 Ron Barten

More on next page >

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BECOME A PEN PAL! We are always searching for new voices to join and contribute to Bnieuws. Whether your talents are in writing, drawing, photography, graphic design, or you’re filled with a range of skills, we would love to hear from you if you have any ideas for the faculty periodical. If you would like to be on our contributors list, simply send an email with your ideas to: bnieuws-BK@tudelft.nl or sign up on our website: bnieuws.nl/contact

NEXT ISSUE: ONBEKEND MAAKT ONBEMIND Don’t worry, it’s not going to be a Dutch language edition. The title translates quite directly to “unknown makes unloved”, a saying that addresses the problem of the world around us just being too big for our understanding. Some of us dearly want to love and care for everything around, but how can you love what you don't know?

This edition is about opening up the bubbles that we seem to live in, in search for what lies beyond.

Bnieuws 55/04 due April 2022.

Bnieuws INDEPENDENT PERIODICAL OF THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT TU DELFT VOLUME 55 ISSUE 03