Bucky Lab A

The focus of the course is the development of an innovative building product. This will vary from a small building, part of a building, pavillion, component or a facade.

Within the course you will learn how to imagine, design, develop and finally build an architectural related concept that shows its potential in function and aesthetical qualities.

Hosted by the chair of Building Product Innovation you will learn how to design a building product that will solve a predefined or self defined problem.

The first weeks, students individually research and analyse the given topic of the assignment in order to come up with an innovative concept. The remaining weeks of the semester are dedicated to a design by research process in which all the main aspects of the design, from applied mechanics, material properties to production techniques are researched ending in an integrated final design.

Experimentation, sketching, small and big scale model making is part of this process.

Finally we will build the prototype in our mobile Bucky Lab workshop.

This course is a shorter version of the famous Bucky Lab which is the best course of the Building Technology Master Track, so expect the same fun but in a smaller package! We focus more on the design and construction and will reduce the building physics and structural engineering part for this version. Have a look on www.buckylab.nl for more informations or search for it online to see pictures and videos of the last 12 years.

We really build in our mobile workshop - so every student has to wear safety shoes ( S2)

Individual report of innovative concept and reports in team of three students of design by research process from concept to final design, main focus the level of integration of all the researched aspects.

The design project is awarded a grade that is a whole or half number between 1.0 and 10.0. Students pass the course with a 6.0 or higher. With a grade below 6.0: students who presented assessable work during the course are allowed to do a repair to change the grade into a ‘pass’. The repair is unsupervised and needs to be completed within 2 weeks after the end of the course. When the repair is unsuccessful, the student needs to follow the entire course again.