Co-creating Future Urban Environments

Initiated by staff members from the Departments of AE&T, U, A and MBE, this research and design project is a collaboration with the Faculties of Industrial Design Engineering, Civil Engineering and Geosciences, and Technology, Policy and Management, the Municipality of Delft, and other universities of the Bauhow 5 European Alliance for Architecture and Built Environment. The course equips students to become socially responsible engineers, integrating academic innovation with hands-on societal impact in urban environments. Through a transdisciplinary engagement studio, students tackle real challenges in post-industrial cities (Delft-TUD, London-UCL, Munich-TUM), co-creating sustainable urban solutions with community partners.

The course will employ both formative and summative assessment methods to ensure continuous improvement and demonstrate societal impact. Formative assessments include regular progress reviews (Weeks 2, 5, and 10) where students receive feedback from peers and instructors to refine their work, and reflective journals to encourage students to document their learning journey and interactions with stakeholders.

Summative assessments consist of a group design proposal and final urban intervention, where students present contextually grounded, innovative designs that address real-world challenges. These will include a written proposal, visual artifacts, and a societal impact
justification. Students will also participate in regula group presentations (Petcha Kucha style), assessing their communication and collaboration skills.

Additionally, students will engage in peer reviews after key project milestones, allowing them to critique and learn from each other’s work. The course concludes with an Impact Event, where students will showcase their interventions to a broader audience, including community members and decision-makers, with a focus on the project’s real-world relevance.

A rubric-based evaluation will assess design innovation, stakeholder engagement, research quality, collaboration, and presentation skills, ensuring a holistic assessment of each student’s contributions.

Students pass the course with a 6.0 or higher. With a lower grade, the course can be repaired 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, or possibly another Q5 elective in the third education period.