From April 19 until April 29 students of the team SUM of the TU Delft wil display its plans in the Atrium of the City Hall in The Hague in the Exhibition Sustainable Renovation and Architecture.

Municipality of The Hague collaborates with TU Delft in sustainable architecture competition
Team SUM (Symbiotic Urban Movement) from TU Delft is participating in the Solar Decathlon Europe. This is a university competition aimed at developing and implementing innovative ideas for sustainable architecture. The municipality of The Hague and TU Delft jointly benefit from research into a potential renovation strategy for tenement flats. Because the assignment and the underlying research are based on the situation in The Hague, this gives the municipality the opportunity to conduct targeted research into realistic and feasible solutions to the challenges in The Hague’s housing market.

The Solar Decathlon Challenge is a competition in which universities from all over the world try to design and build the most sustainable home; this time the competition for university teams also focuses on climate control in cities.

There are 847,000 tenement flats in the Netherlands, representing 11% of the total housing stock in the country. ‘By tackling these types of homes and buildings, we have the opportunity to create a system that can be applied throughout the Netherlands, and even Europe, and contribute to the Netherlands’ national goals of being energy neutral by 2050 and adding one million homes by 2030,’ says one of the students.

Tenement Flats turn into Gallery Apartments in De Dreef, The Hague
The team took tenement flats in The Hague’s De Dreef (part of the district Dreven en Gaarden) as a starting point. These flats have four floors, without elevators. They talked a lot with the residents. They often describe the apartments as noisy and susceptible to mold. Moreover, they see the neighborhood deteriorating. The student team: “We see opportunities not only to make the houses comfortable and low-energy, but also to change the neighborhood into a green environment. By turning the porch apartments into gallery apartments, we immediately create more social connection. In this way we hope to provide a solution for the future’.

Exhibition Sustainable Renovation and Architecture
From April 19 until 29 April, SUM will display its plans in the Atrium of City Hall. With 2 models, posters and the used building materials they let the residents of The Hague get acquainted with the project. During this period students will be present daily (from 12.00 – 14.00 hours) to inform visitors about the project and to answer questions.

For more information www.delftsolardecathlon.com.