The area has over time become rather a drab concrete jungle. Its storage and parking areas and its logistical uses combine to give the impression of a closed, cluttered terrain. This is what visitors to TU Delft see first as they approach the campus from the motorway. Over the past few years, buildings have been demolished, renovated and rebuilt. The current redevelopment is set to continue and the entire area will be redesigned.

Lively and open
The aim is to turn Stevin into a lively area that links together all the primary functions of the campus (research, teaching, living and valorisation). Redesigning the public area and making the buildings accessible from different sides will raise the profile of the activities going on inside for users and visitors. Greener, more attractive outdoor areas will encourage people to come here to meet up and relax. And an open, well-organised environment will also improve security.

Less grey, more green
Pavements will make way for lawns and extra trees. Where possible, the roads will be made greener (grass verges between the asphalt). Buffer and drainage facilities and ponds will be constructed to collect, store and gradually discharge water naturally during heavy rainfall. The Stevinplein and the Berlageplantsoen will become places where students can study outside, work on research or simply enjoy the sun.

Field Lab
How can the area support research and education? TU Delft wants to design and use the campus as a Living Lab wherever possible, a place where innovations can be tested. Students, lecturers and researchers from the adjoining faculties are being asked for help in exploring the options for the outdoor areas. For example, students have been set practical assignments about storing water and land and soil surveys.

The Echo teaching building will be built on the current site of the parking spaces behind the Faculty of CEG. To compensate for this, a new multi-storey car park will be built at P-sports in late 2018, just walking distance from Stevin. The overall parking capacity will remain unchanged. This redevelopment is part of the general plan to exchange the present small car parks dispersed around the campus for large, easily accessible car parks on the campus perimeter.

Materials for lab research in the large Stevin halls sometimes have to be delivered and collected as heavy freight. The main logistic routes and connecting roads through the area will be maintained in a way that guarantees user safety and does not disturb teaching and research activities. Extra facilities will be available for the numerous cyclists and pedestrians who use the area, including bike racks, paths and special pedestrian and cycle routes.

Coordinated strategy

The aim of the redevelopment work on Stevin is to link existing and new buildings, functions and users, and forge a single entity from all the individual components. This makes it a complex redevelopment that requires a coordinated strategy. Various aspects such as spatial planning, mobility and accessibility must be carefully aligned. As the area’s primary process (teaching and research) must continue during the work, regular meetings will be held between area developers and users to discuss the various interventions and changes.

Underground development

Redeveloping an area in this way is an opportunity and reason for re-laying, modernising or replacing electricity and telecommunication cables, and gas, water and sewerage pipes. This is also true of the Stevin redevelopment. New network connections will be made for the old and the new buildings and facilities. They will be future-proof and flexible, so that they can be modified and new applications added at a later stage if required.

Simon Stevin, the man whose name has been given to a road, halls and a sub-area on the TU Delft campus, was an accountant from Bruges. He was a versatile thinker and pragmatist, who published a number of original books on mathematics, mechanical engineering, geometry, algebra, hydrodynamics and cosmography. He was able to link his knowledge and scientific practice to day-to-day applications and made a name building and designing windmills, ports and fortresses. It would be difficult to find a more appropriate name for this part of the campus, where the development and valorisation of knowledge meet and interact.