TU Delft OPEN Books

Urban Oases is an ode to the architecture of Dutch hofjes. It explains why hofjes have been a natural and attractive part of the urban fabric of the Netherlands for six centuries and why they continue to appeal to new generations.
The appeal of hofje architecture lies in its ability to renew its medieval archetype – an enclosed living environment around a shared green garden. Hofjes allow both residents and visitors to enjoy an especially serene and intimate atmosphere that contrasts surprisingly with the urban experience of hustle and bustle.

The drawings, text and photography of Urban Oases take the reader to the capillaries of old Dutch cities and are relevant to an important contemporary global question: How can high-quality, compact residential environments be created in twenty-first century cities? Inspired by this extraordinary architectural heritage, the author addresses everyone who wants to contribute to a sustainable and liveable city.

This book is part of a series of open access books published jointly by TU Delft OPEN Publishing and nai010.

A spatial lens on Climate Change dynamics in urban transitions Considering the growing importance that the urban environments assume within contemporary territorial transformations yet little room is offered within market-driven societies to critically reflect the spatial impact that cities face vis-à-vis the urgencies for environmental rebalancing. It embraces a wide range of phenomena we all live and experience nowadays, not only incidentally but more in a structural way, forcing us to rethink our present state and explore futures. Transitions embody the fluctuating form of late capitalism with its raisings and disruptions. Regarding the environmental conditions, they are affecting the world regions’ habitability, the phenomenon of progressive urbanization versus agricultural land abandonment (UN 2018). With these premises, transitions seem to be a proper reference for an interdisciplinary and conceptual frame addressing the transformation of urban and metropolitan contexts, which will be the leading players for the coming decades.

Composites are increasingly used to optimize the performance of applications as their properties can be tuned to achieve the desired functionality. The sustainability advantages during the use phase are not yet matched by lower impacts in the lifecycle of composite materials and products. In a circular economy this is problematic. This book will serve as a guide to designers who want to contribute with innovative and effective solutions. Circular recovery strategies, ranging from reuse to restructuring and recycling, are connected to the design process and concrete design approaches. By providing clear design guidelines and illustrative examples in a structured way the information is readily accessible and applicable to designers.

In the last twenty years, aircraft surveillance has moved from controller-based interrogation to automatic broadcast. The Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is one of the most common methods for aircraft to report their state information like identity, position, and speed. Like other Mode S communications, ADS-B makes use of the 1090 megahertz transponder to transmit data. The protocol for ADS-B is open, and low-cost receivers can easily be used to intercept its signals. Many recent air transportation studies have benefited from this open data source. However, the current literature does not offer a systematic exploration of Mode S and ADS-B data, nor does it explain the decoding process.

This book tackles this missing area in the literature. It offers researchers, engineers, and enthusiasts a clear guide to understanding and making use of open ADS-B and Mode S data. The first part of this book presents the knowledge required to get started with decoding these signals. It includes background information on primary radar, secondary radar, Mode A/C, Mode S, and ADS-B, as well as the hardware and software setups necessary to gather radio signals. After that, the 17 core chapters of the book investigate the details of all types of ADS-B signals and commonly used Mode S signals. Throughout these chapters, examples and sample Python code are used extensively to explain and demonstrate the decoding process. Finally, the last chapter of the book offers a summary and a brief overview of research topics that go beyond the decoding of these signals.

This book is meant as an introduction to the field of colloid science, i.e. the study of the behaviour of micrometric particles in a fluid (or a gas). The book was written with a special emphasis on sediment particles. Sediment particles are complex colloidal particles due to their composition, shape and interaction with their environment.

Characterization of the colloidal fraction of sediment is done by recording, among others, the particles’ size, shape and electric surface charge and evaluating their density or their interactions. These properties are important for civil engineering applications. Large-scale sediment transport models for example require as input the settling velocity of particles. In concentrated areas, this velocity becomes a function of the particles’ concentration and particle-particle interactions lead to the creation of larger particles, called flocs. These flocs can settle and, when reaching the bed, consolidate in time. All these aspects, and related models, are treated in the present book.

This book addresses the need to re-imagine and re-conceptualise the Just City in light of recent systemic shocks: climate change, the pandemic, a generalised erosion of democratic standards and more. It contains texts by a number of guests and 43 manifestos written by students from 25 universities from all over the world.

A “Manifesto for the Just City” comes in the wake of the realisation that socio-spatial justice is a crucial dimension for sustainability transitions. Growing inequality and the erosion of the public sphere undermine the social and political structures required to fight climate change, pandemics and other systemic shocks. With this book, we have sought to encourage students to formulate their own visions for the Just City and for a just transition.

This book is result of an Urban Thinkers Campus organised between 9 and 30 November 2020. The Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC) model is an initiative of UN-Habitat’s World Urban Campaign, conceived in 2014 as an open space for critical exchange between stakeholders and partners. It aims to promote debate and action on sustainable and inclusive urbanization upholding the principles and guidelines contained in the New Urban Agenda, launched at Habitat-III in 2016 in Quito, Ecuador.

This year, 2020, the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands celebrates its 80th birthday. This paper describes the history of the department since its founding in early 1940, just before the start of World War II in the Netherlands, until present day. The paper will highlight how its research and education developed within the socio-economic context of the Netherlands and the developments in aerospace over the past 80 years.