TU Delft: BK City

Booster Blog

TU Delft

In 2008, a fire completely destroyed the building of TU Delft’s Faculty of Architecture. The whole faculty was relocated in the TU Delft’s former main building – a large monumental building that had to be renovated at lightning speed.

Only half a year after the fire, the outdated 1920’s building was transformed into a modern and inspiring student city and research workplace. “The building was transformed into a real magnet for students instead of a place students rather avoided visiting” says Liesbeth van der Pol, Chief Government Architect. The main focus of this process has been on the quality of the new flooring and on how it is experienced. Since the flooring had to meet a specific desired quality, Bolidt was asked to provide a complete flooring solution for the so-called Street. This resulted in a Bolidtop 525 flooring system. The overall picture of quality and atmosphere has turned out very well. 

In decorating the interior of the new accommodation for the Faculty of Architecture at Delft University of Technology, architectural firm Kossmann de Jong Exhibition Architects was co-responsible for the floor finish in the building. Kossman de Jong approached Bolidt for advice on this.

Bolidt, specializing in synthetic (flooring) applications, helps both Dutch and foreign architects in their search for the right flooring. In the Bolidroom, architects can make flooring samples themselves and experiment with them. In doing so, they can carry out endless tests on flooring aspect such as texture, colour, fluidity, flexibility, depth and warmth.

The new faculty building soon changed its name to BK City. Although the building was initially regarded as a temporary home, it has now been decided that Architecture will remain in the building for the longer term. BK City must therefore be made more efficient and sustainable to meet future needs. BK City STAY is the collective title for all the modification and renovation work on BK City, which will enable the Architecture faculty building to move forward efficiently and sustainably into the future.