MVRDV

(Delft, 8 October, 2009): Ronald Plasterk Minister of Education, Culture and Science will officially open on October 15 the new think tank ‘The Why Factory’ at the Faculty of Architecture at the Delft University of Technology and the structure it occupies, an orange Tribune designed by MVRDV. The Why Factory, an initiative of Delft University’s Faculty of Architecture and MVRDV, researches urban futures and is lead by Winy Maas. During the opening event a series of prominent speakers will discuss the future city and Winy Maas will give his inaugural address as professor at TU Delft.

The Why Factory (t?f)

The Why Factory is a global urban think tank and research institute, run by Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology and MVRDV, led by Professor Winy Maas. It started in 2008 with the ambition to enlarge the argumentative power of the architectural and urbanistic profession.

The Why Factory’s future cities research program explores the endless possibilities for the development of our cities – at a moment that a majority of the world’s population becomes citizen. The outcome is a series of models and visualisations for the cities of the future, theories and practical solutions, proposals for existing cities, applied software design, movies and a series of publications by NAi Publishers.

Executed research projects have dealt with the challenges of green architecture and urban design (The Green Dream), food consumption and the possibilities of urban farming for Manhattan and The Hague (Food Print and City Pig), the implications of the current economic downfall for Berlin (After the Crisis), the future development of Hong Kong (Hong Kong Fantasies) and the collective responsibility versus the individual desire (the Parametric User). Current and future projects are the Green City Calculator, a software tool measuring green performance of urban centres, a research into the challenges and implications of robotics and intelligent machinery to envision a fully automated city, the challenges of leisure activity (Death of the Leisure City) and the challenges of post crisis urbanism (Austerity).

The Why Factory offers cutting edge master studios for students of architecture and urbanism with challenging topics, a Research-by-Design platform for PHD candidates. It collaborates with other international institutions and has so far organised studios and workshops at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Aedes Network Campus Berlin, the Tamkung University Taipei and Berlage Institute in Rotterdam.

A series of institutional partners forms a strong network with the Why Factory which collaborated with among others engineering firms Arup, ABT and DGMR, Rotterdam Climate Initiative, Dutch Green Building Council, CUHK, the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Berlage Institute, Aedes Forum Berlin, VPRO television, Thonik, Stroom The Hague, Droog Design, TU Delft and MVRDV.