Meer dierproeven

De nieuwe Voedsel en Waren Autoriteit wijt de toename aan de strengere Europese regels voor chemische stoffen. Daarvan werden vooral ratten het slachtoffer. Ook het aantal proeven met kippen steeg, maar met ‘andere vogels’ werd aanzienlijk minder geëxperimenteerd. De meeste proeven werden verricht voor wetenschappelijk onderzoek (52,8 procent). Ruim een derde was bedoeld voor de ontwikkeling van geneesmiddelen en vaccins.

De stichting Proefdiervrij noemt het alarmerend dat het aantal dierproeven voor het eerst in zes jaar weer steeg. Ook zij wijt dat aan de strengere Europese regels en vreest dat deze de komende jaren voor een verdere toename zullen zorgen. De ontwikkeling van alternatieven voor dierproeven zou de trend weer kunnen keren.

Last October the province of Zuid-Holland awarded prizes for the best ideas to improve the quality of living in the (scarce) rural areas. There were three competition categories, and they were all won by engineers from TU Delft. Apparently, water inspires Delft engineers.

Last week the graduation studio Climate Adaptation Lab organised a network event for students from the faculties of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Architecture, Industrial Design Engineering, and Technology, Policy and Management. The event offered them the chance to graduate in an interdisciplinary group working on projects aimed to cope with the consequences of climate change in the built environment. This marked the recruitment of the fourth generation of CAL students, with a fresh start every new semester.

The Climate Adaptation Lab started two years ago with projects inspired by the plan ‘Open and Closed Rijnmond’, which the governmental Commission Veerman later included in the new Deltaplan. The plan signalled the need for large moveable dams in the waterways around Rotterdam to protect the city against swollen rivers and rising seawater levels – both consequences of global warming. CAL took up the challenge to make the dams multifunctional.
Anna Dijk’s award-winning design ‘Waterslot’ illustrates the point: it uses the large volume needed for the closable dam to accommodate tourist attractions. She designed a restaurant there, terraces at varying levels, a spa and a marina. Moreover, the dam is located close to urban areas, so it doubles as a bridge for cyclists who want to tour the rural surroundings.

Later CAL generations widened their view to include sustainability, urban green and urban and regional water. Josephine van der Klauw’s (CAL.3) multifunctional neighbourhood centre is a good example: it faces the challenge of increased rainfall in the city at the same time as adding value to the neighbourhood.

Ad van der Toorn is CAL’s contact person within the faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences. He welcomes the input from the architecture students. “If you ask a civil engineer to construct a bridge, he’ll always put the pylon upright”, he says, while illustrating his point with a wooden model of a suspension bridge. “Apparently, you need an architect to do this.” And he draws the pylon back at an angle so that it immediately reminds one of the Erasmus Bridge. Civil engineers have little sense of the aesthetics of their creations, Van der Toorn says.

According to CAL’s coordinator, dr. Thorsten Schuetze, about twelve architecture students per year choose this interdisciplinary graduation lab, despite the fact that it requires on average six months extra study time, which is spent on excursions abroad, civil engineering courses on water management and workshops.
At the civil engineering faculty, students are much less interested, as most of them conduct their graduate projects within private companies. Van der Toorn isn’t surprised: “They get an invitation saying ‘meet us in Dubai’ with a ticket included. We cannot compete with that.”