News in brief

The housing situation in Delft is bad now, but the VSSD believes it will only get worse in future: “Students squatting buildings, 30 students competing for one vacant room, student houses being demolished and new housing that won’t be ready for more than a year. The current situation and the figures reveal that the student housing shortage will only get worse.” The VSSD is urging TU Delft and Duwo to consider building new housing in order “to not only keep the housing shortage from getting worse, but in fact to alleviate the shortage.” In the meantime, the VSSD wants students to be allowed to live in empty office buildings and in emergency housing that would be built in the lot behind the Architecture Faculty.
Room hunting

Approximately a quarter of first-year TU Delft students did not start the 2006 academic year living in student rooms. They preferred to remain living at home with their parents, according to a survey of 200 first-year students by the Residents Organization. The survey also found that 39 percent of first-year students had found a student room, while 35 percent were still searching for rooms during the Owee week. First-years said price was their main consideration when searching for rooms, followed by room size and location.
Mekel Prize

Engineers are responsible for the misuses of their designs for military purposes. In defending this statement, Aerospace Engineering student Roelof Rietbroek (24) won the 2005 Mekel Prize for the best essay about ethics and technology. Rietbroek said he hoped his essay would make students think more deeply about the possible military uses of their designs. For winning the Mekel Prize, Rietbroek received 500 euros and a statue of Mekel, a TU Delft professor exectued in 1942 by the Germans for participating in the Dutch resistance.

Housing crisis

Extra housing should be built on the vacant lot behind the Faculty of Architecture. Without this and other measures being taken, 1,100 TU Delft students will have no student accommodation in 2007, the VSSD student union said in a letter it sent to TU Delft and Duwo. The housing situation in Delft is bad now, but the VSSD believes it will only get worse in future: “Students squatting buildings, 30 students competing for one vacant room, student houses being demolished and new housing that won’t be ready for more than a year. The current situation and the figures reveal that the student housing shortage will only get worse.” The VSSD is urging TU Delft and Duwo to consider building new housing in order “to not only keep the housing shortage from getting worse, but in fact to alleviate the shortage.” In the meantime, the VSSD wants students to be allowed to live in empty office buildings and in emergency housing that would be built in the lot behind the Architecture Faculty.
Room hunting

Approximately a quarter of first-year TU Delft students did not start the 2006 academic year living in student rooms. They preferred to remain living at home with their parents, according to a survey of 200 first-year students by the Residents Organization. The survey also found that 39 percent of first-year students had found a student room, while 35 percent were still searching for rooms during the Owee week. First-years said price was their main consideration when searching for rooms, followed by room size and location.
Mekel Prize

Engineers are responsible for the misuses of their designs for military purposes. In defending this statement, Aerospace Engineering student Roelof Rietbroek (24) won the 2005 Mekel Prize for the best essay about ethics and technology. Rietbroek said he hoped his essay would make students think more deeply about the possible military uses of their designs. For winning the Mekel Prize, Rietbroek received 500 euros and a statue of Mekel, a TU Delft professor exectued in 1942 by the Germans for participating in the Dutch resistance.