The renovation of the Science Centre in the Bouwcampus building will start soon. The developers are taking this opportunity to explain how this TU Delft public institution aims to bring visitors, students and researchers together.
The Science Centre is housed in the Bouwcampus building. (Photo: Thijs van Reeuwijk)
Anyone now looking for the Science Centre in the Bouwcampus building is likely to get lost first, and then end up at the Makerspace or the Microbiology Laboratory. Since its closure on the Mijnbouwstraat in 2021, TU Delft’s public centre has only been open by appointment or for school classes. That is about to change, explain Jules Dudok and Simon Aerts. In their roles as developers and storytellers respectively at the Science Centre, they came up with the new setup.
At its old location on Mijnbouwstraat, opposite the Architecture and Built Environment building, the Science Centre was a thriving visitors centre that managed to attract half a million visitors from 2010. That was in February 2020. A month later, the museum had to close due to Covid. At the same time, it was also announced that the Science Centre had to leave the premises because the building was being sold. The reopening under Covid rules was therefore short-lived and a year later the Science Centre closed its doors.
Dudok and Aerts are happy that from February next year (spring break), families will be welcome again. A year later, the final piece of the new layout will also be ready: the Science Experience where visitors can step into the shoes of a design researcher.
Last Thursday 6 June, its Director, Michael van der Meer, presented the new concept for the Science Centre. Visitors will soon interact in an escape room-like setting. But before that happens, the reopening will be done in three phases.
- Engineering workshop, February 2025 – The entrance is decorated with the living and luminous Testbed artwork by Canadian designer and artist Philip Beesley. The public can visit the Makerspace (with 3D printers and laser cutters) on the ground floor, the fully equipped Microbiology Laboratory or the Swarming Lab where drones fly around.
- Making facilities, September 2025 – The exhibition will be expanded to include four making facilities in the basement. The labs are led by one or more leading TU Delft researchers. Research, teaching and public education merrily intermingle here. The XR-Gamelab is the domain of computer graphics expert Prof. Elmar Eisemann. Dr Raj Rajan, known for signal processing for telecommunications, and Dr Chris Verhoeven lead the Microelectronics Lab. The Robotics Lab is run by Professor of Biorobotics Martijn Wisse and drone expert Dr Guido de Croon. Finally, the Light Lab occupies the entire basement and is headed by IDE’s Professor Sylvia Pont.
- Science Experience, Spring 2026 – The apotheosis. Simon Aerts describes the experience visitors will enjoy as a crossover between an escape room and an interactive science museum. In small groups (two to five people), visitors go through the whole scientific cycle of assignment, research, designing a solution, building a prototype and testing it in a half-day session. Six making facilities are at their disposal for this purpose. Visitors can interact with students and researchers there. And that is exactly what the Science Centre aims to do.
- Up-to-date information can be found on the Science Centre website.
Do you have a question or comment about this article?
j.w.wassink@tudelft.nl
Comments are closed.