“Before long, in the spring of 2018, we are going to build sustainable and affordable student dwellings next to Aurora”, says Antoine Post (second-year student of Applied Physics) in a self-confident tone, “provided we succeed in finding sponsors and obtaining the building permits”. Post is the project manager of Living Lab Home, which aims to design eco-friendly houses from an energy perspective and have them built in a modern manner.

Three existing technologies, namely integrated solar panels, thermal seasonal storage and an internal direct current network, form the basis for the product. The process follows Slimbouwen (Clever building). In this context the keywords are: flexibility, reduction of materials and their volume, efficiency and sustainability. No concrete walls, but prefab walls into which extra thin vacuum insulation panels have been incorporated. They can be screwed together on the site.

The confidence shown by the project manager’s expectation that the houses will be completed in April 2018, is bolstered by the subsidy of €50,000 that was granted to Living Lab Home last month by Metropoolregio Eindhoven. Employees from Real Estate Management and from Bauhütte research group (led by Christian Rapp, Professor of Architecture, Building and Planning) told the students that their idea fits in with the ‘TU/e Campus Masterplan 2020’.

That masterplan, which was conceived in 2012, mentions the planning of a a student village between the Aurora and Luna residential tower blocks. It will consist of a maximum of 316 two-story units. “So there is already a suitable location on the campus. Now we are still looking for an operator, which will probably not be TU/e.” And apart from the search for a party to which they can transfer the accountability, the team also needs to talk about the permits with Veronique Marks, Director Real Estate Management.