PV in Facade concepts

 here all 12 project posters in a row, which one is your favourite? 

Bucky Lab Finals - PV in Facades

 Hard to believe but we are already at the end of this semester ...

and hard might be also the best word to describe it, while we started quite optimistic and had hoped that the big C would be tamed soon and life would become more normal ... today we look back and recognise how wrong we were back in September ... 

Nevertheless there is also one thing that we have learned this semester: When life gives you lemons make lemonade out of it ... and so we were surprised how well everyone adapted to the continuous changes and measurements. Of course this semester was everything but normal and we had to change the game quite a lot while playing it ... something I can tell as a seasoned docent is never a good thing. 

But lets stop complaining and looking towards the bright side - literally because we are dealing with Photovoltaics intergrated into our build environment - so in general how to make the most out of the sun. 

With 12 groups and a total of 64 students the semester offered a wide array of ideas. We have seen glass in lead, tracking devices to increase the yield, solar cells that are placed to mimic brickwork up to shelters that help workers on their building side to become more sustainable ... and if that's not diverse enough guess what we also had one team going to mars and another one that dealt with the storage of energy instead of placing these magic blue pieces of glass towards the sun ...

Still reading ? Then I will not stretch your curiosity any longer but share the different presentations of our 12 groups, so speakers on, lean back and look what the future of pv might look like. 

Building weeks Day 7 - last day at school

 the news hit already on Monday evening - The Netherlands are shutting down - lockdown in order to decrease the numbers of Covid-19 infections, from Wednesday on the faculty will be closed ...

ok, we all had to take a deep breath and realised quickly that we only have one moire day to make use of the model hall in the faculty - after that we will all work from home... 

Honestly I was crying out loud and felt as everything falls apart after the many different restrictions that were already in action - no building weeks with the full  toolset, down to 18 tables in the model hall, from 10 days full to 6 days with limited persons accepted in the shop now the stop at day 4 ...

With mixed feelings Nadia and I arrived in the faculty already prepared to have some discussions about the whats and how's and how we are going to end this semester ... 

but everything turned out different, the students switched over immediately - were smiling and prepared for a ist day together - all  in the mood of - lets have a last day together and we will manage to get it done. 

Already up in the Studio we were welcomed by cinnamon rolls and tea prepared from Felipe - yummy and down in the hall the students were busy but still smiling ... and after a short look we were amazed by the productivity of the groups the last days ...

I really think we can finish strong, and together we are able to make it happen - looking forward to the holidays but also towards the next year and the Final presentations of the semester. Till then we will stay in touch online. 

Here a couple of moments I was able to capture 

Building weeks mini started

 We don't have to tell ...but the times asked for a different approach ...

So the big boxes remains closed and we are allowed to work 3 days in the model hall of the faculty with a limited number of students, so in principle we have a kitchen table workshop approach working with cardboard and paper in general  and working more in smaller scale models to test the concepts instead of building bigger full scale prototypes. 

Up to now everything works well while the limited access to tools and space is asking a lot of creativity from all of us, but nonetheless the groups are progressing and we are happy to share a couple of pictures from the projects.