Binnenland·tudelft.nl·23 jul 2024

Bouwcentrum Research Network (BRN) — TU Delft, ETH Zurich, Princeton University

Initially founded as a statistical office for war damage documentation of the city of Rotterdam in 1948, the Bouwcentrum developed into a leading institution combining design, data, industry, and society. Based on systematically gathered and classified open data, architects, civil engineers, and statisticians collaborated on future planning methods, industrialized housing, material standards, urban design, and building optimization. But while building information data has become a decentralized obstacle of privatization and authorship in the following decades, Bouwcentrum had early understood the relevance of making architectural data a public good. As a new model of interdisciplinary knowledge production for society the Bouwcentrum initiated a global network of so-called Building Information Centers in the postwar period.