Students of Varna Free University and Delft University of Technology participated jointly in the initiative for "Sustainable Construction for a Sustainable Future"
For the third consecutive year students of the Faculty of Architecture at VFU "Chernorizets Hrabar” are working on the problems of coastal engineering jointly with their Dutch colleagues of Delft University of Technology.
"Days of coastalengineering and architectural diversity of the water front in urbanized territories" were held from 3 to 15 October at Varna Free University. The event is part of the initiatives of the Faculty of Architecture under the motto "Sustainable construction for a sustainable future." In the program of the event,proposed by the Department ofArchitecture and Urbanism and the Department of Construction of Buildings and Facilities at Varna Free University also participated Delft University of Technology, Netherlands and the company "Van Oord" Constanta, Romania. The initiative was launched in 2012, and this has been the third working meeting in the framework of the cooperation between the Faculty of Architecture and the foreign partners.
The days of coastal engineering were opened with public lectures of Prof. Henk Jan Verhagen from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands on "Dutch approach to cope with the consequences of heavy rains." Boyan Savov, Eng., head of the engineering department in the office of the company "Van Oord" in Constanta delivered a lecture on "Extension of the breakwater and rehabilitation of the coastal areas of the city of Constanta, Romania". Both lecturers are well known with their public lectures presented in the last three years to the academic community of Varna Free University and professionals in the field of coastal engineering.
The topics presented at the forum aroused the interest of the academics, the representatives of business and the local government who attended the event. These topics became the foundation for a discussion on current issues concerning the coastal areas of the city connected with floods, landslides and other impacts of the water front on urbanized territories.
On the initiative of Prof. Verhagen, coastal engineering master class was carried out for the first time in this country. It involved 25 participants - students, graduates of the Faculty of Architecture and practitioners who received certificates of attendance personally by Prof. Verhagen. A coastal engineering work placement was held within the days of coastal engineering. It has become traditional for the cooperation between the Faculty of Architecture and Delft University of Technology. The placement gives the students of Varna Free Universitythe opportunity to work jointly with their Dutch colleagues on practical problems related to gathering information about the coastal environment and the use of data in real projects.
For six days, the participants in the placement worked on assigned tasks on specific sites - the marina and the beach in front of Delfin hotel and Rubin hotel in St. Constantine and St. Elena resort and part of the beach in the residential district of Asparuhovo. On the last day, they summarized and presented the results to their supervisors and representatives of interested investors.
This year, Prof. Verhagen included in the group of Dutch students also two graduates majoring in Architecture at Delft University of Technology. Thus the scope of the cooperation between the two universities was expanded in the direction of helping graduates in the choice of topics and the selection of materials for their diploma theses. At the end of the days of coastal engineering, a student workshop under the motto "Together we can do more" was organized. During this workshop a team of lecturers and students explored sites of the coastal zone of the city, suitable for the development of diploma theses. They visited a number of tourist and historical sites, administrative structures, architectural offices and the Regional Library "Pentcho Slaveykov" in Varna.
The days of coastal engineering and architecture united the efforts of the students of the Faculty of Architecture at Varna Free University and their Dutch colleagues from Delft University of Technology and their supervisors and gave them the opportunity to exchange knowledge, experience and ideas and create new professional and personal contacts. This kind of cooperation is an example of internationalization of the educational process, one of the priority directions of the development strategy of Varna Free University "Chernorizets Hrabar".
The event attracted the attention of scientists, professionals, representatives of the local government and business to the problems of coastal areas of Varna to find solutions and implement the objectives of sustainable development of the area in accordance with the modern trends in construction and architecture.
