Varna Free University "Chernorizets Hrabar" and Delft University of Technology initiated a discussion about floating structures as one of the trends in coastal engineering
"Days of Coastal Engineering and Architectural Diversity of the Water Front in the Urbanized Areas" were held at Varna Free University "Chernorizets Hrabar" from 25 September to 3 October, 2015. The event is part of the initiatives of the Faculty of Architecture under the motto Sustainable building for sustainable future. Key partners of the event held for the fourth consecutive year are the Technical University in Delft, the Netherlands and Van Oord Company, Constanta, Romania.
The Days of Coastal Engineering were launched with a public lecture entitled "Floating Structures - Experience from the Netherlands" delivered by Prof. Henk Jan Verhagen, professor at the Technical University in Delft. Boyan Savov, Eng., Head of the Engineering Department of Van Oord Company’s office in Constanta, made a presentation entitled "Extension of the Breakwater and Rehabilitation of the Beaches of Constanta, Romania – Stage 3." Both speakers are well known to the academic community of Varna Free University and the experts from the practice from the already traditional public lectures held during the past four years.
The forum was attended also by representatives of Ship Machine-Building AD, Varna who made a presentation entitled "Production of Floating Structures of Reinforced Hulls in a Specific Technology."
The master classes held by Varna Free University are a successful and already well-established form of improvement of the qualification of students and professionals. They enable the attendees to complete their knowledge and acquire competencies in areas close to the subjects in their studies, which assists the accurate orientation of young professionals for their post-graduate specialization and increase the opportunities for their successful professional development.
Within the framework of the days of coastal engineering, a student placement in coastal engineering was held, which is traditional for the cooperation between the Faculty of Architecture at Varna Free University and the University of Technology in Delft. The placement enables the Bulgarian students to work with their Dutch fellow students on practical problems related to gathering information on the coastal environment and the interpretation of data with a view to their use in real projects.
The student placement is directed to the acquisition of practical skills in research and design of coastal protection structures and skills in the field of morphology and morphodynamics of the beaches. The practical activities carried out are related to defining the characteristics of the rock material mined from quarries used to produce coastal protection structures; hydrographic work along the coastline; measuring the parameters of rough waters; study of the morphological change of the beach, collecting and analyzing data for the stability of the protection of tetrapods and others. During the placement, the students had the opportunity to visit the construction site of Van Oord Company, where the main elements of the coast protection structure of the last section of the breakwater in Constanta, Romania are made.
For six days on end, the participants in the placement worked on their tasks for specific sites - the marina and the beach in front of the Delfin and the Rubin hotels in St. Konstantin and St Elena resort. On the last day they summarized and presented the received results to their leaders and representatives of interested investors. The processing, systematization and analysis of the resulting data will continue until December, when the final report with the results and findings during the placement must be completed and submitted.
Since this year the students majoring in architecture at Varna Free University can choose topics for theses of the provided Catalogue of the laboratory of landscape architecture graduates at the Delft University of Technology in 2015/16 academic year, and to obtain further advice from the Dutch lecturers. The selected for this year main topic of the public event "Floating Structures", up-to-date globally and focusing the attention of various experts - architects, landscape architects, civil engineers and hydroengineers is a good opportunity for individual and team projects of students from the Department of Architecture and Urbanism and Construction of Buildings and Facilities at the Faculty of Architecture.
The conducted days of coastal engineering and the accompanying events prove once again the aspiration of the Faculty of Architecture at VFU to focus the attention of scientists, experts, representatives of the local government and business to the problems of the coastal areas of Varna to find solutions to the problems and to implement the goals of sustainable development of the region in accordance with modern trends in architecture and construction.
