Today, we spent the day at TU Delft, the largest (and I believe oldest) technical university in the Netherlands and one of the most prestigious in the world. TU Delft was one a short train ride away from our hotel in Rotterdam, located between the cities of Rotterdam and The Hague. Upon arrival, I was impressed by the campus. Due to how flat the Netherlands is and to the size of the campus, it actually felt very similar to a land-grant university back home, just slightly more refined. The campus was very clean, and all the academic buildings I went inside had wonderful study areas that maximized sunlight for the students. The mechanical engineering building and the material science wing had amazing laboratory facilities, and the main library was really something special. It is easy to see why TU Delft is a top architectural school, considering its campus design.

We didn’t come to TU Delft just to look at the scenery, however. TU Delft actually houses an initiative called the Green Village, in which students, faculty, industry, and government can all experiment on sustainability solutions in a semi-controlled environment without having to deal with the legal issues that arise from implementing new technologies in real buildings. My group’s guide for our tour through the Green Village was a master’s student named Lars who was studying civil engineering. He did a great job of pointing out the innovations located throughout the village. The first innovation that we actually walked across was a bridge over a small channel that was built of cement blocks held in tension by their own weight–like the ancient Roman arches. This simplicity of construction cuts down on the necessary building materials, making the bridge cheaper and hopefully lowering its carbon cost. Another example of the innovations being tested was a smart-grid system that uses electric cars plugged into the grid as a sort of buffer, taking energy from their batteries during peak consumption hours when the grid cannot produce enough energy on its own, and then normally charging the cars when there is an energy surplus. A lot of the innovations within the village are related to energy storage and transfer, as these are some of the biggest challenges facing the complete switch over from fossil fuels. One such innovation to address this was a system that uses solar panels to power an electrolysis reaction that splits water into its component elements so that the hydrogen can be stored under pressure to create electricity later. This innovation was meant to circumvent all the issues that arise with chemical batteries, particularly the fact that they degrade greatly over time. I think the Green Village is a wonderful initiative and resource for the students at Delft, and I would love to see something similar at Pitt.

After lunch and exploring campus a little more, we participated in a workshop facilitated by some grad students. This workshop was called a “Climate Fresk” – coming from the word fresco. This workshop had us paired into small groups, working together to construct a web of cause and effect based upon specific cards our facilitators provided to us. We would read information on the card, discuss with one another, and place items on a table to relate them to one another. This was a long process that took approximately an hour and a half. After this, we were allowed to draw and decorate our web to get us thinking about our emotions and facilitate a dialogue about how we all react to climate change. Finally, we were tasked with coming up with solutions to climate change, both large and small, for different sections of the population. The whole goal of this activity was to not only educate us and encourage critical thinking when viewing information related to climate change, but also to force us to speak openly with others about climate change. I thought it was quite effective in that regard. I am glad we participated in this activity, because TU Delft is planning to implement it for all entering students starting in the 2028 academic year, and we were able to provide feedback to refine the process.