prof.dr.ir.A.C.J.M. Eekhout

Building Technology (Bt) | Structural Design
Chair of Product Development

Mick Eekhout (born in 1950) has been a full professor of Product Development at the faculty since 1992. He concentrates on innovative processes of the design, research and development of materials, elements and components in construction systems, with the accent on prefabrication and industrialisation, but with aspects like methodology, managing processes and the gap between design and production also being covered. His research is very much practice oriented. For example, the Chair works alongside the composite industry on wide-ranging research into suitable production techniques for 3D sandwich panels. Eekhout spent many years researching the possibilities of glass construction components and constructive systems. He designed cantilevered shell roofs of glass-fibre reinforced polyester for the Yitzhak Rabin Centre in Tel Aviv. ICT-operated designs and so-called blob architecture resulting from it are also an important research field of the Chair. Additionally, he is in charge of the Concept House research programme that focuses on the design and development of consumer-oriented ‘made-to-measure’ homes that are produced industrially, and he is also starting research into glass outer walls.

Mick Eekhout was active as the 'formateur' for the new 3TU Spearhead Building Research from 2007-2010. Target was to make a completely new programming for all of the university building research activities in The Netherlands (in total 80 professors, 300 researchers), with the aim to convert the current research into society-directed items, for which external financing as a whole or in parts would be possible.

As well as being a professor, Eekhout is a director of the firm Octatube Space Structures bv, which he set up himself. The company develops, among other things, three-dimensional architectural constructions. He was the co-designer of the glass concert hall in the Beurs van Berlhage, and one of the outer walls of Stansted Airport in London. He became the first designer to be admitted to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), in 2003. He has occupied various functions on councils and juries, has written a variety of books and has won many prizes, including the Staalprijs and the Pioneer’s Award 2002 in recognition of his work as a whole.

© 2012 TU Delft

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