The Delft Prototype is a single apartment from a not yet realized Concept House Urban Villa, which consists of 16 apartments on 4 floors. Both the urban villa and the prototype demonstrate the characteristics of high level industrial production with an extremely low ecological footprint, as well as being energy-positive in use, and both are suitable for multi-storey housing. The research, development, production and built prototype resulted in a unique innovation on the Dutch building market: a sustainable energy-positive apartment system for medium-rise energy-positive housing. This scientific report deals with the history, development and realization process of the prototype up to the completion of the building phase, after which the prototype was furnished and the garden landscaped, culminating with the opening of the prototype in October 2012. The development was initiated by Mick Eekhout’s Chair of Product Development at the TU Delft at the specific request of the building industry and was carried out in close collaboration with a consortium of partners from the SME building supply industry. Innovation continues to progress in these partner industries. The entire project was externally financed for the 8 years of its duration. Apart from initiative and natural project leadership, the innovative contribution of the Chair included the design, coordination and integration of the many components into the single coherent entity of the Concept House ‘Delft’ Prototype.

The Prototype Laboratory initiated and maintained by the Chair of Product Development at the Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft, has set an example in architectural education for hands-on ‘learning-by-making’ for students. According to the authors of this book, in the current curriculums time spent on practical work is not rewarded and students are educated in an abstract concept of architecture, not getting a proper feeling for materialization. A semester of designing, engineering, producing and building a prototype with their own hands after their own design often gives students a boost in their education. The Delft Prototype laboratory was the base of around 1,000 students, now professionals. Some architect’s offices make prototypes regularly as their designs are quite experimental and require more insight for the designing architect, before the realization of his building. Prototypes of technical components are often developed parallel to the building process. The Prototype Laboratory at the Faculty of Architecture was supervised for almost 18 years by Peter van Swieten. He describes his experiences in this book, in collaboration with the initiator, professor Mick Eekhout. Marcel Bilow took over the Bucky Lab, as it is called, from 2012 onwards.

They say that I'm not human. I am simply the property of AWPA, the Advanced Weaponised Projects Agency. I wonder if I can be both... Alpha-3 has a single purpose: fulfil her genetic potential and be selected to join the ranks of GenoCorp. But the Alpha-models never seem to go far, and as Alphie suffers setback after setback, she begins to question the fate of the prototypes that don't meet the standard.