Fulltime, two year trainee position at the PDEng program 'Smart Buildings & Cities' of the Eindhoven University of Technology. We are looking for candidates with a strong interest in energy in the built environment and a MSc degree in Architectural Engineering, Building Science, Building, Civil, Mechanical or Environmental Engineering, or equivalent. Knowledge from sustainability and user preferences analyses are essential and experience in Building Information Modelling and software development are beneficial.

Smart Buildings & Cities PDEng program

The Smart Buildings & Cities PDEng program wants to contribute to the transition towards smart, intelligent and sustainable cities where quality of life is high. This transition requires new solutions which can only be created through multiscale and transdisciplinary (design) approaches. The transition is a relevant theme for society (as reflected by the Horizon 2020 Societal Challenges formulated by the European Commission), building industry and university (consider the TU/e's Strategic Areas: Energy, Health and Smart Mobility and the TU/e's Smart Cities Program).



This requires technical designers who are able to work in a multidisciplinary environment and know how to communicate with different disciplines and stake holders. This PDEng program educates trainees to become those technical designers! Please note that this program is about technological design, i.e., the process of solving problems by means of a technological design, this in contrast to (PhD) research, which is the process of understanding problems.

After the two year program our trainees become technical designers with a broad technological understanding of energy related disciplines in the built environment (mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, building physics and services and ICT), who excel in their own discipline and who are able to work in multidisciplinary design teams, contribute to design issues outside their own core disciplines, integrate different technologies into new products and concepts, and who understand the commercial aspects of these innovative products and concepts.



Job description

The Department of the Built Environment of the Eindhoven University of Technology offers you a trainee position to follow a two-year post-master technological designer program, which leads to the degree of 'Professional Doctorate in Engineering' (PDEng). The SEB&C program consists of two main parts:

1. Workshops. You will follow technical workshops in which you acquire knowledge concerning important concepts of disciplines other than your own (master) specialism. You will follow these workshops with other SEB&C trainees (all with different master specialisms). The workshops increase your ability to effectively and efficiently communicate with these other disciplines in multidisciplinary design teams. Furthermore, you will follow workshops on design methods, entrepreneurship and professional skills.

2. Design projects. You will work on a design project with a group of SEB&C trainees and you will work an individual in-company assignment (see description below). The latter is a design project in collaboration with a company and the university. You work within the company structure (facilities, office desk, computer and other required equipment are provided by the company). It is your main responsibility to manage and execute the project. You are supported by an advisor from the company and an advisor from the university. A business plan for implementation or marketing of the project or product is part of the final deliverables.



A significant part of the first year of the program is dedicated to the workshops, while the second year is mostly dedicated to the in-company assignment. Nonetheless you will start working on the in-company assignment from the start of the program. The in-company assignment related to this traineeship is described below.



To meet the targets set by the Dutch government in order to fulfil the Paris Climate agreement (2015) goals, the housing renovation process needs substantial upscaling. Therefore the clients' requirements need to be elicited in a structured format such that the building industry can offer standardized solutions that allow for large scale, high speed construction processes. The client's requirements consist of the physical and behavioral aspects. The standardized building solutions entails industrialized products and processes for house renovation. In this project a platform developed for management of housing data (housing profiles), required for performing calculations on heat transmission, CO2 emission, construction cost, comfort, etc. to generation renovation solutions. This platform is publically accessible and based upon open standards.



The open data platform provides input for various calculations, for different purposes. Therefore at first an inventory is made of the required input for calculation methods developed by other partners in the project. Housing profiles will contain data about building components dimensions and physical properties. Additionally it will contain data about installations and space use. The data will be collected from (or is referring to) a wide variety of resources. Public resources such as Cadaster and the Dutch PDOK portal will be used. In case of a housing profile of a housing type, literature can be used to collect more detailed data. In case of a specific house additional data can be collected through techniques developed in other projects such as scanning and/or 3D modelling. In absence of specific values, generic databases of building components and material properties can be used. In all cases the premise is that data collection should be low cost and fast.



The data is stored according to standard data formats and accessed using standard protocols to support open data access. Relevant standards studied to determine to what extend these can capture the housing profile data. When necessary extended data sets are developed. Relevant protocols are studied to analyze what functionality they can support to give access to the housing profiles and how the data management is established. A prototype of the open data platform is implemented. The prototype will be tested with a representative sample of cases (houses) and users (engineering offices). The prototype design and pilot test evaluations will be documented in a report.



This PdEng position is funded from the MMIP 3 programme (Versnelling energierenovaties in de gebouwde omgeving) coordinated by the Building Technology Innovation Centre (BTIC).

Who can apply?

We are looking for

• an excellent and highly motivated candidate with an MSc degree in Architectural Engineering, Building Science, Building, Civil, Mechanical or Environmental Engineering, or equivalent. Knowledge and experience in Open data platforms, BIM, IFC and software development are essential.

• An interest in software engineering and applications for smart cities.

• An academic attitude in order to develop new systems and perform applied research with an integral view on what is needed for the future built environment.

• An excellent command of the English language, both in speaking and writing.

What do we provide?

We offer a fulltime traineeship of two years. The traineeship is a formal employment at the Eindhoven University of Technology according to the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities (CAO-NU). Trainees receive a financial compensation according to this standard. Bruto salary: € 1913



Trainees are provided with their own work place in the building of the Department of the Built Environment. The university provides all general modern facilities belonging to first class universities; mediation in housing, excellent sports facilities, language courses, modern digital library facilities etc. For more information please visit http://www.tue.nl/en/.