Mediating between society and engineering

Rector Hassan Charaf opened the third BME-Connect Business Breakfast, which introduced the Faculty of Architecture to corporate actors. Similarly to previous events, Dr. Charaf stressed that the BME aspires for results that the Hungarian economy can benefit from, and the university can only do that if it has a close relationship with its industry partners.

"The competitiveness of the University depends on how we can adapt our education to the 21st century," began his presentation Dean of ÉPK György Alföldi. He also made it clear that he does not mean simply changing the methodology of education, as specialisations at the Faculty already reflect their reaction to the challenges of climate adaptation.

The Dean reminded the audience that in addition to combining an artistic and engineering approach, the ÉPK is perhaps the closest to community expectations among all the faculties at BME, thereby playing a mediator role between society and engineering. While operating 11 departments, 2 doctoral schools and an academic journal, the Faculty also focuses on the missing components of the Hungarian construction economy as well as development opportunities, primarily sustainability, monument protection, digitalisation, robotisation and establishing resilient and climate-conscious sectors.

The next presentation was given by Lajos Takács, Head of the Department of Building Construction on efficiency. He mentioned that more than 50 research projects are currently in progress at the department in areas such as monumental reconstructions, renovations, carbon neutrality, acoustics, fire protection design, step sound insulation, waterproofing, and renovation of window structures in historical buildings. “We are looking forward to new partnerships in many research areas,” he added.

Péter Kálmán, CEO of Óbuda-Újlak Zrt., talked about marketability. Among the good practices of the university, he mentioned lecturers actively pursuing their professions and the planned development of teamwork and presentation skills in the training programmes, the results of which are clearly visible among students. This may also contribute to opening up approximately 150 professions to those earning a degree in architecture, he noted.

In his opinion, there is still room for improvement in developing traineeship programmes, cooperation with other BME faculties and other universities, as well as teaching sustainability efforts, digitalisation skills, corporate relations and internationalisation.

Márton Nagy, Head of the Department of Residential Building Design, presented the four departments teaching design and showcasing creativity, reflectivity and reactivity. The latter is clearly visible in that these departments do not have a static curriculum but they create a new syllabus for each term. “The faculty has 260 architects with doctoral students included, which is a huge intellectual potential,” said Márton Nagy.

The closing presentation was delivered by Vice Dean Bálint Kádár (Department of Urban Planning and Design) under the title Business and Innovation – A future-proof partnership. First, he talked about the developments that will shape our future, including a number of construction technology research projects in which the faculty's lecturers are involved with their innovations in products and services.

In terms of partnerships and green strategies, Dr. Kádár detailed what BME has to offer as well as the potential business benefits of the partnership for economic operators. These partnerships include consortium and EU-level projects: full-scale assistance in product and service development, and even mediating the competencies of the other seven faculties of the University. All of these are provided with a general designer approach, from building materials to regulations, monumental buildings and sustainability aspects.

Rector's Office Department of Communications