The Kurt Beyer Award has been endowed every year since 1996 by HOCHTIEF Construction AG. It is awarded for the best dissertations by young academics at Dresden Technical University's Architecture and Civil Engineering Departments.

This year's prize-winning theses are by Dr.Ing. Gesine Marquardt and Dr.Ing. Matthias Weise. Journalists are cordially invited to attend the prize-giving ceremony on the 4th of June at 2.30 p.m. in the Festsaal of the University Rektorat. The formal address is to be given by Dipl.Ing. Andreas Schlage, Chairman of the Management Board of HOCHTIEF Construction AG Sachsen.

More Information:
Pressestelle der TU Dresden
Tel. 0351 463-32398

"Mapping the Changes in Model-Based Object Planning"
("Abbildung von Änderungen in der modellbasierten Objektplanung")

Dr. Matthias Weise's doctoral thesis describes new procedures and methods of improving cooperation in the planning of building works. Weise explains: "The endeavours of software companies to bring different planning information together in one data model was the basis of my work. The question at the outset was how such a data model could be administrated efficiently and profitably during the planning process. The management of planning information is complex nowadays, and is subject to continual refinement and conceptual re-working up until the construction phase. As yet however, it has not been possible to adequately document the changes resulting from these processes, and if they are not identified, they can be a main cause of planning errors. The aim therefore is not to portray the progress of planning with independent single data sets, but through a meaningful description of the changes that occur." In this way, not only could the persisting problems of data administration be solved, but also the whole planning process could be depicted in an understandable way.

More Information:
Dr.-Ing. Matthias Weise
Tel. (0351) 406 1711
E-Mail:

"Dementia-friendly Architecture - Spatial Orientation in Nursing Homes"
"Demenzfreundliche Architektur - Räumliche Orientierung in Altenpflegeheimen"

What are the effects of an increasingly aging society on the health system and, in particular, on the architecture of nursing homes - this is the topic of Dr. Gesine Marquardt's doctoral thesis. The study was undertaken under Prof. Schmieg at the Institute for Social and Health Buildings. It involved investigations of thirty nursing homes across Germany and analysed the connections between their architecture and the ability of the residents to orientate themselves. The surprising result was that residents orientate themselves much better in "conservative" buildings with rectilinear forms, and are therefore more autonomous than those in buildings where hallways contain shifts in direction, be it in atriums or patios - i.e. exactly the type of design that has been promoted for years, and which, since the 1990s, has been used in many buildings.

From her results, Dr.Marquardt has compiled a catalogue of criteria with new recommendations. She also alludes to so-called milieu-therapeutic approaches. Milieu therapy tries to positively influence a disease through the arrangement of the patient's environment. Daily routines are easier for patients when the interiors of their rooms reflect the times when their memory abilities were not compromised.

Gesine Marquardt points to a striking contradiction: "Many dementia patients cannot deal with the modern handles in today's multi-functional kitchens, but if you give them a potato peeler, they immediately know what to do with it. This revealing finding has been taken into account in the fitting out of patients' rooms by, for example, putting up familiar wallpapers. But this within a hyper-modern building in an architecture they cannot deal with? Our thinking should not stop with the furniture!"

More Information:
Dr.-Ing. Gesine Marquardt
Technische Universität Dresden
Fakultät Architektur
Lehrstuhl Sozial- und Gesundheitsbauten
01062 Dresden
Tel. (0351) 463-34724