Mark van Swam (TU/e) is the winner of the 3TU Construction Management and Engineering Master’s Thesis award 2014-2015. On the 3TU CME kick-off day at the University of Twente, UT Programme Director dr.ir. C.M. Dohmen-Janssen awarded him with a cheque to the value of €1000,- .
The Master’s thesis of Mark van Swam is about the development of a Decision Support Tool that supports an investor in an early stage of the transformation process to get an justified answer to the question if transformation of an vacant office is (financially) feasible. Under supervision of prof.dr.ir. W.F. Schaefer, dr.ir. B. Glumac and dr.ir. B. van Weenen, he performed his project at Camelot Leegstandbeheer & -Advies.
His Master’s thesis is chosen by an independent jury from the industry as the best thesis over three locations. The other nominees for this award were Jelmer van der Weide (TU Delft) with Understanding Urban Road Life A Study of the Actual Life of Arterial Roads in Amsterdam and Diana van der Asdonk (University of Twente) with ‘Value Management in een Gemeentelijke Organisatie’. According to the jury from industry, the winning MSc Theses should be practical applicable, contain an actual subject, should well composed, and comprehensive written with a strong foundation.
Potential Transformation of Vacant Offices into Housing for Young People: Optimization of Decision Making Process
An increasing proportion of the available offices is outdated and will be difficult to rent without any adjustments. In order to prevent extended vacancy, it is necessary that a substantial portion of the outdated stock on the market will be removed or transformed. For an investor it is important to distinguish vacant buildings with potential for transformation as early as possible in the process.
The research provided by Mark van Swam provides an overview of the most important factors and barriers that influence the transformation potential of vacant offices into housing for young people, from both supply and demand side. Financial feasibility plays a central role in the investing decisions of companies and investors. The results of this research form the input for a support tool which allows an investor to make a substantiated financial feasibility study in a quick way at an early stage of the transformation process.
The 3TU Construction Management & Engineering Master’s thesis award is created to give excellent graduation work of CME the attention among a wider audience. For each of the three universities where the CME Master is taught, one graduation project was nominated. At the moment, Mark is working at Heijmans as a Project Consultant.