1,24 Meters

The TU/e campus was developed based on a master plan by Dutch architect S. J. van Embden. Van Embden's office also designed many of the original buildings on campus, of which I am quite fond.

Recently, I read something interesting about Van Embden's plan. According to the Small TU/e Encyclopedia (Het Kleine TU/e Encyclopedie, 1956-2006), he used the distance of 1,24 meters as the basis for it. That is, everything on campus fits neatly into a grid consisting of squares that measure 1,24 by 1,24 meters.

Van Embden's module (1,24m) is not based on ergonomics. Instead, all original buildings were to be fitted with Philips system ceilings. These consist of ceiling tiles in which Philips florescent light tubes fit. A Philips florescent light tube, with fixture, measures 1,24 meters. Talk about pragmatics; Royal Philips is an Eindhoven 'startup' from the turn of the previous century.

My office, in one of Van Embden's original buildings, measures 4,97 by 4,87 meters. To my initial disappointment, none of these distances are multiples of 1,24 (even when you compensate for possible lack of precision during construction). To explain this, I had to look up.

The Philips ceiling tiles actually measure 1,16 by 1,16 meters with strips measuring 0.08 meters (in width) that fit in between. 1,16 + 0,08 = 1,24. Aha! 4,97 ~ 4,96 = (1,16 x 4) + (0,08 x 4) and 4,87 ~ 4,88 = (1,16 x 4) + (0,08 x 3). Beautiful.