Architectural engineering student & research work / LAunch2022 (KU Leuven)

‘Conservation & Adaptive Reuse’ –

De betekenis van de restauratiemethodologie van Barbara Van der Wee in het hedendaagse architectuurdebat

Barbara Van der Wee (1957) is een Belgisch architect en specialiste op het vlak van de restauratie van de art nouveau gebouwen van Victor Horta (1861-1947). Ze wordt beschouwd als een expert op het gebied van erfgoed conservering in België. Ze is bekend voor haar zorgvuldige voorbereidende studies als instrument om de erfgoed waarde van verschillende gebouw onderdelen te bepalen en gefundeerde restauratie-opties te kunnen voor stellen. Parallel met haar carrière als ontwerper en restaurator was ze meer dan dertig jaar lang docent aan het Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (KU Leuven), waar ze generaties studenten monumentenzorg begeleidde bij hun projectwerk en hen zo liet proeven van de praktijk van de restauratiearchitect.

Tekst: Eline Dehullu

Adaptive Reuse — Toen Barbara Van der Wee begin jaren 90 startte met de restauratie van de eigen woning met atelier van Victor Horta in Amerikaansestraat in Sint-Gillis, opgetrokken tussen 1898 en 1901, werd ze geconfronteerd met een methodologie die in eerste instantie gericht was op het behoud en de bescherming van dit erfgoed. Na een periode van afkeuring en verwaarlozing van vele art nouveau gebouwen, situeerden de eerste restauratiewerken in het Hortamuseum onder leiding van Delhaye zich in een tijd waarin men alles wilde redden wat er te redden viel. Het was de pioniersperiode van restauratie en conservatie, waarin de woning met atelier beschermd werd als eerste art nouveau ensemble van het Brusselse patrimonium (1963). Dertig jaar later, wanneer de interesse in de art nouveau stroming en in het oeuvre van Horta in het bijzonder verzekerd was, was de tijd echter rijp voor Barbara Van der Wee om over te gaan tot een andere aanpak van restauratie.

Van bij het begin van haar restauratiepraktijk in de jaren 90 ontwikkelt Van der Wee een methodologie die niet enkel uitgaat van beschermen en behouden, maar van eerbiedig en zorgzaam renoveren, aanpassen en hergebruiken: restoration, adaptive reuse and rehabilitation. Om die filosofie om te zetten in de effectieve restauratiepraktijk, houdt Van der Wee vast aan enkele sleutelconcepten: een gedegen wetenschappelijk multidiciplinair vooronderzoek, het opstellen van een masterplan, een geïntegreerde aanpak en het belang van vakmanschap.

Vooronderzoek — In de aanpak van Van der Wee gaat een diepgaand, historisch onderzoek altijd vooraf aan de daadwerkelijke restauratiewerken. De voorstudie moet een volledig inzicht verwerven in de bouwgeschiedenis van het gebouw: wat behoort er tot de originele toestand en wat zijn uitbreidingen of verbouwingen. Binnen de bouwchronologie worden de ruimtes en bouwonderdelen naar hun historische waarde geëvalueerd en wordt er een ‘bloeiperiode’ gedetermineerd. Deze bloeiperiode (of heyday) bakent de periode af waarbinnen het te restaureren gebouw vanuit architecturaal en historisch oogpunt het meest waardevol was. Dit moment in de levenscyclus van het gebouw wordt doorheen het hele restauratieproces beschouwd als het historisch referentiekader dat een cruciale rol vervult bij het omschrijven van de opties in het restauratieproject. De historische voorstudie bepaalt aldus de bloeiperiode van een monument of gebouw met hoge architecturale waarde.

Casus: Eigen woning met atelier Victor Horta, Sint-Gillis, ontworpen en gebouwd tussen 1898 en 1901, gerestaureerd tussen 1991 en 2015.

Foto © Bastin & Evrard

Masterplanning — De laatste stap in de voorstudie is de uitwerking van een globaal masterplan voor restauratie. Eenmaal de erfgoedwaarde en de bloeiperiode zijn bepaald, kunnen de verschillende restauratieopties worden omschreven en kan overgegaan worden tot weloverwogen interventies: welke bouwdelen worden bewaard, gerestaureerd of gereconstrueerd, afgebroken of gerenoveerd en welke worden aangepast aan een nieuw gebruik of functie. In het masterplan voor restauratie worden deze principes vastgelegd: hoe en waar de originele architecturale, ruimtelijke en functionele kwaliteiten van het monument worden behouden en hersteld, hoe en waar het gebouw aangepast wordt aan de nieuwe noden en programma’s van de gebruikers, en hoe en waar de heersende normen van comfort en veiligheid worden geïntegreerd.

Het is bovendien essentieel om – in functie van de beschikbare budgetten en de eventuele permanente toegankelijkheid van het gebouw –het hele restauratieproject op te splitsen in verschillende uitvoeringsfases die meerdere jaren kunnen beslaan. Daarom wordt een tweede masterplan uitgewerkt: het operationele masterplan.

Casus: Kindertuin, Brussel, ontworpen en gebouwd tussen 1895 en 1899, gerestaureerd in 2000 Foto © Bastin & Evrard

Een geïntegreerde aanpak — Zowel tijdens het vooronderzoek, het uitwerken van het ontwerp en restauratiedossier als gedurende de werfperiode is een hechte samenwerking tussen de vele specialisten en raadgevers onontbeerlijk. Een multidisciplinair bouwteam vormt de inspirator van een geïntegreerde aanpak. Het belang van een holistische benadering bij de restauratie en actualisatie van een historisch monument met hoge erfgoedwaarde, is voor Van der Wee cruciaal. Een gedegen analyse en een goed begrip van het gebouw in al zijn aspecten is de basis van elke verdere beheersmaatregel of ingreep. Zowel de architectuur, de geschiedenis, de aangewende materialen en hun toepassingstechnieken, evenals de technische installaties van een gebouw, moeten nauwkeurig in kaart gebracht en doorgrond worden in overleg met diverse experten. Die diverse teamleden zijn daarom van bij het begin betrokken, zodat ze allen het eindperspectief voor ogen kunnen houden, in continu overleg.

Casus: Musée des Beaux-Arts, Doornik, ontworpen en gebouwd tussen 1908 en 1928, uitgebreid en gerestaureerd van 2015 tot heden.

Foto © Philippe De Gobert

Conclusie: De relevantie van restauratiewerk binnen het hedendaagse architectuurdebat

Voor Barbara Van der Wee en haar team vormen het behoud van de authenticiteit van een Hortagebouw en het aanpassen ervan aan zijn hedendaagse functie door de integratie van eigentijdse ingrepen en technieken geen contradictie. Ze zijn net integrale onderdelen van hetzelfde architecturale ontwerpproces.

Omdat het voor Van der Wee niet ‘slechts’ om behouden en beschermen gaat, maar om een genuanceerd en voortdurend beslissingsproces dat maakt dat een monument een toekomstig leven kan leiden, is een restauratie ook altijd een architectuurproject. Een project waarbij net als in een architectuurontwerp afwegingen gemaakt worden omtrent complexe ruimtelijke indelingen, flexibel gebruik van ruimtes, de relatie tussen architectuur en stedelijke context, daglicht en ventilatie, esthetiek en pragmatiek. Bij het restaureren van erfgoed gaat het echter om een erg specifieke, waardevolle en vaak fragiele context waarbij authenticiteit een belangrijke rol speelt. Dat maakt het beslissingsproces net uitzonderlijk precieus – en voorbeeldig.

Vakmanschap — In de architectuur van Victor Horta zit ontzettend veel vakmanschap, zowel in de zichtbare als in de minder zichtbare elementen (zoals de technische ruimtes of de dakafwerking). Het is duidelijk dat er in het fin de siècle een bloeiend artisanaat aanwezig was, dat ingewikkelde ontwerpen gerealiseerd kreeg van topontwerpers als Horta en daarbij hoogkwalitatief werk afleverde. Ook al is Horta’s samenwerking met gespecialiseerde vaklieden een nog deels onontsluierde geschiedenis, het is geweten dat hij een eigen sculptuuratelier in zijn atelierwoning (vandaag Hortamuseum) had. Enkele namen van vaklui zijn weldegelijk bekend zoals schrijnwerker Henri Pelseneer of het smeedwerkbedrijf Petermann Société Nationale des Bronzes.

Vakmanschap speelt bij het restaureren van de hoogwaardige kunstwerken van Horta een haast even grote rol als bij de oorspronkelijke realisatie ervan: niet enkel het terugbrengen van het originele uitzicht en materiaal is van belang, maar ook het aanwenden van de traditionele technieken uit Horta’s tijd. De groep vaklieden nemen in het multidisciplinair restauratieteam een speciale plaats in. Het ambachtelijk uitvoeren van gevel- en interieurdetails vormt immers de garantie voor authenticiteit in het restauratieproces.

Casus: Hôtel Solvay, Brussel, ontworpen en gebouwd tussen 1895 en 1903, in restauratie sinds 2022 Foto: © Hervé Pigeolet, IRPA

De werkwijze van Van der Wee kan in het bijzonder bijdragen aan het actuele architectuurdebat over de reconversie van bestaande gebouwen. Adaptive reuse kreeg de jongste 20 jaar voet aan de grond in het debat over de architectuurkwaliteit en stedenbouw.

Deze evolutie is ongetwijfeld een gevolg van een groeiend gebrek aan open ruimte (in de stad), maar wordt vooral ingegeven door, in het licht van de klimaatverandering, de roep om een volledige betonstop. Open ruimte aansnijden voor een nieuw architectuurproject is onder de huidige en toekomstige ecologische omstandigheden (haast) wraakroepend. Het hergebruiken en herbestemmen van bestaande gebouwen is daarom meer dan ooit aan de orde.

Om met deze uitdagingen duurzaam en dynamisch om te gaan, kan de restauratie methodologie van Barbara Van de Wee, waarin een grondige analyse van de bestaande (steden bouwkundige) context, het opmaken van een (aanpasbaar) masterplan, het werken in een interdisciplinair verband en de waardering voor vakmanschap en lokaal craftsmanship voorop staan, exemplarisch zijn.

Bira: Bachelor

Ingenieurswetenschappen: architectuur

1_Bira

1ste Bachelor Ingenieurswetenschappen : architectuur Ontwerpen is het maken van keuzes. Onderzoek en engagement stellen keuzes scherp.

Architectuur begint bij het engagement van de ontwerper. We proberen studenten ons geloof in het maatschappelijk doel van de architectuur over te brengen. Onderzoek is daarbij ons belangrijkste werkinstrument.

We onderzoeken hoe architectuur kan bepalen hoe we leven, hoe we wonen en wat we ervaren. We onderzoeken hoe architectuur verbeeld, verwoord en gebouwd wordt. Intuïtie en zelfkritiek zijn essentieel voor de ontwerper. Ze worden door de studiowerking in het atelier aangescherpt. In 1_Bira zijn er twee kleinere ontwerpopgaves in het eerste semester. Er is een grotere ontwerpopgave in het tweede semester. Tussenin zitten oefeningen in het documenteren en analyseren, workshops, tekenoefeningen, woning-, museum- en werfbezoeken.

projecten — wonen

klein

In de eerste ontwerpoefening ‘Ruimtelijke Reflectie’ doorlopen de studenten heel gestuurd een ontwerpproces. Het start met een reflectie. Wat is ruimte? Vanaf wanneer kan je over ruimte spreken? Welke elementen zijn er nodig? Studenten documenteren en analyseren. Ze reflecteren over ruimte door te ontwerpen met zijn middelen: de vloer, de muur, het dak We laten hen poëzie, materialiteit en compositie uitdrukken in tussentijdse conceptmaquettes. Ze brengen daarna alles samen in een plan, een snede en één foto van de eindmaquette.

In het eerste semester volgt de tweede korte ontwerpoefening ‘Shelter’. Studenten ontwerpen een concrete ruimte op een concrete site met houten balkjes (5cm op 5cm) en plaatmateriaal. Ze ontwerpen een shelter voor één of twee personen in de nabijheid van het Arenbergkasteel. Een opsomming van de functies van de unit: slapen, eten, studeren en/of ontwerpen. Eén extra functie bedenkt de student. Het totale volume bedraagt maximaal 50m³. Deze oefening legt alle aandacht in het bedenken en uitwerken van de ruimte, de ervaring van binnenuit, het schakelen van hoofdfuncties en het voorzien van nevenfuncties bij de ruimte zonder dat deze aan kwaliteit inboet. functionaliteit en context vinden uitdrukkingen in het ontwerp van de shelter. Door interessante, unieke elementen uit de eerste ontwerpopgave te laten herinterpreteren zijn ook poëzie, materialiteit en compositie verweven in het ontwerp.

Tekenoefening voor het vak ‘Ontwerpmedia en Vormleer’

[2] Ruimtelijke Reflectie / Collages en grafisch plan — Ontwerptools als collage (digitaal en analoog) worden ingezet voor het maken van een synthesebeeld en het samenstellen van een materialenpalet. Het grafisch plan focust op de beleving en het bewegen door de ruimte.

[1] Ruimtelijke Reflectie / Poëzie en Materialiteit — De tussentijdse conceptmaquettes ‘POËZIE’ en ‘MATERIALITEIT ’ reflecteren over ruimte. De conceptschets tracht een aantal onderzochte elementen samen te brengen in één krachtig beeld.

[4] Shelter / The sixth sense — Het centrale idee van deze shelter is beleving van de natuur als een zesde zintuig. De kruinen van de bomen boven je zien terwijl ze heen en weer bewegen op maat van de wind wordt als een zintuiglijke ervaring gekaderd. De shelter is een soort bos in een bestaand bos en richt de blik naar boven.

[3] Shelter / Hanging house

— Zwevend boven de aarde, reikend naar de hemel, verankerd in een eeuwenoude gevel: de constructie vertaalt deze elementen en behoudt zijn poëtische kracht in de verdere uitwerking.

wonen

Wat is stedelijk wonen? Hoe woont een samenleving in verandering? Onze doorsnee woonproductie is vrij star en zet overwegend in op traditionele gezinswoningen of generieke appartementen. De oefening bevraagt deze wooncultuur kritisch, vanuit de bekommernis dat de stad divers is of zou moeten zijn, met voldoende ruimte voor verschillende woonvormen en woontypologieën.

Begijnhoven waren gedurende vele eeuwen geraffineerde, collectieve woon modellen in Vlaanderen, als antwoord op een toenmalige maatschappelijke vraag. Het ‘Klein Begijnhof’ te Leuven vormt de context voor de ontwerpoefening ‘Wonen’. De opgave richt zich op vier diverse percelen in het bouwblok, met verschillende rand voorwaarden. De sites zijn precies gekozen. Ze kunnen zowel een grotere potentie in zich dragen dan de huidige invulling aan geeft als door hun strategische ligging in het bouwblok een exemplarische waarde hebben.

Het ontwerp start met een oefening in maat(voering): het opmeten van de straatgevels van de buur gebouwen geeft niet enkel inzicht in de constructiemethodes, maar dient ook als referentiekader voor het eigen ontwerp.

De diverse ontwerpen gaan de confrontatie aan met hedendaagse uitdagingen aangaande ‘wonen’, zoals betaalbaarheid, sociologische verandering en ruimte voor collectiviteit.

[1] The-odora — Het kleine perceel E ligt middenin het Klein Begijnhof, aan het einde van een doodlopende steeg. Het woonconcept creëert daar plaats voor een huiselijke kunst en theebar op het gelijkvloers, waar beginnende kunstenaars hun werk kunnen tentoonstellen op een informele manier. De uitbater woont op de bovenliggende verdiepingen. Traditiegetrouw krijgen de huisjes daar een naam van een oud begijntje, vandaar de naam ‘The odora’. Om maximaal licht binnen te trekken is er in de hoogte gebouwd, is er gespeeld met de vlakken van de volumes en zijn er splitlevels gebruikt.

[2] Groene workshopwoning — Het perceel ligt in de Sluisstraat. Aan de overkant stroomt de Dijle. Op de gelijkvloerse en eerste verdieping worden binnen en buitenruimtes voorzien om workshops te organiseren met als thema groene stadstuintjes. De trapvorm van het volume creëert op elke verdieping terrassen, gericht naar de zon. Om de gevel meer expressie te geven is de groene balustrade wat doorgetrokken over de gevel en zijn er markante groene dakgoten en regenwaterpijpen. Die zijn strategisch geplaatst en aangesloten op een regenwaterton op het grote terras, vlakbij de plantenbakken. Betonnen kolommen en balken, gekleurd met groene pigmenten, accentueren in het interieur de structurele uitdagingen en functie van dit bijzondere trapvormige volume.

[3] Begijnhofwoning — Het perceel E bevindt zich in een schilderachtige omgeving vol rust en dat inspireerde om een kunstenaarswoning te ontwerpen. Er zijn verschillende studiemaquettes gemaakt om een geïntegreerd volume te bekomen dat past in de kleinschalige begijnhoftypologie met hellende daken. De gevels van het hoofdvolume zijn afgewerkt met een witgrijs gekaleid baksteenparement dat aansluit bij het straatbeeld. Het nevenvolume krijgt een houten lattenstructuur dat van buitenaf vrij massief oogt, maar van binnenuit de woning opvallend transparant is. De woning is volgens het splitlevel principe ontworpen, met aan de tuinzijde de leefruimtes en het schildersatelier onder het hellende dak en aan de andere zijde de nevenfuncties, zoals fietsenberging, keuken, badkamer en terras. Structureel is de woning opgebouwd uit een betonnen sokkel op het gelijkvloers met daarboven een gemetselde baksteenstructuur met lichte houten vloerroosteringen.

[4] Wasserettewoning — Het perceel A is gelegen aan de rand van het Klein Begijnhof naast de toekomstige Bottelarijsite. Met de toename van vele nieuwe bewoners voor ogen ontstond het idee van een wasserette voor de buurt, gekoppeld aan een drankje en een babbeltje terwijl er gewacht wordt op de was. De volumetrie start met het typische volume van een begijnhuisje. Er worden versnijdingen, verschuivingen en verplaatsingen op toegepast. Er zijn twee belangrijke trapruimtes: een binnentrap verzorgt de circulatie binnenin de splitlevelwoning en een buitentrap leidt naar de wasserette. Een kleinere draaitrap start in de torenbadkamer en leidt naar een bijzonder plek voor het bad onder een dakraam. Wat betreft volumetrie, materiaalgebruik en raamopeningen sluit de voorgevel mooi aan bij de begijnhuisjes ernaast en wordt geaccentueerd door de koperkleurige buitentrap en regenwaterpijp. De zijgevel is expressiever en wordt belijnd door de bestaande tuinmuur. De achtergevel is meer opengewerkt en gericht op de tuin.

2_Bira:

2de Bachelor Ingenieurswetenschappen : architectuur

In 2_Bira onderzoeken we publieke programma’s. Een dergelijke opgave wordt ontleed in hoofd- en nevenruimtes, in publieke en private delen, in ontvangst- en gebruiksruimtes. De benodigde grootte en onderlinge verhoudingen worden bestudeerd.

Hieraan gekoppeld verkennen we complexere structuren en grotere overspanningen, andere gevelmaterialen en detailleringen, publieke en private circulaties.

Ook de relatie tussen het publiek gebouw en zijn omgeving is een belangrijk deel van de opgave. Waar op de site wordt het ontwerp ingeplant? Hoe speelt het gebouw in op de site of op welke manier wordt de site aangepast aan het ontwerp?

Met bezoeken aan publieke gebouwen (bibliotheken, culturele gebouwen, evenemen tenruimtes en publieke infrastructuur) krijgen de studenten meer inzicht in de opgave en de uitwerking.

In het eerste semester is het gevraagde programma nog eenvoudig: ontwerp een overdekte ruimte waar een grote groep mensen samen kunnen komen en evenementen beleven. De opgave wordt in drie thema’s geduid: programma, structuur, context. De studenten worden in groepjes van vier verdeeld en leren daarbij hoe ze samen een ontwerp kunnen maken. Deze opgave laat veel ruimte voor experiment en wordt vooral onderzocht en uitgewerkt in maquettes op verschillende schalen en uitdrukkingsvormen.

In het tweede semester wordt het gevraagde programma complexer: ontwerp een publiek gebouw in al zijn facetten op een uitdagende locatie. Wat in het eerste semester geleerd en onderzocht werd, wordt verder verfijnd en uitgediept, dit keer individueel. Het finale ontwerp wordt door de studenten gepresenteerd via een poster en maquette aan begeleiders en externe juryleden.

programma structuur context 26 publiek gebouw 32

programma structuur context

De opgave wordt in drie bewegingen of fases gegeven. Op deze wijze kan zeer gericht met een aantal facetten van een publiek gebouw aan de slag gegaan worden: het programma, de structuur, de context. De studenten vormen hiervoor groepjes van vier.

In de eerste fase ‘programma’ wordt vertrokken vanuit een opgave zonder concrete context: ontwerp een overdekte plek waar 200 personen kunnen samen komen voor allerlei evenementen, voorzie plaats waar 150 mensen kunnen zitten, combineer dit met een klein café, sanitair en opbergruimtes. De abstracte site is gelegen aan een waterplas, waarbij het water toegankelijk voor waterrecreatie gemaakt dient te worden.

Na deze eerste ontwerpaanzet, krijgen de studenten de ‘context’ aangereikt: de molensite Eizingen in Halle, een oude zwaaikom aan de Zenne in een mooi maar weinig bekend natuurgebied tussen het kanaal Brussel-Charleroi en industrie aan de ene, en de spoorlijn Halle – Buizingen aan de andere zijde. De site maakt deel uit van de herinrichting van het Zennepad en de Zenneterrassen, een onderdeel van het Landschapspark Halle. Op de site zijn nog enkele restanten aanwezig van de vroegere textielfabriek en molen.

De studenten zoeken een plaats voor hun ontwerp en transformeren al dan niet hun eerste aanzet. Parallel hiermee wordt de ‘structuur’ uitgewerkt en wordt een standpunt ingenomen over de rol, de aanwezigheid (zichtbaar versus verborgen), de sfeer,… van deze structuur op hun ontwerp.

Finaal presenteren ze hun project op de site, via een installatie, een performance, een projectie… een andere manier om het ontwerp te toetsen aan de context.

[1] Verbonden — Een muur in cortenstaal slingert door het bos en vormt een duidelijke maar fluïde scheidingslijn tussen de drukte van de weg en industrie en de kalmte van het natuurdomein. De kronkels vormen én verbinden ruimtes, zowel intiem als weids, zowel voor contemplatie als voor recreatie en entertainment.

[2] Woelkomplein — Een robuuste luifel bakent aan de historische villa een nieuw cultuurplein af. Het hellend dak binnenin filtert speels het licht. Aan de overzijde van de Zenne faciliteert een functievolume de recreatie aan het water. Beide ingrepen spelen een spel tussen open gesloten, zwaar licht, binnen buiten, oud nieuw.

[3] Accelerator-Mediator — Een verhoogd pad creëert een snelle fietsverbinding tussen Halle en Buizingen langs verschillende natuursferen. Dwars hierop steekt een wandelweg vanuit de steenweg door naar de zwaaikom. Beide komen samen onder een sculpturaal betonnen dak. Een functievolume medieert aan het water de overgang tussen de drukke industrie en de ontspannen natuur.

[4] Dwars — Een rode balk dwarst de spoorweg, wandelweg, Zenne, steenweg en kanaal. De balk begeleidt en verbindt de bestaande weefsels en weinig toegankelijke ruimtes, introduceert nieuwe zit en rustplekken, landschapskamers en cultuurplekken en herstelt en versterkt de valleigebonden vegetatie.

Tussen drukte en wanorde ontwerpen wij ‘Dwars’. Een eenvoudig en sober ontwerp met een duidelijke leesbaarheid van ruimtes voor elk type gebruiker. ‘Dwars’ bevindt zich loodrecht op de reeds bestaande evenwijdige grote transportwegen en trage wegennetwerken. Zo verbinden we reeds bestaande ruimtes en weefsels die nu weinig toegankelijk zijn. Een rode balk voorziet eenheid en uniformiteit tussen verschillende landschapskamers die zich bevinden in elkaars verlengde. Met ‘Dwars’ voorzien we de Zennevallei te Halle van zit en rustplekken, culturele functies, het herstel van én de versterking van valleigebonden vegetatie.

publiek gebouw

In het tweede semester ontwerpen de studenten individueel een publiek gebouw met een gemeenschapsvormende functie. De opgave is om een ‘Stadsfoyer’ voor Halle te ontwerpen, een gebouw waar diverse publieke programma’s verzameld worden en de functies in de onmiddellijke omgeving aanvullen en versterken.

Het programma omvat een polyvalente zaal - evenementenruimte, een leeszaalbibliotheek, tentoonstellingsruimte, atelier- en studeerruimtes, een café en ondersteunende functies. Het gebouw dient aldus een ontmoetingsplaats en ankerplek te zijn voor zowel jong als oud en een evenwicht te zoeken tussen de drukte van sport, spel, cultuur, creëren, evenement en de rust van expositie, leeszaal, leren.

De site is een langgerekte parkeervlakte met weinig kwaliteit tussen het stadscentrum en de Zenne, een terrein dat mee opgenomen is in de toekomstige ontwikkeling voor het landschapspark Halle en het project Zennevallei. Kan de dieper gelegen Zenne toegankelijker gemaakt worden, zijn er onvermoede kwaliteiten van de omgeving die blootgelegd kunnen worden? Is er een link mogelijk met het kanaal en station aan de overzijde?

De studenten zoeken naar een plek op de site: aan de randen, centraal, uiteengelegd in verschillende paviljoenen , tot aan de Zenne of over de Zenne… ? Welke schaal en volumetrie past in deze omgeving, hoe ga je om met de bestaande cultuurvoorzieningen, wat is je antwoord op de toekomstige parkaanleg en het masterplan?

Het eindresultaat zijn dan ook een veertigtal voorstellen in alle maten en gewichten. Een boeiend overzicht van hoe de studenten de vraag en de site hebben gelezen en vertaald naar architectuur.

[1] Stadsfoyer aan de Zenne — Een dak, gevouwen volgens de typologie van een loods langs het kanaal, verzamelt alle functies. Gekromd langs de Zenne, loodrecht gericht op het stedelijk weefsel.

Het project creëert een meervoudig cultureel bruisende plek, brengt in de overdekte tussenruimte de Zenne dichter en verzacht de scheiding tussen stad, natuur en industrie.

[2] ‘On’ the grid — Het ontwerp speelt in op de bestaande, weinig kwaliteitsvolle buitenruimtes tussen de bestaande cultuurgebouwen vlakbij. Op de site wordt een grid uitgezet en daar worden de nieuwe functies in aparte gebouwen op uitgezet. De inplanting en de posities van de nieuwe volumes laten nieuwe pleinen ontstaan, samen met een opwaardering van de bestaande pleintjes.

[3] Gridshift — Een driedimensionale gridstructuur past zich tussen centrum Halle en de Zenne. De daarin geschoven, eerder besloten en aanpasbare volumes huisvesten verscheidene, wisselende programma’s. Het geheel wordt een speelse doorwaadbare ruimte. Een brug en een verticaal element met uitzichtpunt gaan de relatie aan met Halle, haar basiliek, Zenne en het kanaal.

[4] Cirkeling — Een muur omcirkelt en bakent langs en over de Zenne een rustige plek af. Langs en doorheen deze kring positioneren verschillende cirkelpaviljoenen met de gevraagde programma’s zich in relatie tot de reeds aanwezige functies. De zuivere cirkelvormen, rechthoekige functievolumes en doorzichten contrasteren en connecteren tot één cultureel en recreatief geheel.

3_Bira

3de Bachelor Ingenieurswetenschappen : architectuur Steden fascineren ons mateloos. Elke stad is uniek en in voortdurende verandering. Leven of vertoeven in een stad is daarom gelaagd en intensief. Vandaag woont meer dan de helft van de wereldbevolking in steden. Vijftig jaar geleden was dit zowat één derde. Het aandeel stedelingen neemt dus gestaag toe. In Vlaanderen en Brussel is dit niet anders. Er wordt aangenomen dat dit decennium de bevolking van Brussel verder zal toenemen met ongeveer 200.000 mensen. Gent heeft de voorbije decennia een sterke groei van 8,5% (2010-2020) gekend, en verwacht nog een lichte stijging van 2% tegen 2030. De bevolkingsgroei in de steden zal ook sneller toenemen dan in het buitengebied.

Hierin ligt een belangrijke opgave voor architecten en stedenbouwkundigen: hoe gaan we deze nieuwe stedelingen huisvesten? De beschikbare ruimte is immers beperkt. We moeten de stad zo duurzaam en dus zo efficiënt mogelijk gebruiken. De opdracht is dus verdichting. Stapelen, schakelen en overlappen is noodzakelijk.

Verdichting laat toe om meer open ruimte in de stad te creëren. Bouwen in en aan de stad impliceert zoeken naar een juiste balans tussen ‘vol’ en ‘leeg’. De leegte, het ‘buiten’, de open(bare) ruimte vormen de woonkamers van de stad. Wat open blijft is dus wezenlijk. Wie vandaag aan de ruimte knutselt, begint daarenboven niet zomaar. Het is voortborduren op wat er al is en tegelijk anticiperen op wat er zou kunnen komen. Elke plek heeft andere randvoorwaarden, uitdagingen en potenties. Die zijn niet enkel fysiek, maar ook socio-economisch, cultureel of (architectuur)historisch. Empathie voor de specifieke situatie en het alledaagse leven is dus noodzakelijk. Wie zal de gebouwen betrekken, gebruiken, bewonen of passeren? Hoe zal het individu zich tot de (on)bebouwde ruimte verhouden?

We willen in de ontwerpoefeningen in 3_Bira onderzoeken hoe aantrekkelijk leven, wonen en werken compact(er) georganiseerd kan worden. Hoe kan verdichting nieuwe en kwalitatieve vormen van stedelijkheid tot stand brengen?

Dit jaar werd gewerkt op een grotendeels braakliggend bouwblok langs de Oude Dokken in Gent, dat opgespannen ligt tussen de kade van het Houtdok, de stadsring en bestaand fijnkorrelig woonweefsel. Als bijkomende laag werden door de studenten verschillende scenario’s op vlak van behoud en herbestemming van twee markante bestaande gebouwen op de site geëxploreerd.

projecten — stadsfragment 40 gestapeld en geschakeld 46

stadsfragment

In het eerste semester focussen we op de schaal tussen stad en gebouw. Hoe kunnen we een volwaardige en rijke woonomgeving creëren met meervoudige kwaliteiten? Hoe kunnen we door het inplanten van bouw volumes tegelijk interessante publieke en collectieve buitenruimtes vormgeven? Hoe kunnen we op deze schaal nadenken over de overgang en relatie tussen publiek, collectief en privé? De studio start met enkele workshops die dit ambitiekader aftasten. In een eerste sessie worden de studenten uitgedaagd om voor tien verschillende ‘personae’ (fictieve karakters) een waaier aan elementen te onderzoeken die samen een rijke woonomgeving vormen.

Een tweede workshop onderzoekt op een intuïtieve manier de ruimtelijke mogelijkheden van site en programma: welke vormelijke strategieën creëren interessante relaties, welke volumes genereren boeiende buitenruimtes? Aan de hand van een reeks snelle volume maquettes worden verschillende pistes onderzocht.

De ontwerpen die in de rest van het semester worden uitgewerkt maken elk op hun manier een synthese tussen de site-analyse, een divers woonprogramma met woonwerk- en cohousingtypologieën en de input uit de workshops. De studenten ontwerpen een coherent stadsfragment dat de ambitie heeft om gezinnen een aantrekkelijk woonalternatief midden in de stad te bieden.

[2] De twijfelaar — Om de connectie met het water te herstellen wordt het project doorsneden door twee assen loodrecht op het dok: het Klein Dok en het Bevelandpark, waardoor drie verschillende woonzones ontstaan: Tuinwijk, Kadehallen en Babylon. Voor elk van de drie zones kregen de kernthema’s van het masterplan – water, zelfexpressie en collectiviteit – een eigen ruimtelijke vertaling, reagerend op de bestaande omgeving. Het resultaat is een rijke, gediversifieerde stedelijke ruimte.

[1] omRand — Dit masterplan creëert aan de hand van drie zuiver rechthoekig, precies ingepaste bouwblokken een spanningsveld met de grillige randen van de site. Er ontstaan zo tal van unieke plekken die men ontdekt tijdens een wandeling langs de rand. De drie bouwvolumes omvatten niet alleen een zeer breed programma maar ook collectieve (dak) tuinen, elk met een eigen karakter. Voor ieder wat wil(d)s!

Randenzijn potenties inplaatsvan restricties.

Drievolumes zoekenderandenverder op.

Waardedrieassensamenkomenligt het hart vanhetontwerp. Dehortusconclusus brengtlichtinhet plan.

Zicht-encirculatieassen doorbreken het klassiekebouwblok.

De randen vandesite aanvullen waar past.

Herkenningspunten rekeninghoudendmet bezonningenzichten.

[3] Kadoc — De twee bestaande industriële gebouwen worden uitgebreid en ingezet als publieke aantrekkingspool. Een nieuwe wooncluster met publiek gelijkvloers fungeert als schakel tussen stadscentrum en water, een tweede organische cluster vervolledigt de bestaande bebouwing en draagt bij tot de kleinere korrel. Tussen de bestaande en nieuwe bouwblokken in ontstaan publieke buitenruimtes, elk met een eigen karakter en verbonden door vier assen die de site doorsnijden.

[4] De sprong — Het masterplan neemt de schaalsprong rondom de site, van de fijnkorrellige rijwoningen aan de noordrand naar de oude industrie langs de stadsring aan de zuidrand, als leitmotif en zet deze door in de nieuwe bouwvolumes. Drie verschillende zones – kleinschalige woningen, een tussenschaal van compacte meergezsinwoningen, en een grootschalig bouwblok bovenop een parking en commerciële plint – bieden samen een diversiteit aan woontypologieën, open ruimtes, collectieve en publieke functies.

gestapeld en geschakeld

Een cluster van gestapelde en geschakelde woningen uit het stadsfragment als masterplan wordt in groepjes van twee studenten uitgewerkt. De klemtoon van de oefening ligt op het zoeken naar kwalitatieve woningen in een relatief hoge dichtheid.

Om een aanlokkelijk alternatief te bieden voor het ‘buitenwonen’, wordt gestreefd naar een typologische verruiming van het bestaand woningpatrimonium. Hierbij lijkt het noodzakelijk om een aantal woonkwaliteiten of comforteisen (ruimte, parkeergelegenheid, groen, private buitenruimte) te vertalen naar een (meer stedelijke) variant met een hogere dichtheid. Een van de middelen is wellicht het beperken van de individuele inname van het terrein, ten voordele van een (grotere) collectieve en publieke buitenruimte.

De studenten komen hun masterplan tegen en de krijtlijnen van het masterplan worden de randvoorwaarden voor het ontwerp. De opgave van het eerste semester om een aantrekkelijke woonomgeving te creëren voor diverse bewoners en gezinnen wordt hierbij verder vormgegeven op schaal van het gebouw en de woning. Het over koepelende verhaal is hierbij belangrijk. Zijn er boeiende collectieve functies en buitenruimtes, plaats voor de fietsen, interessante tussenruimtes, ...?

De structuur van het gebouw en de duurzaamheid van het ontwerp in zijn geheel zijn belangrijke ontwerpingrediënten waarvoor parallelle ontwerpsessies worden georganiseerd. Uiteindelijk worden de ambities en de expressie ook waargemaakt op het niveau van het architecturale detail. Het detail gaat over de materialiteit en de opbouw van de ruimte. De studenten werken hiervoor de inkomhal of een intermediaire ruimte van hun gebouw uit in een maquette op grote schaal. Aansluitend wordt de snede en een travee van de gevel technisch gedetailleerd en visueel vertaald in een expressieve geveltekening.

[1] Space & Time — Het project biedt een kritische blik op de rol van de architect als auteur: het bouwblok bestaat uit een generieke drager van betonnen kolommen en balken waarin meubilair, invulwanden.. vervangen en verplaatst kunnen worden met de regelmaat van de seizoenen, de jaren, de wisselende bewoners. De kraan op de toren concretiseert deze conceptuele visie op het gebouw als permanente werf.

[2] Paper Doll Towers — De ranke toren wordt opgebouwd als een stapeling van vrij invulbare betonvloeren, waarrond een licht staalskelet opgetrokken wordt als permanente stelling en terrasstructuur. Een systeem van inwisselbare houtskelet gevelpanelen geeft de bewoners de vrijheid om zelf hun gevels te gaan samenstellen. Er onstaat een gelaagde architecturale expressie: de lichte doorgaande staalstructuur die refereert aan de industriële context, met in tweede lijn een patchwork van gevels op maat van hun individuele eigenaar.

wanden inwisselbaar

terras te kiezen

makkelijk

[3] Rooms with a view, Views of a room — Het ontwerp exploreert de mogelijkheid om in een compact stedelijk bouwblok open en flexibel wonen te accommoderen.

Kunnen alternatieve wanden zoals gordijnen een oplossing bieden om vrij te leven rond grote collectieve ruimtes? Kunnen de collectieve ruimtes een extra betekenis krijgen door het spelen te bevorderen?

Kunnen we iets leren van Van Eyck? Kunnen door een transparante ontdubbeling van de gevel en juist geplaatste ruimtes en wanden ‘views of a room’, en ‘rooms with a view’ gegeven worden?

[4] Een collectieve werf — Gestapelde zelfbouw: wat wordt ontworpen en wat blijft vrij? De ruggengraat van het ontwerp is een robuuste drager die de tand des tijds doorstaat, een betonnen “kastenwand” waarin elke bewoner zijn eigen woning vrij kan invullen. Rond deze drager wordt een metalen mantel gedrapeerd die gepast reageert op de grote schaalsprongen en diversiteit van de omgeving, en een uniform scherm vormt tussen de stad en de collectieve werf in het gebouw.

Mira: Master Engineering Science: Architecture

Master option Architectural Design

In the master years, the students of the option Architectural Design deal with profound questions about the role of architecture in our world. Where do we build? How do we build? For whom?

Current themes feed the design debate. How to prepare a building for a world in which building programs change much faster than the buildings themselves? How does designing, materializing and detailing relate to the social role of architecture? And what impact does building have on our lives and that of the generations after us?

The three design studios in this master option explore these questions within three different domains: new construction, renovation and interior design. The starting point is always a concrete site on which questions are released from a reflection on our society. Sometimes the question is very controlled and concrete design proposals are made for the place, sometimes the question is deliberately very open and the main focus is on research and critical reflection.

By involving all kinds of actors (local authorities, users, landowners, other designers, ...) in the studios, the student designs acquire a great sense of reality. Like this, the result of each master studio becomes much more than a series of individual student responses to a theoretical question. The sum of the various student designs of one studio can rather be read as one global result of a research by design.

new

New Schools for Old Laken

This studio investigates the role of new public buildings in the transformation of our cities. This year, the programme of a primary school was taken as a starting point to deal with a number of current urban challenges.

How can a new school contribute to the quality of life in a dense urban neighbourhood?

How can indoor and outdoor spaces of a school be opened up outside school hours? What typology and space demand does the program of a primary school in the city generate today. How does the design respond to changes in the future?

How can the introduction of a school contribute to more permeable terrain and more biodiversity in our cities. What architectural expression does a school for small children in a large city have?

…

In a first week, the students examined a number of iconic and innovative schools built in the past century. By using plans, photos from past and present and by making site models (1:400) and architectural models (1:50) of these schools, a catalogue of inspiring school concepts was actively built up in the studio.

From the second week on, the site of the design was examined: the Old Laken district in Brussels, where the local authorities are currently looking for a new redevelopment logic for the interiors of large, saturated building blocks. The studio picks up on this topic and makes proposals for densification in combination with creating more open space for a specific building block in Old Laken. The result of the studio is a varied set of designs with seven proposals for a new school for Old Laken: diverse concepts of new spatial configurations for indoor and outdoor spaces, serving the school and the neighbourhood. Just like with the analysis in the first week, each design culminates in an site model (1:400) and an architectural model (1:50)

[1] Contrast of garden and grid — This design proposes a primary school that is organized in a very compact manner, leaving a very large part of the site as a wild garden for school and neighbourhood. The semi underground sports hall, dining area, workshops and classes of the primary school are spontaneously stacked. The kindergarten classes cover a playground and match the street profile.

[2] Merging in the urban landscape — This school is horizontally organized, with all classes around a large courtyard as an oasis in the dense urban context. An open space is introduced on each adjacent street as a small parvis between school and neighbourhood. By choosing a well considered arrangement of sports hall and refectory and by bundling studios and library in a separate house, a large part of the school can be used during evenings, weekends and holiday periods.

HAL 9 HAL 9 is a protected monument. Strangely enough, the architectural qualities also form the Achilles’ heel for realizing a repurposing. The years of vacancy, in the middle of an urban context, already demonstrate this. Traditionally, a monument is seen as untouchable. In the current context of climate change, densification tasks, softening, growing space needs for new programmes, this proposition is still difficult to maintain for all heritage buildings. Within the conservation of monuments, a trend is also on the rise under the heading of “experimental preservation”. Protagonists of this movement such as the Dutch RAAAF, artist Adam Lowe or architect-artist Jorge Otero-Paillos defend the necessity of experimentation in order to increase the knowledge of objects - and even to protect their future. Experimental preservation wants to approach restoration as a creative action, and thus places less emphasis on the technical actions associated with restoration (repair, repair, etc.). The design research within the restoration once again takes center stage. Just as this studio wishes to do.

Within this framework, students start from a conceptual research question when dealing with the site. The research of Dutch master builder Floris Alkemade (Rewriting architecture, 10+1 actions) is also an inspiration to look for direction. In addition, there is no predetermined program. Students make their own reflection on a socially relevant program and refine this during the design.

In addition to the merits of the individual proposals, the studio’s result can also be viewed as a whole. The studio shows a very wide and diverse palette of options for dealing with the vacant HAL 9.

[1] Reimagine — High tech is here a foundation for the repurposing. A nod to the 19th century high tech past of the railway shed. They devise a mixed programme of food production, research and training. In this way, the warehouse provides an answer to the climate challenges surrounding food (short chain, food labs,...).

[2] Weiterbauen — The old conglomerate in wich Hal 9 was embedded was the inspiration. The industrial past has meanwhile been repurposed as a residential area. Research into the housing needs of the ‘undercommons’ in Leuven leads to a surprising proposal to supplement and restore HAL 9 as a residential conglomerate with an integrated public connection.

Dak: half open, half transparant (polycarbonaat platen)

Duplexen met passerelle

Simplexen met passerelle Rijhuizen Simplexen Ateliers

Structuur balken en kolommen Luifel

interior

Circularity

In this design studio, students design a multifunctional piece of furniture that will be used at the entrances of the KU Leuven buildings.

In the first instance, the students have to design a concept that is generally applicable; in the second instance, it has to be adapted to a specific context.

The furniture combines a number of necessary functions, which are now usually found in a sloppy, non-integrated way in the entrance halls.

The focus is on sustainability and circularity. The students have to use materials that are available for reuse and that they can find in material banks. An additional condition is that the design must be demountable and removable. The students have to investigate the possibilities of the materials and the atmosphere they can create with them.

The end result is a mock-up of part of the design and the construction details.

[1] The Box — The Box is a composition made out of leftover steel reinforcement meshes, recovered from construction sites. Because the steel is not welded but bent, a box can easily be dismantled for a new use. The steel skeleton is supplemented with recycled or leftover textiles which give the raw steel a soft touch. Different atmospheres can be created with the various textures and colours of the fabric.

[2] The wall — Different types of old doors from the material banks are combined to create a secondary wall in the entrances, a compact solution to combine different functions. The wall can be easily adapted or reassembled based on the need of space.

Master option Architectural Engineering

The master option Architectural Engineering focusses on the potential of specific constructions and our building culture. We want to explore inventive and integral solutions for the ecological and social challenges of today. How can we use a building and its components in a climateneutral and future-oriented manner?

Research themes are inert and adaptive constructions, reuse and circularity. When should a building be solid or by contrast filigree? What are the merits of a robust structure and a flexible infill? How can we rethink an existing building in a meaningful way? More than ever we are aware that raw materials and energy are finite. We bet on a smart and limited use of materials, sustainable building parts and low-tech installations by expanding our know-how on what building entails.

We look for built logic, but also spaciousness and sensory surprises. The structural composition, materials used and technical elaboration of structures and installations determine the haptic qualities of a space or building. This way we have a lot of fun imagining things around us. How do we want them to sound or feel? What do they smell or look like?

In three studios, students undertake this fascinating quest towards a bold and sustainable future.

Transformational Buildings

Some of the buildings we inhabit are able to withstand time. They often seem to do so in an almost casual manner. We have come to accept them as familiar and therefore indispensable parts of our lives. When they wither we make them fresh again. When their programs become obsolete we repurpose them. Some of them are regarded as heritage, but most are not. In every case they share a distinct common denominator, these buildings encapsulate a strong and defiant architectural nucleus.

In this studio we explore the merits of these Transformational Buildings. Clearly they offer a proven and at the same time exciting way forward. As the indiscriminate tearing down of in the best case circular buildings can never be a viable option we need to envision existing and new buildings as sustainable infrastructure. As volatile structures ready for an open and ever changing future.

By drawing on bOb van Reeths Intelligent Ruin, Steward Brands How Buildings Learn and other canonical or historic references we examine the potential of every layer of a building. Thereby taking a special interest in its primordial aspects: site, structure and skin. Buildings with a clear, readable and direct structure and skin are the most successful at being infinitely adaptable, capable of being re-configured and reorganised. While it may seem paradoxical, it is in a strong physical presence, a robustness, that a building remains open to new interventions.

In this studio we focus on an awkward triangular plot at ‘Het Eilandje’ in Antwerp. A monolith building and an interchangeable program give ample opportunity to examine the possibilities of sustainable open buildings as structures for every future.

[1] Sameness — Brought about by the repetition of pattern and standardisation, the potential in the variation within sameness becomes apparent. Subtle differences with regard to the type both in frame and infill make for a rigorous and adaptable building, as they can be modified to suit place, use or way of life.

[2] Generous frame — A delicate and rhythmic frame construction in glued laminated timber gives room to complete flexibility in the internal layout of the project. The open plan is complimented by a elegant banded facade in ceramic panelling. Thereby instilling a clear overall appearance of the building, reminiscent of its genus loci.

New Didactic Center

The aim of the exercise is to design a New Didactic Center with 2 lecture halls, collaborative spaces and seminar rooms.

The assignment is a realistic assignment and part of the ‘Living Campus’ on the Arenberg campus. The New Didactic Center must be connected to an existing building with 2 auditoriums.

The emphasis in the design is on minimal energy consumption and sustainability through a smart combination of thorough insulation, optimal use of passive solar gains and intelligent integration of various techniques.

The starting point for the construction of the building is the application of CLT, Cross Laminated Timber.

The students work out the designs individually, down to the level of detail.

[1] Eye Catcher — In order to obtain maximum transparency at ground level, the building as a whole has been raised. This also creates a visual and spatial connection between Langestaartveld and the central square. Due to the special position of the auditoriums on Celestijnenlaan, they are an eye catcher for everyone who visits the campus.

[2] Symmetry — The design is a symmetrical building that fits in well with the existing building. The construction of the building limits the footprint, marks the site and offers a beautiful view over the campus and the Langestaartveld. The energy demand is limited by using a heat pump, solar panels and geothermal energy.

CECA house of Willy Van der Meeren

Although outdated and often unadapted, the existing building stock of our cities harbours a great potential. Unfortunately, there often seems to be a conflict of interest between the renovation of buildings, accounting for the architectural and heritage qualities, and the current challenges of spatial efficiency, sustainability, gentrification and climate change.

The studio accepts this challenge, taking the CECA house of Willy Van der Meeren in park De Bruul in Leuven as a case study. The house, built in 1956, was a prototype for a development of 50 identical houses in the park. Currently, the building accommodates the youth work of community-based and non-profit organization vzw ‘t Lampeke. How can this uninsulated heritage building be transformed into a youth house for these socially vulnerable youngsters, taking into consideration the current ambitions of energy efficiency and sustainability?

During the first week, the building is spatially and structurally surveyed by a detailed analysis of the different building components. A keen awareness of the building materials and techniques used for its construction, is necessary for a suitable renovation strategy. After this onsite investigation, the studio is developed as a collective ‘research by design’ studio, divided into 4 design teams. Each team addresses different aspects of a possible renovation strategy (with the emphasis on energetic sustainability). The design studio was organized in close collaboration with the heritage agency from Leuven and the people involved in the local youth work.

The diverse design strategies are shown in 4 different, state-of-the-art models on a scale of 1/5, with a particular focus on the architectural expression of the technical detail.

[1] Surplus space — Economy and surplus as a strategy to maximize the potential reuse of the building. The renovation strategy for the existing building is a refined ‘back to original’ restoration, supplemented with a heavy duty extension. This generous ‘surplus space’ is an adaptive space, anticipating to future changes. The modular, prefabricated wooden structure dialogues with the CECA house.

[2] CECA 2.0 — The design approaches the CECA building as a socio economic housing experiment, rather than a mere heritage project. The original concept of interchangeable elements in the slender steel façades, is adopted in a catalogue of alternative façade arrangements within a new curtain wall, adaptive to possible future reuse of the building.

Master option Urban Project

Architecture as a design research discipline is ideally placed to look beyond the boundaries of their own domain, their own capabilities and the processes that shape our environment. For those who are curious about the interaction between architecture and the urban environment, there is the master option Urban Project. In this master we investigate how the (un)built environment can be part of the solution for the big transition challenges we are dealing with as a society. What does climate adaptation look like? How does one construct the mobility transition? What does an inclusive public space look like? Do we still need to build? Who is best placed to take the initiative?

The ateliers in this master are designed to cover various techniques and strategies. The exercises are placed in a concrete reality and linked to real questions from the field and ongoing research projects in the department. For example, in the coming years we will be working with students on the future of village development, inclusiveness in urban development and spatial strategies of climate change. This is done in collaboration with various local governments, action groups, community workers, industrial entrepreneurs and researchers.

Students are challenged to question their own role as architects. As a designer, sometimes you make buildings, sometimes it is the is the open space that lies between them that needs to be addressed, or the landscape system that is always present and resides underneath everything. For some transitions one has more impact as activist than builder. Sometimes as a designer you learn as much from fieldwork as you do by drawing with people who don’t speak a design language. Sometimes the detail is the beginning of a radically different use of public space. This is how we train architects who are able to rethink the urban context in an inquisitive and critical way.

studios urban tissue 86 public infrastructure 90 civic space 94

urban tissue

Wijgmaal

In this studio we look at villages. Villages as the result of a past, but also looking ahead, with a focus on the growing city, nearby. What is the role of the village, in the context of a growing urban territory?

The search for compact urban cores, well connected through sustainable and qualitative transport systems, and prone to today’s lucrative real estate operations, puts the villages under pressure.

With the discussion on the ‘bouwshift’ gaining momentum, and larger urban transport strategies taking shape, villages come to the notice of project developers, policy makers and not in the least the villagers themselves.

Where urban sprawl and ribbon development have been filling up the land the since decades, time has come for a new wave of urbanisation. New apartment buildings are mushrooming everywhere, gradually filling up the last gaps in the village streets, thereby depriving them from the qualities they once had. However, perhaps it is not the transformation of the villages that is the problem, rather than the actual way they transform.

In this studio we want to scrutinize the processes as they happen and explore alternative, more strategic choices. How can we benefit from processes of urbanisation and densification? How can we use the transformation to also accommodate the necessary changes in terms of climate adaptation, water management, heritage, shortchain food initiatives, modal shifts, heath and draught stress, social isolation,…? Can we use the investment in real estate, to simultaneously also meet the challenges we have to deal with tomorrow?

After last year’s work on Sint-Joris-Weert en Leefdaal in the south of Leuven, we focused our studio this year on the village of Wijgmaal. We use design to investigate the opportunities for the village of tomorrow, in close collaboration with the City of Leuven.

[1] Towards a caring village — An old school is the catalyst for a transformation in the tissue, from a monofunctional residential allotment today, towards a multifunctional environment tomorrow. The project at the heart of the block instigates others to follow, with a focus on caring facilities and a new network of open space.

[2] Niemandsrand — By facing the street, the village turns it back to the landscape it surrounds. With new buildings, programmes and spaces on the verge of the existing tissue and the landscape, this project aims to turn around the condition, and re engage the village with the landscape it had long forgotten.

public infrastructure

Studio Schildestrand

Fort ‘s Gravenwezel in Schilde was transformed into a recreational area with a beach after the Second World War: ‘Schildestrand’. Thousands of tonnes of unreinforced concrete transformed into a small paradise, surrounded by a deep moat. Over time, the beach huts became large and small holiday homes, which were not only temporarily but also permanently inhabited. The municipality of Schilde hopes to recapture the public character of the fortress in the medium term, without compromising its valuable social context.

Studio Schildestrand is compiling six projects that can be started today, here and there with the cooperation of the fort’s residents, thus combining the private, inhabited character with a public experience. This celebrates the historical stratification of the fort: its identity of excavation and embankment, its relationship to the water, the impressive concrete infrastructure that hangs together as a whole; its former recreational function with the added staged concrete rocks, the dynamiting of certain parts of the fort, the recreated topography with a soft beach and average height to avoid strong differences; but also the longer time dimension of new vegetation that was able to thrive on it and now makes a new ecology out of it and the residents who have appropriated the fort in all kinds of ways and now often take care of it.

[1] The canal filter — The intervention focuses on improving the water quality of the moat around the fort by creating a floating wetland. This filters harmful substances from the water, while the tubular structure can be used by people to congregate or just to relax in a natural environment.

[2] Triple point — The targeted concrete demolition and addition of minimum infrastructure in the fort’s imposing future gate creates a range of characterful spaces that emphasise the qualities of the fort’s architecture: the half buried dark bat cave, a double height exhibition space and mysterious, warm water room and a new collective use space as an extension of the Kriekskes.

civic space

Future Forming Brussels North

The studio ‘Future Forming Brussels North –Designing with Material Agency’ took place during the winter of 2021. The studio focusses on the resourcefulness of Brussels’ North Station and its environment. The studio aims to uncover relations between material and immaterial resources and, through incremental urban design, strengthen networks between new and yet present organizations. The principal aim is to develop design scenarios that are deeply anchored in the spatial and social complexity of the site, while focusing on the imaging of transitional pilot-projects as potential catalyst for urban transformation.

The studio seeks to design with time and departs from the spatial and social resourcefulness of the station environment of Brussels North. We operate as a large urban research and design team and map out the architectural and urbanistic opportunities that result from the ongoing changing userpatterns. The city is permanently under construction: displacing people, disposing materials and creating the promise of new urbanity. How can these flows of resources be used innovatively in urban design? The need for systemic change is urgent. The studio takes up the challenge to think of alternative uses and developments of spaces and resources that work towards alternative futures by initiating them as of today. The inertia and inherent slowness of spatial transformation will be incited with speculative instantinterventions. How can pervasive urban change be triggered by right away meddling in with the present? How can temporality and transition be spatially orchestrated and steered by radical and innovative design?

[1] Agora for the City — The sites large urban artefacts are kept and repurposed to a public cultural infrastructure, a natural reserve and housing. This radical shift toward a multitude of possible uses, is structured in 12 components (among which ‘Nature’s right to the city’ and ‘Stacked Leasure’) and illustrated in an all encompassing drawing.

[2] Street / Seed / Tread / Repeat

— This project focusses on the demineralization of the North Quarter. A series of new practices is suggested connected to this process: the renewal of the street profiles, the plantation of more biodiverse species, recreational uses. They span different scales and publics and make up for a more healthy and diverse cityscape.

Master’s thesis

In the final year of training, our students complete their Master’s thesis. In doing so, they can choose from a wide range of proposals presented by the lecturers at the Department of Architecture. The list is always long and includes design and research topics from architectural theory and history, building techniques, urban planning, landscape, ... , in short, all possible facets that are part of the department’s training to become an architectural engineer or that are the subject of academic research.

Master’s theses also take very different forms, ranging from academic theses to concrete designs of a building, a building system, a district, up to and including territorial development strategies. Master’s theses often adopt a ‘hybrid’ format that combines processes and outputs and focuses on spatial and theoretical analysis as well as tangible design exercises. In most cases, the design is not a finality in itself but rather a research tool. Certain scenarios, forms or systems are explored and tested. This is called designbased research.

Regardless of theme or format, master’s theses have in common that they are the final element in the training (of the student) to become an architectural engineer. The master’s thesis demonstrates the capacity of the future architectural engineer to master complex spatial issues with knowledge and skills. At the same time, students are challenged to concretely frame the work, take a critical stance and make it relevant to today’s society. That is why many Master’s theses are set up in cooperation with external actors and thus resonate outside the walls of the university, where the challenge lies.

Possible Futures

Leuven 2050. Studio Japan. The future is now !

Aline Lenaerts & Theresa Martens

Promotor : Geert De Neuter

Co promotor : David Driesen

From Yanaka in Google perspective, the students set out virtually to look ahead to Leuven 2050. In the immersion of a multitude of things in the Japanese fabric, a different urbanity with different rules and relationships was then sought.

The future is now !

With a critical look at the Leuven’s fabric, the focus came on the astonishingly large amount of residual space and dead streets. Inspired by the many objects, scales and community customs from Japan, this residual space is activated with a collage of interwoven rules and various elements and rules.

A question about disharmony: finding beauty in ugliness and learning to appreciate the essential qualities in the urban fabric beyond the beauty of the day. After all, it quickly evaporates, just like the Japanese cherry blossom blooms only briefly.

Companions, at the Round Table!

Laura Dreesen

Promotor: Ward Verbakel

Through a Socratic dialogue with the bottom up citizens’ initiative ‘De Kompaan’ on food in Borgerhout, this thesis organizes a collective reflection. The programming and further development of the ‘De Kompaan’ house as a neighbourhood food atelier is examined, as well as the role(s) played by architects in such socio spatial projects. Instruments developed for them such as the compass and the role/habitat maps and radical images of the future based on active participation, in depth interviews and co creative workshop moments indicate a possible future as a neighbourhood atelier and re evaluate the network of food initiatives in Borgerhout.

1— Focus and complementarity as the basis for the spatial development of ‘De Kompaan’ and its Borgerhout network.

via the QR-code — At the ‘Round Table’ the dialogue is opened around four extreme, possible roles for the neighbourhood food workshop.

2— The Round Table: A co-creative workshop series prompts ‘De Kompaan’ participants to rethink their own roles.

3— Paved playground transforms into food burial and discovery area taking over the role of storage space from the neighbourhood food workshop.

4 — The food compass as a tool orients ‘De Kompaan’ experiment towards the future.

5— Design translation of the conceived role for the neighbourhood food workshop and the social vision of ‘De Kompaan’ as the Reuskens’ kitchen.

1— Implantation plan. The various modes of transport are each given their place and transfer points. Between the flows, there is time and space to linger. The arrangement of the volumes creates open spaces that connect to each other.

2— Thinker-maker map.

In the north of the city lie the opportunities of tomorrow. It is the last place where the transformation into a monofunctional city can be stopped. ‘Transfo’ seizes this opportunity. The diversity of flows connects the different users of its system. Thinkers and makers find a new balance.

3— Overview photo maquette.

In their turn, the flows direct the built environment. New objects implant themselves along the streams they interact with. The source, the attic and the living lab fill in the new forecourt of the logistics hall.

4— In the attic. With its towers on the waterfront, the attic complements the icons of residential real estate and the knowledge economy. It stacks and automates Leuven’s storage to preserve the precious space in the city center.

5— The source develops the flows of employees or visitors arriving by bike, on foot or by water taxi. It houses the collective facilities of the site or even more broadly, the entire business park. Besides catering, there is room for relaxation, sports and meeting.

Transfo, the freight hub for a city under tension

Stef Van Leugenhaege

Promotor : Ward Verbakel

Co promotor : Jonas De Maeyer Master project studio

Hybrid Factory Hybrid City

Even a capital of innovation needs ‘dirty’ work. On the edge of the city, on the last remnants of Leuven’s industry, ‘Transfo’ is looking for the right mix of ‘factory’ and ‘city’. The goods hub between Vaart and Dijle combines new stacked warehouses, re used warehouses and modular work units linked to the city’s multimodal flows.

Christopher Wren and the 17th-Century Auditorium Church: A Proof of Concept or a Theoretical Fallacy?!

Marijke Houvenaghel

Promotor : Krista De Jonge Architect Christopher Wren called his 17th century London parish churches designs fitted for auditoriums. Wren’s statements about ‘Auditorium Churches’ were tested visually and acoustically using a historical 3D model of St Stephen’s Walbrook Church. In room acoustic software, its 17th century soundscape was virtually simulated, and can be listened to via auralisations.

Go to https://architectuur.kuleuven.be/ perspectives-architecture-distant-past to hear a sermon in the original conditions.

1— Calculation of acoustic parameters in the room acoustic software with indication of Wren’s zone for good hearing: STI (Speech Intelligibility Index) and SPL(A) (A-weighted Sound Pressure Level)

3— Visual analysis of sightlines towards the preacher

2— Acoustical impulse response tests in St Stephen’s Walbrook Church for an accurate attribution of sound absorption coefficients to the 3D model

4— St Stephen’s Walbrook Church: a domed parish church designed by Wren

5— Reconstruction of the 17th century church layout with indication of the degree of hypothesis of the modelled elements

Architectural details through time and space

Kerstin Bex Femke Cammans Ine Verniers

Promotors: Staf Roels, Rob Mols

Why are today’s standard details the way they are? In a joint preliminary study, the drivers of the evolution of common cavity wall details since 1945 were identified. The corresponding concrete adjustments to performance requirements and standard details were also studied. Afterwards, the findings were extended in three follow up studies to the evolution of architectural practice in Flanders, the circular future of the cavity wall and a comparative study with Dutch cavity wall details.

2a— Evolution of cavity wall detailing in Flemish architectural practice, Ine Verniers: The evolving detailing principles influence the architectural freedom. On the other hand, design choices also have an impact on construction details. This is illustrated by a generic façade image and façade section of HASA, one of the offices whose archives were studied.

1— Masonry cavity walls from 1945 to the present is a joint preliminary study. Timelines were drawn up with events that resulted in adjustments to the detailing.

2c— The influence of building tradition on detailing, Kerstin Bex: Building tradition largely explains the differences between Belgian and Dutch cavity wall details. For example, the traditionally contrasting construction sequence has a significant influence on the attachment of the joinery to the inner leaf.

2b— Towards demountable cavity wall details, Femke Cammans: Future reference details were worked out on the basis of circular example projects.

(left) The window connections were made more demountable by choosing a frame with the same life span as the thermal insulation layer instead of foam.

(right) Dry connections based on swelling bands were also considered. Their ability to achieve an airtight joint was tested experimentally in the Building Physics lab.

03— Sint-Gerardus’s pedagogical vision summarized in a diagram to align the design with it and to position the qualities and constraints. © Stien Dictus

4a— Quality: removing restrictions and creating possibilities for movement.

© Stien Dictus

Impression of Sint-Gerardus, a school for children with a (neuro-) motoric or multiple handicap

© Sint-Gerardus

Design intentions and user experience:

Qualitative and design research about a school for children with disabilities

Stien Dictus

Promotors: Ann Heylighen, Sarah Flebus

Architects design with a view to a certain user experience. How users experience the result can correspond with this view, but can also differ significantly from it. This master’s thesis examines how design intentions and user experience can be better aligned. The case study is the primary school for special education Sint Gerardus.

1— General approach

The qualities and bottlenecks of the existing building are identified, based on user experience, and how they support or counteract the pedagogical vision. With the insights from the qualitative research a design study will be done to reorganize the building in a way that supports the pedagogical vision more strongly.

© Stien Dictus

5— A design scenario for reorganization based on the project definition. Instead of starting from the ambition to ‘make the building flexible’, flexibility is used in a targeted way to support the pedagogical vision and experience of the users.

© Stien Dictus

2— The basic concept of the existing building: ‘Everything under one roof’. © Architect

4b— Bottleneck: increase in the number of pupils c auses overcrowded corridors and an abundance of stimuli.

© Stien Dictus

A Homeless Atlas: Shelter as a Hidden Housing Typology in New York City

Sophie Demeestere

Promotors: Jeroen Stevens, Viviana d’Auria

Since the introduction of the right to shelter in 1983, the homeless shelter system in New York City has grown into a multi billion dollar business managing over 600 buildings. This thesis examines how the shelter system in its diversity has been implemented in the urban fabric of New York City and how it manifests itself architecturally in its environment.

1— Infographic.

Over the last forty years the homeless shelter complex in New York has grown exponentially.

Families with children, in particular, are currently a rapidly growing group of shelter residents.

2— Homeless Infrastructure.

As a result of the right to shelter enacted for every New York City resident in 1983, New York City has developed one of the most comprehensive homeless shelter systems in the world. This system has spread throughout the urban fabric, from the Bronx to Brooklyn.

03 & 04— JAMS Shelter & Susan’s Place.

Several cases were researched through fieldwork to map the realities of the shelter system from the inside. These included the tension between privacy versus protection or the reuse of derelict properties.

TOHART

Maarten Bouwen Fund

Who was Maarten Bouwen? – Maarten Bouwen (1976-2014) graduated as an architectural engineer from the KU Leuven in the year 2000. As a student, Maarten had an enormous interest in viable and sustainable urban architecture and he continued this passion throughout his career. He was very involved and committed and immersed himself in social issues, such as consumerism and big-city culture, and how they relate to architecture. After graduating, he worked for several years as a city architect in Molenbeek and Brussels-Capital. He paid a great deal of attention to livable and sustainable urban architecture.

As an architectural engineer, he always took his responsibility, even when working on difficult projects. The metropolitan context brought with it fields of tension and difficult to bridge contradictions between a multitude of parties involved. Maarten was convinced that the power of architecture could be used to bring these contradictions together in one way or another. That drive characterized him.

Architectural engineering programme –After Maarten’s death, the Bouwen family set up a fund that promotes and supports the study and practice of sustainable architecture in the architectural engineering course at the KU Leuven Department of Architecture. This fund (°20 May 2016) awards an annual prize to a Master student in Engineering: Architecture, who in his or her final design deals excellently with sustainability in the built environment.

What is sustainable architecture? — Sustainable architecture obviously has to do with energy-efficient and environmentally friendly building, but it also encompasses more. This form of architecture requires a broad social approach in which the architectural organization of a building or a set of buildings is also a reflection of supported social relationships and of cultural meanings that connect past, present and future.

juRy 2022

The jury unanimously decided that the Maarten Bouwen Prize 2022 would go to Laura Dreesen’s master’s thesis ‘Kompanen, at the round table!’ (promotor Ward Verbakel). This is a very complete thesis, in which the student combines social questions, participatory design and a conceptual approach in a work that is innovative in its narrative structure and its graphic presentation.

This results in an original and layered piece of work, with attention to different angles and scale levels. The other dissertations on the shortlist, those by the trio of Kerstin Bex, Femke Cammans and Ine Verniers, and the dissertations by Sophie Demeestere, are exemplary in terms of analysis and graphics, though lacking some sharpness in terms of social questioning and critical reflection.

On ThE ShORTLIST

Kerstin Bex, Femke Cammans, Ine Verniers Architecture details through time & space (one joint part and three separate sub-studies) promotors: Staf Roels, Rob Mols

The thesis of Kerstin Bex, Femke Cammans and Ine Verviers treats the cavity wall as a changing element in Belgian architectural practice. The students investigate how social evolutions, changing regulations and scientific progress have an impact on the detailing of the cavity wall. Ine Verviers then investigated how the architectural details of example projects from practice relate to the standard details, Femke Cammans how the current standard details of NIS homes can be converted into a demountable version with an eye for circularity and Kerstin Bex mapped out the differences between Belgium and the Netherlands in the detailing of the cavity walls.

Sophie Demeestere

A Homeless Atlas.

Shelter as a Hidden Housing Typology in New York City promotors: Viviana d’Auria, Jeroen Stevens

Sophie Demeestere’s master’s thesis focuses on homeless shelters in New York City. The thesis approaches the city as an infrastructure that the homeless have to deal with day after day. The emphasis is on the system of homeless shelter in special centers, in which different typologies are studied. The research is based on literature study and fieldwork (January March 2022). She visited several facilities that she discusses in various case studies. The final work takes the form of a graphic atlas showing how the hidden infrastructure for the homeless is part of New York City’s spatial anatomy.

Laura Dreesen’s master’s thesis includes a chronicle of a social food experiment in Borgerhout (VZW De Kompaan), a call for a possible next step in the evolution of that organisation as a socio spatial neighborhood initiative and a design proposal for the renovation of their base, an abandoned bakery. The student departs from a profound involvement in the food initiative of ‘de Kompaan’, as a fellow companion and as a critical discussion partner. It is therefore not a distant thesis, but a committed piece that also wants to have a concrete and sustainable impact on the way people view food in the city. The student subjects the building master plan, that was previously drawn up, to a personal and critical evaluation that zooms in on the spatial aspect, but especially also on the organisational aspect and the roles to be taken on. In this thesis, this critical reading then becomes the basis for research by design and for an innovative participatory thought process that she developed, tested and evaluated herself. Four different scenarios are used to explore various actions related to food: growing, storing, processing, selling, consuming, distributing… The conclusions of these far reaching visions of the future lead to a final design for the bakery and a vision of the network within which the food companion operates.

Laura Dreesen ‘Kompanen, at the round table!’ –

A Socratic dialogue with neighborhood food studio ‘De Kompaan’ about its spatial programming and architecture within Borgerhout Promotor: Ward Verbakel

2— Compass on the wall as a facilitator of the conversation

3— Kompanen, at the round table ! step

In the picture

Onze studenten, gastdocenten, studiobegeleiders en professoren vallen regelmatig in de prijzen of worden genomineerd voor prestaties in de architectuurwereld. We geven hier graag een overzicht van de awards in het academiejaar 2021-2022 binnen de opleiding ingenieur-architect.

Straffe medewerkers

Els Van Meerbeek, gastdocent 1bira — Carton123 architecten

• Belgian Building Awards 2022 : runner up categorie groepswoningbouw project Korbeek Winners: meergezinswoning 4 gezinnen, Leuven

• nominatie voor Brussels Architecture Prize 2021 project Malibran: jeugdhuis in Elsene, Brussel project Standaertsite : ontmoetingscentrum en park, Ledeberg Gent

Europa Nostra Award voor herbestemmingsproject

Batterij Aachen — Prof. Stijn Cools, aNNo architecten

Batterij Aachen, dat deel uitmaakt van het openluchtmuseum Atlantikwall Raversyde – gelegen in het gelijknamige provinciedomein, is laureaat van de Europese Erfgoedprijs European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards 2022 binnen de categorie ‘Conservation and Adaptive Reuse’. Jury van de awards citeert: “De revitalisering van Batterij Aachen is uniek in zijn soort, met een grote Europese betekenis en pedagogische waarde. Dit goed gerestaureerde erfgoed roept zijn bezoekers op om na te denken over hoe vrede kan worden opgebouwd na een verschrikkelijke oorlog. De integratie van hedendaagse kunst in de erfgoedruimte is prijzenswaardig”.

Goedele Desmet en Ivo Vanhamme, BOB361 architects — Highly Commended Civic Trust Award 2022 Verweven stedelijke ecologie. Het verweven van ecologische openbare ruimte voor traag verkeer in de stedelijke dichtheid van Vorst Brussel door het modelleren van de volumetrie van 59 passiefwoningen en een kribbe.

Studenten nominaties ingenieur-architect

Tobias Verbanck laureaat voor de Marcel Herman Prijs 2021 Tobias Verbanck ontving de prijs voor zijn masterscriptie ‘Ontwerp en milieu impactanalyse van HVAC systemen in de vroege ontwerpfase voor kantoorgebouwen’ onder begeleiding van prof.dr.ir. Karen Allacker, Delphine Ramon en Joost Declercq (Archipel). Binnen het proefschrift creëerde Tobias een raamwerk voor het dimensioneren van HVAC systemen in de vroege ontwerpfase en voerde hij vervolgens een levenscyclusanalyse uit.

Marie-Sophie Vindevogel en Arnaud Vander Donckt halen de VRPAfstudeerprijs 2021 binnen VRP Afstudeerprijs 2021 gaat naar Marie Sophie Vindevogel en Arnaud Vander (gedeelde 1ste plaats). Hun gezamenlijke thesis gaat over “Een daklozenatlas: de architectuur van precaire huisvesting in Brussel”. Een jaartje eerder wonnen ze met hun project ook al de duurzame architectuur Maarten Bouwen Prijs.

ruïne’, waarbij de gevels geen deel uitmaken van de dragende structuren, verdeelt de elementen van het gebouw in verschillende levenscycli die autonoom kunnen verlopen.

De betonnen ruggengraat is de kern van het project, letterlijk en figuurlijk, omdat hij ontworpen is om meer dan een eeuw mee te gaan.

© Filip Dujardin

Eervolle vermelding op de Concrete Design Competition 2021-2022 voor Eline Van Uytsel en Nathan Kolenberg ‘Paper Doll Towers’ is een ontwerp dat een onderdeel vormt van de Oude Dokken in Gent. Het bestaat uit een permanente kern en lichte, verwisselbare muren, net als een papieren pop die zich kan omkleden om zich aan te passen aan de smaak van de eigenaar. Deze manier van het ontwerpen van een ‘intelligente

Op deze manier kan beton duurzaam worden gebruikt door in te spelen op zijn sterke punten: duurzaamheid en duurzaamheid. De jury waardeert hoe duurzaamheid en flexibiliteit worden gecombineerd. Het is interessant hoe materialen, in dit geval beton, nieuwe typologieën kunnen creëren op basis van de manier waarop het wordt gefabriceerd.

© Olmo Peeters

© André Nullens

Existenz jaar komt een nieuwe groep gedreven masterstudenten ingenieur-architect samen om een collectief te vormen. Het resultaat ‘Existenz’ onderzoekt architectuur: hoe het beweegt, waar de grenzen liggen en hoe we die zelf kunnen verleggen. Van archi-feestjes tot lezingen, van lokale uitstappen tot een reis door Duitsland. Het werd een jaar vol activiteiten.

Existenzweek

Het Existenzjaar kreeg haar hoogtepunt met de Existenzweek: een week waarin alle Existenzwerkgroepen samenwerken om hun stempel te drukken op de stad. Al meer dan twintig jaar lang neemt Existenz leegstaande panden over in de stad Leuven om dit fenomeen aan te kaarten. Deze unieke locaties worden nieuw leven ingeblazen door middel van verschillende ingrepen. Existenz behandelt hierbij een verscheidenheid aan thema’s binnen de architectuur en maakt de panden toegankelijk voor een breed publiek. Gedurende de hele week werd er een café geopend, workshops georganiseerd, gewerkt in de ontwerpateliers, werden er lezingen en optredens georganiseerd, … Dit jaar vestigde ze zich in de Sint Jacobskerk, een gebouw dat maar liefst 60 jaar een bouwwerf was. De stad wil de kerk terug nieuw leven in blazen en wil ze open stellen voor buurtactiviteiten. Existenz kreeg de eer het pilootproject te mogen zijn en konden het pand kortstondig innemen tijdens hun Existenzweek. Een eerste aanzet werd gedaan om te laten zien wat dergelijke ruimte kan betekenen voor buurtbewoners.

Unité – inclusiviteit Unité vormt een vaste waarde in het Existenzverhaal. Al meer dan 10 jaar kaart Unité verschillende deelaspecten van architectuur aan. Dit semester werd er gekozen voor ‘inclusiviteit’, een breed onderwerp met verschillende intersectionele thema’s. Er werd onderzocht welke rol de gebouwde omgeving speelt in verhalen van inclusie en exclusie. De inclusiviteit van de architectuurpraktijk werd in vraag gesteld. We zetten aan tot denken, openen dialoog en maken problemen zichtbaar.

Beluister zeker de laatste podcasts van Existenz en lees de nieuwste Unité!

1_Bira Karen Allacker

Hanne Eckelmans Philippe Morel Barbara Oelbrandt Maxime Prananto Otsoe Verdonckt

Els Van Meerbeek

Mira_AO

Stijn Cools Sarah Flebus

Joris Moonen Staf Roels Brecht Verstraete Karel Vandenhende

Onderzoekers betrokken bij het ontwerponderwijs Tobias Barbier Claire Bosmans Willem Gythiel Natalia Pérez Liebergesell

Daan Van Cauteren

Els Van de moortel Evelien Verellen

Support

Architectuur Valerie Aendekerk

Natasja Ausseloos Ben Brants (†) Laura Calders Eve Lapiere Lisa Nedossékina Kelly Ruymen Ann Schram

2_Bira Geert De Neuter Isabelle De Smet David Driesen Ghislain Lams Mattias Schevenels

3_Bira Goedele Desmet Anne Valerie de Muelenaere Guy Van Den Bogaert Ivo Vanhamme Jona Moereels

Mira_BO Rob Mols Staf Roels Joost Ruland Dirk Saelens Mattias Schevenels Leo Van Broeck Tom Vermeylen Mira_SP Yuri Gerrits Dieter Leyssen Joris Moonen Ward Verbakel Wim Wambecq Claire Bosmans

2_Mira thesis studio’s Karen Allacker Stijn Cools Thomas Coomans Viviana d’Auria Bruno De Meulder David Driesen Geert De Neuter Yuri Gerrits Rob Mols Kelly Shannon Karel Vandenhende Ward Verbakel Julie Marin Jeroen Stevens Sarah Flebus

Master of Conservation of Monuments and Sites

Master of Human SettlementsMaster of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning

Postgraduate Certificate: International Module in Spatial Development Planning

advanced master programs research

Architectural Engineering Architecture, Interiority, Inhabitation

Perspectives on Architecture from the Distant Past

Leuven & Learning /Architecture/ Project & Practice

Planning & Development and Architecture the picture

‘Conservation & Adaptive Reuse’

The significance of Barbara Van der Wee’s restoration methodology in the contemporary architecture debate

Barbara Van der Wee (1957) is a Belgian architect and specialist in the restoration of the art nouveau buildings of Victor Horta (18611947). She is considered an expert in the field of heritage conservation in Belgium. She is known for her careful preparatory studies as a tool for determining the heritage value of various building components and for proposing well-founded restoration options. Parallel to her career as a designer and restorer, for more than thirty years she was a lecturer at the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (KU Leuven), where she guided generations of heritage students in their project work, giving them a taste of the practice of the restoration architect.

Text: Eline Dehullu

Adaptive Reuse — When in the early 1990s Barbara Van der Wee started restoring Victor Horta’s own house and studio in Rue de l’America in Saint-Gilles, built between 1898 and 1901, she was confronted with a methodology that was primarily aimed at preserving and protecting this heritage. After a period of disapproval and neglect of many art nouveau buildings, the first restoration works at the Horta Museum, led by Delhaye, were situated at a time when there was a desire to save everything that could be saved. It was the pioneering period of restoration and conservation, during which the house and studio were protected as the first art nouveau ensemble in Brussels’ heritage (1963). Thirty years later, when the interest in the art nouveau movement and in Horta’s oeuvre in particular was assured, the time was ripe for Barbara Van der Wee to adopt a different approach to restoration.

From the very beginning of her restoration practice in the 1990s Van der Wee developed a methodology that is not only based on protection and conservation, but on respectful and caring renovation, adaptation and reuse: restoration, adaptive reuse and rehabilitation In order to translate this philosophy into effective restoration practice, Van der Wee sticks to a few key concepts: a thorough scientific multidisciplinary preliminary investigation, the drawing up of a master plan, an integrated approach and the importance of craftsmanship.

Preliminary investigation — In Van der Wee’s approach an in-depth historical survey always precedes the actual restoration work. The preliminary study must gain a full understanding of the building’s construction history: what is part of the original condition and what are extensions or conversions. Within the building chronology, the rooms and building components are evaluated according to their historical value and a “blooming period” is determined. This blooming period (or heyday) delineates the period in which the building to be restored was most valuable from an architectural and historical point of view. This moment in the life cycle of the building is considered throughout the restoration process as the historical frame of reference that plays a crucial role in defining the options in the restoration project. The building historic preliminary study thus determines the heyday of a monument or a building of high architectural value.

Case study: Private residence with studio Victor Horta, Saint-Gilles, designed and built between 1898 and 1901, restored between 1991 and 2015.

Photo © Bastin & Evrard

Master planning — The final step in the preliminary study is the elaboration of a global master plan for restoration. Once the heritage value and the period of blooming have been determined, the different restoration options can be described and well-considered interventions can be made: which parts of the building will be preserved, restored or reconstructed, demolished or renovated and which will be adapted to a new use or function. The restoration master plan defines these principles: how and where to preserve and restore the original architectural, spatial and functional qualities of the monument, how and where to adapt the building to the new needs and programmes of the users, and how and where to integrate the prevailing standards of comfort and safety.

Moreover, it is essential - in function of the available budgets and the possible permanent accessibility of the building - to divide the whole restoration project into several implementation phases that may take several years. Therefore, a second master plan is elaborated: the operational master plan.

Case study: Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, designed and built between 1922 and 1929, restored from 2006 to the present. Below: cross section showing the interventions during the restoration of the roofs and underlying exposition halls in 2006-2010 © Barbara Van der Wee Architects

An integrated approach — During the whole process: the preliminary investigation, the elaboration of the design and restoration file and during the construction period, a close cooperation between the many specialists and advisors is indispensable. A multidisciplinary construction team is the inspiration behind an integrated approach. The importance of a holis tic approach to the restoration and updating of a historical monument with a high heritage value is crucial to Van der Wee. A thorough analysis and a good understanding of the building in all its aspects is the basis for every further control measure or intervention. The architecture, the history, the materials used and their application techniques, as well as the technical installations of a building must be accurately mapped out and understood in con sultation with various experts. These various team members are therefore involved from the start, so that they can all keep the final per

Craftsmanship — There is a lot of craftsman ship in Victor Horta’s architecture, both in the visible and the less visible elements (such as the technical rooms or the roof finishing). It is clear that in the fin de siècle there was a flourishing artisanal craftsmanship, which got complicated designs from top designers like Horta and delivered high quality work. Even though Horta’s cooperation with specialised craftsmen is a partly unrevealed story, it is known that he had his own sculpture studio in his studio flat (now the Horta Museum). Some names of craftsmen are known, such as cabinetmaker Henri Pelseneer or the forging company Petermann Société Nationale des Bronzes.

Craftsmanship plays an almost equal role in the restoration of Horta’s high-quality works of art as in their original realization: not only restoring the original appearance and materials is important, but also using the traditional techniques of Horta’s time. The group of craftsmen occupy a special place in the multidisciplinary restoration team. After all, the craftsmanship of the façade and interior details is the guarantee of authenticity in the restoration process.

Case study: Hôtel Solvay, Brussels, designed and built between 1895 and 1903, in restoration from 2022.

Photo © Barbara Van der Wee Architects

Conclusion: The relevance of restoration work within the contemporary architectural debate — For Barbara Van der Wee and her team, preserving the authenticity of a Horta building and adapting it to its contemporary function by integrating contemporary inter ventions and techniques are not contradictory. They are just integral parts of the same architectural design process. Because for Van der Wee it is not ‘just’ about preserving and protecting, but about a nuanced and continuous decision-making process that ensures that a monument can lead a future life, a restoration is always an architectural project as well. A project in which, just as in an architectural design, considerations are made about complex spatial layouts, flexible use of spaces, the relationship between architecture and urban context, daylight and ventilation, aesthetics and pragmatics. The restoration of heritage, however, involves a very specific, valuable and often fragile context in which authenticity plays an important role. This makes the decisionmaking process exceptionally precise – and exemplary.

Van der Wee’s working method can contribute in particular to the current architectural debate on the reconversion of existing buildings. Adaptive reuse has gained a foothold in the last 20 years in the debate on architectural quality and urban planning. This evolution is undoubtedly a consequence of a growing lack of open space (in the city), but is mainly motivated, in light of climate change, by the call for a complete concrete stop. Taking up open space for a new architectural project is, under current and future ecological conditions, (almost) inexcusable. The reuse and reallocation of existing buildings is therefore more important than ever.

To deal with these challenges in a sustainable and dynamic way, the restoration methodolo gy of Barbara Van de Wee, in which a thorough analysis of the existing (urbanistic) context, the drawing up of an (adaptable) master plan, working in an interdisciplinary context and the appreciation of craftsmanship and local crafts manship are paramount, can be exemplary.

Advanced Master Programs

Master of Conservation of Monuments and Sites

The Master of Conservation of Monuments and Sites is a ‘once-in-a-lifetime experience’ for built heritage preservation students. Students learn specialised conservation and restoration techniques in the field of built heritage preservation through an intensive international and interdisciplinary collaboration.

The renowned Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC), established in 1976, focuses on interdisciplinary collaboration and intercultural dialogue both in an educational and research environment.

[MCMS]

The Master of Conservation of Monuments and Sites is a three-semester, research-based academic degree. During the first year of the programme, a common theoretical and methodological framework is provided. The theoretical knowledge is put into practice during various workshops and integrated projects dealing with the different aspects of a conservation project. It is quite intensive including lectures, group work, excursions, a study trip abroad etc. The third semester is devoted to individual research including a professional internship and the writing of a master’s thesis.

More than 900 students from 71 countries all over the world and with different professional and educational backgrounds already graduated from the programme since it was first organised by the RLICC, 46 years ago. Alumni from this programme are currently working as independent professionals in preservation, restoration and management of built cultural heritage as well as in leadership and policymaking positions in conservation institutions such as UNESCO, ICOMOS and the Council of Europe. Others proceed towards a career in academia (PhD).

1— Drone-UAV tech demo during ArchDOC, a theoretical and hands-on course to the highly specialised subject of built heritage documentation. © Aziliz Vandesande

2 — First year MCMS students during their workshop on kulla’s (= fortified tower houses in the west of Kosovo) organised in April 2022 in collaboration with Cultural Heritage without Borders.

© CHwB

3 — First year MCMS students visiting the historic centre of Brugge.

© THOC

The Monastery of the Assumptionists in Leuven

From December 2021 to June 2022 we have been working on the course Integrated Project Work (IPW): The final dossier we produced represents six months of interdisciplinary research and practical application of concepts, tools and knowledge that we have been provided with in our first year of the Master of Conservation of Monuments and Sites (MCMS).

The subject of the project work has been the Monastery of the Assumptionists in Leuven. The Monastery is a fascinating example of living heritage, set in a modern architecture building on a site whose history dates to the 15 th century. During World War II the site was bombed and the Monastery complex that had been there since 1415 was destroyed. The Monastery that stands today dates from 1957 and is a modern design by the Belgium architect Georges Volckrick. His design stands out as a Gesamtkuntswerk, a total work of art, showing also Volckrick’s architecture training at St. Lucas School and his expertise in artisanship. It is his only remaining building in Leuven.

In our architectural analysis and survey, we captured the character defining elements as well as the alterations that have been carried out over the years. An assessment of the building in terms of material was done and because the architect Volckrick, true to modernist design, included many exposed materials (tuffeau stone as the loadbearing walls, pre-cast concrete windows, exposed aggregate pillars, different flooring types for different spaces), we also put together a Material Inventory. In addition, we also compiled an Artwork Inventory, capturing and documenting the Gesamtkunstwerk design.

1 —Photograph of a total station set up during the survey weeks, February 2022 by Marjolein Schut.

The Monastery does not have a protected heritage status yet. When we started the project, we were presented with a dire situation where the development plans of the city of Leuven could pose a threat to the building. Our project could therefore contribute to establishing the heritage values of the Monastery and the heritagization process at a crucial moment in time. As our research evolved together with our engagement with the stakeholders, we were happy to discover that the Monastery will in fact be included in the city’s heritage listing (Stedenbouwkundige Verorderning Erfgoed van de stad Leuven).

This has been the first time a complete recording and documentation of the site has been carried out and so our dossier is the first of its kind. We believe the Heritage Value Assessment, based on the Getty’s 20th Century Historic Thematic Framework and the Nara Grid, together with the conservation plan based on the Living Heritage approach, offer a strong basis for conservation pending the official heritage protection status. And once the recognition is official, we look forward to visiting the Monastery of the Assumptionists on Heritage Day for a MCMS reunion in a few years’ time (with our first of its kind brochure to guide the visit in hand).

3 — Photographical timeline of the site

Team:

Vinny Elzewijck, Architectural Engineer (Belgium)

Natasha Khaitan, Architect (India)

Lisa Battaline, Interior Architect in Adaptive Reuse (USA)

Marjolein Schut, History and Conflict Studies & Human Rights (the Netherlands)

2 — The Team photographed with the Fathers on the steps of the Monastery, May 2022 by Father Dzuy.

The Castle of Heers

The Castle of Heers was presented to the students on 8 December 2021. Entering the domain, getting closer to the entrance and entering the interior spaces, one can clearly tell that the castle has seen glorious days of prosperity, but also misfortunes and neglect. Scenarios about how life could have been there would run rampant among the students.

Team:

Argyrios Balatsoukas, architect engineer (Greece)

Eline Maertens, interior architect (Belgium)

Pramit Manandhar, architect (Nepal)

Bhoomika Yadav, architect (India)

Using the knowledge gained in the preparatory courses, our team studied the east wing of the castle from different perspectives: the surroundings (the municipality of Heers and the castle site itself) were examined from both a historical and a contemporary perspective, involving a thorough historical research into the various owners of the castle site. It gave a first idea of how the building phases were composed. However, this remained an incomplete method with many gaps and other methods had to be found to get a clearer overview.

After understanding the documents and reading all the existing surveys, the team started to have more questions than answers. How can we examine the castle if we cannot know which part came first? How can we date the elements present in the castle? All those questions permeated the research process until the documentation days came. When the team started the survey of the east wing, a change in the mindset occurred. Being up-close to the castle and grasping

its materiality something clicked, making the team experiment with a different kind of thinking, one that only entailed reading the elements in their environment while trying to compare them to other ones around them. The purpose was not to date them, but to create a narrative of what might have happened. The castle itself became the archive.

In the same line of thinking, research was carried out into the various materials used, how they were manufactured and from what period they could be dated. By combining this with the already known history and the various graphic sources and the pathologies present, assumptions could be made regarding the building phases.

This strategy would not be complete without a survey and the following structural analysis of the east wing. The anchors of the facades, the beams, the flooring systems, as well as the roof and the basement were examined, resulting in a thorough understanding of the domain. On the inside of the castle the different interior elements were examined and all the different rooms were mapped with the help of a room book. The gap between exterior and interior was bridged, giving us an insight into the past informing the present situation of the castle.

It also gave us an insight into a potential future. Value mapping, via two Nara Grids, was employed to accurately assess the current situation in parallel with the multiscale economic analysis of the domain of the castle. Prior to any steps towards conservation. The combination of those two exercises generated the conservation plan which strongly emphasises preservation of the material fabric. Protecting the intangible, the community involvement

and the various other aspects of the castle were captured by questionnaires and discussions with the volunteering group.

In conclusion, the Castle of Heers is a notable example of how a castle in a derelict condition activated the mechanisms of care. Given the accessibility limitations of important parts of the castle and the lack of primary sources, this project epitomises the need for first aid action and urgent conservation. Thus, in this

part of the timeline of the grand history of the castle this project does not propose a future use but focuses on the preservation of most of the material elements present. This conscious choice is the result of the analysis, putting the monument first and understanding what the actual needs of the castle are at this specific point. Safeguarding the monument for the generations to come is what constitutes heritage.

1 — sketches by Pramit Manandhar, Bhoomika Yadav

2 — © Eline Maertens 3 — © Pramit Manandhar

4 — Ground Floor Plan and First Floor Plan by Argyrios Balatsoukas

Higher Institute for Philosophy (HIW) in Leuven

The charming Neo-Gothic structure located on Tiensestraat (Leuven) has housed the Higher Institute of Philosophy, a faculty of KU Leuven, for over a century. Founded in 1894 by Cardinal Mercier upon the request of Pope Leo XIII, the institute was designed by the famed architect Joris Helleputte and is now a monument protected by the Flemish government. Our study focuses on the possible move of the institute’s library which has given an opportunity for refurbishment in the east wing of the main building.

a bar will be created on the east side of the cellar which will be mainly run by the students, for the students and other members of the academic and intellectual community. There, the table and seating arrangement will be placed on the east side of the cellar and the ground floor, while in the space meant for studying and group work, individual and group seating spaces as well as bookshelves will be placed, to create an area in which one can withdraw and focus on their research and studies.

1 [left] — Sketch of the front entrance during the first observational walk | Source: Team archive ©Yang Liu

2 — Pathologies on North elevation | Source: Team archive © Jennifer Kanaan

3 — Land use map of building block | Source: Team archive, © Marina Laopoulou

4 — North facade, 2022 Source: Team archive © Marina Laopoulou

The team has researched, analyzed and assessed the complex and more specifically the main building to be able to make a proper recommendation. The team concluded that the building at hand is in a general good state as it has been well maintained in accordance with its original use. Hence, the team decided to adopt the least intrusive approach with some maintenance actions and control checks as well as a proposal for the renovation of the east wing, where the library is currently situated. The aim is to ensure the conservation of the monument, but essentially to revive the community values that HIW has held since its foundation.

The team proposed: The installation of an information desk Reinstatement of the belvedere in the back garden

Restoration of the original spatial configuration by removing later disturbing additions

Refurbishment of the library: reinforcing the intellectual community spirit through the reinstatement of the student bar

The new faculty bar will have two different spaces: one meant for socializing with a livelier and energetic atmosphere and one meant for group work and studying in a quieter and relaxing atmosphere. In the first space,

Aside from tangible values that were thoroughly documented in this Integrated Project Work, equally important are the intangible community and social values that cannot be detected at first glance. The intellectual and academic community of the Institute is what enhances its character and identity. Since its foundation, the community of HIW has been a constant driving force for development, implementing what was taught in lectures into exchange of ideas. Keeping in mind the unique character of the building and its complex, the proposal aims to enhance the already existing values, both tangible and intangible, and to safeguard them for the philosophers of the future.

5 — Current and proposal for the library refurbishment ©Team archive ©Yang Liu

Team: Kanaan Jennifer, Architect (Lebanon)

Laopoulou Marina, Urban & Spatial Planning (Greece) Sivakumar Shruthi, Civil Engineering (India) Yang Liu, Architect (China)

The Wintergarden Complex - Park of Mariemont

The Royal Park of Mariemont, listed as an exceptional heritage by the Walloon Region stands testimony to a prestigious past dating back to the 16th century when Mary of Hungary set up her hunting estate on these grounds. This domain, through the centuries, has enjoyed periods of prosperity under various royal households that include Archdukes Albert and Isabella in the 17th century and Charles of Lorraine in the 18th century. The present landscape of the Park of Mariemont can be associated with its last owners, the Warocqués, one of the wealthiest industrialist families in Belgium who acquired the estate in the 19th century.

The main objective of our Integrated Project Work study was to propose a new life for the Wintergarden Complex. Interconnecting the lessons learnt during the semester with the project helped us understand how to practically apply these concepts. This was further enriched by the visits of various professors on site who had different specializations and perspectives. In our research work we visited numerous archives as well as conducted case studies, which helped us gain a more comprehensive understanding of the development of the site and its functioning.

The Wintergarden Complex was constructed in 1850s, during the time of the Warocqués, for housing exotic plants. On top of a terrace, dominating the landscape, stands the monumental Wintergarden, in front of which there were four greenhouses built in the 1850s, but were removed in 1977 due to their dilapidated condition. Two more greenhouses, built against the retaining wall of the terrace, still remained. An Orangery was built in 1866, behind the Wintergarden, and was connected to the latter by means of a glazed passage.

The Complex, designed in a neoclassical style by T. F. Suys, has been mainly constructed using brick masonry of fine craftsmanship and also carries the stamp of the industrial era, seen in the use of glass, iron and cast iron, which were considered modern materials of the time. The Complex has fallen into a state of disuse after WWII although the Wintergarden, did see a brief period of life when it was adapted into a lapidary museum in the 1950s. Although the building has lost this function, these vestiges are still displayed in the space today.

One of the main outputs of the project is the proposal and conservation masterplan for future use in the Complex which has been developed with the help of surveys and discussions with the users. The economic analysis of the proposal stresses that the Complex is not an isolated entity but is a part of the larger society that benefits from its sustenance. To conclude, the project has helped us understand how to deal with a heritage building that exhibits various layerings of issues and potentials to propose a solution that allows for the holistic development of the Complex.

Team: Komal Nandrekar, Architect (India)

Charlotte DePauw, Architect (Belgium)

Hannah Mathew, Architect (India)

Laura Sofia Marin, Architect (Columbia)

3 — Proposal for the Wintergarden. Team Mariemont, 2022

3 — Mapping pathologies of the South façade. Team Mariemont, 2022

1 — Aerial View of the Wintergarden Complex. Musèe Royal de Mariemont (2006).

2 — Plan of the Basement. Team Mariemont, 2022

Former Veterinary School in Ghent

The former Veterinary school in Ghent is a showcase of modernist brick architecture. The site is situated between Coupure Rechts, Casinoplein and the Wispelbergstraat. Until the 17th century the site was still part of a rural area with windmills. This changed when the Coupure was created in 1753 and later the Casino was built in 1838. Since then, a complex sequence of pavilions and annexes have popped up over the years. First a wintergarden in 1867, afterwards an extension for the Higher Labour School in 1931 and later, from 1937 onwards, pavilions for the Veterinary School.

Team:

Anton Witdouck, Architect (Belgium)

Emma Scheers, Architect (Belgium)

Michalis Constantinou, Architect Engineer (Cyprus)

Sara Moreno Arciniegas, Architect (Colombia)

1 — View on the arched bay window from the courtyard

© A. De Vogelaere, between 1937-1942

When the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine eventually moved to Merelbeke in 1996, the future of these buildings was undecided. The ‘GO!’ bought the site in 1999 to move one of their technical schools in Ghent. Nowadays, two of the buildings of the site are used by the technical school Tectura, but four of them have remained vacant for over 25 years. Little to no maintenance works were carried out during these years, resulting in many deteriorations and damages in and around the building. During the research we did a thorough study of the building history, eventually we focused on the building of the former Institute of Anatomy, which we documented in detail. The Institute of Anatomy, designed by August Desmet, was erected in 1937 and is located centrally on the domain on the west side. We went to great lengths to survey the building, browsed through countless archives to discover its construction history and analyzed all its materials and damage.

Despite all of this, we felt like something in our research was missing. None of the traditional sources talked about how the school buildings were used. Quite late in our research process we established contact with the current Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. We were lucky to get acquainted with the dean and several former professors. Their limitless enthusiasm for our research helped us uncover the spirit of the former school. Through their many stories and pictures, we learned how the buildings were experienced by the original users and we unveiled many more strengths and values that we could not have found on our own. In our work we tried to create an elaborate impression of the life at the Veterinary School, hoping it can inspire future projects. The in-depth analysis we did throughout this Integrated Project Work, has provided us with plenty of tools to draw some essential conclusions on how to best preserve the Veterinary School and its surroundings. We were able to draw big connections between the urban analysis, the historical analysis, studying life at the Veterinary School and our stakeholder analysis, including a neighborhood survey. Our masterplan incentives aimed at pointing out some important restoration requirements, to provide a suitable use for the Anatomy building and to think on how

we can give the surrounding open space an added value.

Particularly, the incentives are to relieve the urban tensions with a recreational park area, to capitalize on cultural initiatives, to enhance community involvement, to stimulate creative solutions for the demarcation public - private, to integrate a new theatre and to treasure and share the legacy of the veterinarians.

Bearing in mind the above we wanted to respect the owner’s wishes to convert three of the four buildings into a combined arts school and reuse the Anatomy building as a community house. In addition, we propose a series of interventions that can improve the energy efficiency of the Anatomy building while maintaining its major heritage values. These interventions aim to maximize the energy performance of the existing structures, the reconstruction of technical failures with modern techniques, to limit continuous building comfort to designated small areas and provide peak heating for temporary full occupancy and the use of renewable energy sources.

2— 3D model of veterinary school site with designation of the Institute of Anatomy © Anton Witdouck 2022

3 — Group photo © Sara Moreno Archiniegas, 2022

4 — Photograph from the interior of Anatomy building

© Kenny Van Houttave, 2022

Master of Human Settlements Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning &

The Master of Human Settlements (MaHS) and the Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning (MaULP) are taught by KU Leuven faculty engaged in the research groups OSA (Urbanism and Architecture) and P&D (Planning and Development) as well as a host of international guests. As part of the International Center of Urbanism (ICoU), the advanced master programs run in parallel with doctoral programs in urbanism, landscape, and planning. All are embedded in a lively environment that combines research with practice through urban and landscape projects, planning initiatives and policy formulations. Regular teaching and research are alternated with intensive seminars (amongst which the yearly European Urbanisms Seminar in December and the World Urbanisms Seminar in June).

The advanced Master of Human Settlements is rooted in the experience of the Postgraduate Center of Human Settlements established in 1978 under the patronage of UN-Habitat. As a two semester postgraduate specialization, it tackles urgent urban development issues by recovering all layers of ecological thinking (social, political, spatial). The four semester professional Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning emerged from the degree in Urbanism and Spatial Planning founded at the KU Leuven in 1962. The MaULP is grounded in the definition of urbanism as both the science of and action in the city, leading to the exploration of contexts of criticality and radical urban transformation world-wide.

Master of Human Settlements

(MaHS) workshops and studios

In 2021-22, the MaHS programme had a number of workshops in Belgium (together with Mira and MaULP students), including a year-long one in Wallonia’s flood devastated Vesdre Valley (July 2021) and another in four Flemish municipalities (Hasselt, Schilde, Geraardbergen, Ninove). In the Vesdre Valley, there were intensive fieldwork trips to 14 sites (with students from ULiege) distributed over the whole river valley. The work resulted in interpretative mapping, a short video and program brief for each of these sites. In Flanders, a one-week long workshop co-organized with the ‘Departement Omgeving’ of the Flemish Government, the focus was on ‘forest urbanisms.’ A long weekend of fieldwork where stakeholders were met and sites investigated, was followed by the parallel development of new urban tissues with afforestation and new public space and living typologies.

For studios, a first 7-week module focused on ‘UniverCity’ Leuven (taught by Annelies De Nijs, atelier horizon, Thomas Willemse, Studio Thomas Willemse, Mircea Munteanu, Metapolis) which sought a new synergy between the southern part of the city and the university campus. The goal was to create more of an interplay between the two and to develop substantial areas of affordable housing and sites of interaction between residents and university students. In the 6-week modules, there were three sites: ‘Metropolitan Repair’ Vallés Region, Barcelona (taught by Raquel Colacios and Ivan Llach, TAAB 6); ‘Trancão Floodplains’ Loures Municipality, Lisbon (taught by Ana Beja da Costa, Universidade de Lisboa and Wim Wambecq, MIDI); and ‘Vesdre Valley’ Limbourg & Pepinster (taught by Catherine Vilquin, XMU-urbanistes and Viviana d’Auria) which built on the previous workshop. A number of recurring themes were distilled across the work for the end of the year event, World Urbanisms 9. They are presented here.

Studio and workshop guidance 2021-2022

Studio Leuven

Annelies De Nijs (Atelier Horizon, BE)

Mircea Munteanu (Metapolis, BE)

Thomas Willemse (Studio Thomas Willemse, BE)

Pieter Van den Broeck (KU Leuven)

Studio Barcelona

Rachel Colacios (Taab6, ES)

Ivan Llach (Taab6, ES)

Studio Lisbon Wim Wambecq (Atelier midi/KUL, PT)

Ana Beja da Costa (University of Lisbon, PT)

Studio Vesdre

Catherine Vilquin (XMU Urbanistes, BE)

Viviana d’Auria (KU Leuven)

Forest Urbanism Workshop

Joris Moonen (KU Leuven) Wim Wambecq (KU Leuven)

Build Back Better workshop

Catherine Vilquin (XMU Urbanistes, BE)

Karel Wuytack (ULiège)

Thomas Willemse (Studio Thomas Willemse, BE)

Bruno De Meulder (KU Leuven) Kelly Shannon (KU Leuven)

Overall guidance

Kelly Shannon (KU Leuven)

Bruno De Meulder (KU Leuven)

Interpretative mapping

Interpretative mapping is crucial to the practice of urbanism. It is a method that unfolds the nested logics of territories and is a key to a context-responsive design process.

The careful and selective understanding of specific characteristics can set the stage for context-embedded design interventions. Interpretative mapping is essential across scales to understand the aspects of the city through the identification of urban and landscape systems.

The amalgamation of different readings from the intimate and focused, to the territorial and encompassing generates a holistic understanding of the urban landscapes which can then be translated into projects that are equally comprehensive to constructing ideal urban realities.

Landscape and Urban Tissues

Nowadays, the worldwide spectrum of changing urban conditions challenges the inhabitation and planning of environments and settlements. The lack of green and public spaces and the disconnection from the productive landscape resulted from neoliberal urban development policies. The increase of extreme events provoked by global warming is threatening for conventional urban fabrics. There is as much a need to develop new urban tissues, with new typologies for living and working as there is to create a new relationship of consumptive and productive fabrics. In order to strengthen communities’ coping skills to hazards, strategies such as agroforestry embody an opportunity for enriching local food supply and urban biodiversity. The peri-urban gardening system, another approach, comprised of multifunctional food production activities contribute to the reuse of urban waste and local economic development. The cascading crises of the contemporary world require the creation of spaces of livability and sustainability while interweaving different fabrics together forming healthy settlements.

Water

With rapid urbanization and intensification of monocultural agriculture, wetlands and sources of water inflows are constantly threatened by infrastructural development and pollution. Designing for water infiltration is a crucial element for water harvesting as it transforms impermeable ground surfaces into permeable ones and hence recharges aquifers. Natural treatment systems improve water quality in the wetlands, contribute to biodiversity and reduce the heat island effect within cities. The discipline of urbanism has to mediate between the science of water resources management and policy with design that project alternative ways of inhabiting the world and meaningfully contribute to limiting the constantly increasing socio-ecological crises.

Metropolitan Park

The notion of a ‘Metropolitan Park’ contends with the traditional paradigm and dominant notion of cities as being comprised of urban elements where architectural objects are underpinned by a web of streets and public spaces. By reconsidering urbanism within larger landscape systems, the idea of a metropolitan park encompasses a radically reconfigured urban landscape where the progressive reinsertion of multiple, overlapping programmatic potentials can co-exist while being embedded in a park system. The city can be revived as a natural landscape that operates in concert with buildings and residents, reconceived as a whole and underpinned by an alternative urban logic, all the while embodying a new urban identity that contributes to an attractive, future-proof and territorially cohesive city.

Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning (MaULP)

Spatializing the Communal: material articulations of Dispossession and Resistance in the Comunas of Ilaló, Quito. Quito, Ecuador

The thesis explores how spatial formations emerge from—and are complicit in—the struggle over communal territories in Ilaló-Lumbisí, Quito, as they interact with rapid suburbanization and varied forms of environmentalism. Foregrounding fieldwork engagement, the work is developed in dialogue with leaders and advocates of the 12 comunas in the area, articulated with the country’s Indigenous Movement.

A first section elaborates a cross-scalar analysis of socio-spatial dynamics, exploring the role of Water, Forest and Topography in processes of dispossession and resistance. Then, responding to a request by comuna leaders, I develop a projective speculation for Jackpi, a contested plateau in La Toglla. Building upon an ongoing process of territorial defense and transformation, I explore potential socio-spatial strategies that advocates of the ‘communal project’ may mobilize as future contestations continue to unfold.

1.— Most official maps and procedures ignore the territorial definition and authority of comunas, sustained through assemblies.

2.— A repertoire of water practices and artifacts has been produced by comunerxs in Tola Chica as they were displaced uphill.

3.— Speculations: Mobilizing comunas’ foundational collective practices, comunerxs can organize inhabitation through armatures of territorial care.

Sebastián Oviedo

Promotors: Prof. Viviana d’Auria, Jeroen Stevens

A Breathable City:

Projecting an inclusive public space system through the lens of Foreign Domestic Helpers Hong Kong, China

Since the 1970s, the urban landscape of Hong Kong has featured the presence of migrant workers from Southeast Asia who have commonly been labelled as Foreign Domestic Helpers. Under unique living and working conditions, they serve as live-in domestic workers who enjoy one day-off on Sundays. On such day, what may be considered a form of homelessness leads to the occupation and domestication of public and open space. Some of their stories are collected as to better understand how open space serves as a repository of varied practices, ranging from beauty pageants to the ‘soft architecture’ of cardboard. Through a cross-scalar reflection, the thesis explores the ways in which Hong Kong’s open space system can increase its hospitability, making Hong Kong a more breathable city that it currently is.

Wenyuan Mai Promotors : Prof. Viviana d’Auria, Jeroen Stevens

1 — The layering of individual stories and collective narratives on Hong Kong’s open space reveals clusters and accumulations along the bridges, streets and skywalks of the city center.

2 — Social infrastructure such as schools and food markets make up the daily work-related routine of migrant workers according to which they navigate the city, coupled with sites where they can express religious beliefs and enjoy some relaxation.

3 — The design of topography becomes a main strategy to overcome the rigid distinctions between indoor and outdoor space, the ambiguity of public and private domains is considered a way to encourage domestication of various kinds.

Riparian Allegories

Athenian Rivers as climate adaptive Urban Figures

Athens historically evolved in and as a mythical and functional landscape, utterly compromised in its recent aggressive urban expansion. In the midst of the unfolding planetary climate urgency, metropolitan Athens finds itself confronted with its inherent deficiencies, degenerating into a constant state of calamity. As latent spatial figures, the Athenian rivers of Ilissos and Kifissos are key to realize a tangible reconfiguration. The transformation of the dual river system, thanks to their omnipresence and their persistent symbolic value can be envisioned as an allegory for a new resilient urban vision, adding ecological value, introducing productive opportunities and inspiring new forms of living in a dense Mediterranean urban context.

Valerian Andonis Portokalis Xenia Stoumpou

Promotors: Kelly Shannon, Bruno De Meulder

Alarming Futures

Historic deficiencies, inherit the contemporary city major challenges that will be further aggravated in light of climate crisis. High building density, elimination of open spaces and excessive sealing of grounds amplify global warming-induced realities. Heat, pollution, fire, flood are already pressing issues that are expected to exacerbate in the future with alarming projections for each one of them.

Landscape System

Reconnecting the Basin by repairing the disrupted hydrological network of Ilissos and Kifissos can be seen as a strategy for the effective and resilient adaptation of the contemporary city of Athens to new climate realities. Such an approach would entail a systematic understanding of interconnected relations among the diverse landscape elements and site-specific interventions, from upstream locations down to the Delta. Rainwater and urban wastewater can be seen as complementary networks, restructuring the city to incorporate more sustainable modes of living, introducing productive landscapes and restored ecosystems.

Ilissos – Frédédric Boissonnas, 1910

Kifissos – Authors, 2022

Flooding Mosaic

Elaionas, the historic Olive Grove is the topographically defined flood plain of Kifissos. Its ground has been modified progressively over the years to accommodate for the productive landscape of the Grove, utterly consumed by industrial activities. The Olive Grove is envisioned as a flooded mosaic, a kidney of sorts, retaining and treating storm water run-off on a metropolitan scale while undergoing a systematic afforestation. Sealed surfaces along with the existing agricultural plot layout are guiding the design. The vision for Elaionas lies on the very idea of keeping, redistributing and reusing water, mounting up to 8% of the water use on city scale. It is about incrementally transforming the existing once agrarian then industrial mosaic in what would be a multifunctional and inhabited grove in the midst of the city.

Variations of a Metropolitan Urban Grove

The development of four case studies showcases the potential transformation of the Grove through cutand-fill operations to allow for the new water conditions to emerge and shape urban typologies. A radical afforestation strategy is implemented, predominantly restoring the grove but complementing it and interrupting monoculture through an interwoven pattern of mixed Mediterranean forest patches, riparian habitats and productive orchards.

Mosaic of Imperviousness as de-sealing potential

Urban Terraces and Clusters of industrial and manufacturing activity

Threefold Water System as run-off treatment and water recycling mesh

Postgraduate Certificate: International Module in Spatial Development Planning

The International Module for Spatial Development Planning (IMSDP) is an intensive 30 ECTS three-month pre-doctoral training on spatial development analysis and planning.

This VLIR-UOS supported programme is open to Doctoral, II level Master and Post-graduate students, as well as researchers and professionals. The IMSDP addresses spatial development dynamics and planning issuesincluding urban and regional plan-making, programmes and policies - from an interdisciplinary perspective that lies at the crossroads of sociology, spatial planning and design, geography, political science, urbanism, as well as ecology. It explores the main contemporary challenges of spatial transformation processes and the way different disciplines can provide integrated interdisciplinary insights in addressing spatial issues in a sustainable perspective.

[IMSDP]

The main goal of IMSDP is to enrich the scientific and professional profile of its participants and to broaden their knowledge base. This goal is realized through an interactive overview of different disciplines related to planning and development, methodological insights, case studies showcasing real-life practices and issues presented during lectures and seminars, as well as through individual tutoring on specific topics of interest. Moreover, in order to ensure that participants not only in theory, but also in practice understand spatial development and planning processes, the programme involves an Action Research Lab, which is completed with a workshop during the last days of the IMSDP.

Coordination: KU Leuven Departments of Architecture and Earth and Environmental Sciences, in collaboration with more than 30 European and nonEuropean partner universities

General coordinator: Prof. Dr. Pieter Van den Broeck, Planning & Development Research Unit

Since 2018, the IMSDP includes an ‘Action Research Lab’ that mobilizes knowledge on spatial development and planning processes to make sense of real-life situations. This consists of an exercise aiming to: (1) develop a multiplicity of research skills and gain experience in the fields of social innovation, multi-level land governance and spatial development planning, (2) test, exercise and implement participatory action research methods, and (3) discover the potential of international and interdisciplinary collaboration in socio-spatial analyses.

Spatial development planning knowledge has been tested on: reflections about the future ‘Ringland’ in Antwerp (2018); the role of the local community group ‘Gebermte’ in Mortsel near Antwerp (2019); the COVID-19 related dynamics from the lens of social innovation (2020); and the food systems and networks in Leuven (2021) setting up three episodes of the ‘Leuven Gymkhana’ Action Research (https:// leuvengymkhana.wordpress. com).

The IMSDP 2022 Group took over the work realised in 2020 and 2021 shifting the focus to the role of the City of Leuven in the governance of local ‘Food Commons’ and ‘Alternative Food Networks’ (AFNs).

The ‘Action Research Lab’, named ‘Leuven Gymkhana 4.0’, was coordinated by prof. Pieter Van den Broeck, the post-doctoral researcher Xenia Katsigianni, the PhD researcher Clara Medina Garcia, and two master students: Ana Maria Brinzanu (Master in Sustainable Territorial Development) and Ying Li (Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning).

The ’Leuven Gymkhana 4.0’ team critically analysed a call for sustainable agricultural projects launched by the municipality under the principles of ‘Leuven’s Food Strategy’. In the context of the analysis, the team realised fieldwork, conducted interviews and mobilized theories on commons, sustainable development, access to land and governance.

As a reaction to that call, the students invited stakeholders to co-develop and submit a proposal to the City of Leuven for the use of available agricultural land plots. Along the process, the different backgrounds of the participants were mobilized as a resource to infuse the debate on the role of the state in supporting or

hindering the ‘Commons’ in their endeavours to challenge the dominant agro-industrial food system. After a week of collective writing, students organized the ‘Debut of the Collective Proposal’ in a public event taking place in Leuven on the 16th of May 2022, where the proposal was presented and local stakeholders could discuss and give feedback towards the improvement of the final project titled ‘Growing in Leuven – Trust-ing Food’ to be submitted.

Architectural Engineering

Architectural Engineering aims for innovation in the design of buildings by approaching architecture from an engineering point of view. The emphasis is on the technical aspects of architecture: structure, materials, services and comfort requirements are considered in a multidisciplinary setting in order to quantify, assess, and improve the quality, cost, and sustainability of buildings and the built environment. In order to achieve this, fundamental, applied, and policy-oriented research is performed in a continuous effort to bridge the gaps between research, education and practice.

Karen Allacker, Mattias Schevenels, Frank De Troyer (em.), Tobias Barbier, Stefan Boeykens, Kaat De Ploey, Willem Gythiel, Nadia Mirabella, Delphine Ramon, Simon Schaubroeck, Manav Mahan Singh, Damien Trigaux, Daan Van Cauteren, Els Van de moortel, Guy Van Den Bogaert, Evelien Verellen, Nazanin Eisazadeh Otaghsaraei, Ayu Miyamoto, Sven Mouton, Martin Röck, Giulia Pristèra, Arta Bytyqi, Fabian Prideaux, Nick Adams, Lise Mouton, Tomas Pauwels.

The Structural Optimization Group, led by prof. Mattias Schevenels, is part of the Architectural Engineering Section. The aim of the research group is to advance the state of the art in the field of structural optimization and as such to promote innovations in design and building practice. Our group focuses on the development of numerical optimization methods to reduce the economic and environmental cost of loadbearing structures, and on the design of innovative structural building components using these optimization methods. In addition, we regularly put to use our expertise in the field of design optimization in other application areas.

The Sustainable Building Group, led by prof. Karen Allacker, is also part of the Architectural Engineering Section and aims for advancing the state of the art in life cycle environmental impact assessment and life cycle costing of the built environment. Various scale levels are focused on: building materials, building elements, buildings, neighborhoods and cities. Our research contributes to the domain through advancing methodological aspects, e.g. dynamic life cycle studies, design support tools such as TOTEM, and sustainable building strategies such as climate resilience and circular building.

Fresh & new

PhD topic: Life cycle environmental benchmarks for residential buildings in Belgium

The cavity wall is dead! Exploring, evaluating and drawing alternative building concepts.

PhD Candidate: Barbara Oelbrandt

Supervisor: Karen Allacker

Over the past years, various policies have been implemented to reduce building operational energy use and the related environmental impacts.

Although this is an important development, energy efficiency measures typically require an increase in insulation materials and technical systems, resulting in higher so-called embodied impacts. To avoid this burden shifting and reduce building impacts from a life cycle perspective, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method is increasingly integrated in building practice. In Belgium, this has led to the development of a national LCA method, a database of environmental data of Belgian construction products and an online calculation tool for building designers (TOTEM). To date, however, no reference values exist to benchmark a building’s environmental performance. Such benchmarks are seen as an essential tool for policy makers in the definition of environmental targets for buildings and as a reference for architects to support them in designing more sustainable buildings.

This research aims to define life cycle environmental benchmarks for Belgian

residential buildings. The benchmarks are derived by combining two approaches. On one hand, a top-down approach is used to translate global environmental goals and policy targets to building benchmarks. On the other hand, a bottom-up approach is applied to derive benchmarks from reference buildings that represent the impact of current building practice. Both approaches are combined to obtain one comprehensive benchmarking framework, consisting of four types of benchmark values: limit, reference and best-practice values derived with the bottom-up approach and target values derived with the top-down approach. In addition, intermediate benchmark values are proposed to gradually evolve from the current level of impact towards the long-term target values. This framework can drive the Belgian building sector towards more sustainable practices, which contributes to the global aim of protecting our planet.

1, 2 & 3 – Wooden inner structure and biobased insulation with loadbearing facing bricks of the jtB house by BLAF architecten (project architects: Bart Vanden Driessche, Stephen Van Elslander and Barbara Oelbrandt)

The standard building concept of the last 50 years in Flanders, namely the cavity wall, is no longer the most logical answer to the evolution when thermal and ecological performance requirements become very high. The increasing thickness of insulation results in a tendency of using lighter façade materials: slates, sheet material, façade plaster systems, etcetera. The façade wall is no longer a ‘wall’ that is self-supporting, but a kind of wallpaper. Belgium is a densely built-up region, where brick is iconic. Brick producers are trying to follow this tendency by making bricks thinner and hanging or gluing them. This is an understandable but illogical evolution contrary to the basic properties of brick.

There is resistance from designers with a high priority for honest and sustainable material applications to use brick as a fragile dress with a limited lifespan.

The aim of the research is to explore, evaluate and draw alternative building concepts combining a wooden inner structure and biobased

insulation with loadbearing facing bricks. The lifespan of brick is maximized in this combination. Archival work will explore the evolution of building with brick. The application of internal insulation is challenging by means of building physics and will be evaluated.

Based on literature, life cycle assessment tools and circularity indicators will be summarized and results deducted. These insights will be presented in drawings and offer knowledge to support the decision-making process in designing alternative building concepts.

4 — To raise questions: snapshots of façades, fragments and details of projects in Antwerp.

PhD Candidate: Lise Mouton

Supervisors: Karen Allacker, Robert Crawford and Damien Trigaux — A joint PhD project between KU Leuven and the University of Melbourne

Under construction

PhD Candidate: Tobias Barbier

Supervisors: Geert Lombaert and Mattias Schevenels

The goal of this research project is to reduce the material volume of ribbed floors by numerically optimizing the rib pattern. The inspiration for this project can be found in the organically ribbed floors as designed by Italian architect and engineer Pier Luigi Nervi.

The optimization problem is formulated to minimize the material volume of the ribbed floors with a constraint on their load-bearing capacity. In other words, the optimized floor must withstand a predefined design load without failing. The loadbearing capacity of the floor is computed with a nonlinear damage model, which approximates the evolution of damage through the structure.

As a case study, a square section of a continuous ribbed floor is optimized, supported on a grid of columns. The optimization is performed for 9 different scenarios, each with increasing design freedom. Figure 2 shows the grid of optimized results, where an increase in design freedom leads to a material reduction in most cases. A maximal material reduction of 39%, compared with the reference structure, is achieved by changing the shape of the ribs, while keeping a constant width for all ribs.

Out & loud

Gradient-based optimization of reticulated shell structures

PhD Candidate: Willem Gythiel

Supervisors: Mattias Schevenels and Dirk Huylebrouck

Shell structures are very material-efficient structures if their shape is designed in such way that external forces are redirected into stresses in the plane of their surface. Several design tools have been developed over the last decades, from hanging models to computational form finding methods. Structural optimization is an increasingly popular alternative for these tools because it allows for the identification of designs that are optimal with respect to multiple load combinations and complex constraints, unlike the conventional form finding methods. In my research, I developed a framework for optimizing the design of reticulated shells, i.e. shells that consist of bars. This framework can not only determine the most efficient

shell shape, but also the most efficient dimensioning for each bar and it can remove redundant bars. All relevant Eurocode provisions for the strength and stability of structures are incorporated into this framework. It also includes constraints that ensure the results are practically buildable and constraints that provide more control over the optimization process to the designer.

Moreover, a new load formulation is proposed to model distributed loads more accurately. The efficacy of this framework is demonstrated for several representative test case structures, which were inspired by actual buildings, such as the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam.

1 — The test case (left) is converted into a structural model (center), which is then optimized (right).

Topology optimization of steel fiber-reinforced concrete ribbed floors with a predefined load-bearing capacity

1 — Ribbed floors at the Palazzo del Lavoro, designed by Pier Luigi Nervi

2 — Optimized rib pattern for 9 scenarios with increasing design freedom

Architecture, Interiority, Inhabitation

Architecture, Interiority, Inhabitation (A2I) interrogates the interaction between architecture as a discipline, built spaces as constructs and the experience of people inhabiting these spaces. Our group studies architecture and interior architecture as contemporary practices and as fields of historical and theoretical reflection. Our key point of departure is a profound interest in public, common and private spaces, in the objects that inhabit them, and in the way both (interior) architects and users contribute to their cultural, social, or political meaning. Theoretical questionings dealing with notions such as modernity, interiority, power, gender, and colonialism are guiding the research within this group.

As these topics encompass a diverse range of spatial practices, histories and theories, our research group members mostly adopt a multidisciplinary approach. We build on knowledge in the field of history and theory of architecture and interior architecture, in the field of design studies and design history, and in ethnographic studies of publicprivate space and material culture.

Hilde Heynen, André Loeckx, Fredie Floré (Faculty of Architecture), Martino Tattara (Faculty of Architecture), Dominique Bauer (Faculty of Architecture), Hilde Bouchez (Faculty of Architecture), Jakob D’herde, Amina Kaskar, Rogério Rezende, Florencia Cardoso, Alessandra Gola, Ruth Hommelen, Anamica Singh, Juliana Barbi.

Under construction

Sociospatial practices in contemporary urban Palestine: a probe into the everyday

PhD candidate: Alessandra Gola Supervisor: Prof. Hilde Heynen Contemporary architectural practice relies almost ubiqui tously on the public-private dichotomy. However, em pirical observations suggest that these categories do not encompass space as con structed at the everyday level. This is particularly evident in (post-)colonial contexts, where governing apparatuses were strongly influenced -or replaced- by foreign powers. Recent studies tackle the gap between these domains as socially constructed and as codified by institutions. Scholarly debate increasingly recognises this as central to the capability of achieving spaces that respond to the local habitus.

This PhD investigates how communities in urban Pales tine create stratified realms with different privacy, accessi bility and inclusiveness

through interaction with everyday spaces. This, nev ertheless, does not seem to include a ‘public’. Institutional planning does not acknowledge this complexity, which may explain underper forming urban spaces. What spatial domains do everyday practices produce, and how? Does a ‘public’ do main exist here, and in what terms? These questions are addressed through empirical observations on four cases in the suburbs of Ramallah/ Al-Bireh: a refugee camp, a camp outpour, a residential suburb and a sprawl develop ment. The research combines an empirical approach with historical analysis, and tools from the architectural and an thropological fields to analyse permanent and ephemeral everyday performances. The aim is to provide a tentative methodology for understand ing and mapping spatial domains as produced by daily practices, a propedeutic step to spatial reform spatial at the institutional level.

Shapes of the Future, Shadows of the Past Decolonial Perspectives on Brasília and its urban design Rogério Rezende –PhD Candidate Supervisor: Prof. Hilde Heynen Brasilia is known as a modernist utopian project. However, in recent years, several protests called for the right to the city. Women denounce insecurity in the civic center. Black movements subvert predetermined uses with artistic interventions, occupying vacant buildings and spaces and organizing events that celebrate cultural diversity. Social movements call for more flexible zoning and social housing in central areas. While socioeconomic data have shown that Brasília has one of the highest HDI’s (Human Development Index) in the country, it is also one of the most unequal - in socioeconomic, racial and gender terms.

Contrary to the criticisms that attribute the failure of Brasília as an egalitarian utopia to its

Out & loud

Making Home(s) in Displacement.

Critical Reflections on a Spatial Practice

Protest in front of the National Congress in Brasilia on June 17, 2013. By EBC Portal.

detachment from reality, this research argues that the close relationship between Brasília and Brazilian society reproduces social hierarchies and historical inequalities. Despite efforts to induce a new social order through innovative and egalitarian urban design, Brasília seems to reaffirm or even reinforce dominant power relationships. Decolonial theory states that modernity and coloniality are highly entangled, or even that coloniality would be a hidden face of modernity. Seeking to disentangle possible relationships between Brasilia and the binomial modernity/ coloniality, this research departs from a discussion about how modernism and colonialism are ideologically, discursively and spatially aligned. The urban design of Brasilia is analyzed as material evidence of this alignment and the place of protest as a reaction to the contradictions of Brazilian modernism.

This book critically rethinks the relationship between home and displacement from a spatial, material and architectural perspective.

Recent scholarship in the social sciences has investigated how migrants and refugees create and reproduce home under new conditions, thereby unpacking the seemingly contradictory positions of making a home and overcoming its loss. Yet, making home(s) in displacement is also a spatial practice, one which intrinsically relates to the fabrication of the built environment worldwide.

Conceptually the book is divided along four spatial sites, referred to as camp, shelter, city and house, which are approached with a multitude of perspectives ranging from urban planning and architecture to anthropology, geography, philosophy, gen¬der studies and urban history, all with a common focus on space and spatiality. By articulating everyday homemaking experiences of migrants and refugees as spatial practices in a variety of geopolitical and historical contexts, this edited volume adds a novel perspective to the existing interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of home and displacement. It equally

intends to broaden the canon of architectural histories and theories by including migrants’ and refugees’ spatial agencies and placemaking practices to its annals.

By highlighting the political in the spatial and vice versa, this volume sets out to decentralize and decolonize current definitions of home and displacement, striving for a more pluralistic outlook on the idea of home.

1 — A visualization of spatial domains as by everyday practice

Edited by Luce Beeckmans, Alessandra Gola, Ashika Singh and Hilde Heynen Open access publication, Leuven University Press, 2022

Cover illustration: Mohamad Hafez: Unpacked, 2020

Perspectives on Architecture from the Distant Past

Between the later middle ages and the Interbellum, architecture and the built environment change profoundly. These changes express the cultural transformation of the individual as both a self and a sociopolitical and religious being up to the radical transformations of postwar modernity. PADP offers a platform for studying architecture within the context of these long-term historical developments.

Thomas Coomans, Krista De Jonge, Barbara Van der Wee (em.), Merlijn Hurx, Dominique Bauer (Faculty of Architecture), Anne-Françoise Morel (Faculty of Architecture), Leon Bouwmeester, Stijn Cools, Jinze Cui, Miara Fraikin, Stefaan Grieten, Wei Guo, Fatma Serra İnan (Ludwig MaximiliansUniversität München), Youngji Kang, Friedrich Leipold, Cato Leuraers, Petronia Maclot, Sanne Maekelberg (Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen), Changxue Shu, Max Wiringa, Yuansheng Luo.

[PADP]

PADP brings together scholars from the KU Leuven Department of Architecture based in Leuven, Brussels and Ghent. The PADP members study various aspects of the architectural legacy of the distant past: construction history, architectural agency, the building’s reception history and the impact of cross-cultural exchanges in shaping the built environment before globalization. They do so from an indispensable interdisciplinary background rooted in building archaeology, architecture and engineering, material studies, cultural studies and philosophy.

Fresh & new

The Petrification of the Delta in the late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period

Merlijn Hurx

1 — Claes Jansz

Visscher II, A pile-driving machine, from Roemer Visscher, Sinnepoppen, Amsterdam 1612. The motto reads: “When nature brings distress, ingenuity provides solidness” (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

Today two thirds of world’s largest cities are in coastal deltas. Being close to water has obvious economic benefits, but often it also comes with environmental challenges. Throughout history deltas have been seen as hazardous places, vulnerable to flooding and a source of diseases as malaria. Turning such uninhabitable land into a thriving network of metropolises requires specialised skill and knowledge. Major advances in the history of waterrelated engineering were not random, rather they occurred at specific places and times. One of the earliest examples in Europe is the Rhine-MeuseScheldt estuary, the area which we now call the Low Countries. In the coming years, I will examine how the expertise necessary for the making of these metropolises in the mud advanced. Using technological means, cities negotiated their complex geography, transforming an unwelcoming marshy environment into one of the wealthiest and most urbanised regions in late medieval Europe. This topic has hardly been on the research agenda and certainly not from an architectural historical perspective. Attempting to explain this transformation is challenging and requires an interdisciplinary approach, combining economical history, history of science

with construction history. In addition, its study comprises structures that are traditionally outside the remit of the architectural historian, such as sluices, harbours, and dikes. Building in the delta faced two particular constraints: the scarcity of building materials and unstable subsoils. I argue that there is evidence that these disadvantages set into motion two fundamental shifts in the design and building practice of the period, which is the emergence of a sophisticated construction market and the development of new patterns of knowledge organisation in construction. To start with the market. In the Middle Ages, patrons who wanted to build on a monumental scale were generally compelled to organise the work themselves. By the late Middle Ages, however, patrons in various parts of Europe increasingly had recourse to a marketplace for the construction of buildings. Private firms emerged that supplied building materials or carried out extensive construction works. In this development, the Low Countries stand out both for the large number of entrepreneurs active in public building works and the large scale of their enterprises. They played a particular role in the supply of building materials. As there were no quarries in the coastal areas stone had to be procured elsewhere. The most productive quarry centre

Haarlem Utrecht

Leiden Del Dordrecht Zierikzee

Veere Vlissingen

Middelburg Sluis Nieuwpoort Dendermonde Aalst AxelDamme Dunkirk Calais Gravelines Saint-Omer Blankenberge Ostend

Amsterdam Rotterdam Schiedam Oostburg Goedereede Brouwershaven

Breda 's-Hertogenbosch Gouda

Bergen op Zoom

Antwerp Ghent Bruges Brussels Mechelen Lier

Vilvoorde Nesten Kallebeek Boom He en Ossendrecht Woensdrecht Lillo Steenbergen Oudenbosch Roosendaal Terneuzen Deinze Machelen Biervliet

2 — Geographical distribution of white limestone from Brussels (Merlijn Hurx)

was situated in the environs of Brussels. Its limestone was the preferred building material of the 15th century, and its finished products were distributed as far and wide as Calais in the southwest and Enkhuizen in the north. The largest stoneworkers’ shops could take care of large-scale projects and could provide labour and materials for the entire job, thus performing the role of today’s general contractor. To stimulate price competition, it became customary to put construction work out to tender. This provided the construction market with an increasingly capitalist character.

The second major shift that I want to analyse is innovation in construction. Because building was a highly capitalintensive business: increased price competition, rising labour costs and the need to transport building materials over long distances prompted a search for new techniques that economised on materials and transportation. Apart from common cost reductions obtained through hiring cheaper labour, historical data suggest that entrepreneurs also looked for cost-saving innovations to gain a competitive edge through the mechanisation of work processes. This led to the development of all sorts of pumps, devices for excavation and the moving of earth, sawmills, pile-drivers, and polishing machines for stone.

To overcome the topographical challenges posed by unstable subsoils, innovation in construction was a necessity. In the 17th century Netherlandish ingenious building practices encompassed a variety of aspects that negotiated the challenging environmental imperatives, such as the design of stable foundations and lightweight structures, cofferdams, and caissons for underwater construction, as well as the employment of mechanical devices for pile driving, excavation, and drainage. Such inventions were even exported abroad. Many foreigners visiting the Dutch Republic, expressed their admiration for the great effort and expense involved in the Dutch struggle against the elements, and by the end of the Dutch Golden Age, the ‘Hollanders’ were considered to be ‘the most expert in Europe’ in constructing large structures in marshy conditions. Such knowledge was, however, not restricted in geographical terms to Holland, and expertise was just as present in the cities in the Southern Low Countries which had similar ground conditions.

In general, the challenges of building in soggy conditions, the substantial cost of construction, and the potentially hazardous situations that could result from structural failure prompted builders to proceed carefully. For heavy

structures there were often no straightforward solutions available, and construction required specialised skill and know-how. At the same time, building was an interdisciplinary endeavour, demanding the expertise of artisans, architects, engineers, scientists, and ruling elites. The building yard became a trading zone where a common language developed to validate ideas and experiments by means of models, drawings, prototypes, and texts.

I argue that leading position in building technology of the Low Countries was not merely the outcome of a gradual evolution of traditional craft knowledge, but the result of a typical problem-solving attitude. This attitude was prompted by specific market conditions and new patterns of knowledge organisation that included experimentation and early attempts to apply scientific insights to solve engineering problems.

In several respects these developments were decisive for our current practice, but how these conditions came into being and what their full implications are is something that I hope to study here in Leuven and elsewhere in the years to come.

This paper is an adaptation of my inaugural lecture of Friday 13 May 2022

Research : Architecture

3 — Cornelius Meyer’s ‘inventions’: a caisson, a pile driver operated by a single man, and an earth auger for soil sampling, L’arte di rendere i fiumi…, Rome 1696. (ETH Zürich)

4 — Pierre Le Poivre, design for the foundations of the corner towers and bridge of the castle at Heverlee, 1601, detail. (KU Leuven, Universiteitsarchief)

Leuven & Learning / Architecture / Project & Practice

The research group L/A/P (Leuven & Learning / Architecture / Project & Practice) is dedicated to the development of practice-based knowledge and design research. Combining a group of teachers and researchers that share design practice experiences, L/A/P links design research, research by design, academic research, architecture practice and design education.

Design is seen as ‘tacit knowledge’, defined as skills, ideas and experiences of people, that are implicit, haven’t been codified and are difficult to transfer from one to another. Learning from such practices and expressing their underlying methods, values and evolutions, is at the core of this research group.

Leo Van Broeck, Stijn Cools, Goedele Desmet, Guido Geenen, Yuri Gerrits, Els Van Meerbeek, Mauro Poponcini (em.), Karel Vandenhende, Ward Verbakel.

Stubborn Grounds

Incremental transformation in the urban crust

Yuri Gerrits Supervisor: Bruno De Meulder Co-supervisor: Guido Geenen

After 20 years in practice (WIT architecten, Leuven & FPA architects, London) and teaching at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies (UC London) and the Department of Architecture (KU Leuven), Yuri Gerrits started his PhD in October 2021. His research is now capitalising on his professional experience and reflecting on projects and studios conducted in the realm of architecture and urbanism.

‘Stubborn Grounds’ focuses on the mechanisms and repercussions of urban transformation processes at the small grain in the urban tissue. It investigates the production of built form and space as the result of incremental change as it occurred throughout history and it explores alternatives in the face of today’s urban challenges, in particular in the context of Flanders CentreCities.

This research looks into the possibilities of a method of ‘responsive urbanism’, that aims for structural urban change, through the accumulation of small corrections and substitutions, parcel per parcel, project per project. Responsive urbanism discards the reproduction, repetition and homogenisation of built form that comes out of generic building codes and, equally, refrains from the conventional top-down approaches as in most of today’s masterplans.

Instead, responsive urbanism works with the unavoidable unpredictability of incremental transformation and celebrates ‘the architectural project’ itself as the instant interpretation of, and response to, the existing context it is part of and adds value to. As such, responsive urbanism embraces the recalcitrance of the ‘Stubborn Grounds’. Valuing the thick urban landscape as it exists in the dense composition of natural, cultural and urban layers, with all its anomalies and contrasts. And seeing architecture as a means to reconcile and amplify differences and peculiarities in the urban tissue, that is always an aggregation of fragments and conflicts, rather than the immaculate projection of one single idea or concept.

Part of this research is the visualisation and exploration of a set of exemplary samples in the context of Leuven. Showing the tissue as a synthesis of layers and projects, informing the fragmented composition in today’s space.

1 — Echography of Bloemendael

2 — Research model of Case Study Ateliers De Bonte Capacity study for a private developer who acquired a set of strategic parcels within a perimeter block of Bloemendael (WIT architecten)

Under construction

Revalue. Heritage as transformative practice

Researcher: eng. arch. Stijn Cools

Supervisor: prof. dr. Th. Coomans

Co-supervisor: prof. dr. Harold Fallon

Since the mid-twentieth century, architecture and conservation in Europe have functioned at what I term a regulated distance. Current practices in both areas are being questioned.

The heritage field has the potential to become a powerful agent of change if it redefines the social dimension of heritage beyond static assertions of material preservation.

It entails shifting from an essentialist to a relational perspective in order to re-imagine heritage as a negotiated and re-imagined cultural process that employs places as vehicles for transmitting meaning and creating importance in the present for local stakeholders.

aNNo architecten’s practice, design experiments and prototypes will be used to lead the investigations, and explore heritage as transformative practice.

The ‘Nomad’ is a preliminary design experiment related to current research. The ‘Nomad’ was envisioned and developed as a transportable pavilion which may temporarily reside at historical locations. The remountable and circular pavilion’s core is designed as a writers’ room, equipped with a desk, chair and an ancient Olivetti typewriter.

As designers, scholars and professionals, the ‘Nomad’ welcomes visitors to share their recollections and impressions of the historical place with us. As a result, the stories of passers-by deepen our understanding of the location. And get a deeper knowledge of the site’s biography outside the specialists’ point of view. The ‘Nomad’ intends to widen our perspective on historical locations through their stories, assumptions and philosophies. It allows us to accept subjectivity

1

and personal experiences while creating biographical memories of locations.

Throughout the research, the ‘Nomad’ will travel to several historic locations, connecting important places to which the research is linked. The ‘Nomad’ spent time in the outset of the study on the WWI site of Raversyde Domain in Ostend during the Festival of Architecture (November 2021). The ‘Nomad’ will soon visit the Abbey of Kortenberg, the Town Hall of Leuven and the Abbey Visitatie in Kraainem.

1 — Diagram of the figures and tactics offered by the toolbox to discuss architectural quality.

Out & loud

Village Architecture Toolbox-on-Tour

Conceived as a nomadic think and debate space, the expo on ‘Village Architecture Toolbox’ is making its round in villages throughout Flanders. It serves as the backdrop for a workshop and dialogue with local stakeholders (designers, developers, policy makers, …). Using the language developed (figures, tactics, roles and narratives) this dialogue tool offers a structure and helps putting the finger on what constitutes qualitative architecture and how we can one can engage in a conversation about quality in a village context. The demand for such learning environments and dialogues is highly felt with local administrators and designers, as well as with inhabitants experiencing the often rapid and drastic transformation of their village centers.

Using precise and realized examples, the dialogue is set up around concrete cases from the local villages, learning from the many design research projects from Master students who have worked with Ward on the urbanizing villages over the last few years. The project narratives include work by several alumni of KU Leuven and LAP researchers.

In October 2021 the ‘Toolbox on Village Architecture’ was published, as the result of a collaboration between the doctoral research of Ward Verbakel (KU Leuven) and Ar-Tur, a socio-cultural organization focusing on the culture of architecture in the Campine region of Flanders. The book was published by Public Space and is available in Dutch.

2 — Toolbox Village Architecture, Public Space 2021.

3 — Toolbox on tour as a nomadic think space.

Research[x]Design

[RxD]

Research[x]Design is a research group at the interface of design studies, social sciences/ humanities and computer sciences. It was co-founded by Ann Heylighen and Andrew Vande Moere with an eye to studying how spaces, buildings and cities can be designed to be more engaging, more inclusive and more enabling. To this end, Research[x]Designers investigate how built space is designed, how it is experienced, and the relationship between both.

Ann Heylighen, Andrew Vande Moere, Andrea Jelić, Margo Annemans, Corneel Cannaerts, Pleuntje Jellema, Carlos Mourão Pereira, Peter-Willem Vermeersch, Jorgos Coenen, Negin Eisazadeh Otaghsaraei, Thomas Laureyssens, Dieter Michielsen, Alex Nguyen, Phuong Lan Nguyen, Georgia Panagiotidou, Natalia Pérez Liebergesell, Liesbeth Stam, Iremnur Tokac, Piet Tutenel, Sara Willems, Koen Coomans, Berit Ann Roos, Paul Biedermann, Jihae Han, Ellen Verbiest, Yssmin Bayoumi, Céline Ramioul, Fatemeh Amirbeiki Tafti.

Fresh & new

Learning from innovative care architecture to design for humane detention

Prison systems across the globe suffer from structural problems, including overcrowding, poor living conditions and high recidivism rates. Against that background we observe a renewed and growing interest in architectural aspects of detention. Notwithstanding a growing tendency within Europe to strengthen the rights of prisoners and to work toward more humane prison regimes aiming for reintegration, rehabilitation and restoration, there is still a large gap between theory and practice. Due to the inhumane conditions in (especially older, 19th-century) prisons, Belgium was repeatedly condemned by the European Court of Human Rights and received critical reports from the European anti-torture Committee.

This project approaches the question of humanizing prisons from a somewhat unusual perspective, that is, innovative care. Although detention differs considerably from care, similar principles are circulating that characterize current social evolutions and according spatial solutions (such as normalization, small-scaleness). Instead of starting from existing prison architecture and examining how it can be updated to current evolutions, the project starts from innovative care architecture and examines how it should be adapted to suit the context of detention. It will combine case studies of innovative (residential) care and detention projects, with participatory action research with future users. This will result in spatial concepts for humane detention, demonstrated in one or more design proposals for

a Belgian Detention House, and methods/techniques to foster support for such houses with and amongst various stakeholders from the start of the design process.

The research, which is supported by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), is conducted by Céline Ramioul, who is working towards a PhD, and Koen Coomans, supervised by and in collaboration with prof. Ann Heylighen, dr. Margo Annemans—all members of Research[x] Design—and prof. Tom Daems from the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC).

Under construction

Architectural Robotics: Robotic fabrication as a creative design medium integrating craft and production

Driven by the modernist goals of optimizing both form and structure and facilitated by the powerful functionalities of modern computer-aided design (CAD) tools, the unification of form, structure and materiality, that naturally exists in craft, become disentangled into the separate domains of modeling, analysis, and fabrication (Oxman et al., 2015). This means that a form must first be modeled and analyzed before becoming fabricated, instead of being revealed and discovered by directly interacting with its material like in craft. As a result, the design space of digital fabrication is restricted to what can be digitally

modeled rather than what can be physically fabricated. Our research therefore focuses on how robotic fabrication can be enriched with features of craft, e.g. allowing materials to actively influence their form in ways that cannot be predicted, analyzed or modeled a priori. In contrast to traditional craft, robotic fabrication yet also provides the power of precision, repetition and scalability. Accordingly, we aim to develop novel fabrication design flows and tools that allow us to design and produce unpredictably varying, yet highly customizable, products for architecture and beyond.

1 — Discovering emergent rupture expression of corrugated cardboard through robotic cutting (top image). Fabricating panels with varying compositions of rupture expressions from curvilinear lines (upper rows of the cardboard) to the polka-dots (lower rows).

1 — Residential Care Centre Mandana (Genk) as an example of an innovative care project © osar

2 — Improvisational robotic clay carving. By pushing or pulling the robotic carving tool, the designer directly fabricates carved textures on-the-fly, without the need of a digital interface nor prior 3d

3 — Exploiting the malleable nature of clay via robotic carving, various organic-looking textures are designed and customized at different scales: wall panels (left), decorative vase (middle), sculptural earrings (right).

Oxman, N., Ortiz, C., Gramazio, F., & Kohler, M. (2015). Material ecology.

The robotic orchestration of spatial adaptation Alex Nguyen

Common architecture is relatively adaptive, as windows, partitions or rotating walls allow occupants to change their exposure to light, noise or privacy. Even when empirical evidence shows that spatial layout can augment ergonomic or social comfort, adaptations of spatial layout rarely unfold because they are manually laborious. Although technological advances in robotic furniture demonstrate how mobile robots can move sofas, chairs or room dividers, these adaptations are meant to achieve functional tasks, ignoring the complexity of the architectural context.

Our research explores how autonomous spatial adaptation can purposefully influence the architectural experience of occupants. Through empirical case studies in real-world contexts, we propose how spatial adaptation should aim to mediate appropriate ‘places’. We discovered unique affordances of spatial adaptation, such as how it encouraged occupants to change their locations, to steer its intentions or to communicate tacit meanings. We foresee how spatial adaptation might become as and perhaps even more compelling than ‘static’ architecture.

Out

Home Tailoring: The Built Environment in Experiences of Independent Living on the Spectrum

PhD researcher: Phuong Lan Nguyen

Supervisors: prof. Ann Heylighen, prof. Viviana d’Auria

Funding Agency: Vietnam International Educational Development – project 911

Adults on the autism spectrum often continue living with their parents. Studies show that many of them, regardless of their abilities, are behind their peers concerning independent living. This research aimed to gain an understanding of the role of the built environment in the independent living of autistic people. It addressed the following research questions: what does living independently mean to autistic adults? What is the role of the built environment in their lived experience?

The research is built up around four studies: a scoping review and three empirical studies. Each empirical study is a multiple case study based on different cases. A case is defined as an autistic adult in their particular living situation. Participants lived in different residential settings (group homes, an inclusive housing project, and regular apartments) in different regions of Belgium.

The contributions of the research can be summarized into three main points.

First, this research has identified and demonstrated feasible ways to involve autistic people themselves in research. Second, we showed that independent living could take different forms and involves tailoring multiple aspects, including social and material factors of the residential environment. Third, we learned that in autistic people’s independent living, the role of the built environment plays at different scales: from location to spatial organization, to interior detailing. The built environment’s design can thus facilitate or hamper independent living in various ways, not only through sensory qualities but also through what it affords and means.

Above: Minimizing visual stimulation as primary design strategy @Architects.

Below: Visual displays in private units.

By reflecting on the role of the built environment in autistic people’s independent living, our findings brought insight on multiple fronts—to people on the spectrum, parents, family members, architects and other designers, housing developers, support staff, and educators in architecture/ design and care.

Planning and Development

‘Planning and Development’ (P&D) is a longstanding multidisciplinary research group experienced in applied and policy-oriented as well as fundamental research in the field of spatial planning, territorial development and socio-spatial innovation. The research unit is specialized in the strategic and institutional aspects of spatial planning, urban and regional territorial development and planning debates, social innovation in territorial development, issues of diversity and socio-ecological dynamics, with specific attention to new methodologies and concepts for action and implementationoriented planning processes. It also has a wide experience in the role of participation in spatial policy development. Together with the European Network for Spatial Development Planning (ESDP), P&D is organizing the International Module for Spatial Development Planning (IMSDP, until 2017 EMSDP).

[P&D]

In its recent research activities, P&D has strengthened its research expertise in the field of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and planning methods, facilitated by a diverse group of international researchers.

Pieter Van den Broeck, Joris Scheers, Frank Moulaert, Jan Schreurs, Louis Albrechts, Han Verschure, Angeliki Paidakaki, Ruth Segers, Sofia Saavedra Bruno, Seppe De Blust, Michael Kaethler, Xenia Katsigianni, Carine Assaf, Carmen Lissette Collado Solis, Ide Hiergens, Helena Gutmane, Jan Hui Min Lim, Clara Medina García, Layan Mneymne, Isye Susana Nurhasanah, Joan Nyagwalla Otieno, Bobby Rahman, Maritza Toro Lopez, Alireza Vaziri Zadeh, David Njenga Muiriri.

Fresh & new

Since mid-2021, P&D has welcomed 3 more projects to its ongoing research portfolio. This includes; one postdoctoral research project, one Global Mind PhD research project and one PhD Visiting scholar from South East University, China.

Under construction

UNA Europa Project on digitalisation :

Angeliki Paidakaki

In 2022, Elisa Brey (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Giulia Ganugi (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna), and Angeliki Paidakaki (KU Leuven) received a research grant from Una Europa DIGITALIZED! seed funding edition to work together on digitalized exclusion, public opinion and the right to housing in Europe.

Combined with a FulbrightSchuman grant for seven months, her research focused on a case study of GNOHA (Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance) in Louisiana, USA.

Postdoctoral Mandate (PDM), FWO:

Angeliki Paidakaki

In 2021, Angeliki Paidakaki

received a one-year post doctoral research fellowship by KU Leuven (PDM) to do research on the political potential of housing alliances for the production of postcrisis egalitarian cities:

Role of Mapping in Social Innovation

David Njenga Muiruri, Global Minds

This PhD research explores the role of mapping and its agency in Social Innovation. It seeks, through countermapping as ‘Action research’, to critically investigate under which conditions can critical mapping empower and build on localized resilience of the indigenous community within the rapidly urbanizing context of Coastal Kenya. This PhD research is supported by the VLIR-UOS Global Minds scholarship.

The Embedded Mechanism of Land Use Structure in Industrial Parks Outside China

In Southeast Asia: Dongxue Li, Visiting Scholar

This PhD research, supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China, investigates the regularity and embedded mechanism of land use structure in industrial parks outside of China. Based on new institutional economics, this study analyzes how host and home countries influence the land property rights structure and functional use structure of industrial parks and explore how the heterogeneity of development enterprises affects land-related decisionmaking behavior, providing a theoretical contribution to sustainable development of industrial parks outside of China.

Having spatial planning, social innovation and territorial development as relevant theoretical approaches, the current research work of active 22 projects across the globe dwells on but is not limited to spatial justice. Drawing varied empirical investigations from (pro-refugee) housing, access to land, transportation, planning, critical cartography, indigenous resilience, resource management and disaster risk management systems, the team’s research analyses how diverse initiatives and alternatives challenge current social and/or environmental dimensions of hegemonic practices.

Out & loud

In this last academic year, P&D has continued its effort of knowledge dissemination – both as a participant and organizer – oriented to knowledge sharing and collective reflection moments on relevant topics. Among the key successful events was the launch of two premier movie documentaries on the ‘Den Berm- A Thin Green line’, led by dr. ir. Sofia Saavedra Bruno and the other one being The ‘(Un)Common ground’ Documentary, led by PhD researcher Clara Medina-García and the Institutional Aspects of Spatial Planning (IASP) 2021 team. The research team was engaged in publications such as the periodic ‘INSIST 5’ that was launched online, Michael Kaethler book titled ‘The Auto-Ethnographic Turn in Design’ and the book chapter on ‘Architects multifaceted roles in enhancing resilience after disasters. Enhancing Disaster Preparedness: From Humanitarian Architecture to Community Resilience’ by Anouck Andriessen, Angeliki Paidakaki and Pieter Van den Broeck, among other authors. Additionally, there were 2 PhD defenses of Alireza Vaziri Zadeh and Maritza Toro López, as well as creative blog posts by dr. Angeliki Paidakaki on personal experiences of the post-Ida recovery efforts Louisiana, USA.

Premiere Documentary

DEN BERM - A THIN GREEN LINE Event

dr. ir. Sofia Saavedra Bruno

On the occasion of the kick-off event of ‘Gebermte 2022’, a premiere of the documentary ‘Den Berm- A Thin Green line’ took place on 23 March 2022 in the Mark Liebrecht Theatre. After the film, Jan Hautekiet had a conversation with dr.ir. Sofia Saavedra Bruno, initiator of the documentary, Menno Schilthuizen, author of the book ‘Darwin in the city’ and Willy Thomas, actor and driving force behind ‘De Grond der Dingen’. This documentary film by Sofia Saavedra Bruno and Andrés Lübbert lets stakeholders of the berms of Mortsel and Wilrijk have their say. It shows their values, emotions, views, and motives with regard to the possibility of turning the berms into a piece of urban nature.

The ‘(Un)Common ground’ Documentary

LeuvenGymkhana 3.0 movie

The ‘(Un)Common ground’ Documentary is a collective outcome of the ‘LeuvenGymkhana 3.0’ action research conducted by the Institutional Aspects of Spatial Planning (IASP) 2021 team.

The ‘LeuvenGymkhana’ is part of Clara MedinaGarcía’s PhD research and aims to investigate how socially innovative multi-actor collaborations (IMACs) are being developed in the City of Leuven (Belgium) for the transformation of the food system. The movie features an asynchronous dialogue among 11 actors of Leuven’s food system individually interviewed in December 2021. These range from people involved in alternative food practices, to researchers and the administration. In the first chapter, the birth and evolution of the food strategy of Leuven are discussed. Then, the focus is set back on ongoing practices in Leuven addressing food justice, and the different definitions and approaches from different types of actors intervening are exposed. The third chapter focuses on governance issues,

illustrating difficulties in keeping all voices involved in the implementation of the strategy, raising questions about the debate between efficiency and broad and diverse participation, and about the role of different actors in the governance of the strategy. Finally, actors already draw conclusions and exchange ideas on how to move forward.

INSIST Cahier 5 http://insist.earth

The hybrid publication is a website initiated by the European Spatial Development Planning Network, which aims to bring research closer to practice and policy by organizing and facilitating workshops and publishing findings in so-called ‘Cahiers’. In May 2022 we launched INSIST Cahier five titled ‘Governance innovation and Leuven’s Food Strategy’, which has been edited by PhD researcher Clara Medina-García, Prof. Pieter Van den Broeck, master student Sharmada Nagarajan and IMSDP students Ernesto Diez, Ramya Khare, and Odette Voinea, from the IMSDP students from 2021 cohort. The issue covers the

whole ‘LeuvenGymkhana’ trajectory from September 2020 up to March 2022. The aim of ‘Cahier 5’ is to gather and discuss the different perspectives, approaches, activities and learnings about governance innovation in Leuven during the ‘LeuvenGymkhana’ action research trajectory with the broader audience, including all the people and organizations that contributed along the way and the general public.

The ‘INISIST Cahier 5’ is publicly available in this link: https://insist.earth/cahier-5/

Creative Blogposts dr. ir. Angeliki Paidakaki

During her stay in the USA in 2021-2022 as a FulbrightSchuman and PDM fellow, Angeliki Paidakaki wrote a blog post on how she experienced the post-Ida recovery efforts in Louisiana, USA. The blogpost is published at the website of the Fulbright-Schuman program. Moreover, in the years 2021 and 2022, together with Febe Viaene, Yana De Reu and Rani De Becker, she wrote three blogposts on community architecture and resilience-building in the context of refugee camps. The blogposts are published at the website of the Network for Migration Matters.

Urbanism and Architecture

Urbanism and Architecture (OSA) intertwines two distinct but connected definitions of urbanism: urbanism as the act of intervening in the city and urbanism as science of the city. In the first, the discipline defines the intervention in, and the future development of the city- to begin with through design. The latter, the science of the city, refers to the accumulation of knowledge that is necessary - or at least useful - to evaluate, monitor and design policies, programs and plans for the (re)development and management of the city. Current projects include the spatial exploration of Palestinian refugee camps, place production under war conditions, landscape urbanism in the mining areas of Peru, the spatial structuring and cartographical exploration of different regions of Flanders, and the production of space by/for people on the move.

[OSA]

Kelly Shannon, Bruno De Meulder, Viviana d’Auria, Aikaterin Anastasiou, Dina Dahood, Ashim Kumar Manna, Bindi Raditya Purnama, Xiaoxiao Cai, Celine Drieskens, Charlotte Timmers, Claire Bosmans, Ellen Verbiest, Els Van Meerbeek, Fadi Belouni, Heleen Verheyden, Jeanne Mosseray, Jeroen Stevens, Jolein Bergers, Jose Fernando Higuera Osorio, Julie Marin, Kezia Ekasari Dewi, Khalda Imad Mubarak Eljack, Layla Zibar, Linh Vu, Lyne Jabri, Maria Fernanda Ordonez Tapia, Minh Quang Nguyen, Nelson Carofilis, Olga Peek, Paulina Espinosa, Racha Daher, Salma Begum, Sheeba Amir, Swagata Das, Tasneem Nagi, Ward Verbakel, Wei Lei, Yuri Gerrits, Zeba Amir.

Out & loud

Urbanisms Justice Lab

Jeroen Stevens

Building on research with homeless organizations in São Paulo, New York and Brussels, OSA’s Urbanism Justice Lab is devoted to expose how struggles for justice are inherent to the making of cities. The lab investigates how the architecture of the city both violates and effectuates human rights, mobilizing spatial analysis and ethnographic collaboration to advance justice in cities around the globe.

In New York, research carried out with the support of a Fullbright and BAEF Fellowship at Columbia University investigated the architecture and urbanism of homelessness against the backdrop of a rampant pandemic. On an average night, more than a hundred thousand New Yorkers depend on a complex constellation of at least six hundred homeless shelter facilities to find refuge for the night. Mostly concentrated in Harlem and the South Bronx, families and

children are shelters’ fastest growing population. As ninety percent of the inhabitants are Black or Latinx, New York’s shelter complex marks how ubiquitous racial injustice is deeply carved into the built anatomy of the city.

Looking back on the long-term typological legacy of the city’s accommodation of New York’s ‘rogues and vagabonds’, the specific ‘place’ and ‘space’ of the urban outcast in the urbanization history of New York was studied. Extensive fieldwork in shelters, and long conversations with residents and personnel gave insight in the complexity of contemporary homeless relief. Close collaboration with directly impacted activists fighting homelessness, mass-incarceration, HIV/ AIDS, racial bigotry and transgender misogyny show how grassroots resistance prefigures more humane pathways towards the future.

Designing Inclusion

Viviana d’Auria, Jeroen Stevens

The ‘Designing Inclusion Live’ experience is based on the partnership between different civil society organizations and international universities (Politecnico di Milano, London Metropolitan University, Universität der Kunste, KU Leuven). It centers around the lived experiences of migration, displacement and exile as key perspectives to under standing how urban spaces can produce or challenge exclusion.

The festive Desinc ‘Designing Inclusion’ event was coorganized with diverse humanitarian and grassroots organizations in Brussels active in migration, asylum, homelessness and squatting. This way, academic and civil society expertise is brought together to discuss urgent topics around the most acute social challenges of our cities. Presented work led by OSA inquired the spatial structures and procedures of asylum in Brussels, the role of vacant architecture as a site and subject of social and cultural

activism, and a history of squatting in the European Capital.

3— Asylum Reception Center in Brussels, Dormitory (Drawing by Sarah ten Berge & Joëlle Spruytte)

4— Asylum Reception Centers in Brussels (Map by Sarah ten Berge & Joëlle Spruytte)

1— Single Adult Men Shelter, The Bronx, New York

2— ‘Housing Works’ protest action, 2021, City Hall, New York (Photograph by Jeroen Stevens)

In the picture Our students, researchers and professors regularly win prizes or are nominated. We would like to give you an overview of the awards in the academic year 2021-2022 within our advanced master programmes and research.

Student awards

MaULP alumna Natalia Recalde Miranda won 2nd prize in the Daida Awards 2021

The 2021 edition focused on “The Inclusive City”. Natalia was awarded the prize for her thesis on “Reversing Landscapes: Regenerative Forest Urbanism in the Guarani Territory”. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Kelly Shannon and Prof. Bruno De Meulder.

K59 atelier receives National Architecture Gold Award 2021 K59 atelier, the architecture firm of MaULP alumnus Phan Lam Nhat Nam and his partner Tran Cam Linh, has been awarded the National Architecture Gold Award 2021 for their project of a rural house “Binh Duong House”. The project is their view on the process of Pressing Urban development.

Developing virtual reality as an accurate investigation instrument for assessing multisensory (visual and auditory) perceptions in healthcare settings

Fatemeh Amirbeiki Tafti / Jihae Han

A joint project between Research[x]Design and Human-Computer Interaction of KU Leuven and Professur für Sozial und Gesundheitsbauten of TU Dresden has been initiated in order to develop VR for assessing multisensory (visual and auditory) perceptions in healthcare settings. This joint project has been awarded the Lab2Lab grant, a graduate academy funding from TU Dresden, which supports the exchange and lively collaboration of early career researchers based on the cooperation of international working groups.

Involved members: Prof. Gesine Marquardt/ Prof. Ann Heylighen/Prof. Andrew Vande Moere/Prof. Adalberto Simeone

Research and researchers in the spotlight

Special recognitions

This documentary film lets stakeholders of an abandoned railway embankment in Antwerp’s suburban southside have their say. It shows their values, emotions, views and motives regarding the possibility of turning the embankment into a piece of urban nature. It also provides a visual report on the research and interventions of an international group of students as a contribution to the third edition of the arts based event ‘Gebermte’ in 2019. The film explores how small performative actions of residents, students, researchers, artists can help to overcome conflict and lead to consensus. It also explores the role of collaboration between different stakeholders to make local initiatives more effective. 5599 films from 90 countries were applied to the festival in 15 years. As a result of the jury’s evaluation, 508 films of 703 directors in the Documentary and Animation categories were found worthy of screening within the scope of our festival and a total of 85 films were awarded.

Prof Hilde Heynen receives honorary doctorate at KTH Hilde Heynen is an international role model in architectural research. She has published a number of books of central importance and has been involved in starting the European Network of Architectural History. She is an editorial board member of a number of highly ranked international journals. Furthermore, she has also played an important role in the development of education in architecture and is a member of the steering group for EAAE (European Association of Architectural Education). Through her long time involvement in architectural research, she has contributed to developing the field into a scientific discipline of its own and has been working on establishing international criteria and guidelines in assessments of architectural research.

Francqui mandate for prof. Ann Heylighen Francqui mandate for research professor assigned to prof. Ann Heylighen (Research[x] Design). The titel of Francqui research Professor is awarded to her for a period of 3 years (2021-2024).

‘DE BERM - a thin green line’ , a documentary by dr. Sofia Saavedra Bruno and Adrès Lübbert, selected for the Istanbul International Architecture and Urban films festival- Archfilmfest