Lennert Van Rompaey - Portfolio Architecture

ID

MAIL TEL

LENNERT VAN ROMPAEY architectural engineer VUB lennertvanrompaey@gmail.com +32 473 33 96 77 MADE IN BELGIUM

lennertvanrompaey@gmail.com +32473339677 Maubeugelaan 25 1800 Vilvoorde www.issuu.com/lennertvanrompaey

EDUCATION

2017 - 2020

MASTER OF SCIENCE ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING

Vrije Universiteit Brussel Chalmers University of Technology

2014 - 2017

Brussels, Belgium Gothenburg, Sweden

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Brussels, Belgium

EXPERIENCE

2020

SMART

BIKE

PATH

DESIGN

COMP ETITION - BAM

Student Design Competition (second place)

2019

C H A N G E M A K E R

Brussels, Belgium

C H A L L E N G E

Plastic pollution thesis award (top five)

2018

Porto, Portugal

DESIGN AND BUILD PROJECT - FIXOTEKET HAMMARKULLEN

Gothenburg, Sweden

MASTER CLASS FABRIC FORMWORK FOR CONCRETE

Master Class under the direction of Siebe Bakker (bureaubakker) at TU Berlin, focussing on the exploration of casting concrete in textile formwork.

2016

D O P P E R

DESIGN AND BUI LD PR OJECT - CRITICAL CONCRETE

Design and build process of a workshop space, guided by Sam Carvalho and Eduardo da Conceicao (ON/ OFF Berlin). Establishment of a participatory process with the community of a suburban area of Gothenburg through a series of co-designing workshops.

2016

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Amsterdam, Netherlands

Critical Concrete Summerschool 2018

2017 - 2018

2 0 1 9

Berlin, Germany

INTERNATIONAL CONCRETE DESIGN COMPETITION - FEBELCEM

Laureate of the 7th edition of the international Concrete Design Competition. Competition entry: a set of ornamental tiles combining concrete and water-based acrylics, documenting the fluidity of concrete within the material itself.

Brussels, Belgium

LANGUAGE DUTCH

ENGLISH

fluent

native

FRENCH

advanced

SOFTWARE Photoshop

InDesign

Illustrator

AutoCAD

Ultimaker Cura

Microsoft Office

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CRITICAL CONCRETE SUMMER SCHOOL

PORTO 2018

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CRITICAL CONCRETE SUMMER SCHOOL

Month-long design-and-build project in the Ilhas do Porto during a summer school at Critical Concrete, a collective that emerged from a dissensus with the prevailing building industry practice and now follows its own understanding of sustainable architecture: long lasting and easily repairable structures, made of locally sourced materials and upcycled trash.

Elevation

Groundfloor plan

First floor plan

Roof plan

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The Lurdes’ family house prior to the renovation (left page) - Maria Lurdes and her cat (right page).

A climate of industrial euphoria in 19th century Porto, brought about an increased demand for affordable housing from populations fleeing the rural crisis. As a result, the Ilha do Porto - clusters of back-to-back dwellings built inside existing building blocks - became an attractive backyard-business for small landowners. Due to the poor living conditions and overcrowdedness of the Ilhas; municipal authorities have engaged in their progressive demolition and the relocation of families to large social districts far from the centre. Today, about 1150 Ilhas remain spread across Porto.

In August 2018, I had the opportunity to redesign and renovate the home of a family living in the Ilhas do Porto, as part of a group of 40 students led by Critical Concrete. Conversations with Maria Lurdes, Joaquim and their daughter showed how their life in the Ilhas had been filled with a strong sense of community, contrasting the cold and impersonal spirit that increasingly defines life in social neighbourhoods. However, their home did not allow for Maria’s impaired mobility. Within a three-week window, the space was reorganised according to the family’s needs.

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01

CRITICAL CONCRETE SUMMER SCHOOL

Elevation

Groundfloor plan

First floor plan

Roof plan

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The Lurdes’ family house after the renovation.

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3D-printed model of the intervention.

01

CRITICAL CONCRETE SUMMER SCHOOL

Family participation in the design process.

Building on site.

Finished extension of the kitchen and bathroom.

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Participants of the Critical Conrete summerschool 2018.

02

FIXOTEKET HAMMARKULLEN

GOTHENBURG 2017-2018

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FIXOTEKET HAMMARKULLEN

There are currently 6,579 people dwelling in Hammarkullen [a suburb of Gothenburg]. Seventy percent are of foreign background. Unemployment in the area is estimated at 90 percent.

Mats Holm (1997) From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, about one million homes were built in the outskirts of Swedish cities to make sure everyone could have a home of good standard at a reasonable price (The Million Programme). Today, some of these suburban areas of concentrated tower blocks have become the home of refugees from countries in crisis due to lower rental prices; creating local communities with very low purchasing power and economic capital growth.

As such, Hammarkullen is a disadvantaged suburb of Gothenburg city, where unemployment and criminality have become the result of selffulfilling social stigmas and residential ethnic segregation. Together with five students of Chalmers University and two architects from Berlin-based ON/OFF, a participatory design and build project was set up with the community of Hammarkullen. Fixoteket Hammarkullen has become a free workshop and meeting space built from old shipping containers; now run by and for people of the community, which promotes employment and development of skills and knowledge on a local level.

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The Fixoteket team inside the finished workspace made from old shipping containers.

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02

FIXOTEKET HAMMARKULLEN PARTICIPATORY APPROACH INTRODUCE 1-21 OCTOBER

CO-CREATE 25 OCTOBER

Establishing connections and setting up a dialogue with the community and stakeholders were key at the start of the project. Building mobile urban furniture for the Hammarkullen Culture Festival and organising a Clothes Swap event on site allowed for a succesful community outreach.

Through collaborative modelmaking and interactive questionnaires the local residents expressed their needs and desires, establishing a solid design-base.

Contacts were made with a local graffiti artist who agreed to paint the old shipping containers.

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BUILD 6-29 NOVEMBER

ACTIVATE 9 DECEMBER

In less than a month, three old shipping containers were tranformed into a functioning workshop space with locally recycled building materials. Community involvement occured spontaneously during this period, with some locals volunteering to help out, others picking up leftover wood or borrowing tools.

With leftovers from the building process, a build-yourown-chair workshop introduced Fixoteket Hammarkullen as a laboratory for creativity and skill development.

Hereby, the space was handed over to the community.

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02

FIXOTEKET HAMMARKULLEN

FIXOTEKET

Elevation

textile workshop

bike repair

tool library storage

recycling station

Groundfloor plan

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Elevation and floorplan of the Fixoteket workshop space.

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Interior of the shipping container, chair made by a local 12-year-old during the workshop.

03

OLYMPIC SWIMMING POOL

ACADEMIC WORK

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OLYMPIC SWIMMING POOL

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Groundfloor plan of the olympic swimming pool.

This academic project strives to revive the outdoor swimming culture of Brussels through the re-introduction of open air swimming places. The assignment to design an indoor olympic swimming pool, gave way to an exploration of the disconnect between modern day sport facilities and the natural scenery.

Situated in Anderlecht, a natural pond is caught between the Brussels’ ring road on the one side and a dense forest on the other.

The design responds to this duality of built environment and nature, by the zoning of local plant species throughout the spaces defined by the olympic swimming pool.

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Zoning of local plant species represented by a series of collages.

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OLYMPIC SWIMMING POOL

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Pathway ending in a vista on the natural pond, flanked by yellow irises.

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Structural elaboration of rainwater drainage.

03

OLYMPIC SWIMMING POOL

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Longitudinal section of the olympic swimming pool.

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04

MASTER THESIS

BRUSSELS 2020

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MASTER THESIS

30

For over thirty years, the biological degradation of plastics by mushrooms has been promoted through microbiological publications as an eco-friendly alternative for landfilling and incinerating. Nevertheless, these methods are still the most economically viable ways of discarding plastics. In my master thesis, I have set out to investigate whether the degradation process of plastics could be injected in the production of sustainable building materials, valorising the waste stream.

Through an experiment-driven approach infused with literature research, three fungal species currently used for the production of mycelium composites are tested for their bioremediation potential.

The species Ganoderma resinaceum has thereby come to the fore as a promising candidate to degrade polyethylene and PLA while resorting to the polymer as the only carbon source to sustain its growth.

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04

MASTER THESIS

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Polyethylene samples after 50 days of colonisation by Ganoderma R.

LDPE sample

prior to biodegradation (500 μm)

LDPE sample

post biodegradation (500 μm)

LDPE sample

prior to biodegradation (100 μm)

LDPE sample

post biodegradation (100 μm)

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Scanning Electron Microscopy images of an LDPE sample prior to (left) and post (right) 50 days of colonisation

by Ganoderma R. with a height of 500 μm (top) and 100 μm (bottom).

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MASTER THESIS

34

The master thesis includes a small scale building project of a living wall segment with 3000 disposable coffee cups from local Starbucks stores and red HDPE waste as a resource for the fungus.

The prototype narrates the process of biodegradation, evoking critical thinking about waste management and starting a debate that transcends disciplines on how architecture could evolve from its current shortcomings in sustainability.

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Wall segment made from 3000 disposed coffee cups and HDPE waste (representation of a five-week evolution).