World Urbanisms Seminar Paper - 8th edition by MaHS-MaULP

WORLD URBANISMS PAPER 8th Edition World Urbanisms Seminar, Department of Architecture, KU Leuven (Belgium)

ISSN: 2795-6040

NEW COMMONS urbanism research across the world: a phd seminar

NEW TERRITORIES voices from urbanism practice: alumni & guest experiences

NEW SETTLEMENTS

urbanisms across the world: MaHS/ MaULP studios & research

MASTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS (LEUVEN) MASTER OF SCIENCE Space is an increasingly limited resource. The Master of Human Settlements provides insights into the challenges and opportunities of worldwide settlements in an era of rapid change. The Master of Human Settlements addresses rapid urbanisation in the developing world and contemporary urban transformations. Architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture and spatial planning are the core disciplines underpinning the programme. Contributions from economics, geography and anthropology, among others, complement the core, preparing students to better understand the interplay of human and natural ecosystems. The design studios form a significant component of the programme. A balance between teamwork and individual contributions is developed. Core courses are directly related to studio practice: one selects a more research-oriented trajectory, a research thesis can be developed in line with a specific programme profile and supporting courses.

MASTER OF URBANISM, LANDSCAPE AND PLANNING (LEUVEN) - MASTER OF SCIENCE Cities and settlements are under extreme pressure. Social and environmental inequity is sharply on the rise. Urbanism, spatial planning and intervention in landscape systems are in urgent need of renewed approaches. New strategies must be developed to not only tackle social exclusion, unequal distribution of resources and spatial contradictions, but also be inspired by the multiple and (trans)cultural expressions of worldwide urbanisms. The Master of Urbanism and Strategic Planning focuses on multi-faceted and -scalar issues of contemporary urban development. The course develops a critical understanding of the contemporary conditions of settlements, cities and urban regions. It introduces students to innovative concepts and strategies for qualitative interventions in urban territories through projects, plans and policies across different scales.The programme is part of the European Postgraduate Masters in Urbanism (EMU). MaUSP students can apply to spend the third semester abroad at one of our partner universities—UPC Barcelona, TU Delft or IUAV Venezia—to obtain the EMU certificate.

DAIDA AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED WITH 3 MAUSP THESIS SPECIAL MENTIONS MaUSP 2019-2020 graduates Mahmoud Al Salti, Zeba Amir and JuiYi ‘Rebecca’ Hung were selected to have their theses submitted to the DAIDA 2020 awards! The DAIDA foundation Global Urban Thesis Award acknowledges and supports master graduates whose work helps improve the urban infrastructure and living conditions for vulnerable groups in the rapidly growing cities of developing economies. Special Mentions: Mahmoud Al Salti (MaUSP 2019): Productive Scattered Metropolis: Activating Inertial Landscapes of Amman - Short-listed in the top 8 entries Zeba Amir (MaUSP 2020): Reinvigorating Mountainous Landscapes: A Himalayan Urbanism - Short-listed entry Jui-Yi ‘Rebecca’ Hung (MaUSP 2020): Refabricating Taichung’s Productive Landscape - Joint 3rd Place

Refabricating Taichung’s Productive Landscape Taichung, Taiwan Jui-Yi ‘Rebecca’ Hung, MaUSP 2021 Masters promoter - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder

Design and thesis studios form the heart of the programme. The courses build a balance between teamwork and individual contribution. Fieldwork is another essential component of the program. In urbanisms studios, fieldwork is an essential foundation for design interventions. In the first semester, work occurs in the Belgian context. In the second semester, the sites are non-Belgian (one European and one non-European).

CONTACT - Laura Calders

Administrative Coordinator MaHS-MaUSP programmes Departement Architectuur / Department of Architecture Kasteelpark Arenberg 1 – bus 2431 B-3001 Leuven (Heverlee) Tel +32 (0)16 32 88 94 laura.calders@kuleuven.be DEPARTMENT WEBSITE - www.architectuur.kuleuven.be ICoU WEBSITE - www.set.kuleuven.be/icou ICoU LINKEDIN - https://www.linkedin.com/company/ international-center-of-urbanism-icou MaHSxMaULP INSTAGRAM - @mahs_mausp MaHSxMaULP FACEBOOK - @MaHS.MaUSP

PROGRAMME DIRECTOR - Prof. Kelly Shannon

Taiwan’s contemporary productive landscape is undergoing rapid urbanization, leading to a decline in agriculture land and unemployment in farming. Taichung City, is witness to massive urban development and various government proposals that reconfigure farmlands into programs that yield higher economic profits. The thesis focused on the coastal region of Taichung City, located in the western part of the Dadu Plateau. As industries gradually took over the importance of the economy, the landscape and its water and flora/ fauna ecologies were sacrificed. Chaotic circumstances from

climate, pollution, fragmentation, urbanization, etc. pose threats to the livability of the inhabitants as well as the environment. The thesis developed a vision that accentuated the ecology of the region which is being rapidly transformed., Strategies were developed to mitigate industrial pollution and adapt to the predict consequences of the climate crisis. Abandoned open spaces was recognized as strategic opportunity for new rural-urban relationships. Robust forest and wetland systems were proposed and new typologies were developed to respond to new ecologies.

16.06.2021 NEW COMMONS

The role and capacity of the design disciplines to generate spaces for the common good is increasingly challenged by the social and ecological issues of our time. The rapacious extraction of natural and human resources, dismantling of the Welfare State (if present at all) and mounting inequalities demand re-conceptualization of the commons. At the same time, what might constitute the “common good” in an increasingly variegated society becomes harder to discern. Notions of “public space” have become increasingly questionable as a clearly defined domain. As part of the ongoing debate around “New Commons, Social Infrastructure and Public Space” this session will look with confidence at (urban) projects not merely as new forms, but also as inspiring ways to promote alternative values and sets of resources. The recognition of shared resources as commons entails an exploration of what opportunities exist in specific sites when it comes to sharing, redistributing, and building autonomy, including a reading of commons’ traces by unfolding the layered histories of particular sites.

CET

09.00 - 09.20

WELCOME & INTRODUCTION

09.20 - 11.00

BLOCK 01 Setting the Scene Guest Lectures by Ilze Wolff + Heinrich Wolff, Wolff Architects Sandi Hilal, Decolonizing Architecture Art Research (DAAR) Saif Ul Haque, Saif Ul Haque Sthapati/ Bengal Institute Discussion

11.15 - 14.00

BLOCK 02 Re-Commoning & Social Infrastructure Doctoral Presentations (Swagata Das/ Salma Begum/ Lyne Jabri)

Voices from Practice (Sergios Strigklogiannis/ Emerald Baidya/ Kishwar Habib)

MaHS-MaULP Presentations Discussion 15.00 - 16.00

BLOCK 03 Co-creative Landscapes MaHS-MaULP Presentations Voices from Practice (Karen Stanley)

Discussion 16.10 - 18.00

BLOCK 04 Questioning Planning Paradigms Doctoral Presentations

(Dieter Van Hemelrijck/ Sofia Borushkia & Anton Gorodnichev/ Miriam de Oliveira Goncalves)

Voices from Practice ‘ 18.10 - 19.10

(Wendy Chavez)

Discussion BLOCK 05 Activism & the Politics of Space MaHS-MaULP Presentations Book Launch (Lieven De Cauter)

Round table on Palestine (Nurhan Abu Jidi/ Ismael Sheikh Hassan)

19.10 - 20.00

CLOSING DISCUSSION

Visit the ICoU website for more details set.kuleuven.be/icou

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Architecture, City and Equity Lecture by Saif Ul Haque

Saif Ul Haque Sthapati/Bengal Institute, Bangladesh Issues and concerns of climate change, inequality and now the global pandemic are influencing the thinking and envisioning of architecture and city-making. Social and environmental justice are prominent features of this emerging approach that is becoming visible across the developing and developed countries alike and at the levels of both local and global. The inclusion of justice as a

criterion for consideration in the process of thinking and envisioning of architecture and city making undoubtedly opens up opportunities for attaining an inclusive and sustainable world. Human ingenuity and empathy aided with digital technology offers possibilities of developing innovative strategies and actions towards this attainment.

THE DESINC LIVE PROJECT FINALLY GOES LIVE Practices of Urban Inclusion

In the summer of 2021, the DESINC LIVE partnership (Politecnico di Milano, London Metropolitan University, KU Leuven, Universität der Künste Berlin, Refugees Welcome Italy, Architectes Sans FrontièresUK, S27 Art and Education) will run its pilot training initiative. The latter is centered around two international seven-day workshops in Marzahn (Berlin, Germany) and San Siro (Milan, Italy). The course asks how we can plan, build, and realise inclusive cities by tackling real experiences of migration, displacement, and exile as key perspectives to understand how urban spaces work. During the course, learners will be encouraged to engage with social, political, and ethical concerns that relate to migration and movement in European cities. Learners across Europe from different backgrounds will be brought together, most of which with personal and/or professional experience of transnational migration, and/or a background in social work, social policy, urban geography, urban planning, urban design, architecture, visual arts, public performance, and other creative disciplines engaging with urban space.

The Terraces of Saida and the Stewardship of the Earth Saida, Lebanon Lyne Jabri, KU Leuven 2019-23 PhD promoters - B. De Meulder, M. Loopmans Lebanon is going through a devastating crisis and there is a general fear of the start of a famine. Meanwhile, with the liberalization of the economy over the past century, green and productive landscapes have fallen into disrepair. Encouraged by laissez-faire policies, people have come to look at their terraced landscapes, orchards and forests as mere real-estate awaiting construction. In the aim of informing the current work of urban and environmental activists, this paper will look at the times when the terraces were in better shape. The paper scans throughout the history of

greater Saida, with its variety of landscapes, to understand practically speaking, its economic, social and political systems that encouraged the maintenance of the terraces and the thriving of vegetation in the past. The paper as well discusses the flaws of such systems.

Keywords: productive landscapes, commons, premodern, land-management, soil

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Language and Landscape of the River People in the Brahmaputra Valley Assam, India Swagata Das, KU Leuven 2020-24 PhD promoters - B. De Meulder, K. Shannon The paper explores a pristine environment, chars (river islands), within the Brahmaputra River Valley in Assam. It focuses on colloquial language and landscape practices prevalent in the Mising

tribes of Dhakuakhana. The Misings have a rich repertoire of traditional knowledge, emerging out of their prolonged history of survival and coping mechanisms with recurrent floods, which have evolved

in response to the changing socio-ecological conditions. During monsoons, some chars submerge while new ones arise. These cyclic patterns – made more unpredictable and abrupt due to climate change – determine the everyday lives and livelihoods of the agricultural community. The paper seeks to abolish the perception of land and water as two distinct physical entities by looking at how the

Misings’ meaning man (mi) of the water (asi) understand the riverine landscape. In the contemporary context, chars have been disassociated from their socio-cultural setting and robbed of their histories. In contrast, interaction between the Misings and the Brahmaputra floodplains has formed a unique socioecological system. The paper seeks to explore the Misings’ relationship with their landscape and their

belonging to the river — not as limiting categories but as a dynamic. Thus, it seeks to provide an alternate history of the region by understanding and making explicit the knowledge of the river people.

Keywords: chars, riverine territories, colloquial language, landscape practices, local knowledge

Emerging Public Space and Adaptive Socio-cultural Practice Along the Edge of Balu River Dhaka, Bangladesh Salma Begum, KU Leuven 2019-23 PhD promoters - B. De Meulder, Khaleed Ashraf

Dhaka lies within an interconnected river system that forms part of the Bengal delta’s hydrology. The intricate river system in which Dhaka is nested is a lush riparian green, with

seasonal variations being the primary feature of the monsoon-fed landscape and defines it as a hydrological city. Although wetness and monsoons play an essential

role in the landscape change and are a predominant structure of the megacity, water remains surprisingly absent from the present urbanism discourse of Dhaka. Instead, the current

wave of urbanization in the city and subsequent land-grabbing of wetlands threatens its resilience by severely compromising water structures and open space. Moreover, the close historical relationship between its water structures and open space is under immediate threat. At present, the landscape transformations are largely torn between long-standing socio-cultural practices and rising land costs. Dhaka’s present urbanism practices forfeit the connection between seasonal variations and the rigid expansion of urban development. Simultaneously, the local community’s traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) responds to contemporary and future challenges posed by the climate crisis. The

paper will argue that Dhaka needs to rethink the role of hydrology in developing a new type of urbanism and public open space. The paper intends to understand the emerging cultural practice and adaptation of public open space as a geographical product within the hydrological landscape of the Balu River, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Informed by TEK and by fieldwork findings on riverine landscape transformation practices, the paper aims to evaluate the current riparian landscapes of Balu River critically.

Keywords: hydrology, landscape, socio-culture practices, public open space, and adaptation

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(RE)COMMONING: LOCALLYANCHORED, PLACE-SPECIFIC… AND DESIGN-ENABLED? Sebastián Oviedo, MaHS 2021 In the context of layered environmental, social and economic crises, ‘commons’ have reemerged as a focus of discussion and action over the last decades. Transcending the public-private dichotomy, the main promise of the commons is to simultaneously challenge neoliberal privatization and top-down technocratic centralization. Furthermore, some of the most forward practices of commoning call to overcome the extractive ethos that dominates colonial/modern relationships between humans and ‘nature’ by understanding agents such as water, soil, flora and fauna as part of mutually sustaining communities that include society. Indeed, rather than commons as static, tangible ‘resources’ accessible to broad social groups, more recent discourse has focused on ‘commoning as a verb’: a set of collective practices and arrangements of continuous (re)production between communities and the ecologies they depend on. At the same time that social practices of (re) commoning favor specific spatialities, design operations can also trigger, facilitate and enhance processes of communal reclamation. As such, (re)commoning practices hold the possibility to address the fragmentation and commodification of landscapes while reweaving social and ecological ties. From cohousing and community land trust initiatives, to the reclamation of riverbeds and forest ecologies as communal assets—including the acts of collective resistance that continuously claim and modify space—processes of (re) commoning are varied and powerful agents in the production and reproduction of the urban. Illustrative of this is R-urban, a 2012 project by Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée in Colombes, France. Envisioned as ‘a network of urban commons’, R-urban activated interstitial spaces in the banlieue to function as communally-run hubs focusing on different activities, such as organic food-production, upcycling of construction

The dunes of the Belgian Coast, in process of enclosure. Studio projects reclaimed them through various (re)commoning practices across scales. Source: Joris Moonen

material or cooperative housing production. Similarly, several MaHS-MaULP studio projects initiated landscape transformations through the (re)commoning of liminal spaces. For instance, ‘Articulating Wondelhem’s in-Betweens’, in Ghent, proposes to reappropriate domains and cul-desacs as communal infrastructure. Currently lost in the suburban fabric of Wondelhem, these figures provide the basis for envisioned (re) commoning efforts, simultaneously creating social infrastructure, establishing a strengthened ecological framework, and triggering the transformation of highly fragmented and ‘monocultural’ housing tissues. Spatial practices can also support the defense and reclamation of commons endangered by processes of privatization. For example, projects in the MaHS-MaULP Belgian Coast studio recovered the continuity of coastal landscape systems while reconceptualizing the North sea as a commons. Across scales, interventions harnessed the historical figures of dunes, polders and dikes

“Articulating Wondelgem’s in-betweens” reappropriates Ghent’s domain structure as the basis for the new ecological framework of the area. The now privatized spaces, currently engulfed by suburban housing, are (re)commoned as a social/ecological infrastructure network. Source: Cobo, Marcigliano, van Meerbeeck, Shubane

to guide the reclamation of their associated ecologies as common assets. Currently captured by highly privatized and privatizing modes of urbanization, re-dynamizing the dunes relied on collective forms of housing that envisioned local processes of stewardship and social arrangements of cooperation. Similarly, the Ghent studio aimed to recover the rapidly suburbanizing riverbeds of the Scheldt and the Leie. Within this framework, groups proposed site-scale interventions that leveraged the potential of historical commons such as Meersen, or marshlands, to structure arrangements between productive activities, water management and urbanization. Resonating with notions of more-than-human (re)commoning, projects such as Zollverein Park in Essen, Germany, have reclaimed formerly privatized or degraded ecologies. Designed by Planergruppe Oberhausen,the project converted a mining site into a forested public space. First, the area was fenced off, allowing for the reemergence of ‘natural’ habitats without any human activity. Then, gradual processes of redesign and selective opening enabled the conversion of the formerly extractive facility into a site of social and ecological (re)commoning. The MaHS-MaULP Brabantse Wouden studio mobilized similar strategies to create an inhabited national park uniting the major forests the region. Extensive afforestation measures and the requalification of urban fabrics were determined based on topographic, water and soil conditions. As in the case of Zollverein, studio visions firmly positioned ‘natural’ agents and human ecologies as co-creators of mutually sustaining systems. Alongside implemented precedents, studio speculations throughout the 2020-2021 academic year provided a glimpse into the multiplicity of forms of (re)commoning mobilized by urbanism. At their best, the ‘system-challenging’ potential of (re)commoning practices opens opportunities to defy and overcome the dominant enclosures of our time and their results: social exclusion, fragmentation, and commodification of cities and ecologies. Furthermore, they hold the possibility of advancing urbanisms that emerge from local processes, while simultaneously tackling the layered crises at hand on a systemic level.

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IMSDP 2021 #LeuvenGymkhana

The word PUBLIC (ΔΗΜΟΣΙΟΝ) addressed the immediate danger of quarrying of the “Eptathronon” (Seven Seats Plateau), part of the historical Pnyx. Original source: Nicholson Museum, Professor W.J. Woodhouse Collection

Participatory Urbanism, Common Spaces, and New Enclosures in Athens: The case of Philopappou Hill Sergios Strigklogiannis, National Technical University of Athens MaHS Alumnus 2014 In the city of Athens, public open spaces have been a field of conflict between antagonistic meanings, representations, and ways of habitation. The intense touristification as an antidote to the economic crisis, in combination with the spatial restrictions imposed due to the current health crisis, reignited this conflict. In this context, new enclosures are rising: topdown redesign strategies of areas of the city vital to everyday life are directly appointed to companies in view of their privatization. This exclusive approach is

part of a wider neoliberalism plan for the rebranding of a city, that prioritizes the touristic industry. Impregnated with collective memories, experiences, and meanings, free open spaces are an important part of the life rhythms of community members that inhabit them and appropriate them for the needs of their daily life. Philopappou Hill is one such example. Historically the birthplace of democracy and citizen participation, it witnesses today the paradox of being contested between the plans for its enclosure and privatization and the

community needs as an accessible, shared space, especially now during the pandemic. Through the case study of Philopappou Hill, this paper examines the ongoing conflict between the privatization strategies and the reclaiming, participatory tactics of communities. In particular, the paper focus is on how collective memory and personal experience of the place are endangered by enclosures, but at the same time act as the very generating force of commoning practices and social resistance.

The #LeuvenGymkhana is a hybrid onlineoffline action and research combining the trajectories of different students and researchers from the Planning and Development research unit. With the objective of researching governance innovation, it focused on the ongoing collaborative processes in Leuven around the development of the food strategy of Leuven, integrated in the Leuven 2030’s roadmap. Through a series of interventions, it visualized and mobilized some of the relevant actors and issues related to the strategy and opened debates to gather and discuss perspectives, ideas and challenges about ensuring healthy and sustainable food all in Leuven. Prof. Pieter Van den Broeck, PhD researcher Clara Medina-

García and master student Sharmada Nagarajan composed the editorial board that guided the work along the 2020-21 year. During the fall Semester, the students of the Institutional Aspects of Spatial Planning course organized the Leuven Gymkhana 1.0 as a treasure hunt including 30 posters shared online and in 13 locations. The group shared their work and everyone’s reactions in a webinar on 22 January. In the spring semester, the IMSDP students took over and run the Leuven Gymkhana 2.0 as a series of guided tours between 17 and 22 May in which they advanced the research and got to broaden the debate with the actors involved in and affected by the implementation of the strategy.

Reading, Repair and Imagining Lecture by Heinrich & Ilze Wolff Wolff Architects, South Africa There is a serious struggle today for decent cities. The work of Wolff Architects is an activism for universally beneficial urbanity in the face of acidic forces eroding this ideal. South African cities are characterised by increasing urbanisation and decreasing urbanity; so many people share the miseries of conglomeration without benefitting from the opportunities and pleasures

that cities should offer. The presentation will explore some of the forces eroding the commons and desaturating urban opportunities, be they social, residential or commercial. The presentation will also celebrate practices, formations and attitudes which we believe are latent in contemporary public life and shared spaces or those which form part of the suppressed

social imagination, since these could set a new urban agenda. Finally, the lecture will show how we participate in preexisting physical and social infrastructures and how these are overlaid with new imaginings of an exciting and equitable urbanity.

Organizers:

Collaborators:

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Reclaiming Spaces for Play with Children and Communities Emerald Upoma Baidya, BRAC Institute of Educational Development MaUSP Alumnus 2016 Play is essential for children’s development and well-being. Play is universal among children whether it is encouraged, scaffolded or hindered in different contexts and cultures. As a spatial professional practicing in Bangladesh, I am trying to explore how supportive and stimulating play spaces can be co-created with children and their communities living

in low-resource settings. From my perspective, the co-creation process works a tool to create moments, pose questions, deconstruct beliefs and build relationships. My presentation will be about sharing such moments and stories from my own practice and create a dialogue about what these realizations might mean for our practices and beyond.

(Re)vision of Socio-Spatial Conceptions for Designing Learning Spaces and Built Environments in Post Pandemic Alberta Kishwar Habib, University of Alberta/Reimagine Architects MaHS Alumna 2007 In response to shifting pedagogical theory and practices, the last century has seen a slow mutation of school space design from teacher-centered to student-centered learning space. This shift is complemented towards the spatial settings with more openplan concepts and interconnected spaces. As the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a global public health crisis, the research discovers that the strategic key measures in response to combat this crisis poses challenges, as it affected the way students were engaged and participated in the

Inclusion through Public Space: The case of the North Quarter Brussels, Belgium Alejandra Peralta, MaULP 2021 Masters promoter - V. d’Auria Ever since the vaulting of the River Senne, followed by the North-South railway, the North Quarter (NQ) has accumulated cycles of urban development with mixed outcomes and varying fortunes. In the midst of this process, its public spaces are located at the crux of transformations and the tensions between private investment, public involvement and the multi-cultural society that inhabits its and uses it. The present thesis aims to study the role public space can have for the NQ, through the lens of inclusion. By relying on a visual analysis applied to specific sample areas, the thesis elucidates different expressions of

territorialization, patterns of use and social practices – and this to qualify what inclusion may mean in a site such as the NQ. These areas are also the main site for an urban rearticulation through design strategies, considering them as an opportunity to hold on to the larger grain of the area’s urban tissue and articulate a large park that would be diversified and ample enough to host the multitude of practices that have been identified in the NQ.

Keywords: Inclusion, Public Space, Urban Design

learning spaces and suggests a need for (re)visioning spatial settings for the learning experience. Using ethnographic data and the framework of assemblage theory, learning spaces in Alberta are analyzed with regards to socio-spatial interconnection and pandemic adaptation. This research suggests that these new social realities and related public health measures are likely to generate new demands on socio-spatial conceptions for learning space design and built environments in the (post) pandemic world.

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FWO SENIOR RESEARCH PROJECT G0A3521N: DOMINIA enabled. The role of the state, spatial policy systems and the governance of Landed Commons in Europe Pieter Van den Broeck (KU Leuven), Constanza Parra (KU Leuven), Serge Gutwirth (VUB), Pavlos Delladetsimas (Harokopio University) Several scholars have been for long underlining the growing potential that Landed Commons (LCs) embody, as alternative land governance arrangements covering a broad range between public and private property regimes, to address discrepancies between increasing land demands and sustainable development. However, global and European organizations have drawn attention to their often-limited legal recognition and institutional embeddedness in spatial policy domains. The DOMINIA project develops an interdisciplinary approach, in order to examine the role of the state as a distinct and complex spatial policy system that mediates the interactions between LCs and broader socio-political dynamics. To this end, we stir up a ‘dialogue’ between nation-wide policies and local community experiences to shed light on legal-institutional parameters that facilitate the development of hybrid property regimes and collective land governance schemes in seven (7) EU member states: Belgium (Flanders), France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Spain, and Greece. In this context, DOMINIA innovatively approaches Land Policy as an interdisciplinary academic field, apt to underpin the amalgamation of the political economy of land, law and socio-spatial science/geography into an integrated theoretical and methodological framework to study commons and overcome their rather partial

Layering, Embedding or Ignoring: Interaction of master planning with existing urban planning system in Russia Moscow, Russia Sofia Borushkina, Politecnico di Milano 2019-22 PhD promoter - M. Bricocoli Anton Gorodnichev, HSE University 2019-22 PhD promoter - A. Puzanov This paper discusses the recent introduction of master planning tool in the Russian system of urban planning. Public authorities claim that under obsolescence and rigidity of the existing system of spatial planning master plans should become an effective solution for urban growth and development. Despite all the attention,

When EU Soft planning initiatives meet the ground The Implementation of CLLD (Community-Led Local Development) in Portugal Lisbon, Portugal Miriam de Oliveira Gonçalves, University of Lisbon 2020-24 PhD promoters - C. Cavavo, J. Morais Mourato In the 2014-2020 community programming cycle, the European Commission set in motion a multi-fund, place-based policy initiative named Community-Led Local Development (CLLD). CLLDs aim to promote the empowerment, capacitybuilding and participation of local communities and territorial stakeholders in local development strategies. Embodying a strong LEADERprogramme heritage, CLLDs convey bottomup, area-based, integrated approaches building on a

greater mobilization and empowerment of local action groups. In Portugal, CLLDs are still an under-researched and under-assessed policy initiative. In this light, spatially focusing on Lisbon Metropolitan Area, this research envisages to critically review the makeup and impact of these place-based communityled initiatives on local governance practices, by checking: i) the distortions such soft policy approaches face when meeting domestic frameworks of

implementation; ii) their potential to introduce innovative governance solutions. As a first step, we focus on preliminary reflections on the impact of a Local Action Group (LAG) activities in Lisbon Metropolitan Area.

Keywords: Territorial Governance, Participation, Integrated Place-based Approaches, European Cohesion Policy, Cocreation

published master plans have an unclear legal status and their introduction often results in some degree of overlap and blurring with existing spatial development institutions. The research critically examines i) how master plans are (not?) being incorporated in existing urban planning institutes ii) the reasons of

master planning practice emergence. Going beyond transitional frameworks, the study discusses institutional change in urban planning in a post-socialist city.

Keywords: Russia, urban planning, post-socialist cities, urban governance

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Exploring Governance Innovation: The development of food system strategies and transformations in Leuven Leuven, Belgium Sharmada Nagarajan, MaULP 2021 Masters promoter - P. Van den Broeck, C. Medina Garcia The aim of this thesis is to gain insight and develop proposals on the status of power and representation (im)balance among urban actors within the development of Leuven’s Food policy and its implementation, leading to an understanding of the governance innovation in the context of Leuven 2030 and innovative multiactor collaborations. This thesis adopts action research as

an epistemological approach and starts from the assumption that Leuven 2030 and the process of development of a Food Strategy for Leuven are examples of governance innovation. It engages in a collaboration process with actors and stakeholders involved in Leuven 2030, the food strategy and alternative food practices in Leuven. The Leuven Gymkhana is an outcome of this collective action

8TH WORLD URBANISMS SEMINAR PRE-EVENT 21st Century Urban Commons / Rethinking Public Open Spaces Karen Stanley, National University of Asuncion MaUSP Alumna 2009 This pre-event is organized by the International Center of Urbanisms (ICoU) at the Department of Architecture of KU Leuven (Belgium) and the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Arts of the National University of Asuncion (Paraguay).The

event will provide a space for learning and debating about innovative approaches to the design and management of open public spaces in an urban environment, by presenting the visions, experiences and case study analyses of renowned international professionals.The

research. It is a hybrid event co-produced with the IASP and IMSDP workshops to share and discuss perspectives, ideas, and challenges about ensuring healthy, local and affordable food all in Leuven.

Setting a milestone for the “Sustainability Shift” in Guayaquil, Ecuador Wendy Chávez-Páez, United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean MaHS Alumna 2018

Keywords: Governance innovation; Action Research; Participation; Food strategy; Leuven 2030

partial results of the project “Dynamics of publics open spaces in Ascuncion and the metropolitan area” will be socialize among local stakeholders. This ongoing research focuses on understanding the major trends, patterns and potentialities of public spaces in Asuncion and two neighboring cities (Luque and Fernando de la Mora) in the Metropolitan Area, in order to propose guidelines and innovative design strategies adapted to the Paraguayan urban context.

Guayaquil city is part of the project “Building Economic Resilience after COVID-19” sponsored by the Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean (United Nations). The objective of the project is to find pivotal areas of economic recovery that can help to boost family income. The results of the analysis identified that in Guayaquil the field of construction is crucial in job creation since it is one of the economic activities that contribute the most to

the local economy. The reflection of the project led to the conclusion that at this point economic recovery cannot follow the same direction that it had before the pandemic; it is imperative to shift Guayaquil´s vision and construction policy to the path of sustainability. For that, it is needed to analyze the “construction ecosystem”, including the policies and the relations among key stakeholders to lead this shift, such as the municipality, the

academia, the banking sector (eco-credits) and the construction sector. Based on these realizations, this analysis shows how: Architecture, Design, Industrial Engineering and Economics can connect and break paradigms to convince us about the importance of using alternative materials for sustainable construction in Guayaquil and set a milestone to revolutionize the way construction is perceived.

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speculations as to how these fervent policies may be realized, including calls for policies to appreciate the nuanced, contextual and systemic value of forests. Through this, forests may be the key to urban areas surviving and thriving as climate changes. The last topic to consider is that of climate adaptation. Climate adaptation is the process through which the cultural landscape adapts to and thrives in natural systems undergoing climate change. This does not vilify the present landscape, rather infrastructures are embraced to be adapted ecologically. Climate adaptation in Belgium is regionallydriven with the latest National Adaptation Strategy comprising of the adaptation sections of the Flemish Climate Policy Plan 2013–2020 and the Walloon and Brussels-Capital Region’s Air-Climate-Energy Plan for 2016-2022. Due to the geography of these regions, different adaptation themes are emphasized. Despite this, climate adaptation thinking demands trans-scalar, multidiscipline biological approaches which transcend administrative regions. This ‘bioregionalism’ transcends traditional policy and calls for the territorial coevolution of anthropogenic and natural dynamics. These policies have manifested a number of realized and academic trans-regional projects. A notable professional research-by design example was the industrial urban wet forest proposed by WIT Architecten for the southern Senne Valley for the research project Metropolitan

“Manifesting the urban archipelago” - Density and co-living encouraged by the ‘space-for-nature and natural systems’ approach explored by Wulteputte, Saleh, de Pauw and Hendlisz

FLUSTERED AND FLOUNDERING OR UNCOVERING A NEW APPROACH? Belgian environmental policy and manifestation at a glance Gemma Annear, MaHS 2021 Belgian environmental policy encompasses a multitude of arduous topics steeped in often isolated urgency. Take the hot topic of desealing, for example. This is the physical removal of hard surfaces in order to re-naturalize soil. This attitude is advocated by the Beleidsplan Ruimte Vlaanderen policy, which envisions a decrease of 20 % of sealed surfaces by 2050. Further promoting this endeavor in Flanders, the 2018 ‘Vlaanderen Breekt Uit’ campaign was launched which spawned several pilot projects. These experimented with feasible methods of de-sealing under the name ‘Proeftuinen Ontharding’. Although successful, this output was small-scale. However, with its findings and reflections gathered into a workbook, the next generation of policies will glean many lessons. Another urgent topic is the reforestation of Flemish forests. In combination with historical factors, the steadily increasing demand for urbanized land, is seeing forests disappear at 0,72ha per day. Combatting this urban encroachment, the Flemish government has attempted to create policies that will reclaim the region’s historical forests. The first of these was the Flemish zonal plans (19761980) which zoned forests mono-

water runoff from ulture ﬁelds

Agricultural desert under heat and drought stress

nocultural fields

Loss of Moervaart valley ecosystem & increased ﬂood risk

Scattered settlements

Canalized Moervaart

functionally. Following this came the Flemish Forest Decree (1990) prohibiting deforestation. This was replaced in 2011 to allow for exceptions through compensation. However, in practice, between 2001 and 2019, 4500ha were deforested, while only 3000ha of forest was compensated. Instead of halting deforestation, the Forest Decree provided legal grounds for deforestation. A major change in this attitude came with the 2019 Forest Expansion Plan spearheaded by the Flemish Minister of Environment, Zuhal Demir. To date, much of the attempts at reforestation have been opposed by farmers. However, academic interest in the fields of agro and urban forestry have seen creative

Landscapes. Envisioning the southern Senne Valley periphery of Brussels as a massive flood plain, facilitated by new forest growth- this proposal saw the existing industrialized landscape consolidate and densify into ‘islands’ which would develop a symbiotic relationship with the water intended to surround it. Evident within this proposal are the intentions to deseal and afforest. Similar biological adaptions were manifested in the highly industrialized Canal GentTerneuzen project of the 2020-2021 MaHS-MaULP studio in Ghent. Here an attempt to create a symbiotic relationship between industry and nature is made to restore the health of natural systems. This proposal provides ‘space-for-nature’ to cater to flooding, reestablishes wetlands, concentrates de-sealing in industrial areas and introduces pocketed forests maintaining the agricultural industry. The proposed urban fabric takes the form of the archipelago; which allows both for waterdominance, and creates intentional separation between settlementsencouraging density and co-living. Although individual policies may seem isolated and somewhat haphazardly evolved, it is fair to say that in the research-by-design landscape and urban scale exercises, many of their disparate elements coalesce to reimagine not only the landscape, but industry, urbanity, travel and perhaps even culture.

Agriculture

Green area

Industrial heat island

Sealed surface Water body

Poory services ribbon developments

Partially desealed

Stormwater runoff from monoculture ﬁelds Agricultural desert under heat and drought stress

Soil pollution from industrial activities

Stormwater runoff from sealed surfaces

Loss of Moervaart valley ecosystem & increased ﬂood risk

Current: Ruptured landscape

Humanure

Runoff

Grey Water Black water

Sealed industrial platform

Canal Gent-Terneuzen

Resevoir & inﬁltration ponds

n canals

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Blackwater recycling ponds

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Archipelago ecosystem

Selfsufficient archipelagos

Moervaart valley

Systemic section

stry pockets

Green area

Urban ribbon

Monocultural fields

Scattered settlements

Canalized Moervaart

Future: Synergetic system with restored relationships

Agriculture Green area

Sealed surf

Water body Industry as resource

Partially des Collective living in The Donks

Restored relationship man-made and landscape

Selfsufﬁcient living in the Archipelagos

Rainwater

Water reuse

WWTP

Humanure Desealed Street

Industrial water Rainwater

Blackwater

Grey Water Black water

Treated effluent

Green roofs Industrial platform as water tower

Bioswales Decentralized wastewater treatment

Phytoremediation

Canal Gent- Terneuzen

Industrial platform

Reusable water reservoir

District heating

Collective donks development

Natural wastewater treatment

Constructed wetland

Seperate sewage system

Koppelingsgebied

The donks platform

Resevoir & inﬁltration ponds Agroforestry pockets Phyto-remediation canals

Agricultural lowlands

Blackwater recycling ponds

Renaturalized Moervaart ﬂoodplain

Archipelago ecosystem

Selfsufficient archipelagos

Moervaart valley

“Embracing Symbiosis and Remediation” - The industrialized landscape is seen as an opportunity for landscape remediation rather than as an obstruction.

QUESTIONING PLANNING PARADIGMS 12

NEW COMMONS

Contested Waters: Integrated, Sustainable/Transformative Governance? A Case of the IWRAP programme in Lake Naivasha, Kenya Lake Naivasha, Kenya Raquel Jerobon, MaHS 2021 Masters promoters - P. Van den Broeck Resources especially those that cross boundaries and involve different actors and institutions usually breed contestation. It is within these contestations that management and governance frameworks are challenged, created and recreated to fit territorial constructions that emerge over time. The study takes the Lake Naivasha Basin, where the waters are contested by multiple users and uses. It uses the Lake Naivasha Basin Integrated Water Resource Action Plan (IWRAP) programme as a lens to explore how and to what extent it supported a sustainable governance system within the basin. It examines how different actors and stakeholders relate to each other within the IWRAP programme, how the planning process succeeded or not in the creation of new governance systems that challenged the established centralized governance framework. It questions whether the IWRAP programme created lasting governance change by examining the place of power, stakeholder involvement, agency and institutional embeddedness to answer the research question.

Pegasys Strategy & Development. 2011. ‘Shared Risk and Opportunity in Water Resources: Seeking a Sustainable Future for Lake Naivasha’. Lake Naivasha Shared Risk and Opportunity. WWF. https://wwf.panda.org/?206039/Shared-risk-and-opportunity-inwater-resources.

Keywords: contestation, governance, actors, institutions, territory

BAEF/FULBRIGHT 2021-2022 The Urbanism of Urban Movements

Jeroen Stevens, Post-Doctoral Visiting Scholar, GSAPP Columbia University New YorkSupervisor: Richard Plunz

Pedestrianised street in the Sant Antoni Superblock. Dias, Maria. Untitled. 2019. https://www.escofet.com/en/projects/streetscape/ superilla-sant-antoni

Barcelona’s Superblocks: Iterations between concept and realisations Barcelona, Spain Simon De Boeck, MaHS 2021 Masters promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder With the Superblock concept, Barcelona quickly transforms an impressive area of public space, dominated by car traffic, into polytechnic space for slow mobility, human encounters and green infrastructure. The archetypal aggregation of three by three building blocks, forming a carfree green island, evolves by trial and error into a systemic network of green axes and squares. Tactical

urbanism interacts with high-end realisations in a contested trajectory towards an equally spread city-wide intervention. Recent studies reveal a positive impact on mobility, environment, health and social cohesion in the city, be it now or potentially in case of a city-wide rollout. Other experts point to the risks of green gentrification and the need for more thorough steps towards biodiversity

promotion and climate change adaptation. How and to what extent does the agile and iterative process allows to approach the myth of the sustainable city in Barcelona? And which factors in the implementation process of the Superblocks influence the ambition level and qualitative outcomes of the strategy? An analysis by field observation, literature review, and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders reveals the defining mechanisms. Keywords: Superblocks, Barcelona, implementation process, tactical urbanism, sustainable cities

Against the backdrop of globally mounting social inequality, urbanism is ever more challenged to contribute to the development of more inclusive cities. An upheaval of scholarship is indeed painstakingly at work to formulate more inclusive discourses and practices of urbanism, advocating for instance selfhelp, tactical, or participatory strategies. Nonetheless, prolific urban movements that are vigorously struggling for improved social justice and inclusion worldwide remain hardly considered, by and large because methodological and theoretical limitations hinder urbanism’s genuine engagement with such highly mobile and complex social practices. This research hypothesizes that combined methods of spatial analysis and participant observation allow to identify, critically evaluate and empower urban movements as harbingers of more inclusive forms of urbanism. During a research stay at the renowned Earth Institute Urban Design Lab of Columbia University, I aim to investigate the interaction between urban movements and urbanism. This way, this research will stimulate new ways of thinking and acting towards more just urban futures.

“Black Trans Lives Matter”: Stonewall Protest, the Bronx, New York (June 2021), building on the 1969 Stonewall Riots in a continuous struggle for equal citizenship in a highly segregated city.

ACTIVISIM & THE POLITICS OF SPACE

NEW COMMONS

“The street is ours”: Feminine urban reclaim

How is the colleuses movement representing an unprecedented strategy for women to claim the right to the city? Cécile Houpert, MaHS 2021 MONU Magazine Entry In cities, urban space (understood as both physical and political space) is a territory of struggles for the right to exist in and transform society: the “right to the city” as conceptualised by Henri Lefebvre. Regarding urban space foremost as a social construct, this paper lays attention on the women colleuses movement and its contested struggle for more equal urban space. For a long time excluded from an urban space made by and for men, women have developed specific strategies and methods to make their voices heard, claiming

their rights to cities’ public spaces. The colleuses movement which started in France in 2019 is in that sense quite emblematic of an unprecedented way to protest and claim in the physical urban space and its parallel digital realm. Gluing black letters on highly exposed city walls composing slogans and messages addressing contemporary gender issues, posting them on social media, young women have launched a movement that soon swarmed in many other French and European cities. Féministes Bruxelles. “The street is ours”. Brussels, 2020. Photographs Instagram. Accessed December 13, 2020 https://www.instagram.com/ collages_feministes_bruxelles/?hl=en

Comuna Bolaños Pamba, engulfed by highways. ©Manuel Pallares

From Barrio Bolaños to Comuna Bolaños Pamba Indigenous Urban Territorialities, Protest and Ontological Politics in Quito

Sebastián Oviedo, MaHS 2021 Jeroen Stevens, Viviana d’Auria, KU Leuven MONU Magazine Entry Threatened with displacement by a highway expansion project since 2016, and frequently cast as ‘land invaders’ by authorities and media, the inhabitants of Bolaños Pamba increasingly mobilize. What began as a weekly protest in Quito’s financial district— separated from the community

by the same highway tunnel to be expanded— evolved into a broader struggle to include their symbolic and factual re-identification as an Indigenous commune. Bridging the gap between a growing literature on the insurgent formulations that co-produce the Latin American city (Holston 2015; 2009; Stevens 2018) and ontological studies of environmental/ political conflicts in areas other-than-urban (Escobar 2020; 2016), this article investigates the claims mobilized by Bolaños Pamba inhabitants to resist displacement. Multimedia documentation of protests and statements alongside interviews with community members are qualitatively analyzed to discuss how their repertoire rejects and transcends dominant modern frameworks that compound ‘protest urbanism’ to a struggle

for urban inclusion. This paper argues instead that the ‘protesters’ are defending an urban existence on other terms, and utilizes historical mapping to situate their struggle within the process of urban expansion over time. Throughout their protest repertoire, inhabitants of Bolaños Pamba mobilize notions that assert a foundational defiance of the modern rationales and metanarratives that the highway project—and by extension, urban development—rely upon. Several lines of enunciation and action stand out, as they destabilize modern/colonial ontologies of separation (Escobar 2020), foreground relational logics and practices, and emphasize socio-territorial interdependences as opposed to economic rationales of value. Re-asserting their identity as a comuna Kitu Kara, Bolaños Pamba then reclaims a form of social assembly based on communal land ownership and indigenous territoriality, often with precolonial roots (Kingman 1992; Rayner 2017). In doing so, they explicitly oppose and symbolically reverse historic processes of erasure of Indigenous urban territories and position themselves within a broader meshwork of struggles for territorial autonomies (Rayner 2017; Simbaña 2005). At large, the struggle of Bolaños Pamba can be read as a demand for the restitution and recognition of fundamentally ‘other’ forms of conceiving and producing worlds, and cities in particular. As such, this study aims to critically contribute to the ongoing debates of urban protest and its direct interaction with the making and remaking of cities. We argue that the case of Bolaños Pamba exemplifies a radical broadening of the realms of dispute within which ‘protest urbanism’ is interpreted and enacted, enabling an ontological framing of urban politics (Escobar 2020).

ACTIVISIM & THE POLITICS OF SPACE 14

NEW COMMONS

Ending the Anthropocene

Essays on Activism in the Age of Collapse - reflect 12 by Lieven de Cauter

Refugee Heritage

Lecture by Sandi Hilal, Decolonizing

Architecture Art Research [DAAR], Palestine/Sweden Refugee camps are established with the intention of being demolished. As a paradigmatic representation of political failure, they are meant to have no history and no future; they are meant to be

forgotten. The history of refugee camps is constantly being erased and dismissed by states, humanitarian organizations, international agencies and even by refugee c o m mu n i t i e s themselves, who

undefined public space

vacant

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FWO JUNIOR POSTDOC FELLOWSHIP 2021-24 Grassroots Urbanism: A Critical Atlas of Crises, Movements and Radical Housing

12 am - 2 pm; workday; cloudy + wind; temperature 9 °C

tent

2:30 - 4 pm; workday; sunny + snow; temperature -4 °C

fear that any acknowledgment of the present condition in the camp may undermine their right of return to their place of origin. The only history that is recognized is one of violence and humiliation. Yet the

surveillance

10.02.2021

person

residential

Anti-homeless

02.11.2020 10.11.2020

1:30 - 3 pm; workday; heavy rainfall; temperature 13 °C

vacant with plans for the future

belongings

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Jeroen Stevens,

WC W.C.

In the book ‘Ending the Anthropocene’, activist philosopher and philosophical activist Lieven de Cauter investigates the idea that if we want to avoid collapse, we have to end the Anthropocene – the geological era of the gigantic, devastating impact of our species on planet Earth. It might even be, he argues, that the collapse of our current, growth-maximizing system is the only hope for the biosphere. Offering case studies on urban activism alongside more general reflections on civic action and social movements, De Cauter moves from the political melancholy caused by the near certainty of climate disaster and meditations on the end of ‘the Age of Man’, towards reflections on more hopeful events of our times, like the resurgence of the commons. He hails the rediscovery of this forgotten and excluded third besides public and private, arguing it contains the seeds of another worldview and another politics. From this new perspective identity and heterotopia, other spaces as places for otherness, can be read in a new light. This collection of writings closes with texts on the corona crisis. Biopolitics, the care for the life of the population by the state, has gained a new topicality in this age of pandemics. The mix of philosophical, theoretical texts and newspaper articles make for a broadly accessible, exciting book of ‘activist essays’, in accordance with the basic creed of its author: ‘pessimism in theory, optimism in practice’. Even if geologists are not quite sure when the Anthropocene has begun, it is high time to end it.

camp is also a place rich with stories, narrated through its urban fabric. In tracing, documenting, revealing and representing refugee history beyond the narrative of suffering and displacement, Refugee Heritage is an attempt to imagine and practice ‘refugeeness’ beyond humanitarianism. Such a process requires not only rethinking the refugee camp as a political space: it calls for redefining the refugee as a subject in exile and understanding exile as a contemporary political practice that is capable of challenging the status quo. The recognition of “the heritage of a culture of exile” constitutes a new perspective from which social, spatial and political structures can be imagined and experienced, beyond the idea of the nationstate.

TRIPOSTAL

Vacant architecture & homeless encampments, Brussels South (Drawing by Arnaud Vander Donckt & Marie-Sophie Vindevogel, 2021) 140

An unprecedented homeless crisis, exacerbated by Covid-19, is afflicting cities worldwide. In response, numerous grassroots movements are testing new housing solutions. Urban studies, the interdisciplinary field concerned with the study of cities, has growing attention for such grassroots practices, but currently tends to prioritize either a social or spatial approach, failing to understand if and how grassroots struggles structurally contribute to the making of more just cities. Because of themethodological and epistemological schism between social and applied sciences, and anthropology and architecture in particular, the distinct ‘citymaking’of grassroots movements remains invisible, hindering more emancipatory and critical forms of urban theory and action. The

Supervised by Bruno De Meulder, Ann Cassiman

141

main aim of this research is to advance critical cartography as an interdisciplinary tool to better understandgrassrootscrisisresponses. The overarching research question is: what novel forms of reinhabiting, reimagining and remaking the city emerge from grassroots struggles for housing? Through a case-study of Brussels and international collaborations in Paris, London, Cape Town and Salvador, this study will analyze the interplay of homeless crises, grassroots movements, and radical housing.By integrating typo-morphological analysis and collaborative ethnography, the critical atlas will bethe first in-depth urban scale examination of grassroots movements and initiate aninternational andinterdisciplinary Grassroots Urbanism Research Lab.

17.06.2021 NEW TERRITORIES

While the urban-rural divide has by now been transcended by more holistic interpretations of territories, the consequences of this fundamental shift in understanding forms of life within the landscapes they inhabit has yet to be fully mobilized. This session will therefore reflect on how territories are formed and transformed by releasing the pervasive bias of urban-centered and urban-centric perspectives and understanding “cities” as part of broader landscapes and systems. It is here that relationships between, forest, water, soil, topography, and urbanism will be delved into and understood relationally. At the same time, the functioning of territories for other-than-human species is finally recognized as demanding of design attention as for humankind. In this context, what new relationships between these important landscape components can be considered to embrace territorial logics more wholeheartedly will be an important point of attention for the entire session.

CET

09.30 - 09.45

WELCOME & INTRODUCTION

09.45 - 11.30

BLOCK 01 Setting the Scene Guest Lectures by Magarita Jover, Tulane School of Architecture/ aldayjover Architecture & Landscape Michel Desvigne, Michel Desvigne Paysagiste Paola Viganò, Studio Paola Viganò/ École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Discussion 11.45 - 13.45

BLOCK 02 Inhabited Parks MaHS-MaULP Presentations Discussion Doctoral Presentations (Wei Lei/ Zaozao Wang/ Sheeba Amir)

14.45 - 15.40

BLOCK 03 Co-creative Landscapes & Rewilding Doctoral Presentations (Ellen Verbeist)

MaHS-MaULP Presentations Voices from Practice (Ana Sabrina Martinez & Bogdan Ilie)

15.40 - 16.30

CLOSING DISCUSSION

Himalayan Mountains, India © Ashim Kumar Manna

Visit the ICoU website for more details set.kuleuven.be/icou

REGENERATING AND TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPES 16

NEW TERRITORIES

Design Strategies for Cohabitation, Integration and Regeneration Lecture by Margarita Jover

Tulane School of Architecture/ aldayjover Architecture and Landscape, USA/Spain

ROBERT BOSCH STIFTUNG POSTDOC ACADEMY FOR TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP 2020-2022 Julie Marin (KU Leuven) A 2-year intensive high-end training with four seminars that broaden the research competencies of postdocs and promote their qualifications towards transdisciplinary leadership. Julie is one of 30 selected Postdocs working on a topic in “Land use practices in a globalised world”. Seminars take place at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Fall 2020) Leuphana University of Lüneburg (Spring 2021), Stockholm Resilience Centre (Fall 2021), Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (Spring 2022).

Aranzadi park. Pamplona, Spain. aldayjover architecture and landscape. April 12th, 2018. The new floodable forest, a designed space of cohabitation between people and seasonal floods.

An important designresearch question is ‘how to inhabit the planet’ not only to adapt on the short term, but most importantly, to set in motion a reverse dynamic for the long-term ecological recovery while addressing the social inequalities accessing resources for life. the prompt ‘healthy and productive landscapes’

leads me to the question of the characteristics of such a thing. to feed the debate around this theme that concerns all in the audience, the talk will center around three ideas: cohabitation, integration and regeneration. the talk will cover design strategies for cohabitation with floods, fauna and people. It will discuss about

the possibility of integration of infrastructures such as food production, waste cycles and energy production and distribution; and finally, it will interrogate about the possibility of regenerative habitats. Some answers and many questions for conversation.

Natural Infrastructures and Transforming Landscapes Lecture by Michel Desvigne

Michel Desvigne Paysagiste, France

Paris-Saclay_ MDP Michel Desvigne Paysagiste

One of the great singularities of the park systems designed by Olmsted during the 19th century is the way they superimpose themselves on the existing geography, transforming it. From the very beginning, these “enhanced geography” appeared as a mode of urban development. Contemporary situations differ from those of the 19th century. Industrial zones have developed, and many have mutated. Cities have continued to spread out, but without the public spaces necessary at the scale of these evolutions.

Just as these park systems served at times to organize the growth of cities, their typology transplanted into the present could indeed help to answer contemporary questions. Vestiges of geography, infrastructure networks and industrial sites are the potential locations for urban renewal. As developed in his recent book “Transforming landscapes”, Michel Desvigne will present a selection of operations ranging from the development of public spaces to that of vaster urban and regional territories.

3-30-300

NEW TERRITORIES

BEYOND PLANTING TREES: EMBRACING THE 3-30300 RULE IN THE BELGIAN TERRITORY Andrea Daniela Cobo Torres, MaHS 2021 Due to the urgent need to increase urban forests and trees to mitigate climate-related issues and environmental degradation, decision-makers call for guidance to develop successful urban forestry programs applicable to each context. In this regard, the urban forester Cecil Konijnendijk van den Bosch recently proposed the 3-30-300 rule in order to intensify the presence of forests and trees in urban environments. The 3-30-300 rule has three principles. The first is that every citizen should be able to see a minimum of three trees of a generous size from their homes. The Danish municipality of Frederiksberg established that every citizen should see at least one tree from their residence since visible green is beneficial for mental health and wellbeing. The second principle indicates that tree canopy cover should be no less than 30% at the neighborhood level - striving for even a higher percentage when possible. This percentage is based on what many pioneer cities already established as their neighborhoods’ canopy cover objective, such as Barcelona, Seattle, and Vancouver. Where soil and climatic conditions are not suitable for trees, 30% of vegetation cover should be the goal. Finally, no one should live more than 300 meters away from a park or green space that allows leisure and recreational activities. This distance is based on the European Regional Office of the World Health Organization, which suggests a distance of no more than 300 meters to the most proximate green space; certainly, this can vary depending on the local context and the specific needs of each city. In Belgium, forests cover over 600,000 ha although only 11% corresponds to Flanders. Several policy

In the Brabantse Wouden, to increase the canopy cover, one proposal includes the reorganization of the back gardens in topographical continuities by introducing common gardens and small-scale orchards on the north slopes. A new building typology is envisioned on the east slopes while working with the existing clearings and densifying the forest all around. Agroforestry is addressed as an opportunity to introduce new productive landscapes. For the south-facing slopes, massive afforestation is planned on the steepest areas. Beeches dominate the forest, but other tree species are suitable for the site like oaks, different kinds of pines, Douglas firs, larches, and spruces. © Baeke, Leander, Giulia Devis, Raya Rizk, and Xenia Stoumpou. 2021

plans have sought to expand forests by 10,000 ha, although they have not succeeded as expected. The current tree stock seems insufficient to face the present and future environmental and climatic challenges in Belgium, so it is needed to think of a more active and engaging role for urban forests and trees while restructuring the interplay between forest and city sustainably and equitably. In this context, the 2021 MaHS-MaULP studios explored different possibilities to envision the 3.30.300 rule and other urban forestry strategies, responding to the main landscape structures on the large and small scale in three different Belgian contexts: the Brabantse Wouden, the city of Ghent, and the

In Ghent, it was proposed to reconfigure the oversized street network and cul-de-sacs by de-sealing, enhancing soft mobility routes, creating new green commons, and increasing the canopy cover to reach 30%. The species composition varies within the city; deciduous tree species such as oaks and beech are adequate for the city’s forests. The most popular species for street planting are lime, maple, and elm. On the marshland, willow trees are the dominant species. © Cobo, Daniela, Agnese Marcigliano, Letlhabile Shubane, and Lucie Van Meerbeeck. 2021

coast. Several strategies to increase urban forests and the canopy cover following specific sites’ landscape logics and considering the types of trees and vegetation were proposed for each site. In the Brabantse Wouden, forest, agriculture, and the urban were viewed as a tripartite system, and the diverse combinations of them, such as agroforestry, urban agriculture, urban forestry, were adopted along the valley, slopes, and plateaus to achieve a canopy cover of 30% (Fig.1). In Ghent, the application of the 3-30-300 rule was rigorously applied to cool down the city and mitigate flooding and droughts. De-sealing and transforming voids into new common spaces such as play forests and gardens were part of the proposals, as well as converting the oversized streets into green corridors while extending the tree lines. These strategies will ensure the suggested canopy cover and enough green recreational spaces at walkable distances (Fig. 2). The coast is a contested site regarding urban forestry due to its natural logic. Strategies in the coastal context included, on the one hand, deforestation to give space back to the primary and secondary dunes and recover their dynamics; and on the other hand, new forests on the back dunes accompanying urbanization. The environmental and socio-economic challenges that cities face demand new urbanism where socio-ecological concerns are at the fore. Urban forestry plays an essential role in this endeavor due to all the environmental functions and health benefits of forest and tree resources. Concretely, the 3-30-300 strategy is context-specific, and as a metric, simple to apply and evaluate. As seen in several contexts across Belgium, urban forestry is not about filling the gaps with trees; it is instead about using the capacity of landscape structures and their dynamics to decide where to plant — or not to plant— more trees and vegetation and contribute to climate change adaptation while achieving the balance between natural and urban conditions, no longer understood as antithetical.

INHABITED PARKS 18

NEW TERRITORIES

INHABITED PARKS: FOSTERING A NEW RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NATURE AND URBAN Cécile Houpert, MaHS 2021 National parks as defined by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature do not incorporate the specific relationship between nature and urban created by a park embedded within the city. In that sense, it is interesting to note the paradigmatic shift in the way the relationship between parks and cities is conceptualised, from the time when parks were considered pristine, sacred but also wild spaces, hostile to humans and therefore not compatible with urbanity. A new understanding of space as a socio-natural whole has triggered the fundamental rethinking of the relation between nature and the city, whereby parks are for the people, and are found where the people are. We have witnessed the transition from national parks to national urban parks, in part to respond to the growing demand from urbanites to access green spaces and in part to challenge the original idea of a pristine and untouched space. Starting with the Stockholm National Urban Park created in 1995, the understanding of national urban parks as inhabited parks where natural and urban systems are interwoven has further expanded. National parks became part of another urban story questioning how can we fix nature and restore ecologies while improving urbanism. The recent coronation of London as the first National Park City adds an extra layer to the notion of inhabited parks. The main idea behind making London a National Park City is to change how people think about green spaces in urban areas and get residents involved in the protection and preservation of their environment. The city becomes a laboratory to build a narrative around the fight against climate change.

Current landscape on the Belgium coastline: a linear beach system with a dense urban front on the dyke, together with tourism infrastructure and residual pockets of dunes areas. Credit: Cantillana, A. 2021

In Belgium as elsewhere, the notion of national park is present in contemporary environmental policies as a way to preserve, protect and restore the remaining natural and ecological systems. The threat of climate change has reinforced this attitude towards the restoration of ecologies in the past years. As a densely urbanised territory with a multiplicity of scales to be taken into account, in Belgium these policies have clashed more than often with urban practices and densification processes. Recent initiatives in Ghent, the Brabantse Wouden and along the coast allow to reimagine and reconceive the role national parks could play in the Belgian context. In Ghent, the creation of a Metropolitan Park would transform the suburban area of the city

National parks are opportunities to develop new ways of living that combine nature and urbanism. One area to test such new paradigms is the Brabantse Wouden. Credit: Houpert, C. 2021

into a new urban front. The park does not only represent the opportunity to add more accessible green spaces to the urban area, but also offers the possibility to reconsider the role of open public spaces and their relationship with urbanization and population growth. Ghent Metropolitan Park could become the place where nature and culture come together at different scales. The same reasoning is valid for the Brabantse Wouden surrounding the Belgian capital, which are an integral part of the urban system and should be considered as an asset to ingeniously deal with future threats and challenges brought by climate change and urbanisation. Along the Belgian coast, the strategy until now has been to create parks as places to restore ecologies through preservation and education. The possibility of creating a new coastal landscape system under the notion of ‘inhabited park’ would re-establish the dialogue between specific urban typologies and a particular nature to preserve (dunes, polders), changing the way we inhabit the landscape and generating urban transformations focused on the coexistence with the environment. National or metropolitan parks play environmental, socio-cultural, and economic roles and could turn into models for sustainable territorial development. Since the paradigmatic shift in the relationship between parks and cities, their primary role is to reinstate blue and green ecological networks that have been damaged by urban development and restore natural systems. But as places where urban and natural systems meet, a second role for national and metropolitan parks emerge as they allow to redefine what it means to live in a city and rethink and reimagine what the natural landscape can be in a city context. In Belgium too, the creation of national/metropolitan parks provides opportunities to rethink the coexistence between the false dichotomies of nature / culture, human / non-human. National parks and cities reciprocally need each other and can use their respective strengths to reconcile nature and the city.

INHABITED PARKS

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Senne Valley Palimpsest Which landscape urbanism strategies can deurbanize or restructure urban and nature in the industrial Senne Valley flood plain? Senne Valley, Belgium Darina Andreeva, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - B. De Meulder, K. Shannon The power of culture, progress, and mainstreams shape human-made systems and alter how ecological systems operate. Complex patterns of urbanization, implementation of programs, economic activities, leave traces on a landscape as a palimpsest. Senne valley, connecting Brussels and Halle, from being a valley of nature evolved to the valley of industries. These transformations

left noticeable changes on the land forming. The original structure of the landscape, where the natural alluvial plain surrounded by agricultural fields is no longer present on the site, was replaced by elevated platforms with largescale industries along the established canal. However, water is still the main character and the quality of the site. Based on the bigger vision of National

park Brabantse Wouden, this thesis focuses on rediscovering the water landscape as an opportunity to increase the value of the territory and draws perspectives of how Senne valley can be restructured in 100 years to come.

Keywords: Climate Change, Water Mosaic, Time, Amphibious Landscape

Plateau van Beersel: New Synergies and Alternative Ways of Living Plateau van Beersel, Belgium Rana Bachir, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - B. De Meulder, K. Shannon The ambitious concept of a new National Park under the name Brabantse Wouden promises places of new ways of living that bridge the distinction between different functions to a multiuse spaces and landscapes. Zooming in at Plateau van Beersel, it is noticed that the region is rich on three levels: the historic level, defined by magnificent

domains all around from castles to historic farms, villas and factories reaching to the iconic Burgmann Sanatorium, and the agricultural level, where the plateau hosts rich agricultural fields that are rare on the Senne side of the park, and finally on the forest level, where it has bigger and more defined patches of which the

TRIPLE ACCOMPLISHMENT FOR OSA AT THE MANUEL DE SOLÀ-MORALES EUROPEAN PRIZE Every two years, the Manuel de Solà-Morales European Prize will recognize the best doctoral research conducted at a European University in the field of urbanism. The award was launched in memory of the late architect and urbanist Manuel de Solà-Morales Rubio (1939-2012), who taught urbanism for more than forty years at the ETSAB (Barcelona School of Architecture) of the UPC (Polytechnic University of Catalonia). In the 2021 edition of the award OSA doctoral researchers obtained recognition at every level: Wim Wambecq was awarded first prize itself (Forest Urbanism in the Dispersed Flemish Territory, 2019, supervised by B. De Meulder), Jereon Stevens the title of finalist (Occupation & City: The Proto-Urbanism of Urban Movements in Central Sao Paulo, 2018, supervised by B. De Meulder, N. Somekh & A. Cassiman as a joint degree with Mackenzie University) and Giulia Testori received a special mention (Quitopia. Collective city-making: participation and autonomy in Quito’s urban future, 2019 supervised by P. Viganò and V. d’Auria as a joint degree with IUAVenice).

Liedekerke Forest Design proposal. © Wim Wambecq, 2019

domains are curved out of. The aim of this project is to rethink the interplay among these three levels to create a model for the new ways of living that restructure the existing urban fabric while intensifying it qualitatively and quantitatively.

Keywords: National Park, Topographic System, Therapeutic Landscapes, New Commons, New Collectivities

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Selected International Competition (one of six teams) - 3rd Prize Bao Loc City & Neighboring Areas Until 2030 (Vietnam), 2019 with Vietnamese Institute of Architecture and Planning (VIAP, Hanoi) and RUA (K. Shannon, B. De Meulder), Nguyen Q.M., Vu L.P.T

Watershed as a Leverage: Designing decentralized water infrastructure Ijse River Basin, Belgium Zhihan Liu, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - B. De Meulder, K. Shannon Belgium is under one of the highest risks of both water shortage and floods among European countries, which reveals the failure of current water infrastructure. On the one hand, water (in many forms) barely circulates in local neighborhoods. On the other hand, (sub-) watersheds that historically shapes the settlements, forestation, and cultivation landscape was disturbed in the last centuries, while urbanization has been dispersing all over the rural Flanders.

Reconnecting with Water: Urban water metabolism in Huldenberg Huldenberg, Belgium Pengyang Luo, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - B. De Meulder, K. Shannon Under the conflict of social and environmental demands, the study of urban metabolism provides a method to solve the contradiction between resource shortage and consumption growth in inhabited areas, of which water is a crucial element. Flood disasters, agricultural irrigation, and residential water are all influenced by the associated territory of water. In Flanders, the spatial distribution of settlements, farmland, and

forests are inseparable from the past water management. Climate change challenges this relationship. Existing sub-urban structures are exposed to flood risk from future climate change and it is urgent to think about how they fit into the future needs of sustainability and recyclability. In the context of National Park in the Brabant region, this paper aims at exploring how waterbased urbanism can redirect urban metabolism and cope with environmental

challenges and population growth within the peninsula area of Huldenberg. It is not only about water management as a solution to climate challenges, but also how water-based design (settlements, water infrastructure and landscape) can shape new ways of living inside the national park.

Keywords: Urban Metabolism, Waterbased Urbanism, National Park, Climate Change, Topographic Value

The design dissertation is under the frame of strategic vision on Inhabitating Brabant Wouden. The chosen object - IJsse river basin is a significant ecological connection of main forest figures: Sonnia forest and Heverlee bos. Applying strategical principles, this design dissertation explores in multiple scales, taking (sub-)watersheds, as leverage to design a decentralized, natualized water infrastructure in IJse river basin, to achieve more performative and healthier

watershed system, and to new appreciation and settelment of “living with water “.

Keywords: Water infrastructure, Natural hydrology, Urban watershed system, Living With water

URBAN REGENERATION

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Fire-scapes: Rethinking of fragile WUI areas in Greece Attica, Greece Aikaterini Ntavou, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder Greece is a country that is vulnerable to fires from ancient times because of its Mediterranean Climate. Although Greek forests were adapted to fire which used to be a natural process with an ecological meaning, in recent years this phenomenon increases exponentially. Many areas have burned multiple times, and, in this case, the forests cannot recover naturally. Fire is a frequent

Voices from Around the World Fall 2020 Landscape Architecture 06/11/2020 Berno Strootman, Strootman Landschaparchitecten Panorama NL 13/11/2020 Patricia Akinga, StudioMLA - Designing for Resilience: A Collective Approach 4/12/2020 Bas Smets, Bureau Bas Smets - Recent Projects 11/12/2020 Joao Nunes, PROAP Landscape Topics 18/12/2020 Martha Schwartz, Martha Shwartz Partners - From Bagels to Belgium

phenomenon in the region of Attica. It results in forest destruction with a terrible impact on the indigenous biodiversity and at the same time, it is the main danger of people living in the fragile Wildland Urban Interface areas. Considering the WUI as problematic areas characterized by discontinuous urban tissues mixed with flammable forest, the need for prevention is necessary.

This thesis evaluates fire risk in relation to climate change in WUI of the area of Attica and investigates what landscape urbanism strategies could be applied to rebalance the urbanization process while reducing fire risks.

Keywords: WUI(Wildland Urban Interface areas), fires, forest destruction, landscape urbanism, urbanization process

Touristscapes: Reclaiming urbanity for the workers settlements on the fringe of the touristic centers in Mexico Ana Sabrina Martinez & Bogdan Ilie, Antrophoscene MaUSP/EMU Alumni 2013 Since the 1970s, tourism has become an important backbone of the Mexican economy. For the past years, it ranked as the seventh country in the world to receive more international tourists (UNWTO, 2019). This has been achieved specially though the creation of the National Fund for the Promotion of

Tourism (FONATUR). With their Integrally Planned Centers (CIPs), it has triggered an unprecedented growth in several territories across Mexico. However, the economic boom in these CIPs was followed by waves of internal migration, which combined with a lack of strong urban policies, regulations and a clear

vision for urban design and development led to socio-spatial segregation. During this presentation we will be showcasing two projects that deal with this reality by debating around the following question: What are the lessons learned from these experiences and how can we prepare for the future?

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Highly Interactive Innovation District (HIID) Vision, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Selected International Competition (one of six teams). with Vietnamese Institute of Architecture and Planning (VIAP, Hanoi), RUA (K. Shannon, B. De Meulder, A. Denijs, N. Hubert, Vu L.P.T., Vu P.M., B. Purnama, Nguyen Q.M., I. Athanasiou, M. Aerts, M. Al Salti, J. Truter), 2019.

Towards Flood Resilient Deltas: Learning from adaptive urban forms in Jiangnan Area Jiangnan Area, China Zaozao Wang, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University 2018-23 PhD promoters - C. Nolf, Y. Dong, N. Macdonald Nowadays, most deltas around the world are highly exposed to flood risks due to a combination of their own inherent vulnerability and rapid urbanisation. Therefore, it is important to learn how to make cities and flood risks coexist by increasing the resilience of urban systems. Taking the Jiangnan area of China as a study area, this research explores the resilience of successive generations of urban forms from 14th C-21st C. Methodologically,

this research combines a synchronic analysis of territorial characteristics of urban forms across different scales with a diachronic study on the evolution process of these urban forms. The systematic collection and analysis of flood records and historical maps is used to firstly explore the distribution of floods and their influence on urban forms at the regional level. Then, based on the key attributes of urban resilience, two representative cases of Wujiang and

Baoshan with distinct spatial features were further analysed to explain how the urban form has transformed and adapted to flood risks historically. The purpose is to draw lessons from the adaption process of urban form, and explore how the design principles can potentially inform contemporary resilient urban design strategies.

Keywords: urban resilience, urban form, flood, Jiangnan area, Yangtze River Delta

Water-based Urbanism in Yangtze River Delta Region: From an art of survival towards future integrated development Yangtze Delta, China Wei Lei, KU Leuven 2021-24 PhD promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder Urbanism in the Yangtze River Delta region was inextricably linked to crises of wars and the rise and decline of waterbased industries. The notion of landscape as infrastructure in the Chinese context was introduced as the Art of Survival by the Beijing-based landscape architect Kongjian Yu in 2006. However, it was mainly limited to the wisdom of traditional strategies

towards nature dealing with basic living and agriculture. This demands an update of more than a simple ‘art of survival’ which can be extended and further elaborated through a focus on the delta’s regional identity. The paper builds on the studies on the traditional green-blue infrastructure and the history of urbanism in YRD with a particular emphasis on relevant theories. This lays

the foundation for the future potential protection, rearticulation and redevelopment of the indigenous wisdom to inform and integrate regional development of YRD region.

Keywords: urban crisis, indigenous landscape, YRD megalopolises, YRD integration

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Urbanizing with Water Dynamics Quibdó, Chocó, Colombia Juan Camilo Acosta Barragan, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder

Rethinking waterscapes: Reconstituting the contested agroecological fringe between Chía and Bogotá Chía and Bogotá, Colombia Daniela García Rojas, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder The Sabana de Bogotá is constituted of paramos in the mountains, wetlands on the floodplain, forests, and rivers. This humid condition has benefited a strong agricultural tradition since Muisca times. Nevertheless, the urbanization from Bogotá to the rural areas of the surrounding municipalities is threatening horticultural practices and the natural bonds of the ecosystems. This thesis focusses in the diffuse

border between Chía and Bogotá, where an alarming suburbanization process is taking place. Chía, located between the Bogotá and Frío Rivers, is in flooding risk. “Rethinking waterscapes” set the framework for opportunistic interventions over time using the “rhizome” as a conceptual tool. By restoring old drainage canals (locally called vallados), this project aims to give space to water.

The vallados also articulate forest integration, the consolidation of productive areas in the speculation land, and the transformation of the gated communities in denser housing solutions in the long-term scenario.

Colombia is a territory marked by its distinct topographic and climatic contrast that underlies a rich cultural, ecological, and ethnic diversity. Due to its location, the department of Choco has exceptional weather conditions, given the precipitations across the territory are the highest in the country and one of the highest worldwide. However, these excesses of precipitation also represent a risk to the urban landscape. In Quibdó, Choco’s capital city, the last report of the national risk management agency counts in the previous 20 years, more than 250,000

inhabitants that have been hit by the extreme flow of the Atrato River. Given the difficulties described above and through the methodology of design by research, the purpose of the present work is to test scenarios across scales, from territorial to urban, with new landscape and urban morphologies and typologies that address those issues. Hydraulic and hydrological modeling will substantiate the tested scenarios.

remaking the traditional landscape. This study reflects on the evolving interaction of water and society within this ‘emerging’ urban system by interrogating the region’s urban ecology and hydrosocial system. The aim is to draw attention to the ecological and

environmental challenges the region is facing and deepen the understanding of the green-blue morphology of the region.

Keywords: hydrology, water urbanism, water morphologies

Keywords: Rhizomatic design, vallado, desuburbanization, enhanced soil productivity, Andeanforest integrity

Appropriated Ecologies – Water and Society in Peri-Urban Gurgaon, India Gurgoan, India Sheeba Amir, KU Leuven 2020-24 PhD promoter - K. Shannon Peri-urban areas are complex territories, susceptible to multidimensional transformations attributed to their proximity and interdependency on urban areas. As terrain for capitalist urbanisation, peripheries of ‘megacities’ like New Delhi are undergoing dramatic

socio-economic and environmental alterations. Gurgaon, located at the periphery of New Delhi, has urbanised tremendously to become part of an urban agglomeration. Along with its unprecedented urban growth, the semi-arid water-stressed region is

undergoing a fundamental reconfiguration of its ecologies, visible in its disconnected hydrological network, fragmented landscape, reappropriated forests and agricultural land. The layers of socio-economic and ecological imaginaries of its new inhabitants are

Keywords: Urban ecology, nature and society, traditional ecological knowledge, water harvesting, arid landscape

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Voices from Around the World Fall 2020 - Project Development Managment 01/10/2020 Michiel Van Balen, Miss Miyagi & Guido Geenen, Wit Architecten - Hal 5, Leuven 8/10/2020 Ken De Cooman, BC Architects - Projects in Africa and Brussels 15/10/2020 Dieter Leyssen, 51N4E - ZIN Brussels North 22/10/2020 Els Geerts, Departement Omgeving & Filip Buyse, Maatontwerpers - Complex Project NorthSouth Limburg 1

THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS Landscape Urbanism strategies across different scales to revive the rainforest of the hill tracts in Chittagong, Bangladesh Chittagong, Bangladesh Sharmin Kabir Shimul, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder The research takes place in the South-eastern hill tracts in Chittagong that was once occupied by Arakanese descendance since the 9th century. These people have been living and taking care of the rainforests long before the British colonial period. The population influx since the colonial period and specially after the independence of the country has increased and affected the place severely with deforestation

and loss of biodiversity. The independence of Bangladesh has resulted in more infrastructure development and develop a network of tourism in Bandarban. The mountain and river system that was once a part of their lives are on the brink of extinction. When the rainforest and landscape is ruined it will cost us more in the long run as the city experiences more natural calamities,

people being displaces and homeless, water shortages, pandemic and famine. The project focuses on reviving the reserved forests with landscape urbanism bottomup strategies that is inspired from traditional ecological knowledge.

homogenization of the territory. The paper critically analyses the occupation of the territory concerning their locational assets and proposes through a design research alternative spatial development strategy. As part of the strategy, TEK,

together with scientific knowledge concerning resource management and contemporary aspirations, are researched to address the significant challenges posed by climate change. The study demonstrates an attempt to use landscape as an operative

tool to resist homogenization and understand the dichotomies of culture/ nature, indigenous/scientific, and traditional/generic perspectives in greater detail.

Keywords: TEK; Rainforest; Shangu river; Tourism; Landslides

29/10/2020 Bertien Buntinx, HouthalenHelchteren & Liesbeth Huybrechts, UHasselt - Complex Project North-South Limburg 2 05/11/2020 Liesl Vanautgaerden, Departement Omgeving & Sofia Saavedra, KU Leuven - Depaving 12/11/2020 Yuri Gerrits, Wit Architecten & Nancy Meijsmans, Stad Antwerpen - Antwerp Quays Redevelopment 19/11/2020 Elke Van den Brandt, GROEN & Annekatrien Verdickt, Filter Café - Brussels Mobility 26/11/2020 Peter Vandenabeele, Stadsbouwmeester Gent - City Architect Instruments and Approaches 03/12/2020 Bruce Fecheyr-Lippens Hands-on Session on Team Work

Landscape as resistance in A Luoi Mountains Thua Thien Hue, Vietnam Minh Quang Nguyen, KU Leuven 2020-23 PhD promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder This paper examines the notion of “landscape as resistance”. It develops the understanding of traditional ways of living of MonKhmer groups associated with traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) that are still evident in Hong Van and

A Dot communes in A Luoi Valley. Through historical and ongoing disturbances, the existing imprint of indigenous cultural landscapes (including sacred, productive and settlement landscapes) implies forms of resistance to the generic

Keywords: forestry, water, landscape urbanism, TEK

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Reversing Landscapes: Regenerative forest urbanism in the Guarani Territory Guarani Territory, Paraguay Natalia Recalde Miranda, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder

Re-weaving Ecological Floors: Connecting hillside settlements with the tropical dry forest ecosystem Bucaramanga, Colombia Silvia Juliana Parra Pabón, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder Located over the Colombian Andes hotspot, Bucaramanga’s urban growth deals with the opportunity to improve former unbalanced territories for people and nature. Historically, the city has grown over the most threatened ecosystem of the tropics: The tropical dry forest ecosystem (TDF). At the same time, urban growth has made low-income populations settle in peripheral hillsides. Hence, creating several economic and environmental challenges inter alia. The study site of this research by design is a landscape formed by several barrios (neighborhoods) settled over the opposite hillside of a limestone open pit in the northern areas of Bucaramanga. This research uses a combination of methodologies such as interpretative cartographies and fieldwork, as a basis for projective proposals across a number of scales. The thesis proposes a new system of settlement in between the 1000 masl, re-weaving three different ecological floors. Thus, the new urbanism

frames a park, that becomes the spatial transition from topographical levels, to protect the TDF while improving living conditions in the barrios. Massive reforestation is proposed, with new forms of settlement and productive sites. Urban voids and terrains vagues are used to create this system, enhancing self-subsistence practices performed such as urban agriculture and rainwater collection. The project weaves a vision of a new form of settlement where different humans, tree species, and animals can share more fair environments in the same territory: the tropical dry forest ecosystem.

Keywords: Hillside, barrios, tropical dry forest, topography, Colombia

This research aims to rethink future scenarios of human-nature reconciliation based on a landscape urbanism approach. Located in the frontiers of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, the Guarani Territory is a water and forest landscape whose dynamics do not correspond to geopolitical limits, but rather work as embedded ecological systems. Deforestation of 90% of the Atlantic Forest that originally covered the territory has led to displacement and marginalization of rural and indigenous populations, that aggravated by the increasing intensity of climate events, have led to both a rural and urban socioecological crisis. Reversing Landscapes is a territorial transformation process where healthy soils and native forests are restructured into the landscape, creating Regenerative agroecosystems that engage communities in the conservation of biodiversity, climate resilience and sustainable production. The critical interface of settlement, production and infrastructure is addressed through

a multi-scalar approach, focusing on two distinct sites in the Monday river sub-basin. The ultimate goal is to propose alternative models of living intermediate between the dialectics of the current extractivist soy monoculture standard and the tekó porã (translated “good living”) indigenous cultural and philosophical notion of settling in the Guarani land.

Keywords: Landscape urbanism, forest urbanism, regenerative agriculture, socio-ecological injustice, climate change

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WALKING ON THE WILD SIDE ACROSS THE BELGIAN TERRITORY Jennifer Saad, MaHS 2021 Rewilding is a pioneering nature conservation method that relies on natural phenomena to restore damaged ecosystems and recover degraded landscapes with minimal human involvement. However, today’s focus is on blurring the lines between wild, built, and social contexts in order to address climate change issues, rehabilitate biodiversity, and ensure sustainable living for urban residents. Urbanists are incorporating nature-based solutions and integrating rewilding principles into design strategies to strengthen urban resilience, such as providing space for forest and water, reintroducing keystone species, providing favorable environments for biodiversity, and creating robust nature-based economies, among other things. Nevertheless, the expansion of wilderness within the urban fabric should be accompanied by restrictions on urban development and on the deterioration of forests and other significant green spaces that might be included in the rewilding system. Several MaHS-MaULP studio projects articulated

rewilding approaches in order to integrate them in urban design strategies for three distinct areas in Belgium: the Brabantse Wouden, Ghent and the Belgian Coast. The most important principles applied were: recovering and linking vast areas of wilderness, rewilding farmlands via agroforestry and afforestation, and finally, reclaiming space from urban infrastructure through desealing and highway decommissioning. Major concerns in the case of Ghent included the expansion of forests while enlarging the canopy cover of trees to mitigate climate change effects, support biodiversity, and restrict urban sprawl. The existing wet and dry forests and marshlands were exposed by understanding the landscape logics through topography and soil composition; they were proposed to be protected and passively maintained to create a neckless of wilderness across the suburbs. Vacant public and private plots as well as parks were left untouched to allow for the growth of wild plantations, which will aid in the increase of biodiversity. At the city

Ghent, 2021 by Author

level, planted backyards and roofs also played a role in rewilding neighborhoods and approaching nature to urban societies. Simultaneously, different rewilding initiatives were applied along the Belgian coast, a site which required the removal of vegetation, instead of its addition, which is threatening the dune’s ecosystem. Plants have developed unnaturally on the main dunes as a result of human interference, steadying it and destroying numerous species’ habitat. Settlements in the dunes had an impact too, and diminished biodiversity. Several projects attempted to “re-dynamize” the

Restoration and conservation of the Schedlt floodplain. Chatzimichail, Ermioni, Morales D., Carlos, Oviedo, Sebastian, Tran, Tien H. 2021. In Spring 2021 Studio Booklet. “Revealing the marshland: shaping urban-floodplain interfaces along the Scheldt .” KU Leuven

coast, restore wildlife, and rehabilitate ecosystems by limiting urbanization to the rear dunes and clearing marram grass and sea buckthorn from the front dunes. Farmland also presents chance to recover wildlife in areas that have been destroyed by humans. In active agricultural regions, innovative agricultural methods such as strategic revegetation and agroforestry, have a significant potential for boosting biodiversity and productivity. Relatedly, in the Brabantse Wouden, agricultural lands overrun the hills and valleys while several forest sections exist at the settlements’ borders. Rewilding was proposed in lands that were judged to be inappropriate for agriculture, considering the production capacity of soils and the slopes’ amplitude. Reforestation of agricultural areas on steep slopes and northern gentle slopes, as well as agroforestry on southern gentle slopes have been recommended as ways to reduce erosion and floods. With the introduction of cattle herds, bird flocks as well as pollinators such as bees, biodiversity is increased while new economic activities are created. Plateaus were left open, which benefits farmland birds and insects that appreciate open spaces. In addition, it was advised

that urban infrastructure be minimized in order to free up space for rewilding. For example, for the “renaturalization” of the marshlands, the motorways in Ghent and Brabantse Wouden were phased out. The hardscape of the harbor along the shore has also been minimized in order to reinstate the dune landscape and habitats of several bird and aquatic species. Initial interventions are needed to resume natural processes in some regions, such as planting trees and returning equivalent species to extinct ones. Rewilding cities is a protracted procedure that would not be possible without community participation, government support, and the adoption of sustainable policies. Unfortunately, many factors slow the rewilding process down, particularly in cities: the uncommon connection between humankind and wilderness, the increasing animal fatality rate caused by road accidents and pollution, the disturbance caused by artificial night light, and the introduction of non-native vegetation, to name a few. To accomplish rewilding within our cities, we must alter human behavior and introduce new urban strategies that embrace wilderness whole-heartedly.

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Productive Foodscape: Cultivating Food Security in the Greater Montreal Area Montreal, Canada Karmen Hoge, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder The dynamics of food has historically been a formidable catalyst for urbanization across the globe. The relatively recent industrialization of the food system is placing a growing

distance between natural agriculture activities and the consumer market, creating an imbalance in ecosystems and new degrees of food insecurity. Centrally situated along

OVAM (PUBLIC WASTE AGENCY OF FLANDERS) Since 2018 Julie is part of an academic expert group advising the Flemish Waste Agency (OVAM) on the integration of circular economy in qualitative spatial development. More specifically she works on instruments OVAM can adopt in their integrated brownfield redevelopment to clarify different interpretations, approaches and strategies for circularity. This work is in collaboration with Philippe Vandenbroeck (ShiftN) and Erik Paredis (UGent). Some of the commisions/ projects have included: 1. Julie Marin (OSA postdoc researcher), Bruno De Meulder (KU Leuven), Project for Flemish Waste Agency (OVAM) on Circularity appreciation in integrated brownfield redevelopments, in collaboration with Philippe Vandenbroeck (ShiftN) and

Erik Paredis (UGent) 2. Julie Marin (OSA postdoc researcher), Bruno De Meulder (KU Leuven), Kathleen De Beuckelaer. Project direction for Pilot Project Back in Rotation HouthalenHelchteren for Flemish Waste Agency (OVAM) and Vlaamse Bouwmeester.

the St Lawrence River, the city of Montreal is surrounded by fertile soil, a rich ecosystem and vast water network, yet there is little relation between food production and food consumption. This thesis uses the process of producing and consuming food to restore ecology and create new qualitative forms of urbanism. The former industrial sites are transformed to bring an unprecedented scale

of agriculture and biodiversity to the city. A topographical irrigation system is designed to feed rainwater and melted snow and ice to the low-lying agricultural sites. These interventions attract a new density and variety of food-based urbanism across Montreal. Keywords: Food security, urban agriculture, water urbanism, ecology, landscape process

A New Alluvial Landscape Brussels, Belgium Rachid García Elmosri, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder Along the Senne Valley, in the southwest fringe of Brussels, the alluvial plain has been degraded by urbanization, as the river has been constrained and infrastructures have developed along, the alluvial plain no longer is a place of fertility and diversity. The objective of this thesis is to explore the transformation of this landscape in favor of nature and its extended social benefits. By

developing a park system with this site as a center, several adjacent ecological bodies would be connected in between them. The urbanization that has taken place here is one of economic interest, be that industrial or postindustrial, therefore a typology subjective to imminent change. By guiding this process of urban change in favor of new cleaner and more socially equitable economies,

with buildings of a smaller footprint, the park system proposed would not only be a landscape proposal but a comprehensive approach that structures an important axis in Brussels.

Keywords: industrial landscape, transformative design, ecological park

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A ‘found’ Landscape : Charleroi Charleroi, Belgium Shubhra Kansal, MaULP 2021 Masters promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder

A Genealogy of Industry: An analysis of historical industrialization waves adapted to Kortrijk Noord and Leuven Haasrode Kortrijk & Leuven, Belgium Dieter Van Hemelrijck, KU Leuven 2020-24 PhD promoters - B. De Meulder, J. Marin, S. Ottoy Increasing globalization of our productive environment makes circular transitions progressively complex to achieve. Applied to the industrial context of Flanders, subsequent development phases have grown from a spatial locally bound logic towards a more economic regional incentive. This paper examines two

things through a historical analysis. Applied to the cases of Kortrijk Noord and Leuven Haasrode, it first investigates how these consecutive waves impacted the location characteristics of the industry zones. Secondly it examines the historical consequences for circularity by applying the R-cascasding principle.

The paper conducts this description based on the origin and spatial impact of three consecutive industrial waves. Each chapter covers one industrial phase while describing it consequences on the aforementioned topics. In the conclusion, this data is contained in a synthesizing timeline that provides an overview of the site-specific and circular knowledge of both sites throughout the past decades.

The thesis investigates how the persistent socioeconomic problems of the postindustrial territory and inhabitants of Charleroi can be challenged by using the landscape as the overhauling instrument. Through mapping and reinterpretation, the new landscape figures are‘found’ and subsequently reimagined providing thus a new-spatial frame to structure present and future urbanity. To understand the dwelling of this landscape by humans, the thesis uses the concept of ‘Ecological Floors’/ ‘Ecological complementarity’ as studied by John V. Murra et al in

the book “Anthropological history of Andean Polities”. It also borrows and inspires from the concept of the city in a city/ the Berlin Archipelago 1977 by Oswald Mathias Ungers, Rem Koolhaas et al. The project site chosen for a designed intervention is a former coal mine that was flattened to build social housing in the 1970s. It also comprises mine worker’s housing of 19th century which today finds itself in architecturally poor and socially obsolete conditions. Keywords: Ecological floors, Urban Archipelago, Social housing, Post- industrial landscape, Neo-nature

Keywords: Historical succession, Industry parks, Anthropogenic environment, Circularity, Regional economy

Radical responses require situated knowledge. Constructing situated knowledge for the circular reconversion of industry parks Kortrijk & Leuven, Belgium Ellen Verbiest, KU Leuven 2020-24 PhD promoters - B. De Meulder, J. Marin, A. Vande Moere This work-in-progress article explores ways to collect, visualize and ultimately integrate divergent visions, projections and agendas within the context of circular reconversion of the built environment of two Flemish industry parks. Although knowledge on circular reconversion of the built environment is rapidly

growing, a disconnect between ambitious generic visions and complex real-time local dynamics often prevent implementation. Visualization is used as a means to co-construct situated knowledge. Two industry parks in Flanders, Kortrijk and Haasrode, were identified as case studies. Through socio-spatial visual

research, interpretative mapping and semistructured interviews with stakeholders, scale levels were graphically integrated. By providing insight in the potential for future circular reconversion based on situated knowledge, the sociomaterial visualizations portray an important role socio-spatial research can play

in the shift from a techno-centric circular economy to a more holistic circular society.

Keywords: circular built environment reconversion, sociomaterial research, visualization, circular society

18.06.2021 NEW SETTLEMENTS

As climate change predicaments manifest themselves globally and urbanization continues to rise around the world, the question of how to inhabit and settle in a more fragile planet is a necessity for reflective and responsive designers. Such a stance not only implies understanding which (new)patterns the Earth can still support without additional damage, but also which dwelling/living/working typologies and cultures offer recognition to particular forms of conviviality and stewardship so that processes of resource extraction, social exploitation, cultural erosion and ecosystem damage can actually find space to thrive (again). While traditional ecological knowledge may offer suggestions on how to mobilize indigenous knowledge, there are significant alterations in how people live, partially triggered by the pandemic. Many of these require intense scrutiny since new social constellations and changing relationships to work, trade, cultural and social infrastructure offer important terrain to shape future settlements and typologies.

CET

12.30 - 12.40

WELCOME & INTRODUCTION

12.40 - 14.30

BLOCK 01 New Settlements / Morphologies Doctoral Presentations (Ward Verbakel/ Vu Thi Phuong Linh/ Minh Quang Nguyen)

MaHS-MaULP Presentations Discussion 14.45 - 16.30

BLOCK 02 Exploring Typologies Guest Lectures by Shunri Nishizawa, Nishizawa Architects Nguyen Hoang Manh, Nguyen Hoang Manh David Barragán, Al Borde Discussion

16.45 - 18.15

BLOCK 03 Urban Regeneration / Spatial Justice Doctoral Presentations (Claire Bosmans/ Shiyuan He)

Voices from Practice (Mircea Munetanu/ Margaret Macharia)

Discussion 18.30 - 20.00

BLOCK 04 Crisis & Settlement MaHS-MaULP Presentations Doctoral Presentations (Dina Dahood)

Voices from Practice (Balaji Rajkumar/ Sahdia Khan/ Khalied Jacobs)

Discussion 20.00 - 21.00

CLOSING DISCUSSION

Visit the ICoU website for more details set.kuleuven.be/icou

NEW TYPOLOGIES/MORPHOLOGIES 30

NEW SETTLEMENTS

Architecture for Underpinning Social Processes Lecture by David Barragán

Al Borde, Ecuador

We live in a society where the state has failed us. Ecuador and Latin America are territories in continuous and effervescent political instability. This kind of environment awakens a sense of self-agency that is quite easy to recognize in the local DNA, and architecture is no exception to this

©JAG Studio

phenomenon. Al Borde’s architecture underpins social organizations that have ongoing projects, where an architectural intervention can substantially improve their conditions. Through this sort of pragmatic approach made through constant community participation, the interventions also end up supporting social cohesion.

Inside Out - Outside In

Lecture by Nguyen Hoang Manh MIA Design Studio, Vietnam

Designing a Density Discourse for Urbanizing Villages Flanders, Belgium Architect Nguyen Hoang Manh has practices architecture based on the existing problems of Vietnamese cities. The Vietnamese urban context continues to develop a lack of open green space and increased environmental pollution. Nguyen introduces a balanced design practices by developing architectural designs that ensure the best quality of life in the permissible conditions. The architect strives to achieve a balance, whereby a connection between the inside and

the outside of the building is strongly maintained. Through this practice and contiously growing design strategy, the architect aims to set a good example for the continued sustainable development of Vietnamese cities in the future.

Ward Verbakel, KU Leuven 2020-23 PhD promoter - B. De Meulder Flanders needs to rethink its’ consumption of open space, horizontal spreading and housing ideal. In order to transition towards a more sustainable mobility and settlement pattern, to mitigate climate change and adapt to water and other resource scarcity, a radical shift away from the horizontal urbanism is needed. This applies to the urban but might have an even greater impact on how Flanders’ villages will transform. Looking at urbanizing villages in

the Gete valley where the actual densification is in conflict with the intention to no longer accommodate for population growth, the agenda here is to use controlled transformation processes for building up spatial qualities: creating stronger and more resilient landscapes, another mobility context in which high level bike infrastructure as being planned can supplement the larger scale public transport infrastructure, a more networked system of amenities and another

building culture that contributes to the quality of the village in itself.

Keywords: transitional urbanism, villages, countryside, housing, mitigation

NEW TYPOLOGIES/MORPHOLOGIES

NEW SETTLEMENTS

Kampong Luong’s Floating Morpho-typology: ‘Living with water’ in the Tonle Sap Mekong Delta, Vietnam Vu Thi Phuong Linh, KU Leuven 2020-24 PhD promoters - K. Shannon, B. De Meulder Throughout history, the Mekong Delta landscape has witnessed drastic transformations resulting from the interplay of changing hydraulic development paradigms and evolving ethnic practices of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) to ‘live with water’. This paper investigates a TEK case study of the floating morpho-typology of fishing villages in Tonle Sap Lake, the critical freshwater ecosystem of the delta, which

is endangered due to fishing industries, urbanization, fertilizerpollution, upstream hydropower dams and climate change. The case is the floating agglomeration of Vietnamese refugees in Kampong Luong which has subsequently been facing forced displacement under the government’s fishing conservation policy. The paper presents a morphological interpretation of the village, focusing on the way of ‘living with

water’, with seasonal and daily practices, intermingled in the great wetland system. This will be combined with historical contexts of hydraulic transformation and ethnic movement in order to understand TEK’s evolution woven into landscape transformation.

Keywords: traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), hydraulic development paradigms, fishing

From Two Residential Projects in Mekong Delta Lecture by Shunri Nishizawa Nishizawa Architects, Vietnam ChauDoc is a border town close to the Cambodian border and has been developed along a branch of the Mekong River. People here have formed their life-structure, strongly

related with water. They accept and cohabitate with non-human species. However, in the last decades, their environment has been changing drastically. Nishizawa Architects

Temporary Urbanism:Strategy to re-activate everyday heritage London, United Kingdom Shiyuan He, UCLondon 2018-22 PhD promoter - M. Short, P. Sendra For many European cities such as London, their underused historic structures have posed a major

challenge in planning. Temporary urbanism is valued for its capacity to transform city’s unproductive

have had two residential projects in Chau Doc. The lecture introduces how they have read the local context and how they have reacted to it.

spaces flexibly, but criticised for its instrumentality as an agent for gentrification. However, few of objectives of temporary urbanism have a direct connection to heritage. This paper focuses on the interim uses of London’s derelict everyday heritage spaces and

critically evaluates the implications of temporary use in making inclusive places for the local community. The case of Platform Project in London is studied, it consists of three meanwhile workspaces converted from a disused public toilet and two railway arches. This paper finds that temporary use can act as a pragmatic tool for safeguarding everyday heritage and navigate the demand for selfreliance in place reactivation, but also produce a space of vulnerability for the users. Keywords: temporary use, industrial heritage, meanwhile Space, vulnerability

Voices from Around the World Fall 2020 - Urban Studies 20/10/2020 Don Mitchell, Uppsala University - Mean Streets Metasized: Homeless and public space after the urban revolution 16/11/2020 James Holston, UCLA Insurgent Cities, Popular Sovereignity and Democracy 24/11/2020 Nando Sigona, University of Birmangham - Brexit, Intra-EU Mobility and the Politics of Diversity 01/12/2020 Ash Amin, University of Cambridge - Placing Mental Health: Slum dwellers and the homeless in Delhi 15/12/2020 Setha Low, CUNY Social Justice and Public Space

NEW TYPOLOGIES/MORPHOLOGIES 32

NEW SETTLEMENTS

NEW LIVING SPECTRUMS FOR A SHARED WORLD Haifa Saleh, MaHS 2021 In the quest for achieving more equitable, diverse, and humane ways of inhabiting the world that can also respond to the challenges imposed by the recent pandemic, collective living comes back as a notion that challenges the binary system of private vs. public, individual vs. collective, living vs. working. It moreover redefines how we perceive ownership and accordingly reshapes the way we envision our being in the world. The notion of the family is changing, particularly in industrialized nations, where the home structure is transformed into single households, as divorce rates and thinning of families are rising, mostly impacting single working mothers. Increasingly, aging parents live alone in large single-family houses, experiencing loneliness, isolation, and the fear of dying alone. Family dismantlement has become the main brick in society. By introducing flexible, multi-scalar and multi-functional collective units that accommodate heterogenous and multi-generational residential arrangements, housing typologies can embrace these nuances, and still maintain anonymity as a desired quality of the city. Nonetheless, land has become inaccessible for the vast majority, commonly converted into a speculative commodity that diminishes the public realm. Collective living by contrast, could entitle collective ownership of land, of shared services and facilities, and of natural resources. This would not only reduce the financial burdens and provide more equitable and inclusive opportunities but could also counter the consumerist culture and propose instead, ways to interweave human and non-human relations. The motives for engaging in collective living for many young generations today resonate with those of activists in Copenhagen in the 1970s. Critical of the unaffordable, hyper privatized landscape, rebelling against a gender-isolating

Living in community

Figure 2 Reconfiguring the urban to live in community. Requalification strategies in Wondelgem. Proposal developed in the Ghent Design Studio Module 02 Spring 2021 - MaHS. © Cobo, Marcigliano, Shubane & Van Meerbeck

culture, and in search of identity and meaning, Christianians contested the housing on offer at the time, and the ensuing urban structure it was placed in. By occupying an ex-military base, they redefined property ownership, surpassed issues of unaffordability, and tackled the main financial obstacle: land. Their social organization demonstrated the power of cooperation over the limited power of the individual, it accentuated an individual’s responsibility towards the collective across all spectrums: from raising a child, all the way to collaboratively building a house, thereby allowing for a more equitable social formation. Vandkustens’ Sieben-Höfe-Strasse in Tübingen (2021) represents an attempt at resurrecting village like neighbourhoods formed beyond familial boundaries, set an example of what has been described as deconstructed villages. This example bets on the power of form to mobilize collective social organization. Car-free streets, courtyards and community shared spaces mixed

Figure 1 Framing open spaces strategy. Incorporation of density and diversity in Overijse. Proposal developed in the Dijle & Senne Watersheds Studio Module 01 Spring 2021 - MaHS. © Marcigliano, Morales, Saleh & Tran

with intergenerational housing typologies, are expected to reshape socio-economic and ecological dynamics. Such models that develop upon mutual benefits might lack an evident social pact. In addition to vulnerability to appropriation and commodification by the capitalist system which raise questions on their viability, they nonetheless present a response to contemporary ailments. MaHS-MaULP studio projects investigated various forms of collective living in three different Belgian contexts. Aligned with the visions for the Brabantse Wouden to become an inhabited national park, the highly privatized, dormitory town of Overrijse was injected with collective ways of inhabitation within nature. Following the existing mesh of forest and agricultural land shared community gardens and agroforestry were introduced together ecological restoration. Communal spaces and social infrastructure were proposed to revitalize, socialize services, and create accessible and equitable neighbourhoods. In Wondelgem, at Ghent’s periphery, some projects tackled diversity and issues of changing demographics and responded to new living and working conditions imposed by the pandemic. By retrofitting the suburban housing stock, new visions for nature-integrated and accessible neighbourhoods were suggested. These incorporated intergenerational, mixed-use buildings with co-working spaces and communal facilities. At the Belgian coast on the other hand, few collective practices are still present, where some inhabitants still maintain the tradition of collective fishing in a highly privatized landscape. Though the occupancy of its urban space swings seasonally, its temporarily used summerhouses presented an opportunity for projects to introduce new temporary forms of collective use. The cases discussed above shed light on different forms of collective living as a nuanced phenomenon, that can be altered according to contexts. All projects appear to recognize the power of living collectively for reshaping the present through different forms of social solidarity which allow for individual enactment through the formation of resilient, selfsufficient, and ecologically conscious collectives.

SOCIAL HOUSING/URBAN REGENERATION

NEW SETTLEMENTS

Fixing (with) Traces: Rethinking social housing repair Brussels, Belgium Claire Bosmans, KU Leuven 2018-22 PhD promoter - V. d’Auria

8th International World Urbanisms Seminar, Alumni Presentations, 16-18.06 2021

Palimpsest Kolderbos, Restructuring of a Social Housing Neighborhood from the Outside-In, Kolderbos in Genk u – Metapolis Mircea Munteanu, Metapolis MaUSP Alumnus 2012

The paper addresses repairthinking in the context of Brussels’ social housing renovation through the notion of traces. With Brigittines (Marolles) as casestudy, the paper moves from breakdown analysis to repair projection. First, a historical and spatial reading of the Marolles neighborhood investigates the influence of state and institutions’ paternalism in space, and the evolutive morphologies of mass disciplining over four centuries of urbanization. It is followed by a short overview of social housing governance in Brussels. Then, three aspects of social housing repair as urban project are discussed: d e - i nst itut i ona l i z at i on ,

architecture of care and welfare landscape. At the estate level, spatial questions informed by ethnographic insights explore components of an infrastructure of care. At the level of the cityregion, high-rise estates are conceptualized as structuring elements of a regenerating and inclusive urban system, mobilizing architectural morphology, socio-economic aspects of the city and underlying landscape features.

Keywords: high-rise

Confronted with an A new central square housing, architecture of DERBOS care, urban regeneration, increasingly run down complemented by welfare landscape, Brussels housing stock and an neighbourhood social housing neighbourhood from the outside –squares, in, Kolderbos in Genk ambiguous public space new gardens for co-living, an system, increasingly run downhashousing stockareas and and an ambiguous public space system, Kolderbos residential playFWO SENIOR RESEARCH PROJECT Reconceptualizing nonetheless a certain luxury forests: these varied natures netheless a certain luxury of space. This sets the scene for a three-tiered strategy: a of space. This sets the scene become the carriers of better the conditions Right to Housing of the open space (private, common, public) creates the for its from a Personal and Neighborhood for a three-tiered strategy: a housing and the related Perspective d more chances of fortheencounters; the introduction of non-residential functions better definition open activities, linking nature Michael Ryckewaert (VUB) & Viviana d’Auria (KU Leuven) diverse of the neighborhood; space experience (private, common, management and andfinally, socialthe new public housing and Public housing systems processes of social exclusion theoretical understanding public) creates the conditions d spatially, to better clarify theprograms. orientation in the neighbourhood. are under pressure due and gentrification. On of the right to housing. for its appropriation and The vision is not a final to limited offer, declining the personal level, poor By reconceptualizing chances for encounters; project but an incremental aremore complemented by neighbourhood squares, new gardens for co-living, residential social cohesion and and insecure housing the right to housing the these introduction of non-become process:the a series experiments rests: varied natures carriers of better housing and the related increasing shifts towards conditions produce from a personal and residential functions catalizes as test cases or permanent nature management and social programs. private provision and residential alienation. neighbourhood a more diverse experience interventions transform the middle-income target Based on a mapping perspective, we contribute of the neighborhood; and space and create moments of a final project but an incremental process: a series experiments as test cases or groups. In response to a of affordable housing to a better understanding finally, the new public cooperation and connection. entions transform the space and create moments of cooperation and connection. permanent housing crisis solutions and in-depth of the legitimacy of housing and amenities are and declining public interviews with residents affordable housing used spatially, to better housing systems, civil of these new initiatives and solutions, whether they clarify the orientation in the society, activist groups public housing projects in are public or bottom-up neighbourhood. and housing movements two neighbourhoods in initiatives or combinations are setting up new Brussels and Antwerp, we of both. housing initiatives. We are aim to contribute to a new interested to understand how the right to housing is guaranteed or reclaimed in the new bottom-up initiatives and in public housing strategies that aim to provide affordable housing solutions. In deprived or lowincome neighbourhoods the spatial expression of the housing crisis becomes apparent in substandard housing conditions, affordable housing shortage and

rbos, winning entry Open Oproep 39 by Metapolis with Mama, Createlli, M.A.Palumbo, Idea, Traject and Hydrio

TRANSFORMATION TOOLS 34

NEW SETTLEMENTS

HOW CAN FLEMISH ‘WILD HOUSING’ BE TRANSFORMED? Imraan Begg, MaHS 2021 Counterbalancing the pressures of urbanization and demographic growth in the Flemish landscape is an urgent necessity. At the same time, it is also crucial to systematically orient how and where development takes place in order to preserve and protect the natural landscapes and related ecosystems of Belgium. The current state of the Flemish territory has been described as spatially disordered, a chaos dating back to the Industrial Revolution, and which still remains a norm today. The three studio sites of the Brabantse Wouden, Ghent and the Belgian Coast have historically transformed over time, and as a result large amounts of infrastructure to support this transformation has scarred the natural landscape; railways and highways at the Senne River and its tributaries, viaducts cutting across Ghent’s marshlands affecting the natural path of the Scheldt River or the Royal Road at the coast supporting an urbanised dyke. The necessity for new infrastructure is supported by urban development and vice versa as settlements grow following a dispersed pattern. How can the resulting ‘wild housing’ of Flanders be transformed in a

way that protects the natural landscape, but still increases density and vegetation cover, and decreasing footprints? Key transformation tools such as the Transfer of Development Rights (TDRs), Community Land Trusts (CLTs) and Land Banking/ Pooling are promising in this regard. In the Brabanstse Wouden, for instance, the aim to create an integrated national park means controlling urbanisation and reforesting at the same time. In SintGenesius-Rode, a wealthy suburb on the Southern outskirts of Brussels and West of the Sonian Forest, suburban development has unfolded for decades, but

a CLT suggest requalifying the existing model of urbanisation towards smallscale denser typologies. Clustering densification around social infrastructure, repurposing backyards and proposing new ways of living (collective/affordable housing, in forest clearings or backyards as new commons) or afforestation are a few of the transformations considered. These strategies resonate with the Lopez Community Land Trust (LCLT) project in San Juan County, Washington (USA). The LCLT acts as a long-term land-holding non-profit organisation, creating opportunities for residents through collective ownership and shared spaces and protecting land from potential profit hungry developers.

Ghent is facing a major housing crisis, and there is a desperate need to broaden housing typologies, steering away from ground-bound family homes – detached or row – or repetitive apartment stacks. SintAmandsberg, West of the city centre, consists of diverse communities and varied existing typologies from dense urban to stand alone suburban. There are interesting opportunities to reimagine the area. TDRs move the focus of development from important community spaces to appropriate spaces closer to amenities. In Sint-Amandberg, studio projects proposed to cluster development by combining long plots in peri-urban areas as a way to protect agricultural land. Other examples involved creating permacultures and urban forests with common backyards in dense urban environments, and densifying in a way to connect neighbouring blocks, extending the green networks. The Serenbe Biophilic Neighbourhood in Atlanta, Georgia (USA), follows a similar notion. The new zoning plan aimed at protecting 70% of the natural landscape and clustering development at the remaining 30% enhances the idea of a common protected backyard and stimulates community engagement. The coast of Belgium, has long been experiencing significant challenges and

today is threatened by sea level rise, temperature increase, ecological system fragmentation, etc. Studio projects in Oostende explored a series of transformation steps which respond to the longterm strategy of strategic de-sealing parking spaces, re-parcelling and injecting new social infrastructure for residential schemes. The Lageweg Pilot Project is an urban renewal operation located in Antwerp’s urban fringe. The project follows a similar notion to what was proposed in Oostende, relying on land banking/ pooling method – private owners of unused big boxes, wasted parking spaces and valuable natural land handed over their assets into a consolidated pool for redevelopment. The tools discussed open up a variety of opportunities for rethinking and transforming range of urban tissues across the Flemish landscape by providing room for adaptation in each specific context. Taken together, they display what the possibilities for transformation of a territory characterised by “wild housing” actually are. Although it may not be easy to convince communities that these tools are beneficial to the preservation of valuable land and ecosystem restoration, they still yield the awareness of a notion which can help tackle the current global climate crisis.

SOCIO-SPATIAL JUSTICE

NEW SETTLEMENTS

The Case of Informal Settlements in Lahore: Land and Resources as a Public Trust Lahore, Pakistan Izzah Minhas, MaHS 2021 Masters promoter - J. Scheers The image of life in urban peripheries elicits a certain response; denoted by strong notions of empathy, displacement, unfamiliarity, or even repulsion. This paper will attempt to understand and analyse themes of informal settlements in the city. The idea is to probe into the character of the informal not just by social, political

or emotive symbols, but by the effect, or the ‘agency’ exerted. These elements, simply put are the index, the impetus, the recipient and the prototype. The state of housing and development in Lahore will be examined, under the influence of land ownership, availability and accessibility, investigating how it shapes typologies of space and habitat, to

frame the philosophy of land and resources as a public trust collectively belonging to the community. It will reflect on the reclamation of rights in the form of selective intervention from authorities. Two distinct trajectories of housing will be analyzed; illegally acquired land for affluent gated housing schemes and Katchi Abadis in the city of Lahore. Keywords: Katchi Abadi, informal settlement, urban housing, relegated community, urbanization, affordable housing

Pedestrianised street in the Sant Antoni Superblock. Dias, Maria. Untitled. 2019. https://www.escofet.com/ en/projects/streetscape/superilla-sant-antoni

Invisible Networks: Understanding the city through the journeys of female asylum seekers Brussels, Belgium Elena Giral, MaHS 2021 Masters promoter - V. d’Auria, J. Stevens

Shopping Malls vis-à-vis Street Appropriations by Vendors in Eastleigh’s First Avenue. Source: M. Macharia, 2011

Towards an Integrated Area Development Approach for Nairobi Metropolitan Region: Analyses of Community-Based Organisations and their Development Strategies against Social and Spatial Polarisation Margaret Macharia, University of Nairobi MaHS Alumna 2008 My PhD research examined both concepts of social and spatial polarisation as well as transformation in the context of Nairobi Region. The research considered how the economic activities as well as the institutions and spatial form manifested in the case study areas of Eastleigh and Kajiado had helped to produce and maintain polarisation on the one hand. On the other hand, it also considered the social and spatial processes which actors in Eastleigh and

Kajiado had mobilised in order to counter polarisation through urban transformation. Using Regulation theory’s framework enriched with concepts from Africa’s economy of affection as well as social and spatial innovation, the research first of all explained the state’s role in reinforcing social and spatial polarisation in Eastleigh’s commercial centre as well as in Kajiado North. Secondly, the research found that both the urban and regional actors

were playing a role in either reproducing or countering exclusion through empowerment processes that were geared towards social and spatial transformation in the study areas. The main argument which the research put forward was that Nairobi Region requires a new urban and regional development approach which is integrated as well as bottom-linked.

Asylum seekers live in a limbo of temporality and spatiality where they struggle between integration and constant fear of deportation, where their sole spatial agency is reduced to a bunk bed. Finding their place in the city is particularly complex in the case of isolated women in reception centres. In an urban context not yet planned for inclusion, gender barriers join those of race, culture

and religion. This thesis looks at the city through the eyes of female asylum seekers in a Red Cross reception centre in Brussels and understands it as a network of relations over space and time. Through formal and informal interviews and a series of urban walks, the study translates into a cartographic urban analysis which reproduces a network of journeys. It inquires about the relation

between women and public space, looking at very complex global problems through the everyday life of individuals while questioning the usual dynamics of power and spatial representation.

Keywords: Asylum, urban integration, gender, cartography

CRISIS & SETTLEMENT 36

NEW SETTLEMENTS

FULLBRIGHT-SCHUMAN POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP Uncovering the Catalytic Role of Housing Alliances in Forming Postdisaster Egalitarian Cities: Lessons for Europe from the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance Angeliki Paidakaki (KU Leuven)

An Investigation into Post Disaster Government Resettlement Programmes for Bududa landslide survivors in Kiryandongo District Bududa, Uganda Bridget Nakangu, MaHS 2021 Masters promoter - V. d’Auria In Uganda, landslides account for approximately 70% of climate related fatalities (UNDRR, 2014). Interestingly, 70% of these landslides occur in Bududa district. Consequently, the government of Uganda declared parts of Bududa as hazardous and resettled the people to Kiryandongo, gave them land and promised to build houses for them.

However, some people returned to Bududa. The research therefore focuses on government led post disaster resettlement programmes taking Bududa landslide survivors resettled to Kiryandongo as a case study. It investigates factors that informed the resettlement, actors involved and sustainability of the program. The research is qualitative

DOCTORAL DEFENCE JUNE 2021 How Do We Live Together? Everyday acts of citizenship and critical urban practices in post-migratory Berlin and Johannesburg Berlin, Germany & Johannesburg, South Africa Katharina Rohde, KU Leuven 2021 PhD promoters - V. d’Auria

with a cross sectional research design. Interviews, observations, mapping and secondary literature were adopted as sources of evidence. Concepts related to disasters, displacement and displaceability, resettlement, institutionalist approach to stakeholder analysis provided frames of analysis. The research aims to contribute knowledge to resettlement approaches and provide solutions to future resettlement programmes for Bududa landslide survivors.

This research project is concerned with one main question: how do housing alliances impact the development of post-crisis cities? Focusing on housing alliances as emerging leading agents in affordable housing projects in many countries, and certainly in the USA and Europe, this project will conduct an in-depth study of the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance (GNOHA) to develop, test and refine the notion of the egalitarian city and the potentials that housing alliances have in advancing this notion.

Keywords: Post disaster, resettlement, displacement, Bududa, Kiryandongo

This thesis explores the everyday agency of migrants in contemporary Berlin, Germany and Johannesburg, South Africa. Migration has become more and more enmeshed with the future of many urban areas, and increasingly so in Europe, where cities and metropolitan regions persist as the main sites of arrival and passage for migrants. Contemporary representations of migration have precipitated struggles over space and rights for migrants. Cities, however, play a crucial role in contesting asylum and migration policies, accommodating local processes of contestation. These are in turn supported by urban practitioners, who have also sought to reconsider the complicity of the design disciplines and their role in extending

solidarity. In this light, the doctoral research explores ‘spaces of migration’ as spaces that favour more inclusive settings. These stand in contrast to urban planning and design approaches that contribute to and enhance processes of social marginalization and spatial segregation as typical strategies in contemporary cities. Such practices are confronted with the refusal of migrants and others to conform to the official rules governing the use of space, challenging mainstream urban development. Building on the concept of “acts of citizenship” (Isin 2009) the research questions how migrants actually engage in city-making and the extent of their contributions to an “everyday or ordinary cosmopolitanism” (Agier 2016). These interrogations

take place in the context of urban regeneration programs within ‘migrant quarters’ in the pre-2015 period in Berlin and Johannesburg, and in the peripheral areas of Berlin after 2015, including refugee camps. It therefore looks are migrants’ spatial practices as a means to contribute to discussions around actual participation in the conception, construction and management of the city. The role of urban space is emphasized throughout the text as a stage for the enactment of “everyday acts of citizenship” that make space for pluralism and post-migratory societies, and which can be enhanced, supported and empowered through design-led practices of urban solidarity.

CRISIS & SETTLEMENT

NEW SETTLEMENTS

DOCTORAL DEFENCE JUNE 2021 The Production of Public Spaces of Palestinian Refugee Camps: The case of Jabalya camp in the Gaza strip Gaza, Palestine

Marka Camp: An Evolving Definition of Refugee Camp and Hosting City Marka Camp, Jordan Dina Dahood Dabash, KU Leuven 2016-21 PhD promoters - B. De Meulder, C. Kesteloot This paper aims to unravel the co-evolving definition of camp and city. With this purpose, a thorough morphological analysis is complemented with a query that investigates the perceptual definition of Marka camp and Russeifa –its hosting city – by employing the method of mental mapping. The study cartographically compiles the views and perceptions of thirty-eight key informants who reside either in the camp or in the city. The two groups

are composed of genderbalanced participants who reside Marka or Russeifa and born between 1950 and 2000. The two groups are both asked to define the camp as well as the city, including the defining of main landmarks. This information is processed and confronted with the morphological space set by the state and the humanitarian bodies (United Nations). As such, the scale of conceived, lived and perceived space

-as understood by Henri Lefebvre- of city and camp is re-constructed. Based on the collected outputs, the study then associates the perceived with the set borders of the camp and the city. Such comparison is employed to empirically trace the actual domain of the camp and the city and to explore the extent of the spatial interconnectivity of the two settings, which is addressing the primary query of the ongoing doctoral study in investigating the spatial agency of the refugee camp. Keywords: Spatial Agency – Mental Mapping – Palestine Refugee Camps – Displacement – Space Production

Shadi Saleh, KU Leuven 2021 PhD promoters - B. De Meulder, V. d’Auria, M. Loopmans As the life length of refugee camps are eternally stretched beyond a temporary installation, they inevitably require environmental improvement. A variety of development and improvement programs aim to answer these needs. However, a better understanding of the camp environment is necessary in order to improve the relevance, significance, and efficiency of the various improvement programs. The thesis selects public space as a strategic entry point to understand and critically evaluate the historic and the contemporary state of the camps, both as a material construct and as forms of a variety of social practices, and finally as spaces of representation that resonate the discourses and hence the meanings attached to the camps. The Palestinian refugee camps are perfect examples to investigate the camp’s public space. They existed already for a sufficiently long period, thus being able to demonstrate cases of urbanities in transition from a temporary installation to perhaps a permanent dwelling environment. More specifically, the thesis elaborates on Jabalya (also Jabalia) refugee camp in the Gaza strip as a major case study. First it contextualizes the camp as an exceptional urbanity within camp’s literature and within the host territory. Second, it investigates the spatial evolution of the camp since 1948 by historically outlining how the political powers, traditions, and other agencies have intertwined and produced the current open spaces. Third, it studies the social production and construction of a major public space in the camp’s center by analyzing how space is used and struggled over by camp dwellers amid its fluid governance. Forth, it expands on the meaning of camp public spaces by analyzing the social production of many small open spaces (pockets) that were produced by the Israeli demolition and resettlement scheme. A combination of street-level ethnographies and map analysis were used throughout the research phases. Historic areal images of the camp are key in analyzing its overall spatial evolution and in guiding field observations that attempt to unfold the various types of public spaces. The research reveals that the camp is an imposition of a political landscape such as the UNRWA grid-layout which treated open spaces as a secondary space. On the other hand, a vernacular landscape emerges out of the daily transformations which seems to intensify in periods where control is absent, weak, or in transition. The spatial history of the camp included shocks and waves of bottomup shelter expansions and top-down actions that were sometimes brutal in a form of home erasure. Thus, the current open spaces are not the outcomes of design-induced ideas but are rather the product of an incident after an incident. These dynamics have produced camp public space and not an “urban public space” with varying degrees of publicness and contradictory meanings from time to time. Nonetheless, the thesis elaborates on how the exposure and social settings of these spaces play an important role in defining the level of their publicness and the camp’s weak official governance.

CRISIS & SETTLEMENT 38

NEW SETTLEMENTS

SHURA: Sustainable Human Settlements in Urban Areas to Support Reintegration in Afghanistan Balaji Mohan Rajkumar, UN Habitat Afghanistan MaHS Alumnus 2011 SHURA being the prominent program of UNH Afghanistan, contributes to the reintegration of Afghan vulnerable population and host communities. The approach focusses on durable solutions, enabling them access to serviceable land, secure tenure and fundamentally enhancing the carrying capacities of the urban neighborhoods hosting the programme target population. Integrating lessons learned from the past decade of approaches to displacement in Afghanistan, this approach is based on the allocation of well-located land in proximity to suitable livelihood opportunities as the foundation for selfPotable water infrastructure at site (2020)

reliance and integration. The housing component integrated into the program is incremental in nature. Community development councils (CDC’s), transparency of key procedures ensures public trust and enables public participation towards the settlement development. The Masterplanning and Urban Design component follows inclusive development models addressing gender and environmental concerns. Two sites of over 1600 acres each have been approved, over 15000 returnees’ families, 5400 IDP families have signed up for the program.

A Good Crisis: The Planning Paradox and a Drive for Spatial Justice Khalied Jacobs, jakupa architects + urban designers MaHS Alumnus 2003 The imagined calm of practicing with a halo best be set aside for rolled-up sleeves in the context of those lurching from disaster to crisis that is the everyday experience for the seething swathes of those living in the margins of power. It is messy, frustrating and seldom Beneficiary registration centre 2020 follows a linear trajectory. Traditional bureaucracyencumbered city making tools tend to serve those who has the ability to access power and has such proven to be ineffective in these borderlands. Here the sway of hyper-volatile forces shape the making and remaking of

places in rapid succession. The margins is also the place to witness the collision between environmental catastrophe, dynamic power shifts and sloth-like planning tools where it tends to play out in planning chaos and questions of our role and methods of practice in the Mixed use neighbourhood design (2020) city of a million actors. Somalia has been grappling with establishing various forms of government since the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991. A volatile cocktail of tribalism and shifting constellations of elders jostle with various political forces to collectively

undermine the institutions required to formally plan and shape its cities. It is in this context that natural disasters are magnified such as the 2001 Tsunami one the one hand or where a strong wind could decimate a settlement. It is a place where individual action trumps collective good and spatial constructs are negotiated hard. Similarly, Cape Town has staggered through its own sequence of crises, the confluence of apartheid planning, modernism and a series of disasters has produced a unique set of spatial problems. Here the paradox of planning standards, plans and policies faces up squarely against the tsunami of people rescribing territories in flux. When engaging communities in turmoil, there is no room for documents to collect dust on shelves, it is a call for urgent action that often ignores the norm. I will explore a sequence of challenges faced in both contexts and describe the process of an unfolding toolset used to negotiate and influence a drive for spatial justice.

Voices from Around the World Incremental housing design (2019)

Prototype of house (2019)

Spring 2021 - Strategic Spatial Planning 11/03/21 Peter Brokking, KTH Stockholm - Urban Sustainability in Stockholm 11/03/21 Yuri Kazepov, University of Vienna - European Cities at the Crossroad Between Resilience, Social Innovation and Neoliberalism 18/03/21 Emmanuel Midheme, Maseno University, Kisumu - Informality and Urban Space Production in the Global South. Cases from Kenya 18/03/21 Angeliki Paidakaki, KU Leuven - (Post-crisis) Resilient Human Settlements 25/03/21 Marisol Garcia, University of Barcelona - Urban Governance and the Transformation of Barcelona: Spaces and Places 25/03/21 Enrica Morlicchio, University of Naples Federico II - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Labelling and Regulating the Poor 01/03/21 Frank Moulaert, KU Leuven - Living and Studying Social Innovation

SETTLING THE BRABANT WOODS

MaHSxMaULP Studio Design Explorations 1

LEIE-SCHELDT CONFLUENCE PARK (GENT) MaHSxMaULP Studio Design Explorations 2

BELGIAN COAST PARK

Design Explorations MaHSxMaULP Studio Design Explorations 3

World Urbanism 8 Jurors & Respondents Tran Mai Anh – University of Architecture Ho Chi Minh

Janina Gosseye – TU Delft

Kelly Shannon - KU Leuven

City (UAH)

Ludwig Hansen - University of Witwatersrand (WITS),

Jeroen Stevens – KU Leuven

Eliana Barbosa – Federal University of Bahia

Johannesburg

Martino Tattara – KU Leuven

Viviana d’Auria – KU Leuven

Daniel Irurah - University of Witwatersrand (WITS),

Pieter Van den Broeck – KU Leuven

Roselyne De Lestrange – UCLouvain

Johannesburg

Liesl Vanautgaerden - Department of Omgeving

Bruno De Meulder - KU Leuven

Margarita Jover - Tulane School of Architecture

Lawrence Esho – Technical University of Kenya (TUK)

Sechaba Maape - University of Witwatersrand (WITS),

Axel Fisher - Université libre de Bruxelles

Johannesburg

Jeremy Foster – Cornell University

Julie Marin – KU Leuven

Guido Geenen – KU Leuven

Christian Nolf - Xi’An Jiaotong Liverpool University

06.16 NEW COMMONS 06.17 NEW TERRITORIES 06.18 NEW SETTLEMENTS

16 17 18 DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE FACULTY OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES

09.20 - 11.00 (CET)

11.15 - 14.00 (CET)

15.00 - 16.00 (CET)

16.10 - 18.00 (CET)

18.10 - 19.10 (CET)

BLOCK 01 Setting the Scene Guest Lectures by Ilze Wolff + Heinrich Wolff Sandi Hilal Saif Ul Haque Discussion BLOCK 02 Re-Commoning & Social Infrastructure Doctoral Presentations Voices from Practice MaHS-MaULP Presentations Discussion BLOCK 03 Co-creative Landscapes MaHS-MaULP Presentations Voices from Practice Discussion BLOCK 04 Questioning Planning Paradigms Doctoral Presentations Voices from Practice Discussion BLOCK 05 Activism & the Politics of Space MaHS-MaULP Presentations Book Launch Round table on Palestine

19.10 - 20.00 (CET)

CLOSING DISCUSSION

09.45 - 11.30 (CET)

BLOCK 01 Setting the Scene Guest Lectures by Magarita Jover Michel Desvigne Paola Viganò Discussion BLOCK 02 Inhabited Parks MaHS-MaULP Presentations Discussion Doctoral Presentations BLOCK 03 Co-creative Landscapes & Rewilding Doctoral Presentations MaHS-MaULP Presentations Voices from Practice

11.45 - 13.45 (CET)

14.45 - 15.40 (CET)

15.40 - 16.30 (CET)

CLOSING DISCUSSION

12.40 - 14.30 (CET)

BLOCK 01 New Settlements / Morphologies Doctoral Presentations MaHS-MaULP Presentations Discussion BLOCK 02 Exploring Typologies Guest Lectures by Shunri Nishizawa Nguyen Hoang Manh David Barragán Discussion BLOCK 03 Urban Regeneration / Spatial Justice Doctoral Presentations Voices from Practice Discussion BLOCK 04 Crisis & Settlement MaHS-MaULP Presentations Doctoral Presentations Voices from Practice Discussion

14.45 - 16.30 (CET)

16.45 - 18.15 (CET)

18.30 - 20.00 (CET)

20.00 - 21.00 (CET)

CLOSING DISCUSSION

MASTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS MASTER OF URBANISM, LANDSCAPE AND PLANNING