Urban Cultures

The engagement will confront students with the challenges of the urban context: communality, climate crisis and inequality, cultural diversity, decolonising, gender-related issues, demographic shifts, infrastructural needs, technical and economic disruptions…

Design-driven and based on an understanding of the specific cultural, social, infrastructural, political and spatial structures that makes up a city, students will operate in a wide variety of urban contexts, starting from the two urban campuses of the faculty: Ghent, an intriguing historic European city with strong ambitions, and on the other side, Brussels, a  laboratory as a fast-evolving global city with still a manageable scale.

Studios are rooted in specific practices of design in an urban context and invest in the urban fabric, whether it’s public space, urban buildings, infrastructures, neighborhoods, small and larger towns, metropolitan areas, or the outskirts of the city ...

Architecture has to reinvent and prove its relevance in the midst of the complex context of our contemporary cities, addressing local and global challenges. The act of designing in the city is therefore critical in many ways and offers students challenging opportunities.

Patrick Moyersoen

Curator Urban Cultures 2023-2024, Faculty of Architecture KU Leuven

August 2023