MASTER THESIS 2026-27
KU LEUVEN/ CAMPUS SINT-LUCAS BRUSSELS
A POLICY WHISPERING PRAXIS
‘HAPPY PEOPLE’ (SESC REVISITED)
PETER SWINNEN
LABELLESS
Image: Sesc 24 de Maio, São Paulo
Upper deck public pool
Arch. Paulo Mendes da Rocha & MMBB (2002-17) Photo: Ciro Miguel
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On September 13th 1946, the Brazilian National Government passed the decree-law to establish the SESC. The acronym stands for the Serviço Social do Comércio (the Sociale Service of Commerce), a unique Brazilian non-profit private institution – implicitly supported by the government – allowing businesses (goods, services and tourism) to actively and noticeably contribute to the welfare of their employees, as well as the wider public. SESC’s guaranteed revenue stems from recurrent company taxes, ranging from 1,5% to 2,5% of the company’s total monthly payroll. The exact rate depends on the region, sector and size of businesses. The budgets are invested in people, courses and commonality-driven infrastructures.
The SESC ethical code defines an intense capillarity of its programs and actions into the socio-spatial network, covering multiple societal fields such as the arts, education, cultural mediation, sports, cultural diversity, sustainability, seniority, youth programs, social tourism and general social valorization.
The aim for the SESC community at large is to socialise, as well as sharing care, creativity and critical thinking. Nearly every neighbourhood by now is geared with one of SESC’s ‘Unidades Operacionales’, or venues. The admission fees are deliberately low, and at noon democratic warm meals are on offer. Throughout its solid 80 years as a (pro)active social pact, SESC’s knowledge structure based on its ethical tenets has proven to offer a steady and innovative policy-making culture, throughout the multiple fields of its operations.
Spread over all Brazilian regions and cities, the SESC venues display an extremely wide variety of scales and architectures; mixed-use facilities newly built, as well as re-used infrastructures. It comprises densely yet generously built structures as well as inclusive public spaces such as parks, squares, streets, …
Architecturally some of the SESC ‘Unidades Operacionales’ excell through their sheer clarity of concept, voluntary risktaking and putting social issues to the spatial test. One extremely powerful example is the SESC Bertioga Ginàsio, by eng. arch. Ícaro de Castro Mello (1964). Though situated in a non-urban environment, the economy of means, the no-frill clarity of its structural concept, as well as its fundamental spatial openness is a striking example of ‘things that matter’. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.
SESC SÃO PAULO
For the sake of focus – since the Brazil SESC program is truly enourmous – our studio will focus on the SESC São Paulo ‘Unidades Operacionales’. In the Greater São Paulo region (22,6 million inh.) the SESC program caters for 43 locations, requiring a technical team of ca. 9.000 employees. As commonly known, 2 sites stand out due to a fundamental architectural endeavor and risk-taking: the SESC 24 de Maio, downtown São Paulo, conceived by Paulo Mendes da Rocha and MMBB (2002-17), and the Fábrica Pompéia by Lina Bo Bardi (1977-86). The attentive reader notices that both projects cover an extended period of conceptualisation and building. The SESC 24 de Maio is based on the restructuring of an existing department store – reinterpreting the vertical capacity of public space – comprising a theater space, library, café, and a new public pool on the top floor. The SESC Fábrica Pompéia voluntarily reuses and expands an existing steel drum factory into a new and vibrant urban center for social encounter and personal development.
SESC São Paulo consequentilaly synthesizes its annual activities in reports of ‘Realizações’ (achievements). These documents will be a major source for our initial process and research. The ambition of our masterthesis studio is to unearth the 43 ‘Unidades Operacionales’, as well as the overall do’s and don’ts of SESC São Paulo. This in itself is a sturdy enterprise, since not a lot of internationally oriented documents exist.
A EUROPEAN ‘SESC’?
Interested in and informed by the policy-background of the SESC program, we will set out a trajectory to reimagine and thus (fundamentally) reinterpret the values, mechanics, manipulations, minuses and bonuses of the ‘public-private’ entente that is Brazil’s SESC. We will aim to directly contact and exchange with local Brazilian players, boards, architects, etc., in order to learn in a more than direct manner what SESC is actually about. This will entail the groupwork for the first semester.
In the second semester each student individually will take on board 1 SESC aspect, extrapolating and problematizing this to a European context, site and condition. The outcome for each student will be – next to participating in a firm analysis trajectory – a strong and propositional architectural response to the SESC potential, in Europe. Where possible students are invited to choose a site and condition in their home country. And thus introducing an extra local DNA, on top of SESC, into the masterthesis program.
Can we truly learn from SESC? Is it still a contemporary practice, does it belong to a recent history or can it actually inform a near (European) future in a socially unexpected manner?
THE STUDIO PARTICIPANT
For the Master Thesis Studio, we wish to welcome a truly broad and international mix of students, since we also want to learn from their local possibilities/insights when it comes to building (for) culture(s). An important fundament is thus learning from the world, brought in by the studio’s participants. We are therefor interested in students who exhibit great refractive analytical power, who are autonomous, critical, truly passionate, and proactive.
Studio participants will be encouraged to think politically and act strategically, so that real-time impact can be generated. We are interested in strong designers, clear thinkers and true team players that understand architecture as a strategic tool, never (ever) as a goal in itself. And since our studio wishes to test architecture’s capacity as an unsolicited and pro-active tool for future policy making, we acknowledge the spatial practitioner – the studio participant – as an effective “policy whisperer”.
The studio offers an intensive guiding process – as one would have in any spatial practice – to allow students to excel in their final installment at the Faculty of Architecture. This is also the reason why we choose for a labelless studio, because it’s not about synthesizing what one already knows or feels attracted to, it is about defining new and open directions for one’s future practice (in or outside of architecture). A bolstering envoi.
The kick-off session is foreseen in week 0 of Semester 01 (mid-Sep. 2026). During week 7 of Semester 01 (early Nov. 2026) we will hold a probing workshop on ‘SESC São Paulo’. The workshop will result in a compact atlas of the 43 ‘Unidades Operacionales’. The effective Master thesis Studio starts Semester 02 (early Feb. 2027) and will run via weekly atelier sessions at different locations. The masterthesis atelier is led by arch. Peter Swinnen (CRIT. architects, www.CRIT.cc), assisted by external punctual experts.
The studio aims to organize a trip to São Paulo, visiting a myriad of sites, people from the SESC organization, SESC architects, …. This on the premise that all conditions for a fluid, economic and safe trip can be assured.
The following non-exhaustive list indicates some first reading pointers and publications, based on our daily practice, and will be further updated in the coming months.
Reading:
On SESC
https://portal.sescsp.org.br/en/sobre-o-sesc/o-que-fazemos/atuacao/ https://portal.sescsp.org.br/files/transparencia/CodigodeCondutaEtica2024-10201673188429.pdf
On SESC São Paulo
https://www.isca.org/member-social-service-of-commerce-sao-paulo https://caviar.archi/sesc-24-de-maio-sao-paulo-brazil/ https://brasilarquitetura.com/project/sesc-fabrica-pompeia-lina
On PPP (in Europe/Belgium)
https://www.vlaamsbouwmeester.be/nl/mediatheek/100-stemmen
On policy whispering praxis (CRIT.)
https://crit.cc/work/the-architect-as-policy-whisperer/ https://crit.cc/work/oh-yes-mr-president/ https://crit.cc/work/i-prefer-not-to/ https://crit.cc/work/le-musee-et-son-double-book/
On the critical attitudes of former Campus Brussels professors/practitioners
https://crit.cc/work/rene-heyvaert-book-block/ https://crit.cc/work/a-j-lode-janssens-147-mbar/ https://crit.cc/work/luc-deleu-t-o-p-office-future-plans-1970-2020/ https://crit.cc/work/willy-van-der-meeren-mass/
May 17th 2026