Tutor: Paul Steinbrück
Campus (BXL/Ghent)
Language (EN/NL)
Engagement: Urban Cultures
Semester 3
Ghent, Coupure 2020
Photo by Henri Lebbe
Heal the World, Make It a Better Place
Heterotopias as Tools for Societal Cohesion — Swimmable Cities, the Ghent Case
The studio explores how architecture can act as a catalyst for societal change, using the cultural practice of outdoor swimming as its lens. Outdoor swimming is not only a physical activity but also a powerful social phenomenon: it creates spaces that bring together people of different backgrounds, offering health, refreshment, and joy while fostering cohesion in fragmented urban societies.
Architects as Activists
The studio begins with a reflection on the role of the architect. Boundaries and responsibilities are never fixed: architects can act as service providers who alter spatial environments within an economic context, as researchers who analyse and steer urban development from within academic or administrative frameworks, or as civic actors who address pressing societal challenges from the bottom up. In this activist role, architects claim agency beyond commissions and conventional briefs, defining their own agendas to confront urgent crises.
A particular skill set allows architects to engage in this activist practice. They are trained to observe and understand the physical environment, to synthesise complex and often conflicting demands, and to navigate the processes and actors involved in spatial development. They are accustomed to complexity, collaboration, and compromise. They are able to propose complementary scenarios in iterative processes, to communicate ideas effectively to non-professionals, and to manage project development across scales. At the same time, they recognise the limits of their own expertise — financial, legal, or social — and embrace the necessity of interdisciplinary work.
Outdoor Swimming as Urban Culture and Heterotopia
Four young Black men, along with two white companions, swim in Pullen Park Pool in Raleigh, North Carolina as other white swimmers look on poolside, August 1962. This innocuous encounter proved so controversial with the white population of Raleigh as to lead to the temporary closure of all public pools in the city.
Photo by David Hoffman via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Found on: https://public-pools.com/Withdrawn-Waters
Palestinians in Gaza bathing in the Mediterranean Sea during the war 2025.
Photo by Haitham-Imad
Found on: https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/gaza-riviera-im-sommer-der-strand-als-einziger-zufluchtsort-im-krieg-a-1c4f0c56-070c-4948-874d-cf6d300a3ade
Against this background, the studio turns to outdoor swimming as a cultural and spatial practice. Swimming places in the city can be understood as heterotopias in Michel Foucault’s sense: spaces that stand apart from everyday routines yet are deeply entangled with them. To swim, one must undergo a transformation — undressing, revealing the body usually hidden, entering an unfamiliar element, moving differently, seeing the city from unexpected perspectives. The swimming place thus generates encounters that cut across social boundaries, fostering a temporary community of bodies afloat.
Despite their transformative qualities, outdoor swimming places are often strikingly mundane. They thrive on simplicity and accessibility, requiring little more than open water and the freedom to enter it. Their inclusiveness depends on being low-threshold: minimal rules, modest pricing, flexible opening hours, ideally none at all. Like a beach, the best swimming places are publicly accessible at all times, managed not through regulation but through maintenance and facilitation. Here, specific swimming cultures can take root, embedding themselves in the fabric of everyday life.
The studio therefore approaches outdoor swimming not as an exclusive ritual or wellness retreat, but as an intense, joyful, social, and restorative activity in the heart of the city. It recognises that swimming places may also be sites of social tension, yet precisely through this friction they hold the potential to foster cohesion.
The Ghent Case
Ghent, Belgium’s third largest city, offers a particularly compelling case. Its population is diverse, its summers increasingly hot, and its waterways abundant. Yet formal opportunities for outdoor swimming are scarce. Apart from the Blaarmeersen and a small outdoor basin at the Lago complex, both accessible only during limited summer hours, the city lacks the infrastructure to support swimming as an everyday urban culture.
Meanwhile, Ghent’s central waterways — no longer used for commerce — are already informally claimed by swimmers despite official bans. Local organisations such as Waterland vzw advocate for the right to swim, but political and administrative processes move slowly, and progress is halting. The contrast between potential and reality could not be clearer: Ghent is a city with water everywhere, and yet it is barely swimmable.
This studio takes up that contradiction as both challenge and opportunity. By imagining and designing spaces for swimming as urban culture, students will explore how architecture can act as a heterotopic tool — healing divides, fostering cohesion, and making the city a better place. The outcome of the studio will directly support Waterland in its activist struggle to make Ghent a swimmable city. Students’ proposals may take different forms: they might illustrate possible futures that invite the public, politicians, and the press to dream of swimming as an integral part of the city; or they might define precise strategies, actions, and interventions that Waterland could implement in the short term. Together, these proposals will serve as both visionary provocations and practical tools for change.
Studio Activities
- Research on outdoor swimming cultures and communities, locally and internationally
- Introduction to Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopias as a theoretical framework
- Collaboration with Waterland vzw and representatives of the City of Ghent to explore:
- potential swimming locations
- past developments
- current political and social contexts
- future ambitions
- Personal reflections on outdoor swimming habits, translated into usage scenarios and spatial narratives
- Development of project briefs in direct relation to Waterland’s activist struggle for free and accessible outdoor swimming
- Preferably group work in teams of 2–3 students, focusing either on:
- location-specific projects, or
- broader city-wide strategies
- Collective coverage of multiple perspectives and potential pathways to reimagine Ghent as a swimmable city
Expected Outcome
- Proposals that provide Waterland with concrete support in its activism, ranging from:
- long-term visions of permanent infrastructures, including usage routines and management principles
- temporary or mobile interventions to pave the way toward permanent places
- activist strategies and immediate, executable actions supported by specific tools, equipment, or instructions
- Balance between vision and feasibility:
- large-scale projects may remain speculative but should vividly inspire public imagination and political debate
- smaller-scale projects should be developed in sufficient detail to be directly actionable
- Each project must generate tangible value for Waterland:
- visualising ambitions and qualities of a swimmable city
- instigating societal discourse
- offering practical tools for action
- Together, the projects will form a portfolio of imaginative futures and pragmatic strategies that strengthen the movement to reclaim Ghent’s waters as public space
The projects developed in this studio will form a critical base of knowledge, narratives, and activist imagination that not only supports Waterland’s current struggle but also serves as a source of inspiration and direction for Liquid Grounds in the following semester, where students will translate these insights into concrete, buildable proposals for Ghent’s waters.