Other ways of doing architecture: designing situations
(including considerations on the related architectural languages producing unexpectedness, and thus enchantment)
Masterproef 2025-26
Supervisor: Dag Boutsen
Campus: BXL (and Ghent)
Language: EN
Image: Paul Chemetov’s Patinoire, 1975-1979
A short, engaging summary
Spatial Agency (www.spatialagency.net) is a project that presents a new way of looking at how buildings and space can be produced. Moving away from architecture’s traditional focus on the look and making of buildings, Spatial Agency proposes a much more expansive field of opportunities in which architects and non-architects can operate. It suggests other ways of doing architecture.
This master dissertation studio will focus on the 5 means through which architectural actions or products are achieved when designing situations. These 5 means, including a (historical) database form the basis of Spatial Agency. A project team lead by Tatjana Schneider and Jeremy Till worked on this website and book.
The interest in means such as appropriation, dissemination, empowerment, networking and subversion emerges out of my expertise in co-creative design. My career as an architect is built up on numerous workshops with stakeholders, large housing projects in Europe based on participatory design processes, work with Lucien Kroll, exhibitions with Patrick Bouchain, research work, etc.…
In the spirit of Cedric Price the project started with the belief that a building is not necessarily the best solution to a spatial problem. The project attempts to uncover a second history of architecture, one that moves sharply away from the figure of the architect as individual hero, and replaces it with a much more collaborative approach in which agents act with, and on behalf of, others.
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A more detailed project description
Studio trajectory
Through group discussions, possible starting points for the graduation work of each student will be explored, based on the student’s background and personal interests. Starting from a search through Spatial Agency, preferred projects will be compared with each other and thus give rise to a renewed personal perspective. The studio operates as a continuous sounding board in a group where each participant can situate his or her own trajectory. No boundary conditions or practical criteria are imposed. As a group, we search for paths for and with everyone to walk other ways of architecture.
We then process findings in different ways, based on mutual agreements.
These findings will form the base of own thought designed situation(s) which will be transformed into a story. Resulting in an architectural discourse, reflection, intervention developed and presented through a series of well-crafted documents that reflect on the thought situation.