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The Boat, the Sluice, the Boathouse and the Architect

The Boat, the Sluice, the Boathouse and the Architect:

Arriving and Dwelling in the Architect’s Final Destination

The architect is longing to come home after an Odyssey of a lifetime. Navigating his boat he cautiously approaches and enters the long-expected harbour. The studio is about designing and drawing a boat, a sluice, a boathouse, a house, a studio to draw his/her memoirs, an extensive library on metaphysics and poetry, and a crematorium for the ritual burning of all the scale models he has made and seen.

All these architectural elements need to coexist in a coherent architectural composition closely related to the site, starting from meticulously drawing on the existing, i.e.: the site and its stubborn characters.

The design brief is not meant to aim at conceptual approaches. This studio is phenomenological, aiming for materialisation and architectural (material) detailing to the full extent, as far as the meticulous drawing of the architectural fragment (scale 1/10) and the architectural detail (scale 1/1).

The student is invited to draw emotional precisions technically, and to make breathtaking scale models. Tectonics, detailing, materialities: how does the architect become the ally of (his) substance? How does the student become an architect?

Prof.dr. Architect Jo Van Den Berghe

Master Architectuur KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture Campus Sint-Lucas Ghent.

Master thesis studio, academic year 2026-2027.

Semester Phase 2 – Autumn semester and Spring Semester
Startweek Week 4
Credits 30
Number of students 11
Language Nederlands + English
Titular and teacher Prof.dr. arch. Jo Van Den Berghe

 

Taal: Nederlands. De jury gaat echter door in het Engels, om internationale juryleden uit te nodigen, hiermee studenten in contact te brengen met een internationaal netwerk, en hen op deze manier meer kansen te bieden. Om deze redenen is deze studiobeschrijving opgemaakt in het Engels, zodat de ‘architectural discourse’ van meet af aan wordt ingeoefend.

Fig. 01: Firehouse, Smokehouse, Slaughterhouse
© Jo Van Den Berghe Architect 2011.

Theme and Program

The architect is longing to come home after an Odyssey of a lifetime. Navigating his boat he cautiously approaches and enters the long-expected harbour.

These are the elements that the student needs to design-by-drawing:

  • a boat, a sluice, a boathouse, a house, a studio to draw his/her memoirs, an extensive library on metaphysics and poetry, and a crematorium for the ritual burning of all the scale models he/she has made and seen.
  • all these architectural elements need to coexist in a coherent architectural composition closely related to the site, starting from meticulously drawing on the existing, i.e.: the site and its stubborn characters.
  • The design brief is not meant to aim at conceptual approaches. This studio is phenomenological, aiming for materialisation and architectural (material) detailing to the full extent, as far as the meticulously drawing of the architectural fragment (scale 1/10) and the architectural detail (scale 1/1).

Site

Tolhuiskaai and Tolhuissluis, Ghent.

Method

Drawing by hand: vertical (topographical) sections, materializing architecture, full scale architectural details. The mastery of Technè is the indispensable condition for an architecture of Poetics to become. More specifically, the drawing processes start from drawing vertical sections, including the topographies these sections belong to (drawing from the exisiting), into which central perspectives will gradually show emerging corners, rooms, and spaces. From these sections and their integrated central perspectives, fragments of floorplans are derived. These drawings are repeated and gradually improved through an iterative process of drawing—Critical Sequential Drawing (CSD)(Van Den Berghe 2021).

Timing

The fall semester: will be dedicated to
(1) site analysis, starting with a site visit.
(2) producing a refined and detailed scale model on scale 1/50 of the site.

The spring semester: will bank on the investigations of the fall semester. The program (see above) offers grips to the student to imagine situations, out of which a series of rooms and corners as architectural fragments will be developed. These fragments need to be fully elaborated, and as a series they form the onset of a personal repertoire, a prediction of the student’s own critical reflective architectural practice. These rooms and corners both ‘project’ the student’s future imaginations ànd strongly draw from your personal memories of spaces, haunting architectural bodies and eidetic architectural references that populate the student’s past and present.

Output

  1. fall semester: detailed scale model of the site (scale 1/50) and drawings, sketches, … (see above under ‘timing’), reference studies of boats, sluices, boathouses, houses, ….
  2. spring semester: the student can make choices from the following possible documents:
  • topographical sections, sections with inscribed central perspectives scale 1/10, (fragments of) plans derived from these sections, the investigation of full scale architectural (window) details scale 1/1, plans on scale 1/50, drawings on scale 1/10 that permit to mediate between the scales 1/50 and 1/1, and all the drawings needed to do the investigations and presentations. Also, a detailed scale model of the project and its surroundings on scale 1/100 (or 1/50).
  • an architectural discourse in a written document (max. 5 pages), about the drawing process and the contextualization in the landscape of architectural references the student will adopt.
  • finally, choreographing the jury moment through a meticulous set-up of the exhibition, as a group work with your teammates in the studio.

Evaluation.

  1. the student will be evaluated and calibrated at the weekly studio day.
  2. three milestone evaluations during this master thesis project: (1) at the end of the fall semester, (2) in the last session before Easter holiday, and (3) approximately two weeks before the jury.
  3. the final evaluation through/in a jury-exhibition setting, where a group of (international) jury members will look at the work and discuss the process and the output with the student.

Evaluation format.

The evaluation will assess the aspects as formulated above, i.e. the process and the final production.

Criteria: see ects file and competention matrix.

The output will be presented on a weekly basis by the student, and in intermediary reviews in the presence of the whole group (reviews) and evaluated.

The reviews will be peer review, up-liner review by guest critics and academic review by the professor. There will be a final presentation with a public exhibition in the final week of the course for a jury of internal and external critics.

Objectices / Specific objectives and Learning Outcomes: see ECTS Sheets.

See https://onderwijsaanbod.kuleuven.be/opleidingen/n/CQ_51522855.htm#activetab=doelstellingen and https://onderwijsaanbod.kuleuven.be/opleidingen/e/CQ_51522858.htm#activetab=doelstellingen.

References.

  • Aalto, A. (1955). Boat (Nemo Propheta in Patria).
  • Drawing of Walter Pichler.
  • Lewerentz, S. (1912). Stockholm Rowing Club Boathouse, Stockholm.
  • Rossi, A. (1980). Teatro del Mondo: an Odyssey.
  • Van Den Berghe, J. (2013). Boathouse, Eemnes.
  • Van Den Berghe, J. (2021). Critical Sequential Drawing: a drawing method to close the gap between the Poetic Image and its Material Presence. Stoà, pp. 168-179.
  • KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture / Studio Anatomy: studio-anatomy.org, https://www.blog-archkuleuven.be/motherhouse/
  • KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture / The Architectural Detail: http://www.blog-archkuleuven.be/architectural-detail/