Urban Architecture

Urban Architecture studies medium-size urban sites that are inaccessible for the regular tools of urbanism, and where expectations of urban design can only be fulfilled by architecture. Adding a building on these locations thus means (re-)designing an environment. Urban Architecture aims to contribute to a widely felt need for an ambitious engagement, theoretical and practical, to develop new concepts, methods and practices of thinking and doing architecture. We advocate an architecture of anticipation and experimentation.

Intergenerational project Left Bank Antwerp, connected gardens. Kindergarten and senior citizen’s home by De Smet Vermeulen architecten, service centre and flats by advvt. Photography Filip Dujardin.

Focus and approach

Architecture is not seen as a craft of filling in blanks within an urban plan, but about articulating public, private and collective spaces. Architecture grows out of an awareness that designing a building always means creating and influencing the surrounding environment. It is about critically reading and assessing a given situation, in order to either complete or re-direct it by adding a building. Urban Architecture focuses on the position of the building relative to existing structures, its role in delineating private, public and collective realms, the city’s different scales and material relationships. 

Programme

MSc1: What to keep?
Restructuring a particular urban site with the design of a new building, whilst maintaining selected parts of an existing building. The exercise is in close collaboration with Building Technology and encourages to appreciate the value of used materials.

Programme MSc 1 fall semester 2023 (pdf)

MSc2: Building for the neighbourhood
Surveying the physical and social fabric of an urban neighbourhood in order to densify, while accommodating specific actors and strengthening social public life.

Programme MSc 2 spring semester 2024 (pdf)

MSc3: Where to build?
How to settle undecided urban design issues with the strategic insertion of a building while reshaping the urban realm.

Programme MSc 3 fall semester 2023 (pdf)

Staff

Prof. Paul Vermeulen, Ir, Mechthild Stuhlmacher, Dr. Leeke Reinders, Ir. Elsbeth Ronner, Ir. Eireen Schreurs

Additional information

For detailed course descriptions, please visit the study guide:

MSc 1 (only in fall semester)
MSc 2* (only in spring semester)
MSc 3

* The MSc2 semester of the Architecture track consists of 5 credits of compulsory courses and 25 credits of electives, of which an Architecture approved MSc2 elective design studio. See also the Elective Design Studios page for a full overview of MSc2 Architecture design projects. 

Contact

Ir. Eireen Schreurs

Coordinator MSc 3/4

Ir. Elsbeth Ronner