Gradients of Comfort explores how architecture might propose a more layered and adaptive understanding of comfort - one that acknowledges its fragility, but sees in that fragility the potential for richer sensory experience and more resilient public architecture. Today, comfort is typically defined in absolute terms, where anything outside a narrow band marked on comfort charts is labeled as undesired. This view is embedded in the logic of contemporary building practice, where systems for heating, cooling, lighting, and ventilation are treated as secondary, yet necessary add-ons - mechanical and concealed, but ultimately dominant in shaping spatial experience. In existing structures this often results in unsustainable technical solutions and economic strain.

Set in Hoboken, Antwerp, the project proposes the transformation of the former can factory known as Blikfabriek into permanent public and educational spaces. It asks how architecture can engage with existing conditions - rather than overwrite them - and how comfort might become a medium of negotiation between body and environment, rather than a fixed standard. In this way, the project contributes to the Urban Architecture graduation studio’s broader inquiry into how the halfway city might retain its civic dynamics and remain open to public life, even as the move toward permanence becomes inevitable.

This graduation project is an exploration into the notion of play in architecture through the design of a neighbourhood healthcare centre. Set within a former aluminium foundry in Hoboken, Antwerp, the project proposes a series of public spheres, both indoors and outdoors, where moments of play are thoughtfully integrated into the spatial experience.

The project explores the transformation of Blikfabriek, a former can factory in Hoboken, Antwerp, through research into site-specific theatre and on-site observation and analysis. A masterplan was developed collaboratively, reimagining Hoboken’s industrial landscape with a focus on permeability, programmatic diversity, and the preservation of spatial qualities. Within this framework, the design proposal centers on a theatre and housing, combining spaces for living and working.

Gathering: street scenes and urban clues explores the intersection of architecture, theatre, and everyday life at the Blikfabriek site and its surroundings in Antwerp. Using scenographic methods—script, set, and performance—it investigates how informal appropriations of public space can guide a circular, community-based transformation of post-industrial heritage. Through fieldwork, curated events, and staged encounters, the project gathers spatial, social, and material clues to develop a design approach rooted in process, participation, and reuse. Architecture becomes both a stage and a tool—engaged, adaptive, and grounded in the rhythms of collective urban life.

The New Social Fabric explores how architecture and public space can meaningfully contribute to community formation in contemporary social housing. Centered on the redevelopment of the Blikfabriek site in Hoboken, Antwerp, a transitional area between historically distinct urban fabrics, the project investigates the evolution of public and private boundaries in housing design, aiming to improve on previous ideas about community interaction.

The research shows a historical and spatial analysis of Hoboken and neighboring Kiel, tracing ideological shifts in housing typologies, from traditional row houses emphasizing private ownership, through modernist experiments with collective space around the buildings, to more recent developments characterized by pragmatic privacy. Five local case studies featuring buildings and social spaces in the area were analyzed through a consistent framework encompassing historical context, architectural expression, patterns of use, and materiality. People from the community were also interviewed.

These insights informed the design of a mixed-use complex that includes social dwellings, a sports hall, and youth facilities, arranged around a communal courtyard. The design draws inspiration from the qualities of the nearby factory and historic social housing while addressing their social shortcomings through a careful layering of public, communal, and private spaces. Key design strategies include staggered terraces, open sightlines, and activities that residents can take part in, strengthening connections between residents and their shared environment.

Rather than proposing a definitive solution or a radical change, The New Social Fabric positions itself rather as a thoughtful contribution to the ongoing discourse on urban resilience, social sustainability, and the architect’s role in shaping inclusive and adaptable environments.

Antwerp's very hungry caterpillar explores the transformation of vacant industrial buildings
into a new urban neighbourhood, rooted in the character and history of the site. The design engages with the identity of the location, integrating its industrial past into a spatial narrative that reimagines the relationship between living and working.
This approach aligns closely with the theme of the studio, which explores how the twentieth-century industrial belt surrounding Antwerp can be transformed into a new city centre - a ‘downtown’.

The project reconfigures the Lageweg area in Hoboken, Antwerp, addressing the limitations imposed by its industrial, monofunctional character and rigid boundaries on qualitative public space and social interaction. It operates on vacant factory sites, building upon their existing material, cultural, and social assets. The design looks at the existing fabric as the primary point of departure, examined through surveys and on-site investigations, with its formal and compositional intricacies serving as the operative framework for intervention.

The masterplan, developed collaboratively, offers an alternative to tabula rasa demolition by enhancing accessibility, preserving industrial identity, and diversifying programs. The design repurposes an industrial laundry, now a primary school, and establishes a formal and functional connection to new housing through shared facilities that activate interaction among residents, youth, and the broader community, positioning the school as a catalyst for local integration.

My research interest stems from a personal fascination with finding calm in a fast-paced society. Throughout my life, I have often struggled to feel truly relaxed in urban environments, particularly during my time living in Rotterdam. At times, I found it freeing to escape to the rural area where I grew up. However, I believe that by becoming more familiar with city spaces and discovering pockets of relaxation, it is possible to reduce this tension, making city life more manageable and enjoyable.
Despite these challenges, I find urban life exciting and dynamic. There is always something happening. Yet, I am driven by the question of whether the seeming contradiction between the vibrancy of cities and the need for tranquility can be reconciled.
This interest is not purely personal. Rising stress levels are a societal concern (Lederbogen et al., 2011), and I believe hat while architecture alone cannot fully solve this issue, it can play a vital role. Cities are also becoming increasingly anonymous, as traditional communal spaces fade or transform. For example, the diminishing role of churches, once central as spiritual and social gathering points, reflects broader social shifts (Gehl, 2010). The growing sense of individualism presents not only social challenges but also spatial ones. If we can find better ways to share spaces and functions while maintaining a feeling of ownership, we can each enjoy more usable square meters in our daily lives, without needing to increase the total built space (Hertzberger, 1991).
Today’s cities are busier than ever. As urban populations grow, life becomes increasingly fast-paced, dense, and disconnected. This intensification leads to higher levels of urban stress, manifesting in anxiety and social isolation (Evans, 2003). Amid this intensity, people still long for places of solitude, reflection, and connection places where they can pause, recharge, and feel a sense of belonging. These urban sanctuaries, often modest and tucked within the city fabric, offer tranquility and connection despite the lively urban context.
Through my research, I seek to highlight the importance of these urban sanctuaries, demonstrating their value and exploring how their qualities can be incorporated into architectural design.

This research and design proposal explores the tension between regulated and “wild” states in urban spaces, highlighting how the hyper-controlled nature of contemporary cities, particularly in Western Europe, diminishes the agency and participation of urban dwellers. Modern urban environments often prioritize efficiency and order, leaving little room for spontaneity or contest, and resulting in spaces that are disconnected from the inherent needs and desires of their users. Architects frequently design spaces to meet specific, pre-determined requirements, further reinforcing this lack of user influence and ownership. This disconnect contributes to a broader societal condition where individuals feel repressed and detached from their urban surroundings. By examining the potential for increased user agency and spontaneous interaction within urban spaces, the research advocates for a shift in design approaches to foster community, inclusivity, and a sense of belonging. The author reflects on personal experiences of urban alienation and draws inspiration from the site of La Friche, and surrounding Brussels to propose strategies for raising awareness about the importance of inclusive, diverse, urban design in contemporary Western cities.

The site of this year’s Urban Architecture graduation studio was the Friche Josaphat. This is a terrain vague of 24 hectares in the northeast of Brussels, in the neighbourhood of Schaerbeek. In the 1920’s a marshalling yard was built on the site, however when marshalling yards were not needed anymore in the 1990s, it closed. It was cleaned and covered with sand and is now overgrown with vegetation. The program I proposed is located on the northwestern border of the Friche where it is bordered by a stretch of trees, behind which lays a long row of houses.
At one point this row of buildings leaves a gap which opens up the border of the Friche. Because of this gap and the big unused space, this site has the potential for a sequence of spaces connecting the neighbourhood and the Friche with a small public square and a front square.
The motion of the sequence and the sequence of spaces sparked my interest early this year. Therefore the research that I did throughout the year focused on understanding sequences, not only in architecture, but also in other art disciplines. To understand what makes existing urban spaces with sequences work well and liveable, I explored the sequence of spaces of four sites that illustrate a sequence. These are often spaces that have evolved over time and have gradually developed into comfortable spaces to be in.
Furthermore, I researched art disciplines that use sequences such as music, dance, film and animation. In these disciplines anticipation and suspense are often created to evoke a certain feeling in the spectator. Through this research, I wanted to explore how this could be translated into architecture. This resulted in the choreography of a new sequence of spaces made of the features that I found in the different sites I analysed, as well as the findings into the creation of anticipation and suspense in other art disciplines.
This choreography ultimately resulted in the composition of a sequence of spaces in my design, which consists of a connecting street, a small public square, a front square, an entrance with a sightline, a garden on the hill and the Friche.

As Brussels is struggling with a housing crisis and many eviction problems, I chose a program that provides home and purpose for homeless people and brings the community together through gardening and farming activities. By choreographing this sequence of spaces and creating anticipation and suspense, people in need of a home and others from the neighbourhood can be attracted to the site and brought together. In that way, an intimate, human-scale, and safe space can offer comfort to diverse groups of people.

This graduation projects aims to raise a discussion around the urgency of restoring connection between humans and nature, especially in our current day cities. Dealing with a post-industrial site in Brussels that turned into an accidental nature reserve, it tries to mediate between the need for housing and the importance of nature in cities. It proposes a program of nature education, where education becomes a missing link between the city and the landscape, adopting the landscape as a botanical garden of sorts. In a spatial sense, it tries to form a connection between the city and the landscape through a sequence of different defined garden spaces, transitioning from an urban architectural language into a more rural expression.

As part of the Urban Architecture Graduation Studio, this project explores the transition and its sequences when moving from inner-city Brussels to urban greenery, focusing on Josaphat Friche—"the last green in town." In response, Le Nouveau Blue was designed. Using water as both a thematic and spatial medium, an old warehouse was transformed into a spa and Olympic pool, embodying the interplay and transition between contrasting elements: urban & natural, dry & wet, warm & cold, and old & new. The adaptive reuse approach preserves the existing concrete structure while integrating new structural elements, creating a dynamic architectural dialogue. The design and research balance preservation and innovation, ultimately connecting the neighborhood’s new development to its biodiverse landscape.

The studio theme of ‘Last Green in Town’ encouraged us to engage with La Friche Josaphat, an urban wasteland that has grown into a greenfield in the middle of the city. The lack of human engagement has allowed biodiversity to naturally take over the wasteland, creating a wilderness, unknown to the city beyond its borders. Around the Friche, nature exists mostly in conventional forms (parks, gardens, sports fields etc.) which are products of narrow utilitarian approaches, with few exceptions of human-nature synergies. These make it evident that different perceptions of urban nature have produced diverse urban cultures of nature, few of which validate the interdependence of nature and humans while most treat nature as a distinct entity needing a functional purpose.
The thesis roots itself firmly in the ‘as found’ conditions and delves into site-specific research, in an attempt to understand the evolution of the existing urban culture of nature over time. Using this research, the thesis attempts to develop a project that validates the past, sensitively deals with the present 'as found' conditions and situates itself within the site for a symbiotic evolution of humans and nature in the future. The programs evolve from the site, responding to the urban conditions and mediating between the urban and the wild. The community centre brings the urban closer to the wild friche, while the research and education centre undertakes the task of creating and imparting knowledge of the biodiversity within the friche to the people beyond the borders. The programs work in tandem to create a flow of energies between the friche and the city, while carefully allowing sensitive accidental and incidental micro engagements between humans and nature.

Cities have never belonged only to humans, non-humans have always been city dwellers, too. However, the ongoing urbanization and significant usage of natural resources have led to a major impact on climate change and species decay. In the world of the Anthropocene, it becomes essential to engage in a critical re-evaluation of our position as architects, wherein we contemplate the manner in which we design environments to be inherently accessible for all – humans and non-human actors. The increasing belief among city dwellers that humans and non-human entities share a mutually interconnected moral, physical, and spiritual realm indicates a novel aspect in our relationship with non-human beings and life in general.

To engage other-than-humans in the city life, it requires not only spatial change, but a major shift in the way of thinking of to whom the space belongs to. It is a complex task that involve different individuals together by engaging in a dialog and interactive actions. Richard Sennett highlight the challenge that togetherness faces today, when modern politics emphasizes unity and similarity, which often leads to a preference for simple and easily identifiable groups, rather than embracing diversity and complexity.

The Common Ground calls for a space in the city, where humans can reconnect with nature, where embracing diversity is be possible. How to shift the purpose of architecture from being a border for humans and non-human actors to connect them together, while preserving a rich biodiversity existing on the site? The research explores what we all have in common, how we can share the ground, how to create a city of Empathy.

In an abandoned field in Brussels, where different species of plants and animals took over, wasteland ‘Friche Josaphat’ stirs the imagination and opens up many possibilities for the future of this land. This vacant lot is like a ‘hetero-topia’, a place that is extra-ordinary, outside the everyday, an ‘other space’ where things become possible.

Brussels breathes the football atmosphere, and simultaneously deals with issues of tension. Communities of football fans are encountering difficulties to place themselves in the city. The interplay of containing and relieving forces constantly generates dilemmas. Over time, these dilemmas reveal themselves as revolving around the universal values of freedom versus security in the city. This turned out to be the playing field of architectural exploration.

The project intents to understand which borders are present in Brussels football spheres. To understand systems of behavior in order to examine how large supporter groups interact with the concept of the border within Brussels’ football networks. A repeating element in this research is that of the reinvented use of space, where extensions are made, functions are changed, and unique performances are displayed.

In all of this research, the author did not impose himself. He stood, took pictures, observed, and recorded. He left it alone and did not intervene. This is the main characteristic of the site - a coexistence of borders, and a state of nothingness. The project intends to maintain this, respect it, without directly solving issues. To create a space where it can happen.

Three design principles emerged. The first: dealing with boundaries - a search for “soft where you can, harsh where you must.” The second: dealing with ritual - the sequence of events in time. A quest to give space to the natural course and growth of things by providing a base for it. The third: dealing with agency - a search for what agency of actors means for design.

The proposal follows, as it is called, ‘a ritual journey’ along the railway in the Friche: rethinking forms of experience, tension, and therefore interrelations - not only within rival supporter groups but also their harmonious coexistence with public life.

The project responds to the human need to escape and connect the hectic urban rhythms of Schaerbeek’ residents with those of nature and pastoral life. It seeks these spaces of escape within the fabric of the ever-evolving city. Walking is the means of exploration, linking the different patches of our cities and helping us to both escape and discover more.
The overwhelming and relentless pace of urban life causes stress and harms mental health, taking away any sense of comfort in daily life. Our cities have large gaps and leftover areas that create divisions between different patches, depriving residents of their use and enjoy-ment. The "Josaphat Commons" and the theater "Les Nouveaux Disparus" act as catalysts, entities that, despite the wall and territorial divisions, see the potential of these spaces and open the way for exploration of the wasteland, making it accessible to the surrounding com-munity.
These two catalysts are given a place in the project, along with an organization that facilitates walking therapy within the urban green space of the Friche. This collaboration helps bridge the gap between the city and leftover green areas, encouraging people to enter and explore previously inaccessible territory and escape the chaos of the city. Bridge and Square.