This year’s Urban Architecture studio focused on the Lageweg area in Hoboken, a district located to the south of Antwerp’s city centre. Central to this area is the Can Factory, a former industrial complex. Since 2019, the Can Factory has served as a creative hub, housing a diverse community of artists and supporting various cultural activities and initiatives. However, this function is only temporary as the site will be redeveloped in the near future. The focus of this year’s graduation studio was thus to envision an urban district that incorporates, rather than displaces, these emerging creative industries. To make the already present low town last as a downtown.

The research focus of Moving Bodies is to explore the choreography of daily life, examining how bodies move within their surroundings. It investigates the relationship between body and space through three distinct perspectives: at home, at work, and at leisure. These three aspects form the foundation of the research as well as the design project.

The design project consists out of a mix of functions that combines purpose-designed creative workspaces, residential spaces and a public swimming pool, as Antwerp has a shortage of swimming facilities. This combination directly addresses the scarcity of artist workspaces and swimming facilities in Antwerp while balancing the needs of the existing creative community with those of the wider neighbourhood.

This history thesis will examine the extent in which Lauweriks’ architectural and design principles, taking his work for the Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne in 1914 as a case study, align with those of the Deutscher Werkbund when looking at the broader thematic and stylistic trends represented in the exhibition. By analysing Lauweriks’ design of the exhibition and researching his perception on art, design and architecture in a new industrial culture, the aim of this thesis is to discover the relation between Lauweriks and the Werkbund.