In the post-extraction landscapes of the Rheinisches Braunkohlerevier, the relationship between water and matter no longer follows natural rhythms—it is charged, reactive, and unfolding. Here, contamination is not a singular event but a condition that accumulates, binds, weathers, and seeps across geological and temporal scales. Conventional restoration frameworks respond with binary visions of compensation and separation. This thesis takes a different approach—remaining within the unsettled terrain, it traces the transformations already in motion.

Water, long drained to make space for mining, returns to a stratigraphy fractured and unsettled by decades of extraction. It moves through disrupted sediments, activating chemical reactions that carry heavy metals and acidity through soil, into groundwater, and toward the surface. Matter does not passively receive these flows; it absorbs, resists, and transforms them. This interaction forms the foundation of the thesis: a material practice rooted in territorial specificity, where design engages the dialogue between dissolution and deposition, contamination and gradual reconfiguration.

By reworking site-bound matter, the project proposes infrastructural prototypes that respond to their environment not through resistance, but through participation. Each intervention is situated, embedded in cycles of absorption, stasis, and release. Rather than proposing resolution, the thesis offers a framework for ongoing negotiation—where design operates within, rather than above, the entangled realities of water and matter.

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.

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.

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.

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’.