Studio Modular Architecture for CARE for Modular Architecture – edition 2023-2024

Tutoring of a Service-Learning Design Studio at the KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture closely linked to the Solidary Mobile Housing (SMH) participatory action research project and the ‘Space for care’ trajectory of the Gentse Stadsacademie.

Using the bio-based, modular and circular, SMH Construction System they developed together with BC architects and the timber frame construction firm De Noordboom, the SMH project partners have recently realised a second pilot project in Koekelberg. In the following years, the SMH system and approach will be further tested and evaluated. However, from the start, the intention was also to further develop SMH into an independent entity, so that the SMH Model would be accessible to as many people as possible. Therefore, the project partners are currently also exploring the possibilities and conditions for setting-up an innovative cooperative enterprise with a dual purpose. In the context of this studio, the students will participate to this exploration, in close collaboration with the SMH partners, especially SAAMO Brussel and De Noordboom.

The ‘Space for care’ trajectory involves transdisciplinary research on the topic of de-institutionalisation/societization of care, a notion is internationally framed as an important method for governments to allow people who need care and support to participate in social life as full citizens, but which can also be heavily criticized as being a disempowering product of contemporary neo-liberal society. The aim of the ‘Space for Care’ trajectory 2023-2024 is the co-development of an innovative and broadly supported socio-spatial vision for vzw Kompas, a residential institution for people with mental disabilities, in the light of future infrastructural/architectural projects.

The studio specifically focused on the investigation of the applicability of SMH in the context of the ‘De Wal’-project by vzw Kompas.