Studio Bio-Craftsmanship: Towards a Regenerative Architecture

Master of Architecture, Craftsmanship Engagement
KU Leuven, Faculty of Architecture, Prof. Rachel Armstrong, Prof. Jan Wurm

Between October 2021 and January 2022, the Faculty of Architecture at KU Leuven hosted the Bio-Craftsmanship Studio at Campus Sint-Lucas Brussels. Locating their projects on the Wiels Marais, the students carefully considered how this space, which has a troubled relationship with developers and the city, might be meaningfully transformed by co-designing with nature.

Mapping the ecological interrelationships with the city and engaging with members of the local community, the projects in this exhibition provide an insight into how the next generation of architects are re-imagining the city as a partnership with the living world. Using nature’s own materials, like fungal roots to bind agricultural wastes, microalgae to harvest energy from the sun and even the versatile metabolisms of microbes, these series of works imagine human development as a collaboration of many different kind of communities - humans, creatures, plants, and natural forces. Collaborations that can radically change the present negative impact that our species has on the world.

Widening the boundaries of traditional architectural practice, going beyond current notions of sustainability, and seeking new collaborations with biologists, environmentalists and ecologists, these projects ambitiously propose regenerative futures where our human presence is restorative for the planetary health.

Work by: Ward Cockelaere, Louis Crijns, Catherine Denayer, Raquel Figueredo Prudencio¸ Lisa Fraeye, Benoît Freymann, Samuel Hoornaert, Benjamin Imamovic, Benediktas Kuoras, Emma Margo, Wout Neegers, Florent Oosterlynck, Ward Peetermans, Annabelle Ral, Laura Valentinaviciute, Tom Van Genechten, Guillame Vandekerckhof, Manou Van den Eynde, Lou Vanderhagen, Anna Vershinina, Stan Vrebos, Achet Walling

Exhibits: Manifesto, Drawings, Visualization, Biomaterial Samples and Prototypes, Models

More on the studio: https://www.blog-archkuleuven.be/towa...