Studio on Contemporary Issues : Designing with the Existing

licar2611  2026-2027  Louvain-la-Neuve

Studio on Contemporary Issues : Designing with the Existing
10.00 credits
120.0 h
Q1
Teacher(s)
Meersseman Benoît;
Language
French
Main themes
The studio offers a new cumulative experience of the architectural design process.
Within the context of a world in ecological and social transition and increasingly limited resources, the architectural intervention of the design studio focuses on an existing building or a group of buildings. The project involves an in-depth understanding of the existing buildings (site placement, organization, uses, history, constructive systems, …) and an identification of their qualities and potentials. These will be considered as project levers in relation to the proposed or potential program. Design proposals will be developed with regards to morphologies, typologies, construction and building systems, as well as the comfort of the spaces, proposed to its users (including compliance considerations). The scales addressed will range from integration within the context (urban, landscape, environmental, societal) to detailed architectural proposals (including technical details). Research on the existing structure will be conducted. Studio outputs will include hand and computer-aided drawings, physical and/or digital models, and written reports synthesizing the hypotheses, issues, methods, and objectives of the proposed investigations.
Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

  • Analyse and synthesize the existing buildings through drawings and/or archival research (with regards to structure, materiality, technical aspects…)
  • Evaluate, within an iterative process, the qualities and potentials of the existing buildings through specific investigations (visual inspection, drawing-based, analysis of historical, urban, social, and/or cultural context, analysis of the building evolution) ; use these qualities and potentials as a driver of architectural design
  • Engage in a process aimed at assessing and evolving current approaches to architectural design projects, dealing with existing buildings (maintenance, re-use, resource efficiency, Low Tech…)
  • Develop an architectural project, integrating multiple issues and drivers (ecological, programmatic, constructional, typological, poetic…)
  • Choose and select the graphical methods adequate for the development of the project as well as its representation
  • Critically argue the choices that guided and shaped the architectural project, and this based on the analyses made of the existing buildings
  • Being able to consider current requirements, norms and compliance constraints – and where appropriate – question or nuance
  • Take critical distance from the project under development: describe, analyse and critique its foundations, methods, and objects
 
Faculty or entity
> LOCI


Programmes / formations proposant cette unité d'enseignement (UE)

Title of the programme
Sigle
Credits
Prerequisites
Learning outcomes
Master [120] in Architecture and Engineering
ARCH2M
10