Dans cette interview réalisée par Yves Robic pour l’émission Par Ouï Dire sur La Première, Jean-Philippe De Visscher présente le concept d’« éco-territoire », au cœur du Master en Urbanisme et Développement Territorial, à partir des recherches menées sur la gestion des inondations en Brabant wallon. Il y explique comment différents processus d’aménagement ont progressivement accru la vulnérabilité du territoire face aux inondations, tout en soulignant les difficultés à mettre en place, à grande échelle, des mesures locales de rétention et d’infiltration des eaux en amont des zones urbanisées. Cet exemple permet ensuite d’illustrer la nécessité d’une approche éco-territoriale, dans laquelle prendre soin des milieux naturels fragiles et des populations qui y vivent implique de concevoir, d’aménager et de gérer les réseaux territoriaux comme des biens communs.

[AUDIO RTBF 6/6/26] Par Ouï-dire. Façons de Voir : Chrysalis - BPS 22, Musée d’art de la Province du Hainaut, Charleroi / Le concept d'éco territoire - Jean Philippe de Visscher

Disponible sur la plaforme Auvio-RTBF : Par Ouï-dire - Façons de voir

Engineering Reciprocal Structures : Applications to Floors and Domes

Reciprocal structures (RS) are often likened to a game of pick-up sticks because of their lack of a clear hierarchy. An RS consists of one or more modules, each comprising at least three beams, enabling an infinite number of associations and, thus, geometric freedom. It combines architectural appeal with the ability to span long distances using relatively short structural elements, which is particularly relevant when built with logs, as they are naturally limited in length. However, wider adoption remains limited due to uncertainties about their structural efficiency, geometric stability, and the numerical predictability of the connections. The objective of this thesis is to establish a reliable design framework for reciprocal structures by addressing these barriers.

The structural efficiency of RS is demonstrated by comparing RS log floors with conventional timber floor patterns. The research shows that a reciprocal pattern yields a material-efficient, thin floor solution for square layouts, sometimes outperforming conventional patterns.

Geometric stability is then examined using existing connection systems and stability assessment methods. A universal approach is identified to detect unstable configurations at the early design stage, thereby enabling consistent preliminary design rules.

Finally, modelling reliability is addressed through a novel spherical hinge connection for spatial RS. Experimental tests on large-scale prototypes show strong agreement with numerical predictions, confirming that accurate modelling is possible when the connection behaviour is properly represented.

Jury members

• Prof. Luca Sgambi (UCLouvain), Supervisor
• Prof. Pierre Latteur (UCLouvain), Supervisor
• Prof. Denis Zastavni (UCLouvain), Chairperson
• Prof. Joao Almeida (UCLouvain), Secretary
• Prof. Elsa Garavaglia (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
• Prof. Cyril Douthe (Ecole nationale des ponts et chaussées, France)

Friday July 3rd, 2026 - 4pm - Auditorium BARB91 - Place Sainte-Barbe, 1 - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve

Pay attention : the public defense of Martin Steinmetz will also take place in the form of a videoconference

Portée par un partenariat inter-universitaire entre le laboratoire Observatoire de la condition suburbaine (OCS) de l’ENSA Paris-Est et l’institut de recherche LAB de l’Université catholique de Louvain, la journée d’étude The Materialities of the Ephemeral City interroge, dans une perspective interdisciplinaire, les matérialités des dispositifs urbains temporaires construits à l’occasion des célébrations, fêtes, manifestations ou contestations : des structures légères et démontables, des installations performatives, des mobiliers, des scénographies et des performances réalisés avec des « matières faibles » tels que plantes, sable, produits comestibles, écrans, corps et phénomènes (lumière, son, effets optiques). L’hypothèse directrice est que la « ville éphémère » constitue d’abord une ville de matières, reconfigurant l’usage des rues et places et en déplaçant les définitions canoniques de l’architecture. La journée d’étude examinera les agences politiques et symboliques de ces « matières faibles », leurs phénoménologies sensorielles, les rituels collectifs du faire et du défaire, ainsi que les traces, déchets et écologies qu’elles engendrent. Pensée comme un laboratoire critique, la journée accueillera des contributions couvrant différentes périodes et géographies, afin d’éclairer comment ces assemblages matériels célèbrent, contestent ou détournent l’ordre urbain, et comment ils offrent des alternatives aux rythmes dominants de la ville contemporaine.

Programme

• 9h30 : Accueil
• 9h40 - 10h50 : MATTER IN ACTION
  • Bart Tritsmans, University of Antwerp, Urban spaces as temporary interiors of activism
  • Aurore Damoiseaux, University of Brighton in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Soft materials for protest: ephemeral domesticity at Greenham Common
  • Leonie Link, Bauhaus-University Weimar, Ornamental Agency, On Textiles, Publics and Urban Surface
• 10h50 - 11h10 : IN PRACTICE
  • Peter Behrbohm
• 11h10 - 11h30 : Pause café
• 11h30 - 12h45 : MATTER IN COMMAND
  • Jonas Klaasse, Institute of Architecture Technology at Graz University of Technology; Noemí Gómez Lobo, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos; Diego Martín Sánchez, Cultural Landscape Research Group, Technical University of Madrid, Ephemeral Monumentality: Material Politics and the Urban Staging of Power in Modern Spain
  • Taylor Van Doorne, University of California, Santa Barbara, Fragile Histories, Mutable Futures, and Ephemeral Monuments in Post-Revolutionary Paris
  • Dubravka Botica, University of Zagreb, The Royal Adventus to Zagreb in 1818: A Festival of Light and Ephemeral Architecture
  • Tania Levy, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Réutilisation et diffusion de la cité idéale : ce qu’il reste d’une entrée royale après l’événement
• 12h45 - 13h05 : IN PRACTICE
  • Léone Drapeaud – Traumnovelle
• 13h05 - 14h : Pause déjeuner
• 14h - 15h30 : MATTER IN URBANISM
  • Chiara Pradel, TU Delft, Material Yards, Ephemeral Landscapes of Materials Recovery
  • Nathalie Donat-Cattin, University of Bologna, Edible Cities: Roth’s Ephemeral Urbanism
  • Marion Boisset, ENSA Paris-Est, Inhabitable Thickness: Rethinking the Ephemeral through In-Between Spaces
  • Tuliza Sindi, Carnegie Mellon University; Miliswa Ndziba, room19isaFactory., What Has Two Eyes and Too Many Ears?, University of Johannesburg, Black Futuring in the Public Interior
• 15h30 - 15h50 : IN PRACTICE
  • Laura Salazar, Pablo Sequero and Juan Medina – salazarsequeromedina
• 15h50 - 17h20 : MATTER IN PLAY
  • Leonardo Dias, University of Porto, The Fishing Scene. Blessing the Cod Fleet in Lisbon, 1936-1973
  • York Bing Oh, University of Antwerp, Makeshift, placemaking: inhabiting the public space. Case study: 2kmtogetheratthetable
  • Vincenzo Moschetti, Sapienza University of Rome, The Fifth Ecology. Los Angeles and the Ephemeral 1984 Olympic Games
• 17h20 - 17h40  : IN PRACTICE
  • Ambra Fabi – Piovenefabi

Organisatrices

• Silvia Groaz, maîtresse de conférence, ENSA Paris-Est - Université Gustave Eiffel
• Beatrice Lampariello, Professeure, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgique

Informations pratiques

Evénement ouvert au public en présentiel à l'IEA de Paris (17 quai d’Anjou, 75004 Paris), ou en visioconférence en suivant le lien https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/323778561777430?p=C7t0WzM4l18MrmZXSb

Leading the way, Professor Emilie Gobbo and research assistant Hugo Caruso, took on the legendary Brussels 20km with a cause close to their heart: they competed under the colors of the Résidence La Forêt, supporting people through handisport. In a race that already brings the whole city together, their choice to run for others gave the day an extra heartbeat.

Four PhD students from the Architecture & Climat group — Danlun Cao, Maxime Dasse, Yen-Shuo Huang, and Loïc Lieutenant — also laced up their shoes and joined the race. Each trained their own way, each crossed that finish line. The sense of shared accomplishment at the end made it all the sweeter.

For all of us, the 20km was more than a race — it was a reminder that beyond the research deadlines, we are also a team. Tired legs, big smiles, and already talking about next year.

SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL MARGINS
Grounded struggles of everyday inhabitation in peripheral São Paulo

This doctoral research investigates the expanding self-help urbanisation of environmental reserves in peripheral São Paulo, which this study describes as socio-ecological margins.

Situated at the intersection of housing exclusion and environmental crisis, this research questions how everyday inhabitation processes in São Paulo’s ecological reserve co-produced and are transformed by contemporary conditions of socio-ecological marginalisation.

Grounded in four years of immersive fieldwork between 2022 and 2025 in three self-built communities —Comunidade KM47, Comunidade Linha do Trem, and Comunidade Terra de Deus— the research combines ethnographic cartographies, oral narratives, spatial documentation, and documentary filmmaking to build evidence of inhabitation struggles that often face erasure through eviction before being archived. Building from latin american debates in critical urbanism, social geography and political ecology the thesis unfolds through three analytical lenses: everyday inhabitation practices, processes of (de/re)territorialisation, and grassroots governance.  Across these lenses, the research develops three interrelated conceptual contributions.

Under the lens of everyday inhabitation, the thesis conceptualises a marginalised environmentalism of subsistence as a conflicted form of environmentalism in which low-income families simultaneously protect and yet urbanise the ecologies they depend on, instrumentalising the natural environment as a transitional strategy toward urban citizenship.

Under the territorial lens, this work discusses the concept of grounded relationalities to describe the fragile yet politically significant affective and symbolic bonds to territory produced through this inhabitation process which are systematically targeted and erased before they can be mobilised as collective resistance.

Lastly, through a governance lens, the study develops greyness as governance to expose the condition of legal indeterminacy and selective enforcement through which the State governs the socio-ecological margins, and which low-income populations and housing movements navigate as both a constraint and a survival resource.

Together, these three lenses expose how contemporary socio-ecological marginalisation operates by systematically targeting what this thesis calls the ecologies of the marginalised: the socio-environmental relations produced through cohabitation between low-income families and their biodiverse environments. This study argues that material dispossession, legitimacy denial, and governance untranslatability collectively target and erode these ecologies, which are the precise terrain on which marginalisation is produced and through which resistance and more just socio-ecological futures remains possible.

Membres du jury 

• Prof. Chiara Cavalieri (UCLouvain), Co-Promotrice
• Prof. Jeroen Stevens (KULeuven), Co-Promoteur
• Prof. Luciana Nicolau Ferra (Universidade do ABC), Comité scientifique
• Prof. Francisco de Assis Comaru (Universidade do ABC), Comité scientifique
• Prof. Hanna Hilbrandt (University of Zürich), Comité scientifique
• Prof. Gérald Ledent (UCLouvain), Président
• Prof. Elisabetta Cinzia Rosa (UCLouvain), Secrétaire

Friday, 26 June 2026 - 16h Salle AV-02 - LOCI-Brussels

The public defense of Lucas LERCHS will also take place in the form of a videoconference