Second cycle : Master’s degree

The aim of the Master’s course is to strengthen the knowledge gained during the Bachelor’s degree in the fields of architecture, contemporary arturban and landscape environment, urbanism, sociology, as well as stability, technology, building equipment and digital culture. The Master’s is also supplemented by subjects specific to the practice of architecture, such as legislation and ethics. It offers students the chance to broaden their skills in digital technologies (3D modeling) and building energy performance.

Theoretical courses are, for the most part, taught at the beginning of the cycle, leaving more time for the students to carry out their study placements and write their Master’s dissertations. The architectural and urban composition course forms the basis of the Master’s and promotes collaborative work, conducive to creativity, reflection and synthesis. In this course, students choose one of four thematic tracks to give their project a particular focus :

  • Architectures and Heritage
  • Architectures – Territories – Strategies – Landscape
  • Data, Territories and Parametric Architectures
  • Resilience, Mixity Laboratory

They work on the same projects – sometimes in groups, sometimes individually. The level of difficulty varies according to the year of study. The students’ projects are presented before a board made up of teachers from the Faculty and external members, including architects and specialists of the proposed subject. Each student writes a dissertation on a personal subject related to their training, under the supervision of a teacher of their choice. This work is presented and defended before the board in the last year of the Master’s programme.

Optional courses :

Teachers of “Architecture & Heritage” offer students an approach based on the integration of contextual contemporary architecture in a heritage environment.  This course focuses on historical heritage sites, such as industrial, military and religious sites.  These are part of an urban and rural/landscape context.  To do this, a new urban programme has been proposed, which was designed by the teaching staff in order to respond to the realities of the architecture profession. A brief territorial and contextual diagnosis is first made with the students. This first stage is deliberately short (3 to 4 weeks per group) in order to favour the architectural composition and urban/landscape planning part of the course (8 to 9 weeks of individual work). Each year, a project is proposed in Belgium and abroad, with previous trips to Milan (2015), Strasbourg (2016), Gravelines (2017), Grenada (2018), Arad (2019) and Fes (2020). Projects abroad are subject to a theme-based educational trip of several days, combining the project and architectural visits. 

Team :

  • Aurélie CAVION – Teaching Collaborator – Projects, Town and Regional Planning
  • Jérémy CENCI – Coordinator – Senior Research and Teaching Associate – Projects, Town and Regional Planning
  • Pascale PETIT – Senior Research and Teaching Associate – Architectural Design
  • Frank VERSPEELT – Senior Research and Teaching Associate – Art and Techniques of Representation

The ATSL workshop goes beyond architecture and urban planning. It focuses on areas specific to space and culture, and uses an almost geographical, territorial approach that sees architectural projects as a sensitive reflection of built and unbuilt heritages. An inductive methodology, concerned with an economy of means, results in a diagnosis before formally producing plans.

At the end of the workshop, students will be able to significantly determine a territory, take a position according to a diagnosis, develop a strategy according to a scenario, and adopt attitudes regarding structuring and preparing a territory as a common good which guarantees a shared environmental quality. The concept of a project therefore lies in taking the right approach for the programming of contemporary issues which link architecture and landscape.

Team :

  • Simon BLANCKAERT – Assist ant under mandate – Projects, Town and Regional Planning
  • Etienne HOLOFFE – Coordinator – Associate Professor – Projects, Town and Regional Planning
  • Sesil KOUTRA – Research and Teaching Associate – Projects, Town and Regional Planning
  • Kristel MAZY – Associate Professor – Projects, Town and Regional Planning

The D(a)TA programme is based on a method of analysing and diagnosing the area in question in order to propose urban and architectural concepts and projects using parametric digital methods and tools.

This workshop provides students with the keys to understanding today’s major urban issues through the concept of data (opendata) and in relation to intelligent cities, intelligent buildings, mobility, sustainable development, intelligent materials, digital architecture, etc. On this basis (in the first phase), students develop a conceptual approach to their intervention in the area, leading (in the second phase) to urban and architectural programming.

Digital methods and tools are strongly integrated into this workshop and during the two phases that structure it. The workshop is intended to present experimental research and an ongoing confrontation between sensitive readings of architectural/urban space and the factual observations that characterise them. The concepts proposed are developed through a parametric and iterative process.

The D(a)TA workshop questions the new role of the architect, seeing them as a coordinator of an organic and complex process with the ability to interpret, conceptualise and materialise data.

Team :

  • Mohamed-Anis GALLAS – Coordinator – Associate Professor – Architectural Design
  • Pascal SIMOENS – Coordinator – Teaching Collaborator – Town and Regional Planning
  • Thomas WAROUX – Research and Teaching Associate – Faculty Unit for Educational Support

Looking to the future and inventing new resilient models

Climate change and social inequalities are major global challenges that require us to be reactive; this context is a powerful lever for innovative architectural composition. The workshop takes a close look at the changes that our societies are currently undergoing and questions their capacity to adapt, whatever the type of risks, chronic stresses or crises of all kinds that they are subjected to. The aim of the programme is to make the concept of resilience operational in a context of growing awareness of the need for in-depth transformation.

The resilient approach is not just a fad; we believe it is essential if we are to anticipate and propose a vision of adaptation in the face of the many challenges of the 21st century, such as the gradual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and limiting global warming to 2°C.

The lack of anticipation that we are experiencing and the inertia of all those concerned will mean that we will have to integrate the concept of adaptation. The ability to adapt means first and foremost a strong attachment to contextuality. A good project needs a good question, and resilient systems re-examine both physical and user situations (understanding, decoding and representing a situation).

Adaptive management calls for an analysis of the many uncertainties ahead and the ability to anticipate risks, stresses, shocks and disruptive events in the face of inequalities and climate change. This attitude raises awareness of the fact that every human activity has an impact on the land, the environment and, therefore, on the living world. Our projects are enriched by a reflection on the relationship between the city and nature, the environment and the cycles of life.

Lastly, these risks and constraints offer new opportunities, new resources and a range of design possibilities, so that the process is no longer static with fixed solutions but can be made to evolve.

The students’ proposals, which are as open-ended as possible, are all responses to the challenges of transition, enabling us to move towards a resilient city. In our workshop, the search for new ways of living is like a field of experimentation, a laboratory of architectural production for cities and territories; an urban design where architectural composition finds its place. The workshop, as a laboratory, examines the relationship between individuals and functions in the territory, and brings together the diversity of architectures proposed by Master 1 and Master 2 students. All the ideas are brought together and reinforced, even if they end up being contradictory or conflicting.

The design process initiated by mixed programming

We will be talking about social diversity, housing diversity, functional diversity, typology and programming, giving free rein to the imagination while meeting environmental ambitions.

How can we produce more attractive spaces that consume less space? We start from the assumption that the more a place can provide uses, activities and functions that correspond to the realities of its contexts, the greater its capacity to adapt. The workshop looks at the risks of single-functionality, reversibility and the flexibility of a masterplan that anticipates changes over the long term.

Architecture explores the potential of hybridisation and becomes an integral part of the territory, questioning the capacity to adapt rather than simply producing an object architecture, a product in response to a commission or regulation. Using the eye to scan the territory, filtering the growing number of variables in the context and representing adaptation is the primary source of inspiration.

Team :

  • Ghislain ANDRE – Teaching Collaborator – Architectural Design
  • Vincent BECUE – Coordinator – Full Professor – Projects, Town and Regional Planning
  • Noémie LAGO – Research and Teaching Associate – Projects, Town and Regional Planning
  • Fabrice SOBCZAK – Assistant under mandate – Architectural Design