Prof. Dr. architect (MSc., School of Architecture, Sint-Lucas / PhD KU Leuven), urbanist and planner (KU Leuven), MSc. in theory and history of architecture (KU Leuven), post-doctoral researcher ((KU Leuven).
Erik Van Daele (1962) is lecturer and studio master at the university of Leuven (Department of Architecture), Belgium. He received a master in architecture at the School of Architecture, Sint-Lucas, Ghent (currently KUL faculty of architecture campus Ghent), a master in theory and history at the KUL (campus Leuven), extension studies program at the AA school of architecture in London and received a master in urbanism and spatial planning at the KUL (campus Leuven). From 1998 till 2014 he was associate in the design firm uapS, Paris. As from 2015 he works as a consultant developing spatial concepts and strategies in architecture, urbanism and planning. In his PhD- study (hybrids as open signifiers) he explored design challenges in the dispersed city.
In his research by design he focuses on design challenges in hybrid contexts. These are contexts characterised by a tension between landscape and urbanity. While current research mainly deals with the regional scale resulting in reflections and concepts dealing with the urban form and structure, he explores this tension on the intermediate and local scale. As a result his reflection on the dispersed city is based on specific interventions and concrete design questions: how to manipulate the common ground between land and city, how to afford appropriation and spontaneous use or how to reinterpret the weakness of a neglected open space into strong urban figures. The objective of his reflection by design is not to impose a design toolbox but to introduce a perspective and a design attitude that values disturbances, accidents and scars as qualities, thus celebrating the complexity and the layered richness of the dispersed city.
With uapS (1998) he works on projects of interior design, architecture, urbanism and planning. As a consultant he develops and discusses concept strategies and diagrams. In this respect he deals with contemporary design issues such as the spatial impact of circular economy, plan graphics to address uncertainty, the management of dispersion or the design of new housing types related to new social structures.
Publications: https://lirias.kuleuven.be/cv?u=U0003936
Links: