Sophie Leemans

 

Sophie Leemans (1996) graduated in the Master in Architecture at KU Leuven campus Sint-Lucas Brussels where she finished summa cum laude and was laureate of the master’s programme. Her master thesis project “Adaptive architecture and flood permitting cities” emphasized the positive impact of water on daily life. It received The Dean’s Choice label, was awarded the 2019 Jef Van Ranst Prize, the 2019 Van Hove Award and was nominated for the VRP Graduation Award (of the Flemish Association of Space and Planning).

After gaining practical experience by supporting the Berlin based office TSPA for several of their urban development projects as an architect and urban planner she is now a full-time PhD researcher at KU Leuven campus Sint-Lucas Ghent.

Her PhD project is called “Rethinking the dispersed city paradigm by exploring the strategic nodes of its physical networks. Design strategies at intermediate scale for the next urban constellation.” and is under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Maarten Gheysen (KU Leuven) and Prof. Dr. Erik Van Daele (KU Leuven). She explores, amongst other issues, strategic nodes of physical networks of dispersed territories and their influence for future urban transformation processes. The research is situated in the research cell All City/All Land which investigates the relationships of dispersed territories and urbanity, of which the transnational project and case study Eurometropolis Lille–Kortrijk–Tournai is a particular example.