The Caritas Psychiatric Centre in Melle, near Ghent in Flanders (Belgium), opened on its premises, in June 2016, the ‘Kanunnik Petrus Jozef Triest Plein’ (‘Canon Peter Joseph Triest Square’), designed by architecten de vylder vinck taillieu in response to a project brief authored by BAVO. The former ‘Sint-Jozef’ (‘Saint Joseph’) building was erected in 1908 as a facility to treat so-called troubled women. A century later the building was abandoned and demolition was started in Winter 2014, making place for a new build program at the clinic. It was at that specific moment that workgroups of psychiatrists, managers, staff and patients intervened by putting forward a vision to keep the building in a state of partial demolition and open it up to the public as such. This essay sketches the genesis of the Kanunnik Petrus Jozef Triest Plein in chronological order. It start with the unexpected interruption of the euthanasia of the Sint-Jozef pavilion through the vision developed in a process of commoning the clinic and how the bricolage of common needs and desires was transcribed in a project brief. After a short description of the three design proposals presented in the tendering process, we evaluate the ensuing design process in which staff and patients were invited to engage. Next we discuss the use and appropriation of the unusual complex as an opening (or not) for architectural post-production. Finally, we discuss the legacy of the project as a possibility to go beyond the logic of the sublime object in architecture.

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This master thesis considers a qualitative research for added value in the Flemish housing production. Today, Flanders is facing a number of challenges in terms of housing and urbanism. First of all, the region presents a highly dispersed urban character between its cities and along secondary roads. The open landscape is being consumed by low-density developments, which are the source of many contemporary issues. Secondly, a trend switch is necessary in the current housing production in order to respond to demographic changes in a sustainable way. In this thesis, collective housing is proposed as a solution for the Flemish housing problematic. The concept is given more and more attention due to the potential added value that can be generated. This research investigates the main aspects that are necessary in order to reach added value in the context of Flanders: Which aspects of collective housing are crucial in order to achieve added value in Flanders, and why? Three parts can be distinguished as a means of answering the research question. In the first chapter, the Flemish background in terms of housing and urbanism will be sketched. The second chapter performs a zoom into the physical concept of collective housing. Collective housing is here defined as a physical object, thus not as the act of living together. Finally, the third chapter contains a number of case studies that enables to assess collective housing in a practical way. It is assumed that added value follows quality. Qualitative collective housing is here defined as the practice that implements four conditions in an efficient way: spatial integration, architectural translation, the ability to combine individual and societal goals, and finally the concept of ‘integral sustainability’. Through a research into literature, a total of ten potential added values for the Flemish region have been collected. Through the defined criteria for the case studies, crucial aspects that are necessary to achieve these respective added values have been obtained. In the end, these (typological) aspects have been summarised, consequently answering the research question.

The Dutch Hugh Maaskant (1907–1977) is best known as the architect who made the biggest mark on the post-war reconstruction of Rotterdam with such buildings as the Groothandelsgebouw, the Hilton Hotel and the Lijnbaan flats. Maaskant produced the lion’s share of his work in the 1950s and ’60s, the very period architectural critics generally regard as a time of crisis, when architects worldwide fell prey to confusion and lack of direction. The overriding factor in this criticism was the close link that had grown up since the war between architects originating with the modern movement and the economic-political leaders of that time. The upshot, according to the critics, was that the utopian quality that had originally informed the modern movement had ceded to an empty formalism. This critical stance on post-war modernism was also directed in part at Maaskant. The year 1971 marked the point in his career when the long-smouldering dissatisfaction with the abstract, large-scale, anonymous and ‘inhuman’ aspects of architecture erupted. This was part of a broader cultural about-turn in the Netherlands in which ’60s policy, which was largely directed at material growth, came under critical review. The openness and spatiality of modern architecture that for a decade had served as metaphors for the ‘open society’ fell from favour and came to be perceived as an emptiness that needed programming if existential needs for visual stimuli, security and the ‘human’ scale were to be met. The great scale that had invaded every terrain of social reality and had been accommodated by the architecture of practices like that of Maaskant, was no longer read as an optimistic sign of growth and advancement. Indeed, his buildings were regarded as the degrading products of an antisocial architect. Add to that the widespread discontent with the quality of mass- produced housing – built by Maaskant among others in tens of thousands of units at a time – and it was inevitable that in the 1970s Maaskant would be swiftly toppled from his illustrious position at the crest of Dutch architecture. This book shows how his buildings were an almost perfect reflection of Dutch society in the 1950s and ’60s, which progressed steadily from the frugal reconstruction period to an affluent consumer society. When the tide of Dutch society began to turn at the close of the ’60s, Maaskant found himself carried along with it as an epigone of a bygone era. This was driven home in around 1970 when the baby-boomers, architecturally enlightened by Aldo van Eyck and others of Team X, made their entrance into the municipal departments and government institutions. From there they contributed to a colossal shift in policy away from the architecture of the reconstruction period and the prosperous ’60s. ‘Small-scale’ became the new watchword after the spaciousness and large scale of the previous decade. Needless to say, Maaskant was more inclined towards the latter. With the critique of modernism gaining ground since the 1970s, Maaskant’s canon was one-sidely looked upon as functional, rational and technocratic, clouding the view of other themes in his work. Since then, however, the dogmas of the ’70s have themselves become outmoded, ushering in a fresh appreciation of Maaskant’s buildings as examples of a fascinating metropolitan architecture. This has to do with the renewal of interest in typical ’60s design themes now back in play such as mass, large scale, infrastructure and designing for industry. Meanwhile faith in architecture’s utopian claims, its capacity to improve the world, has dwindled dramatically if not disappeared altogether. An ‘anti- social’ designer like Maaskant, who had always been aware of architecture’s limitations, could then return to the stage; more than that, his amoral attitude devoid of patronizing undertones was construed as a ‘modern’ stance, meaning in tune with the 1990s. Ideas that had been regarded in the ’70s as cynical were now looked upon as realistic. The optimism conveyed by his buildings, his acceptance of social trends as the architect’s programme and a faith in the future, have made his work popular again. Unquestionably, his image as a no-nonsense businessman also has its appeal; to say nothing of the flip side of that image, Maaskant as the society architect who with un-Dutch audacity succeeded in making grand gestures. Neither image is entirely true of course but they did make him a cult figure. In recent years architectural critics have been keenly re-examining post-war modernism, particularly the many variants and the wide diversity covered by the term. The heterogeneity of the modernist canon, evident as far back as the early 1930s through regional differentiation and the reintroduction of a whole host of forgotten or displaced design themes, became so extreme in the post-war years that there was no longer any question of a movement with shared formal or stylistic premises. This multi-faceted presence, the disbanding of the architects’ associations (CIAM in an international context, ‘de 8’ and Opbouw in the Netherlands) and more generally the departure from the original social ideals were expressed from the ’70s onwards in the literature as a profound scepticism about the very existence of ‘the modern’ and as a demystification of all the constructs assiduously assembled in the writings of, say, the theorist Sigfried Giedion or the archi-tects of Team X. At the end of the day, this demythologizing failed to yield a new ‘narrative’ to replace the old; nor did it erect a new framework in which to better understand architects like Maaskant, who after all had had their roots in pre-war modernism. This book seeks to advance criteria, perspectives and arguments with which to analyse Maaskant’s work, distinct from the received traditions of existing architecture criticism. This it does in the first place through his designs and buildings and the relative autonomy of their visual form, and in the second place through the close ties his built work enjoyed with the social trends and themes of the time. Maaskant figured prominently in developing new urban typologies for the contemporary briefs of traffic, city reconstruction and the creation of business districts and modern city centres. His architecture was less directed at therapeutically administering to the city than at questing for ‘signs’ that were to mark urban modernity. Aided by 15 portraits of selected buildings, this book paints a picture awash with complexities and contradictions, in a dual bid to showcase the fascinating work produced by Hugh Maaskant and help chronicle a multiform reading of Dutch post-war modernism.

Being a construct of geopolitics, national borders are not as unshakeable as governments expect. Their abstract solidity foolishly overlooks numerous social, economical and cultural practices that disregard their constraints, even under severe institutional surveillance. This condition is exceptionally visible in South America, whose patterns of territorial occupation (both aboriginal and foreign) do not necessarily abide to the international agreements in place. In this scenario, this work investigates alternative modes of urbanism on the Brazil-Uruguay-Argentina borders, whose predominant landscape – the vast plains of pampas – generates specific economical and cultural practices that continuously (and historically) bypass national limits, assuming an identity that overlooks regimental border control. Characterized by extensive agriculture and cattle-raising, and by the nomadic occupation symbolized by the image of the gaucho, the ‘South American cowboy’, the pampas offer a cohesive territorial system that takes place in the most historically uneasy geopolitical context of the continent. The constant shifts in the Brazil-Uruguay-Argentina borders in the past fostered vague legal conditions that have been incorporated by local economies and cultures. The types of dispersed occupation of the pampas that stem from its original geomorphological and ecological features create a highly permeable network that allows for a high-intensity, yet sustainable, use of its territory, blurring the artificial lines that bisect them. Thus, it can be argued that the pampas offer a type of ‘a priori’ territorial infrastructure that offers alternative means of urban intervention at a regional scale. Now, with radical changes planned in the logistics and energy infrastructures weaving such borders, it is fundamental to question the modus operandi of planning and design disciplines in such fleeting contexts. This work develops specific proposals to illustrate the alternatives at hand while formulating important questions on how planning and design can take advantage of pre-existing contexts, operating critically from within them. This work deals with two different, but methodologically complementary, problematics: the pampas and the border cities. This first should be regarded as the conceptual departure point for all interdisciplinary analytical and design approaches at stake, while the latter represents the chosen constituents of the pampas landscape that this work discusses. The relevance of the border cities to the pampas lies in their resilient capacity to adapt to contemporary international conditions that emerge from common historical matrixes. As the operational logics behind the pampas depend on movements and transitions, this work recognizes the need to implement alternative modes of understanding and intervention that can be steered likewise and proposes to rethink its impacts on research and educational methodologies. In this context, the work engages the following research questions: How can one think of internationally complementary planning and design actions that take into account the transient and hybrid qualities of border territories? How have the constant shifts of national frontiers in the pampas affected the inception of local cultures and economies? How should the role of border cities be rethought in order to merge efforts in order to take advantage of the condition of them being different and equal at the same time?