Description:

A full-time indivisible position (1ETP) in the field of the socio-technical approach to architectural production, with a maximum of 250 teaching hours, including lectures and practical work, combined with research activities and involvement in the life of the University. This field is developed under the research axis High Quality and Sustainable Built Environment.

General context:

Building today has reached a level of extreme complexity. This complexity is twofold: on the one hand, the materials and techniques available are continuously expanding and evolving. On the other hand, we are experiencing unprecedented augmentation of quantitative and qualitative demands (standardised or non-standardised), resulting in a multiplication of the actors involved or to be involved in the process.

Among the phenomena driving this movement, “sustainability” encourages us to question, both locally and globally, our societal choices and their impact on the architectural discipline in order to identify the principles that will guide us with relevance and realism towards a “sustainable and socially based architecture”.

Understanding and mastering this double movement requires a knowledge of historical trajectories, along with a significant understanding of the contemporary reality of the discipline. Such an attitude requires sharing knowledge with communities of practice in order to address these principles within a realistic framework of actions and actors. This is something that the University has to provide through its teaching, its research, and the partnerships it nourishes, in particular with the political and professional world.

It requires an exploration of potentials within design processes combined with an in-depth analysis of built components. A key challenge is to address the cleavages between, on the one hand technical, social and economic dimensions of architectural production, and on the other hand, its theoretical quality (supported among others by norms and regulations) and effective quality (involving constructors and users).

A critical analysis of the contribution of science and technology will contribute to a socio-technical and systemic approach of designed, produced and experienced architecture. It is based on a reflexive approach of present social, technological and regulatory challenges.

This research/teaching field will be developed in close collaboration with other Faculties, i.e. Humanities and Social Sciences (psychology, anthropology, sociology, economy…), the Faculty of Sciences and the Faculty of Applied Sciences.

It will support research and training through research, as in the “Healing environment” project, as well as lifetime learning in project management assistance (AMO).