Projects

My research will investigate these issues of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, through the practices and discourses of urbanism / ecology, planning / development and nature / culture. It will consist of systematic research of the transformative interactions, the sectioning and overlaying, of human habitation of land, water and vegetation – three spatially interconnected ecological features. The Bassac River’s islands and estuaries are chosen for their ...

In the 1950s, a modernist notion of space — conceived as the very ‘essence’ of architecture — represented the central element of American architecture theory. Postmodern architects of the 1980s rejected this view, arguing for a relativistic approach to spatiality. However, an overemphasis on this dichotomy between modernism and postmodernism has led to an academic blindspot for alternative interpretations of space that emerged between 1965 ...

An economic, political and spatial analysis towards a renewed interaction between the current city-port developments, based on the Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEC), and the actor-relational planning approach. Investigation into the 'local buzz' in 'global maritime pipelines' in the Delta of the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt in general, and Ghent, in relation to the Flemish and Zeeland seaports in particular.

The research program sets out to analyze the ways in which communication infrastructures have been co−producing the postcolonial society in Kinshasa, capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo (1960−present). This will be the first comprehensive study of the dialectics between communication technology (ICT), society and culture in an African urban context. The focus will be on information and communication technologies such as telegraph ...

The increased attention to ecology in the last decades awakened a renewed interest in the relation between the city – in Flanders considered the dispersed Flemish territory as an extensive horizontal metropolis - and landscape. Landscape urbanism has expanded rapidly as a discipline and has been practiced in the dispersed Flemish territory for some time, especially through the notion of water urbanism, explicating the focus on water as a ...

The Himalayas are undergoing drastic transformations. The increasing modernisation and economic reform in the Himalayan communities has resulted in a newly imposed urban-rural dichotomy. While traditional rural settlements struggles with regards to livelihoods, declining socio-cultural practices and eventual depopulation, contemporary urban areas are places of economic and industrial growth. Urbanity is a relatively new notion in the ...

I would focus on fieldwork and research in Vietnam, a place I have been researching since my arrival to KUL in 1997 and where the sites of my doctorate (completed 2004) were located. I have a plan to make a book on indigenous landscape urbanism in Vietnam and the larger region of Southeast Asia. The research will include a number of emblematic cases, to create comprehensive documentation (archival and contemporary) and sharpen an interpretive ...

The research will focus on Jakarta’s transformation (now the fastest sinking city in the world) through the specific lens of water, soil and topography. It will critically evaluate ways to settle in the water-sick landscape—all —exacerbated by sea level rise, continued water table depletion, subsidence and the increase in flow volumes from increased runoff as well as (more) heavy rain. The city urgently requires a radical paradigm shift in ...