PLUSOFFICE
BRUXELLES
PLUSOFFICE was founded by Nathan Ooms and Ward Verbakel in Bruxelles, following their competition entry for 30 service flats in Lommel, 2006. Sixteen years later, PlusOffice has grown into a design practice of twelve employees and a remarkably diverse portfolio with an emphasis on public buildings and urban design. As ambitious designers, they combine the disciplines of architecture, urban planning and landscape design; they seek an investigative approach to design, every project is an opportunity to re-examine and question existing notions of architecture, public space and natural systems. In their projects is possible to find a valorisation of the relation between nature and urbanism, both in architecture and urbanism.
JOACHIM DECLERCK
UGENT
Joachim Declerck is civil engineer in architecture and urbanism, and founder and director of non-profit Architecture Workroom Brussels (AWB), a platform that offers the space and support for the development of innovative spatial research and strategies. Since 2014, Declerck is Professor at Ghent University (BE), and in 2020 he is Visiting Professor at EPFL (CH). The focus of his work is the role and contribution of design and spatial transformation to the implementation of important societal transitions. Declerck’s focus is on strategic transformations such as ‘visionary housing construction’, ‘productive landscapes’, ‘care and neighborhoods’, ‘the productive and circular city’, ‘energy neighborhoods’, etc. From the perspective of design and spatial transformation, Declerck regularly contributes to the broader societal debate (newspapers, opinions, etc), to the development of the practice and to professional knowledge development, and to the innovation of urban/rural transition policies, implementation methods and investment programs.
