Altering Practices for Urban Inclusion Service-learning Track
The Alt_Shift SL Track involves a series of Community-engaged Architectural Design Learning courses (electives & design studios) organized at the KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture by the Altering Practices for Urban Inclusion (Alt_Shift*) Research Group. Through 'critical spatial practices' students engage in 'altering practices,' which question and transform the socio-political conditions of the spaces into which intervene and test the boundaries of their own disciplines.
Regional
Belgium
Brussels-Capital Region
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): SAAMO Brussel Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Geraldine Last name of representative: Bruyneel Gender: Female Nationality: Belgium Function: social worker Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rue Heyvaert 140B Town: Brussels Postal code: 1080 Country: Belgium Direct Tel:+32 486 53 14 06 E-mail:geraldine.bruyneel@saamo.be Website:https://www.saamo.be/brussel/
Name of the organisation(s): CAW Brussel Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Annalisa Last name of representative: Gadaleta Gender: Female Nationality: Belgium Function: director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Priemstraat 19A Town: Brussels Postal code: 1000 Country: Belgium Direct Tel:+32 472 04 13 20 E-mail:annalisa.gadaleta@cawbrussel.be Website:https://www.caw.be/locaties/caw-brussel-vzw/
Name of the organisation(s): BC architects Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Ken Last name of representative: De Cooman Gender: Male Nationality: Belgium Function: co-founder & director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Fabrieksstraat 32 Town: Brussel Postal code: 1000 Country: Belgium Direct Tel:+32 498 63 50 85 E-mail:ken@bc-as.org Website:https://bc-asm.org/
The focus of the Alt_Shift SL Track elective and design studio courses is on ‘altering practices’ (Pectou & Petrescu, 2007) which question and transform the socio-political conditions of the spaces into which they intervene and test the boundaries and procedures of their own disciplines.
In the context of the courses, the students are joining the ongoing real-world participatory action research projects of the Alt_Shift* Research Group as full-fledged co-creators. Through this, they are exploring the agency of altering the ways of practice in the real world and experimenting with alternatives to extend the concept of practice towards critical spatial practice, beyond the limitations of isolated top-down and neo-liberal approaches. The aim of the elective and design studio courses is to gain a better understanding of these practices through case studies, field observations, participatory actions, creative interventions and critical reflections on these via various media.
In the context of the elective courses mainly solidarity-based social-spatial methods and instruments are co-created and tested through small-scale real-world interventions, together with community partners. In the context of the design studio courses solidary architecture projects are co-created together with the project partners.
Since the start of the initiative, in 2017, the students have been closely involved in the following projects: the Solidary Mobile Housing project (aimed at developing, realising, and testing a model and prototype for the co-creation of solidary living in mobile, circular and modular homes on un(der)used urban spaces in the Brussels-Capital Region with and for homeless people), the WoonBox project (aimed at developing a prototype for the realisation of modular affordable housing in un(der)used buildings in the Brussels-Capital Region) and the Bodegem project (aimed at transforming a traditional Brussels CAW homeless shelter from temporary co-housing perspective).
socio-spatial resilience
affordable housing crisis
homelessness
networked critical spatial practice
bottom-up urban transition
The Alt_Shift SL Track courses are starting from the premise that sustainability and resilience are multi-scalar and non-linear concepts, which, as a result, need to be addressed at different scales (the micro-level of individuals, the meso-level of organisations, neighbourhoods and cities, and the macro-level of states, regions and the globe) and need to involve dynamic processes (sensitive to time and temporalities and based on iteration, incrementality, and adaptability). Furthermore, the courses are addressing (hyper) local issues, however, we are always connecting these to the broader, underlying, global challenges.
Through exploring and experimenting with ‘altering practices’ the involved students are learning to question and transform the socio-political conditions of the spaces into which they intervene and test the boundaries and procedures of their own disciplines. Through forming coalitions and co-creating with citizens, end-users, civil society organizations, professionals, governmental actors and academics from the Brussels-Capital Region in the context of the Alt_Shift Living Lab environments, they are getting familiar with transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration as a way to address our current 'wicked' challenges.
The ultimate aim of the Alt_Shift SL Track is to stimulate these young people, along with the other participants, to adopt a system thinking approach as a basis for socio-spatial transformation. As such, the initiative wants to make young people aware of their own agency as students, citizens, and (future) professionals.
One of the characteristics of the Altering Practices for Urban Inclusion Group's research projects is that they are always taking place in Living Lab environments. These Labs function as collective learning environments where all participants transgress the boundaries of their own disciplines and/or sectors and engage in Networked Critical Spatial Practices, leading to collective, situated, and live forms of knowledge construction, as well as in double and triple-loop learning.
Like all participants, the students engaging in these Living Labs - through the attendance of Alt_Shift SL Track elective and design studio courses - are considered equal collaborators and are stimulated to explore how they can use their own skills and talents to participate and contribute to the aims of the Lab.
For Faculty of Architecture students, this (amongst others) involves (1) using mediation to collect and synthesise the various angles and viewpoints of the different stakeholders, (2) using design thinking and co-design to invite all those involved around the table to move from thinking about ‘the world as it is’ to thinking about ‘the world as it can be’, and (3) using prefiguration to translate collective ideas and concepts into images and forms in space, as such demonstrating that ‘An Alternative is Possible’ to help counter the recurrently prevailing ‘There Is No Alternative’-discourse.
As such, one of the key objectives of the Alt_Shift SL Track is to use qualitative and inclusive design to bring people together with the aim of valuing all of their skills, talents, cultures and experiences, to collectively build a 'better' world for all.
As the name indicates, socio-spatial inclusion is the key topic of the Altering Practices for Urban Inclusion Research Group, which of course also makes it the key objective of the Alt_Shift SL Track.
In this context, we are making sure the Alt_Shift SL elective and design studio courses are adhering to the service-learning principles. This means the courses are integrated (= linked to the curriculum), based on real social needs (= formulated bottom-up and oriented towards socio-spatial innovation), and reciprocal (= aimed at realising mutually beneficial outcomes and based on horizontal solidarity).
As a result of our collaboration with the social organisations SAAMO Brussel and CAW Brussel, up until now, the Alt_Shift SL Track has been focussing on the issue of the affordable housing crisis and issues of housing precarity and homelessness. More specifically, all participants have been collaborating on finding ways in which the Brussels housing system could become more solidary and inclusive, and the Brussels Region could adopt a more participatory and transitional approach to the city. Through this, the attending students are stimulated to adopt a systemic thinking approach as a basis for socio-spatial innovation in general.
Moreover, the Alt_Shift SL initiative also aims to address and challenge several power asymmetries such as the traditional hierarchical relations between tutors and students and between expert architects and their layman clients, the treatment of inhabitants as passive consumers, the segregation between researchers and practitioners and the unequal access to (tangible as well as intangible) resources. However, we are well aware that, as these courses are offered at one of the major Flemish Universities, they are not at all accessible to everyone. For this reason, we are collaborating with the Faculty's Diversity Team aiming to address this issue so that as many students as possible would be able to join the institution.
The purpose of the Alt_Shift SL Track courses is to train students to become responsible citizens and competent professionals aware of their social role by enabling them to engage in participatory action research projects which are addressing community-identified needs, validating community knowledge, and contributing to socio-spatial transformation.
In each course, the interaction with the societal partners is organized differently; however, shared basic principles are that:
- the course tutoring is always done in active collaboration with one or more social workers from SAAMO or CAW
- structured collaborative design workshops or participatory feedback and evaluation sessions are organised monthly or bi-monthly to foster collective learning; in these sessions, at least all the involved project partners (including the end-users) are invited as co-creators or co-evaluators, sometimes neighbourhood residents are also involved
- to facilitate informal place-based discussions, sharing of concerns and choices, collaboration and co-creation of knowledge, and hands-on engagements with the physical surroundings and the social context the course sessions are regularly organized off-campus,
- at the end of each course a public event, exhibition, or on-site intervention is organised with the aim of collectively presenting and celebrating the results while also receiving additional feedback and input from more remotely involved stakeholders, such as public administrations and other professionals from the Brussels-Capital Region, other students or academics, Brussels politicians and/or the broader public.
As mentioned above, the Alt_Shift SL Track is linked to the Altering Practices for Urban Inclusion Group's research projects which are always taking place in Living Lab environments. The aim of these Labs is to bring a variety of stakeholders together in a collective learning environment. In the case of the Solidary Mobile Housing, WoonBox project and the Bodegem projects this involves homeless citizens, neighbourhood inhabitants, local organisations, urban administrations and political actors from the municipal and regional levels, and professionals and academics working on a national scale. On a European level, we are also in touch with the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA). As such, by integrating the initiative into these Labs, these Living Lab actors are also almost inevitably getting involved in the Alt_Shift SL Track.
When defining the specific topics and aimed-for outcomes of each of the different course instances we are, for example, always negotiating with the other project partners to make sure that there is a mutual benefit. As a result, the other involved stakeholders are more motivated to get involved in (some of) the course sessions or at least take notice of the results of the courses by attending the final event. Furthermore, after each course, evaluations are collected from all involved parties; the results of these are used to improve the following course.
A final interesting aspect of the initiative is that it is organised in English, which is why it attracts a lot of international students. In the context of the initiative, we are strongly encouraging all students to also activate their own backgrounds and networks, as part of the course. In this way, the development of more varied visions is stimulated.
Firstly, while setting up the Alt_Shift SL Track, we received coaching from the KU Leuven Engage Team, which is organising a guidance track specifically to support the development of more service-learning courses at our institution. Interestingly, as this is a university-wide initiative, participation in this guidance track allows multi-disciplinary exchange between members from different faculties.
Secondly, as explained, the Alt_Shift SL Track courses are linked to the Alt_Shift Research Group's Living Labs. By definition, these are multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral environments where a variety of actors from social and spatial fields interact and collaborate with each other. As mentioned above, the specific topics and aimed-for outcomes of each of the different course instances are defined in negotiation with the actors involved in these Labs.
Finally, one of the specific aims of the Alt_Shift SL Track is to integrate social and spatial fields. Therefore, in the context of the courses, collaboration is organised with professionals, other tutors, and researchers from architecture, engineering and social sciences fields. As such students are made aware of the necessity of multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration to address today's 'wicked' challenges. Moreover, we are noticing how the courses themselves are functioning as platforms for collaboration between the various involved actors from different fields!
According to Salama (2015), the traditional master-apprentice model, developed in the Beaux-arts period and still used in many architectural education institutions today, typically values invention over innovation and promotes self-aggrandizing individualism and subjectivity over creative collaborative processes and community-based learning. Moreover, as many architectural design studio courses present students with design briefs by fictional clients with unlimited budgets, they risk failing to equip students with the skills needed to situate their creative thinking within complex, real-world contexts (Harris, 2012; Salama, 2015).
In contrast, the Alt_Shift SL Track aims for a critical rethinking of conventional learner and teacher roles and a shift of the learning environment ‘from the studio to the streets’ (Hardin, Eribes & Poster, 2006). As mentioned above, in the context of this initiative, like all other participants, the students are considered equal, co-creators and their experiences, skills and talents are valued as much as those of any other actor. Furthermore, by engaging in ongoing real-life collaborative programs, our students are faced with the complexity and unpredictable rhythm of everyday life, which is sometimes even increased as a result of working with very vulnerable target audiences. Finally, unlike in some other design-build programs, the goal is for the Alt_Shift SL Track end products to be handed over to the communities so that they can continue to actually use them.
The service-learning methodology developed in the context of this initiative - which we call Community-engaged Architectural Design learning - involves a close interaction between research, education and outreach activities of an institution. A hybrid (transdisciplinary) theoretical framework, addressing the global challenges the courses are dealing with, is running like a red thread through the different courses, enabling sensemaking across several semesters. In principle, this approach can be transferred without any problem to other institutions.
The Living Lab approach used by the Altering Practices for Urban Inclusion Research Group, which is coördinating this initiative, can also be replicated in other places and with other groups of beneficiaries.
As mentioned above, the method used by the Altering Practices for Urban Inclusion Research Group, which is coördinating this initiative, is participatory action research in a Living Lab context. These Labs function as collective learning environments where all participants transgress the boundaries of their own disciplines and/or sectors and engage in Networked Critical Spatial Practices, leading to collective, situated, and live forms of knowledge construction, as well as in double and triple-loop learning. The Alt_Shift SL Track courses are integrated into and aligned with this approach.
Furthermore, in line with the service-learning methodology, the Alt_Shift SL Track courses are structured according to a series of action-reflection cycles (cf. Gibb and Kolb) - at least before, during and after the experience.
Within this framework, case studies, field observations, participatory actions, creative interventions and critical reflections on these via various media are used as methods for allowing the students to engage within the ongoing projects at hand.
From the start of the initiative (in 2017) until today, the participating students have been collaborating with us, our civil society partner organisations SAAMO Brussel and CAW Brussel, and a variety of (homeless) citizens involved in the Solidary Mobile Housing, WoonBox, and Bodegem research projects, on finding ways in which the Brussels housing system could become more solidary and inclusive, and the Brussels Region could adopt a more participatory and transitional approach to the city.
Through this, the initiative is addressing global challenges such as housing precarity and homelessness, the affordable housing crisis, financialization of housing, socio-spatial exclusion, design justice ... of which the students are made aware through reading assignments, movie screenings (such as the documentary 'Push'), and group reflections and discussion on these. As mentioned above, a hybrid (transdisciplinary) theoretical framework, addressing the aforementioned global challenges the courses are dealing with, is running like a red thread through the different courses, enabling sensemaking across several semesters. Through this, the attending students are stimulated to adopt a systemic thinking approach as a basis for socio-spatial innovation in general.
The initiative originated in 2017 and has since then continuously been developed further. In the context of her PhD Aurelie De Smet - one of the co-founders of this initiative - has (amongst others) analysed the effects of this initiative on different scales. She found that, besides already creating an impact on over 60 students, who, through taking part in the Alt_Shift SL Track experienced altering and inclusive Networked Critical Spatial Practices, the initiative is also helping to:
- transform the Brussels un(der)used urban spaces into collective places of negotiation and solidarity
- raise awareness on the affordable housing crisis e.g. through publications, public events and exhibitions,... and
- bring together various local, regional and Flemish political actors together e.g. through co-design and construction workshops, seminars, collective feedback and evaluation session,...
Together with many other initiatives and actions by other actors, this has contributed to the fact that the former Brussels Ministr of Housing (Céline Fremault) launched a call for projects on 'Modular Housing' and that the Brussels legislation on temporary housing is currently being revised.
Furthermore, the initiative also instigated structural changes in the governance of our institution, as Aurelie is now charged with the task is to continue to further elaborate and improve this initiative, while also helping other colleagues to start up, develop, and scale up all kinds of other service-learning courses and activities at our Faculty. As such she is taking up a role that did not exist before, with the aim of ensuring that every student has the opportunity to engage in meaniful engagement activities in the course of their curriclum.
As explained in relation to the different topics above, the initiative is aligning with the European competence framework on sustainability, in the sense that it is stimulating students to:
- embody sustainability values, with a special focus on socio-spatial sustainability and fairness
- embrace complexity in sustainability, through training systems thinking, critical spatial practice and the framing of local problems in global contexts
- act for (socio-spatial) sustainability through collective action and reflection on the potential of individual initiative as citizens and future professionals
- envision (and prefigure) sustainable futures through architectural and urban design (with a focus on the adaptability of spaces to individual needs and changing contexts).
