Responsive Urbanism: Incremental transformation in the urban crust

This research focuses on the mechanisms and repercussions of urban transformation processes at the small grain in the urban tissue. It investigates the production of built form and space as the result of incremental change as it occurred throughout history, and it explores alternatives in the face of today’s urban challenges, in particular in the context of Flanders Centre-Cities. This research looks into the possibilities of a method of “responsive urbanism”, that aims for structural urban change, through the accumulation of small corrections and substitutions, parcel per parcel, project per project. Responsive Urbanism discards the reproduction, repetition and homogenization of built form that comes out of generic building codes, but equally, refrains from the conventional top-down approaches as in most of today’s masterplans. Instead, Responsive Urbanism works with the unavoidable unpredictability of incremental transformation and celebrates “the architectural project” itself as the instant interpretation of, and response to, the existing context it is part of, and adds value to. This research is fed by design, and builds further on the experience from architectural practice, public consultancy and academic studio teaching.