Kate Orff was chosen for this inaugural award. With her firm SCAPE, she focuses on the ecological and cultural potential of the built environment. She designs and advocates for ecological restoration and socially engaged landscapes, urban environments, and the natural infrastructure of the future. She does this through various forms of design—built landscapes, planning, visioning, and research—with the ultimate goal of connecting people with their surroundings.
Kate Orff is faculty director of the Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes, Associate Professor in Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and director of the MSc Urban Design Program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York.
Her Honorary Professorship is of great significance to the Faculty of Architecture. The way she teaches complex, interdisciplinary studios with a focus on the urban systems of the future is an example to us. Her design-driven work underscores the importance of transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary practice.
Expo 600 ha KU Leuven
In the 600 years of its existence, KU Leuven has built up a patrimony that includes almost 600 hectares of land and buildings. In addition to the educational buildings, this includes an academic hospital, student housing, sports facilities, agricultural land, forests and even a retirement home. Spread over various Flemish cities and municipalities – such as Leuven, Ghent, Brussels and Sint-Katelijne-Waver – this represents an area that is larger than the city centre of Leuven itself.
On the occasion of the 600th anniversary, the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Engineering launched a critical design reflection. The central question: how can KU Leuven, from its privileged position, deal with emerging urban and social challenges, such as the shortage of student housing or the shared use of university facilities by the neighbourhood?
A total of 110 students and 17 lecturers explored the relationship between university and city for two years. These theoretical and practical exercises were developed within research selectives and design studios of the master's programmes in architecture and in urbanism and planning. Through design research, students asked questions, formulated proposals and tested ideas with concrete design examples.
The results – analytical and propositional drawings, photographs, videos and physical models – will be collected in an exhibition in 2025. It is striking that not only lecturers and external reviewers, but also students were actively involved in the selection of representative works and the design of the exhibition formats.
In addition, there are six guest contributions that reflect on the same themes. These guest academics and practitioners, not affiliated with the faculty but related in vision, offer an alternative line of thought that complements student work.
The results of this collective effort are brought together in a modest exhibition and catalogue. Through these works, we hope to invite visitors to explore, question and reformulate the relationship between university and city.
This project is also in line with the Honorary Professorship for Kate Orff to be awarded on 17 November, on that day a limited arrangement of the exhibition will still be open to the public.
Practical
Location: Ghent - Campus Sint-Lucas (Hoogstraat), entrance via the former Dominican Church, Holstraat, Ghent
Period: 8 t.e.m. 16 november (closed on Tuesday 11 November)
Open: daily from 14.00 to 17.00
Admission: free