In the Science, Engineering and Technology Group of KU Leuven, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture, Research unit P.PUL there is a 50 % academic vacancy (ZAP) in the area of urbanism on the Sint-Lucas Brussels and Ghent campus. KU Leuven is looking for internationally oriented candidates with an excellent interdisciplinary research and design record and with educational competence within the field of research by design in urbanism.
Research
You strengthen existing research lines and provide additional expertise in research by design methods and techniques at an urban and regional scale that are useful in urbanism and planning as to tackle the most salient challenges, urban crises, socio-spatial and environmental challenges of our time. The starting point of your research is the role of space in addressing these challenges. Your research explores the conceptions and methodologies of research by design, which might include combinations of research with design, planning, situated interventions, action research etc.
Your design practice and research interact closely, contribute to the strengthening and anchoring of the design-driven and practice-based research at the Department of Architecture, and bring synergies between practice and academia to the surface. Your professional practice forms an active, continuously evolving breeding ground, that explores critically existing modes of design and research. You contribute, through the integration of research by design methods, to more socially, ecologically, historical and policy-oriented research lines within the Department of Architecture and in an international context.
You are responsible for the development of a continuum of practice, research and education resulting in output that can be valorized in the respective fields. Participating in shaping an Academic Design Office (ADO) is an important task in this respect. You associate the production of the ADO as research output explicitly to the Department of Architecture, such as prizes, nominations, special realizations and research work in the category ADRO (Artistic and Design-related Research Output).
You are capable of acquiring competitive funding for fundamental as well as applied research, supervise PhDs with a design approach, and publish at an international level.
Education
You ensure high-quality education within the area of research by design in urbanism and planning, with a clear commitment to the quality of the programme as a whole. You have a strong affinity with the educational format of the studio as a learning environment and have preferably already developed experience in this. You are capable of setting up pedagogical experiments and critical reflection regarding different types of research linking education and practice. You also contribute to the pedagogic project of the faculty and university through the supervision of master theses.
You develop your teaching in accordance with KU Leuven’s vision on activating and researched-based education and make use of the possibilities for the educationalist professionalization offered by the faculty and the university.
Your teaching task will be determined in consultation and based on your specific profile. You will be responsible, mainly in the master programme in urban design and spatial planning at the Faculty of Architecture, for grounding the design component by academic research and for strengthening the substantive and methodological coherence among the design studios and between the studios and the theoretical courses.
Service
Scientific, social and internal services are also part of your job.
You stay up-to-date with the fields of urbanism, planning and research by design and take part in public discussions and communication in these fields.
You are willing to take up coordination tasks and leadership within the Department and Faculty of Architecture, in accordance to the stage of your career.
You have a master’s degree in architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture or a related degree, and a PhD whereby the subject of your doctorate’s thesis was related to the research and educational field of research by design in urbanism and planning.
If you have recently been admitted to the degree of doctor, it is important that you support your research and growth potential with academic references. If you do not yet hold a doctoral degree yet, you are willing to obtain a PhD within five years after your appointment.
You are part of an established, active professional design practice with a portfolio of realized projects. You have a strong research and design profile. The quality of your design is proven by your peers through publication of your work in prominent leading journals and books, and eventual awards. International experience is an important advantage.
You have demonstrable qualities related to academic education. Teaching experience in design studio is an advantage.
You possess organisational skills and have a cooperative attitude. You also possess leadership capacities within a university context.
A good command of English is required. KU Leuven provides courses in academic English.
The official administrative language used at KU Leuven is Dutch. If you do not speak Dutch (or do not speak it well) at the start of employment, KU Leuven will provide language training to enable you to take part in meetings. Upon fixed tenure, you must have sufficient knowledge of Dutch at CEFR level B2.
KU Leuven is offering 50% employment in an intellectually challenging environment. KU Leuven is a research-intensive, internationally oriented university that carries out both fundamental and applied scientific research. The university is highly inter- and multidisciplinarily focused and strives for international excellence. In this regard they actively work together with research partners in Belgium and abroad and provide our students with an academic education that is based on high-quality scientific research.
You will mainly work at the campus in Ghent, and occasionally at the campuses in Brussels and Leuven.
If you hold a PhD, you will be appointed to or tenured in one of the grades of the senior academic staff depending on your record and qualifications: assistant professor, associate professor, professor or full professor. In principle, junior researchers are appointed as assistant professor on the tenure track for a period of 5 years. After this period and a positive evaluation, they are permanently appointed (or tenured) as an associate professor.
If you do not yet hold a doctoral degree, you will be appointed as a visiting professor (50%) until you obtain your doctoral degree at the Faculty of Architecture, with a maximum term of five years. Your appointment to the independent academic staff will only take effect upon obtaining the PhD, under the conditions laid down by the advisory committee of the Faculty of Architecture.
29.09.2022