Interior Architecture - Adaptive Reuse Hasselt University

Overview

Today, the role of architecture is being re-defined due to demographic, economic and ecological challenges. Transition and reuse take centre stage in the practice and theory of the profession. 

Education

The Interior Architecture - Adaptive Reuse programme at Hasselt University is innovative as it considers preservation through the act of adaptive reuse instead of mere conservation and restoration. 

Rather than relying on an archaeological perspective, it emphasizes a designerly approach to give new and unexpected energy to buildings. 

Therefore, the programme seeks to train students who explore and activate the rich potential of existing sites through design supported by research and theory.

Location of Hasselt University

Ideally positioned in a region full of historical sites with various identities (cultural, artistic, religious and industrial), the faculty is in close geographic proximity to a rich laboratory of potential cases that span 600 years. 

Students are taught to conceive of these sites as palimpsests rather than monuments. Subsequently, they are encouraged to explore the beauty, memory, hidden qualities and broader potentialities of the sites handed down by our predecessors. 

Finally, the master’s programme departs from the conventional understanding of the ‘interior’ as a quantifiable spatial category by underlining its richer artistic and ethical dimensions as Public Interior.