The hands-on approach on architecture is one I have been trying to pursue and I believe I succeeded in this during my masters study. In 2013 I worked together with a team of seven students to design and build a Wikihouse prototype for the exhibit ‘Atelier Ă Habiter’ in Z33 Hasselt. Building that Wikihouse together with my friends was so much fun that I spent the last five years of my studies researching the applications of an open source building system. I believe architecture can make a real difference in a social structure when it is built by its community. For my master thesis I studied what the effects of an open source building system could be in our flemish building community and how people feel about their home when they built it theirselves. Next to the theoretical research I did at school, I was also involved in several LiveProjects that our university organized. This gave me the opportunity to work together with the community towards something that would enhance their social and public space. In this portfolio you will find a collection of my most valuable work. This is the work I did with great pleasure and with an open mindset towards sustainability and the future of architecture.
Introduction
LANGUAGE
EXPERIENCE INTERNATIONAL INTERNSHIP
EDUCATION
DUTCH
ENGLISH
C2
C1
FRENCH
GERMAN
A2
A2
SKILLS
MASTERS DEGREE Master of Architecture I University of Hasselt I 2018
During the summer of 2016, I spent my time volunteering at a non-profit architecture office in Tanzania that focuses on building sustainable houses for the less fortunate by experimenting with new building materials and techniques.
MASTERCLASS Sustainable Neighbourhoods UHASSELT I april 2018 During this one week masterclass, we studied the integration of sustainable building within a new masterplan for the city of Genk. Together with Bert Wesmer of Rolf Dish Solar Architecture, we designed a new type of neighbourhood that grows and changes with time and can accomodate the needs of future generations as well as our current generation.
Vectorworks 2D Sketchup
BACHELORS DEGREE
Archicad
Bachelor of Architectture I University of Hasselt I 2017
Autocad MS Office
SECONDARY SCHOOL
C-RE-AID I Tanzania I july 2016 - sept 2016
Adobe CS
PUBLICATIONS ARCHITIZER Babu’s House - Architecture as a steppingstone Link: https://architizer.com/projects/babus-house-architecture-as-steppingstone/
Degree in Arts & Architecture I Maris Stella institute I 2012
About Me
I am 24 years old and live in Vosselaar near Turnhout, Belgium. I graduated with a masters degree in Architecture at the university of Hasselt in 2018. For the past five years at the university, I spent my time researching modular, selfbuild architecture. Myself I like to call myself a maker, a person who doesn’t mind to get his hands dirty and build
things by himself. I am an excelent team player and I am not afraid to take responsibility in group projects. During my free time, I like to go hiking and camping in the woods. Toghether with my friends, I spend most of my summer backpacking through Belgium and Luxembourg.
1. BUILDING SYSTEMS IN THE 20TH CENTURY
The study was inspired by a project I did, toghether with a small group of students, where we designed the first Wikihouse in Belgium for Z33 in 2014.
The first chapter of this research is about the building systems of the 20th century, focusing on self-build housing. A great inspiration here was the social housing projects of Walters way and Segals close in Lewisham, designed by Walter Segal. The self-build houses generate a sense of community among the residents because they had a chance to share their knowledge and help their neighbours. But besides that, the people are just proud of what they have build.
2. OPEN SOURCE DESIGN PLATFORMS
For this research I used two different research methodes, a literary study and a research-by-design method. The results of this research are devided into five chapters. The first three chapters being a series of case studies and the pattern language of C. Alexander, and the last two chapters being a series of own drawings and schemes to research the application of the open source building systems in the design of a
MASTER THESIS
open source building
This thesis studies the application of an open source building system within our flemish way of building houses. With the growing influence of the internet in all kinds of professional sectors, architecture is bound to become one of them. Sharing information through an open source platform like wikipedia has become normal in our eyes.
The second chapter compares the case studies from the first chapter with the open source architecture platforms of the 21st century. One of these systems is the Wikihouse system. I first came in contact with this system in 2014, when I did an assignment to design a pavilion to host the reception for the exhibit ‘Atelier à Habiter’ in Z33 Hasselt. The construction technique inspired me for many years because it was just so much fun to make.
The second most important open source platform was ‘openstructures.net’. A platform that lets you download and upload models and components which are all designed according to a certain set of rules. This results in an online library with parts that all fit together. We can learn from these kind of systems and aply them to architectural design, creating an open source design language for architects and designers.
3. THEORISING BASIC DESIGN PRINCIPLES The last chapter of the theoretical research studies the different requirements of a house and which architectural elements are required. Using a pattern language of Christopher Alexander, I summerised four basic rules which you need to follow to design a floor plan that suites the needs of a standard single household. With this I conclude the theoretical part of this research and change into a research-by-design research methode
But could such an open source sharing platform work for architecture? Through case studies of the twentieth and twentyfirst century, I studied open source design platforms and how they could be used in today’s architecture practice. After the literary research, I used a research-by-design methodology to study the possible
4. TRANSLATING IDEAS INTO PRACTICE
By using the same design guidelines of openstructures. net, adapted to the scale of a single house, I designed a series of standardised elements (kitchen, bathroom,...) to form the components. These
5. AN OPEN SOURCE BUILD NEIGHBOURHOOD
components can be placed together to form the layout of your floorplan. By testing these layouts to the four design guidelines of chapter three, you can easily come to a qualitative living space.
ENTRANCE
PUBLIC SPACE
SEMI-PUBLIC SPACE
WEST
PRIVATE SPACE
EAST
The last chapter tests the research of the previous chapters within the masterclass ‘Sustainable Neighbourhoods’ at the university of Hasselt. The masterclass focused on the redevelopement of a new neighbourhood in Genk. The existing masterplan was redesigned according to the ecological needs of the future and introduced some new housing typologies to increase density and
SOUTH
Applications of such a building system. During the masterclass ‘sustainable neighbourhoods’ at the university of Hasselt, I applied the system on a neighbourhood in Genk. The masterclass showed the limits of using this system, concerning density and material usage, and showed us the role of the architect in this kind of system. The
conclusion of this thesis is that an open source building system gives people the freedom to design and build their own homes, but it should be done under the supervision of an architect, who will serve as a consultant during the construction of a neighbourhood.
living comfort. My design method, together with the wikihouse building system creates the opportunities to build houses that are flexible and can grow and shrink with its family situation. The demographics of Genk also predict a slight decline in population over 30 years, so when the need for dense building projects vanishes, these houses can be demounted to make room for more public green.
- TITEL PHYTOLAB
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ground floor 1:200
PIETER DOCKX M2#studio New Economies
Structural section 1:35
PIETER DOCKX M2#studio New Economies
THE FABRICATION FACTORY
The fabrication factory is my graduation project within the Studio of New Economies in Hasselt and Genk. The project is located at the crossing of the Gouverneur Verwilgensingel and the Kempische Steenweg. It is a large FabLab which offers flexible office spaces and a fully equiped workshop for young start-ups who are looking
to make their own prototypes of their inventions without having to pay for, or lease, large equipement. The factory is connected to the new harbour we designed for the Industrial area ‘quartier canal’ in Hasselt, as well as it is connected to the Singel, in order to ship the products via water or highway, to and from the factory.
makerspace
offices
restaurant
PIETER DOCKX
PIETER DOCKX
PIETER DOCKX
M2#studio New Economies
M2#studio New Economies
M2#studio New Economies
north elevation
PIETER DOCKX east elevation 1:200
M2#studio New Economies
PIETER DOCKX M2#studio New Economies
The design of the Fabrication Factory is in twofold. One is the external frame construction which holds up the roof. The roof is designed to be oriented towards all four wind directions, in order to be able to produce solar energy the whole day long to power the equipement. The second design element of this project is the modular interior structu-
re. In order to grow and shrink with the occupancy of the start-ups, the factory is equiped with a wooden structure that makes up the interior walls and floors. All parts of the structure are produced inside the factory and give the start-ups the opportunity to build their own space inside the Fabrication Factory.
INTERNATIONAL INTERNSHIP BABU’S HOUSE
During the summer of 2016, I spent a few moths volunteering for C-re-aid, a Belgian non-profit organisation that specialises in affordable housing solutions in Tanzania. During this time I designed and built a small house for an old village leader. His own house was in poor condition and he was too old to maintain it by himself. Together with
a team of fellow architects, I designed a simple twobedroom house for him to live in. The design of the house is prety straightforward, but the ingenuity of the project was in the construction technique. Inspired by a kindergarten school in Marocco built by BC architects, we used rammed earth to build the walls of the house.
This technique uses a mixture of soil, sand, water and cement, casted under high pressure to build a sollid, massive wall. The thickness of the walls (about 35cm) provides a cool room temperature during the day and uses the thermal mass to warm the room in the evening. An open roof system makes sure there is a nice air flow underneath
the corrogated roof sheets to counter the heat generation of the thin steel roof. This project serves as a steppingstone to new techniques and introduces a new way of building houses in the rural villages of Tanzania.
LIVE PROJECTS 2016 - 2017
The LiveProject of 2016 focused on revitalising the small city gardens in Genk. A small community that maintained these gardens assisted us in designing a new urban space, specificaly for sharing and preserving the crops from the gardens. Using stones we got from the municipality, we did an excercise on stacking and creating ar-
chitectural objects without using any glue or mortar. This basic architectural excercise taught us about teamwork, working in the field and just having fun with architecture. The stone monument now serves as a meeting place for the neighbourhood.
The LiveProject of 2017 connected to the university research of the ‘slow roads’ in Genk. With ‘slow roads’ meaning bicycle-and footpaths, I worked together with a group of eight students on a small intersection that connected three major cycling networks running through the city. The main issue with this intersection was the visibility
of the cyclists from the busy road running next to it. To increase the awareness of cyclists on this intersection, we built a large viewing tower which serves as a market place during weekends. The tower is made out of small vegetablecrates which have a special meaning to the neigbourhood, refering to their anual summermarket.
Pieter Dockx +32 477 40 27 81 pieter.dockx@icloud.com Heilanders 7, 2350, Vosselaar, Belgium