Junior Professor in the Domain of Critical Reflective Practice: Interior Architecture

Junior Professor in the Domain of Critical Reflective Practice: Interior Architecture

KU Leuven is an autonomous university. It was founded in 1425. It was born of and has grown within the Catholic tradition.

KU Leuven has a vacancy for a part-time tenure track position as a junior professor (ZAP) in the field of interior architecture. We are looking for candidates with an exemplary interior architectural practice, with demonstrable teaching competence in interior architectural design (studio) and a strong research and/or practice record in design. If you do not yet hold a doctoral degree, you will be appointed as a visiting professor (50%) in a pre-ZAP trajectory. Your appointment to the independent academic staff (ZAP) will only take effect upon obtaining the PhD.

The structure of KU Leuven combines faculties and research departments in a multi-campus model.

You will contribute to the research of the Department of Architecture at the Sint-Lucas Brussels and Ghent campus within the research unit Architecture & Design. This research unit brings together researchers from both the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Engineering Science. The Department offers an international research environment of excellence. www.architectuur.kuleuven.be

You will contribute to the education of the Faculty of Architecture. The Faculty of Architecture consists of the academic architecture programmes (interior architecture, architecture, urban design and spatial planning and the educational master) on the Sint-Lucas Brussels and Ghent campus. The faculty is driven by a consciously assembled diversity of practices and is renowned for its future-oriented education that cultivates a freedom of exploration. www.arch.kuleuven.be

Duties

Research

We look for candidates who are active as an interior architect within an exemplary design practice and who, by their design and practicing, develop a critical position within the field of interior architecture and its actual challenges and international debates.

Design-driven research affiliated with the interior architecture programme at the Faculty of Architecture, Sint-Lucas campus, pairs an interest in a substantive understanding of interior architecture, ‘the interior’ as a spatial entity, with more agentic conceptualizations. Interior Architecture herein is advanced as a practice of ‘interiorizing’; of assembling novel interior ecologies and associated novel habitual patterns, driven by the rapidly shifting paradigms of the present. Hence, the research activity we intend to further strengthen through this vacancy is ‘projective’ in nature, as it projects scenarios of future patterns of habitation through design projects. As a successful candidate you will advance a clear (design-driven) position in relation to this general orientation of interior ecologies and you will argue for the particular agency of both yourself as practicing interior architect and your current and planned design work in this context.

In this context you develop a research programme (20% of dedicated time within the 50% appointment) with your practice as main driver:

• You will have demonstrable expertise and skills in designing and constructing/materialising design ideas derived from practice, within real-world situations, linked to theoretical frameworks related to the notion of ‘interior ecologies’.
• The research should connect with ongoing research programmes and research projects.
• You set up collaborations within and outside the department.
• You support national and international collaborations of the research group/section and help to promote and develop them. You will also actively participate in the development of future research projects of the group/section.
• You publish and generate scientific output, including ADRO (Artistic and Design-led Research Output) at the relevant scientific level within the field of interior architecture.
• When appointed as ZAP, you acquire resources for fundamental and/or applied research and you build (international) cooperation. You are involved in, facilitate and stimulate PhDs with a design-driven focus, as a supervisor and as a member of the supervisory committee. Your research contributes to the further strengthening and anchoring of design-driven, artistic and practice-based research at the Department of Architecture and is based on the development of a critical academic design practice linked to innovative learning environments.

Teaching

You provide high-quality teaching (max. 30% of dedicated time within the 50% appointment, in balance with the services you provide) within the field of design in interior architecture with a clear commitment to the quality of the educational programme as a whole. You will also contribute to the teaching project of the faculty/university by supervising master's theses.