EXPERIENCE | EXPLORE | ENGAGE
Spacious research bridges the gap between academic and artistic research in the built environment.
SPACIOUS RESEARCH
Spacious advances interdependent, embodied-enactive perspectives in architectural theory and practice.
Our approach to research is distinguished by the creation of spatial installations, such as mock-ups and re-enactments, through which we conduct sensorial and participatory fieldwork. These testing grounds allow us to study the spatial experience artistically and scientifically, intersecting the field of architecture with insights and methods from cognitive and contemplative sciences as well as from other visual and performative arts.
Our creative approach to scholarship generates peer-reviewed publications as well as non-traditional research outputs such as performances, visual essays and exhibitions.
EXPERIENCE | EXPLORE | ENGAGE
Testing grounds add a first person ecology to the third person perspective still prevailing in academia.
RESEARCH
At the heart of Spacious’ practice is our ongoing research. We critically rethink the role of the spatial designer in building climate just futures by advancing embodied-enactive and post-Western perspectives in theory and practice.
Our approach to research is distinguished by the creation of spatial installations, such as mock-ups and re-enactments, through which we conduct sensorial and participatory fieldwork. These testing grounds allow us to study the spatial experience artistically and scientifically, intersecting the field of architecture and urbanism with insights and methods from cognitive and contemplative sciences as well as from other visual and performative arts.
This creative approach to scholarship generates peer-reviewed publications as well as non-traditional research outputs such as performances, visual essays and exhibitions.
LONG-TERM RESEARCH CYCLES
THE COMPASSION PROJECT (2024 - ONGOING)
The Compassion Project explores how spatial intervention can enhance compassion, kin relationality, and ecological belonging in public space. The research is conducted in affiliation with ArtEZ professorship Theory in the Arts (NL) and the Studies of the Architectural Body Research Group at Kansai University (JP).
Keywords: Compassion; Procedural Architecture; Architectural Body; Arakawa and Gins; Planetary Health
TRANSFORMATIVE SPATIAL PEDAGOGIES (2020 - 2024)
Transformative Spatial Pedagogies is a research project exploring sensorial and peformative experimentation as a pedagogical tool for driving systemic change. The project started in affiliation with the Teaching Tools research group at University of the Arts The Hague (NL) and has continued in affiliation with ArtEZ University of the Arts (NL).
Keywords: Co-Creation; Collaboration; Generosity; In-Situ; Architecture Education.
WORKING WITH/IN THE GAP (2017 - 2021)
Working With/In the Gap is a research project dedicated to the transformative potential of in-between space. Key concepts like “building”, "space" and “time” as well as the role of the designer in building (climate) just futures are recast through the lenses of the Japanese concept of 間 (Ma). The research is conducted in affiliation with the Radical Materialities research group at KU Leuven (BE) and the Ecologies of Architecture research group at TU Delft (NL).
Keywords: Ma; Japan; Arata Isozaki; Space-Time; 4EA Cognition.
FEATURED MEDIA
PUBLICATIONS AND NON-TRADTIONAL RESEARCH OUTPUT (NTRO'S)
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Publisher/ Venue
Medium
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Hymn for the Relational
Fictional Story in FoAM's anarchive — publications weaving stories, tools, and practices for growing your own worlds.
Matching & Meshing: Reciprocity as Cement
Book Chapter in P. van Sonderen (Ed.) Out of Theory. Arnhem, Netherlands: ArtEZ Press. 2025.
Feminist Spatial Practices
Interview with Bryony Roberts, Renske Maria van Dam, Abriannah Aiken, Ridhi Chopra by Ekam Singh on behalf of Architecture Lobby for the Venice Biennale Project May 2025.
Past the Crossroads
Interview with Elise Zoetmulder, Renske Maria van Dam and Sarah Poot by Thierry Somers on behalf of Nook Magazine, 2025(1) Contemplative Interiors, March 2025.
Feminist Pedagogies
Panel participation at BK-Talks, TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture, Delft, Netherlands. 2024.
Lessons Learned from Passing Through Doorways
Book Chapter in R. Gorny, S. Kousoulas, A. Radman and H. Sohn (Eds.), Noetics Without a Mind. Delft, the Netherlands: TU Delft OPEN Publishing. 2024.
Working With/In the Gap
Contribution to group exhibition at AGxKANSAI Exhibition 2022, Kyoto University of the Arts, Japan. 2022.
Working With/In the Gap
Interview for podcast AI Murmurings, 12(2). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Slow Research Lab/ Podbean. 2022.
Biotopological Craftsmanship in the Here and Now
Book chapter in T. Kadobayashi & N. Mimura (Ed.), Art and Philosophy in the 22nd Century After Arakawa and Gins. Tokyo, Japan: Ratik. 2023.
Working With/In the Gap: Japan-ness in Architecture of Experience
Doctoral dissertation, KU Leuven, Faculty of Architecture, Brussels/Ghent, Belgium. 2021.
Zigzagging Pathways and Somersaulting Horizons as Agents of Transformation
Invited Lecture at Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. 2023.
Architecting Life
Presentation at XXV World Congress of Philosophy: Philosophy across Boundaries, Rome, Italy. August 2024.
