Researcher 9: Weronika Kozak: Reimagining community-driven transformation of built environment // Uhasselt

This project engages with the built environment, in places where the need or desire for a more fundamental, systemic transition is evident (flooding, drought, socio-economic fragility, energy transition, …) . The researcher will engage in participatory ways with one or more of such contexts to investigate the methods for a structural and step-by-step transformation of these places in inclusive and sustainable ways. New roleplays between different societal stakeholders, and new participatory approaches and/or design-driven processes will be developed and tested during this PhD, contributing to the toolbox we need to successfully realize place-based system change and transition.

 PhD candidate: Weronika Kozak

Weronika is a researcher, architect and visual artist, exploring ways in which architecture could adapt to the current socio economic and climate crises. Her interdisciplinary approach to urban issues incorporating literary references, artistic research, sociology, and alternative cartographic methodologies has led her to expand her role to become a steward of spaces and communities. During her PhD tenure at Hasselt University she will test transdisciplinary methodologies and experimental policy design tools in order to shift from site-specific to relationship-centred design and construct imaginative proposals of being at home with the world - situating humans in a network of kin, stories and memories. 

She completed her MSc in Architecture and Urban Design at Politecnico di Milano in 2024. She developed her thesis as a novel strategy for safeguarding unproductive spaces, as they often prove vital to overlooked entities, especially more-than-human actors, yet are threatened with profit-oriented redevelopment. She holds a BSc in Architecture and Urban Design from Wrocław University of Science and Technology, where she developed the design of a community centre for locals for her final diploma. Weronika has published several papers in which she strived to reveal hidden geographies and provide novel representations, most notably an article on counter-mapping initiatives in Kwartalnik Rzut, a Polish architectural quarterly magazine, and a non-fiction short story on representation of the ocean in SAND Journal. She has worked at architectural offices such as Paradigma Ariadné, based in Budapest, and Miastopracownia, based in Kraków, as well as with an NGO Fundacja Dom Pokoju in Wrocław. She is a co-author of the Wrocławiaki project, an Instagram account popularising architecture in Wrocław.