Representing Pasts – Visioning Futures

Pleuntje Jellema is a researcher at the Dept. of Architecture at KU Leuven. In her work within the enable² project she seeks to investigate how end-users in the health sector can benefit from methods integrating diverse user perspectives in design processes. Her PhD research investigated how the experience of people affected by cancer can inform human-centred design of cancer care facilities. She embarked on this after graduating in Interior Architecture (MSc). Before that she combined studies in Environmental Design with work in design. She also holds a diploma of Human Geography (MA).

Margo Annemans is postdoctoral researcher at the Research[x]Design group at KU Leuven. Her research focuses on how space can contribute to activating end-users in healthcare environments. Therefore, she combines insights and approaches from multiple disciplines like architecture, anthropology, nursing, and movement science. Margo is also interested in how designers, clients, and other actors in care contexts can gain insight into people’s experience. In this respect, she repeatedly engages in short term projects with architecture and healthcare organisations. She graduated in 2005 at KU Leuven with a Master in Engineering-Architecture and in 2015, defended her PhD on the spatial experience of patients lying in a hospital bed. ;

Piet Tutenel works as a researcher and educator in the Research[x]Design group at KU Leuven. In his work, which centers on children and the built environment, he searches for cross-pollination between design and other disciplines. He studied religious studies and social and cultural anthropology and obtained a PhD in Engineering: Architecture from KU Leuven on a thesis entitled Room for vulnerability: Children’s everyday practices and the design of cancer care environments. Before working in the Research[x]Design group he was a lecturer in the teacher training program for early childhood education at Thomas More. Currently, his research in the context of childhood stroke and teaching about the role of TV documentaries in design focuses on ways to integrate user perspectives in design processes.

Ann Heylighen is a design researcher with a background in architectural engineering. As a professor of design studies at the Department of Architecture at KU Leuven, she co-chairs Research[x]Design, a multidisciplinary research team at the interface of design research and social sciences/humanities. In addition, Ann teaches courses on design theory, professional ethics, and inclusive design. After studying architectural engineering at KU Leuven and ETH Zürich, she obtained a PhD from KU Leuven with a study of design knowledge embedded in design projects. Subsequently she conducted postdoc research at Harvard and UC Berkeley, and was appointed as research professor in Leuven. She obtained several grants, including an ERC Starting Grant for the project ‘Architectural design In Dialogue with dis-Ability’ (AIDA) and an ERC Proof-of-Concept Grant for the project ‘Rent-a-Spatialist’. Ann is a Fellow of the Design Research Society and Associate Editor of Design Studies.