My name is Marijn van de Weijer and I am a postdoctoral researcher at Hasselt University, Faculty of Architecture and Arts. From mid February until mid June, I work as a visiting research fellow at MACCH.
I am an architect trained at Eindhoven University of Technology, and I hold a Master in Human Settlements from KU Leuven and a Ph.D. in Engineering Science (KU Leuven) and in Architecture (Hasselt University).
I also have professional experience in architecture, which I obtained while working in the Amsterdam based office of Claus en Kaan Architecten, and while working independently on design studies and competitions.
My current project builds on my doctoral research, which was a joint project of KU Leuven and Hasselt University. In this project, I studied transformative strategies for the share of the Flemish housing stock consisting of underused detached dwellings, in the light of changing demographic conditions and emerging economic and ecological concerns. Having finished this work in 2014, I now conduct research into adaptive reuse of industrial built relics and sites, with the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion as my area of study. I am interested in reuse of built patrimony and landscapes in peripheral conditions, as well as in the role this kind of reuse plays in everyday practices of living and working. What intrigues me is the way adaptive reuse of existing buildings occurs in relation to issues such as suburbanisation, regional planning and landscape development.
My interest in the usage of relics from the past has inspired cooperation with researchers at MACCH and in 2015 several research proposals were drafted together with professors Ernst Homburg and Graeme Evans of UM. For the upcoming period, I hope to strengthen and expand this cooperation and to learn from the interdisciplinary viewpoints which come together in Maastricht. I will work on drawing comparisons between regional dynamics of reuse and redevelopment in Flanders, Wallonia and the Netherlands.
