The following solemn pledge is made to conduct research and design in the Gowanus area, Brooklyn, New York:

1. we focus on the existing situation in the neighborhood
2. we will avoid future interventions that would radically change the environment. after understanding the functioning of the whole area, we can propose a minimal amount of interventions, and they will be conceptually defined and designed as if they had always been part of the neighborhood
3. we take the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability as a starting point
4. we base all our findings, mappings and proposals on interviews with inhabitants or local stakeholders and on in situ wandering
5. we consolidate the existing manufacturing activities and empower them on a long term
6. we try to reconfigure, reaccommodate, restore or reform, more than adding new spaces, buildings or infrastructures
7. we will always check multiple possibilities of thinking and intervention and discuss them
8. we take into account “models of proximity” that are related to accessibility, connectivity and permeability
9. we guarantee a plural model of “depth configurations” in the proposals
10. we look for innovation by honoring details, textures and materiality, coherent with the spirit of the neighborhood and use the “crack in the pavement” criterium as a systematic check-up for our proposals and presentations

Ghent, February 22nd, 2013.

Master Dissertation Projects, International Master of Architecture
Yannick Bontinckx, INT MA AR student, LUCA
Hannes Van Damme, INT MA AR student, LUCA
Thomas Stroobants, INT MA AR studentt, LUCA

Master Dissertation Project, Master in Urban Design & Urban Planning
Kenneth Notte, SRP student, LUCA

Streetscape Territories, Research and Design Project
Ferran Massip, architect and collaborator ST, LUCA
Kris Scheerlinck, dr. architect and director ST, LUCA