The Master Dissertation Project (Faculty of Architecture, KU Leuven) by Francesco Ogliengo was developed as part of Streetscape Territories, that is offered as a framework to master students to develop a final graduation project. In this master dissertation design studio, we focus on the transformation of the urban fabric through architectural intervention, considering the making of diverse and tolerant streetscapes the main objective to achieve socially, economically and environmentally sustainable environments for its inhabitants. The research by design deals with the way architectural interventions, open spaces, the property structure and its inherent accessibility and permeability, configure streetscapes as manifestations of social and productive encounter and how their inhabitants can give meaning to them by appropriation.

The project titled “A New Creative Community in Poblenou”, addressed the question of how to plan and design a new environment in Poblenou, Barcelona, that can positively affect the social interaction between the existing communities and emergent creative initiatives by carefully creating productive collective spaces. Francesco’s project is of high quality because of the careful insertion in the urban fabric, the elegance of providing multiple circulation routes through the buildings and courtyards, the high resolution in construction techniques and materiality and the overall poetry in the unfolding of the different constituent collective spaces. The internal as well as the external international jury at our Faculty of Architecture (KU Leuven) praised the project and nominated the student for laureate, which Francesco achieved. Congrats, Francesco!