JDWA - Johan De Wachter Architects Information

JDWA is a design practice for architecture and complex urban development in the existing city. Iterative process Our approach is based on research and design. Designing with and for people in the neighborhoods and organizing the right moments of interaction and co-production is a very important aspect of our work. Generic concepts and standard typologies are never applied directly but change according to the project’s context and complexity. This approach results in an intense working process that demands a lot of communication and interaction between the client, future users and the design team. Conceptual design Real needs are often beyond written briefs and become apparent only through discussions and intensive research within a multidisciplinary environment. We constantly engage in projects that form a conceptual challenge for the design team, either because of their programmatic complexity, their location in the city or their technical constraints. Starting from these contexts we offer challenging concepts through a combination of typological research and architectural and urban design. Transforming the city A large part of JDWA’s current work is invested in innovative typological research for projects where living is combined with other functions. The combination of living and working on the neighborhood scale is an important aspect. Other combinations are care and public functions. The intense and active relation with the public space and the larger city tissue is integrated in these investigations. Several of our current projects are a combination of renovation, intensive adaptive reuse and smart extensions. This context of progressive “step-by-step” transformation of the existing city is often the focus of the office projects and research.