Public Defence Doctoral Thesis: Sander Lambrix

Affective Entanglements of Aging and Architecture: Understanding the Relationship Between Wellbeing, Housing and Aging in Flanders investigates the relationship between persons and places over their shared life courses. Situated at the intersection of architecture and environmental gerontology, this research examines how wellbeing emerges through relationships between persons, housing environments and broader social contexts. The research explicitly draws on posthumanism and material gerontological perspectives to conceptualize wellbeing and aging as more-than-human processes in which persons and places continuously co-evolve across their shared life courses.

The research combines architectural typology, affect theory, relationality, assemblage thinking, inhabitant interviews, interviews with inhabitants and architects, and architectural drawing and design as research methods. Through these approaches, the research contributes to contemporary debates in environmental gerontology while demonstrating how architectural ways of knowing offer distinctive perspectives for understanding and imagining ageing well in place.

The doctoral research in architecture and adult educational sciences was conducted at Hasselt University (UHasselt) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ann Petermans (UHasselt), Prof. Dr. An-Sofie Smetcoren (VUB) and Prof. Dr. Jan Vanrie (UHasselt). The jury will consist of doctoral committee members Prof. Dr. Liesbeth De Donder (VUB) and arch. Tim Vekemans (RE-ST, UHasselt), and external members Prof. Dr. Anna Wanka (University of Vienna) and arch. Peggy Winkels (AID architecten, UHasselt).