Renske van Dam
peopleDr. Ir. Renske Maria van Dam is an architect, artist and academic. She is founder of the atelier Spacious and senior lecturer and researcher in architecture at ArtEZ University of the Arts. She obtained her PhD from KU Leuven (2021) for dedicated research into 間 [Ma], the Japanese concept of the in-between. She earned her MSc and BSc in Architecture from TU Delft (2013, 2010). Her oeuvre emphasizes bodily action and movement within the experience of the built environment. She works with in-between space as agent of radical transformation, specifically in contribution to the emerging fields of slow, feminist and post-western spatial practices. Her creative scholarship intersects architectural practice with insights and methods from cognitive and contemplative sciences, and the visual and performative arts.
She has crossed cultural and disciplinary boundaries in order to develop her relational, sensorial and participatory approach to the built environment. Cross-pollination between Asian and Western practices, including art, architecture and philosophy as well as intuitive bodywork and Dutch-Indo family roots deeply shape her work and thinking, as do her experiences as an amateur theatrical performer, zookeeper, and yogi. Professional engagements include Atelier Li Xiaodong (2011, CN); architecture studio Herman Hertzberger (2008-2009, NL); participation in artistic and academic residencies such as AIRguiniguada (2022, SP); Senselab: Laboratory for Thought in Motion (2019, AUS and CA); and the Reversible Destiny Foundation (2018, JP and USA); and her pedagogical involvement at TU Delft (2021-present), and the University of the Arts in The Hague (2013-2023). She is invited as guest lecturer at diverse art and design institutes, including GSA Johannesburg (SA); Monash University (AUS); and Kansai University (JP).
Her work has been exhibited and published with the support of academic and artistic funds, including FWO Flanders Research Foundation (2018, 2019) and The Hague Makers Grant (2022, 2024) and STROOM (2022, 2024). Recent works include Matching & Meshing (2022) and Hugging Architecture (2023). Recent publications include contributions to the “Slow Spatial Reader” (Valiz, 2021); “Architectures of Life and Death” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021); and “Art and Philosophy in the 22nd Century: After Arakawa and Madeline Gins” (Ratik, 2023). She was selected as promising Dutch architect at the Future of Craftsmanship in Architecture symposium at the 2014 Venice Biennale Indonesian pavilion.
She has crossed cultural and disciplinary boundaries in order to develop her relational, sensorial and participatory approach to the built environment. Cross-pollination between Asian and Western practices, including art, architecture and philosophy as well as intuitive bodywork and Dutch-Indo family roots deeply shape her work and thinking, as do her experiences as an amateur theatrical performer, zookeeper, and yogi. Professional engagements include Atelier Li Xiaodong (2011, CN); architecture studio Herman Hertzberger (2008-2009, NL); participation in artistic and academic residencies such as AIRguiniguada (2022, SP); Senselab: Laboratory for Thought in Motion (2019, AUS and CA); and the Reversible Destiny Foundation (2018, JP and USA); and her pedagogical involvement at TU Delft (2021-present), and the University of the Arts in The Hague (2013-2023). She is invited as guest lecturer at diverse art and design institutes, including GSA Johannesburg (SA); Monash University (AUS); and Kansai University (JP).
Her work has been exhibited and published with the support of academic and artistic funds, including FWO Flanders Research Foundation (2018, 2019) and The Hague Makers Grant (2022, 2024) and STROOM (2022, 2024). Recent works include Matching & Meshing (2022) and Hugging Architecture (2023). Recent publications include contributions to the “Slow Spatial Reader” (Valiz, 2021); “Architectures of Life and Death” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021); and “Art and Philosophy in the 22nd Century: After Arakawa and Madeline Gins” (Ratik, 2023). She was selected as promising Dutch architect at the Future of Craftsmanship in Architecture symposium at the 2014 Venice Biennale Indonesian pavilion.
