Caroline Voet (1974) is a Belgian architect and academic. With professional and research qualifications and experience in architecture, along with a PhD on design strategies, Voet operates through the oscillation between theory and practice. She is particularly interested in the development of architectural language, spatial systematics and design strategies. Through the dissection of (un)built heritage, architectural drawings and teaching material, she scans and reconstructs new paths of knowledge transferal. She is currently developing the new research line ‘Pioneering practices in the Seventies’, on the work of for example architect Juliaan Lampens.
Her scholarly research has been published in a number of international journals including ARQ (Cambridge University Press) and Interiors (Routlegde). She wrote for the Architectural Yearbook Flanders and in 2016 she was co-editor of the book Autonomous Architecture in Flanders. Her latest book Dom Hans van der Laan. A House for the Mind received the DAM Architectural Book of the Year Award 2018.
Caroline Voet has been affiliated with the Faculty of Architecture of KU Leuven since 2006. In 2013, she defended her PhD on the work of architect Dom Hans van der Laan. Since October 2017, she is a tenured assistant professor. She teaches architectural theory and practice in the Masters and runs the master studios ‘Structural Contingencies’. Since 2014, Caroline Voet is co-curator of the faculty’s ADO network (Academic Design Office), restructuring the Masters towards a research-oriented platform. She was invited lecturer at for example ETH Zürich and Leibniz University Hannover. Since 2016, she is also guest professor at TU Delft, chair of Interiors.
Parallel to her research, Caroline Voet leads the practice Voet en De Brabandere focuses on heritage, reconversions and the design of public interiors and scenography. They work for clients as the Flemish Architecture Institute (VAi), Design Vlaanderen and Cinematek Brussels. Their scenography at the Museum Plantin Moretus in Antwerp was awarded the prestigious Ultima Cultural Award 2017.
Before she founded her own practice in 2004, she was project architect at Zaha Hadid Architects (London) and Christian Kieckens (Brussels). In 2001, she received the Godecharle Award for Architecture. Prior to this, she studied architecture in Antwerp, Belgium, before attending a Master at the Design Research Laboratory at the Architectural Association in London, where she graduated with distinction in 1999. Her AA thesis project ‘Fyber Space’ was awarded the Alex Stanhope Forbes Price. She taught at the Architectural Association and the VUB (Free University of Brussels). Caroline Voet is a member of the Van der Laan Foundation, and equally was a member of the editorial board of the Architectural Yearbook 2012-2013, issued by the VAi (Flemish Architecture Institute).