Renaud Pleitinx

Renaud Pleitinx is a civil engineer and architect with a doctorate in engineering science from UCLouvain, serving as a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture, Architectural Engineering and Urban Planning (LOCI) since 2012. He teaches architectural design and contributes to Project-Based Research while practicing architecture at Atelier Collectif Architecture (ACA) in Brussels.

He graduated from the École Polytechnique of UCLouvain and completed his doctoral thesis in Architectural Theory titled Back-to-Back Aims: From the perspective of a mediationist theory of architecture, explanation of the alternative between realism and formalism.

His research establishes a mediationist framework demonstrating how realistic architectural aims (adapting forms to the world) induce morphogenesis in habitat design, whereas formalist aims (adapting the world to forms) generate cosmogony. This theory explains historical divergences between modern architecture exemplified by Le Corbusier's tower cities and postmodern interpretations like Rem Koolhaas's skyscraper analyses, revealing fundamental tensions between empirical and magical approaches to architectural creation.