BK Feminist Week at TU Delft started as a small, self-organized initiative by a group of students, researchers, professors, teachers and generally staff who felt the absence of feminist perspectives within the faculty’s everyday teaching, research, and conversations. The first edition was intentionally modest and experimental: a series of open lectures, informal discussions, and shared readings that tested whether there was an audience and a need for this kind of space. It quickly became clear that the demand was there, not only among students but also among educators and practitioners looking for ways to connect their work to broader feminist questions in spatial design.
Since then, BK Feminist Week has evolved through successive editions, each shaped by the organizers and participants. A second edition expanded the format into a more structured, multi-day program, introducing workshops, exhibitions, and collective formats such as an archival timeline of feminist practices within and beyond the faculty. This timeline began to trace missing histories and ongoing contributions, while also functioning as a tool to connect different initiatives across architecture, urbanism, and landscape. At the same time, links to education became more explicit, for example, through its connection to the Urbanism graduation studio Designing by Feminist Perspectives, and through contributions from ongoing research projects.
What defines BK Feminist Week today is this process of continuous development. Each edition builds on the previous one, not as a fixed model but as an evolving platform shaped by a growing network of students, staff, researchers, and professionals. The program has become more extensive and more visible at a national level, while remaining grounded in collective organization and shared ownership. By connecting concrete activities—talks, workshops, mappings, archives—to longer-term educational and research trajectories, BK Feminist Week works as both a moment of gathering and a mechanism for continuity, supporting the gradual consolidation of feminist approaches within spatial design in the Netherlands and beyond.
BKFW26 — 2-6 March 2026
The 2026 edition of BK Feminist Week was framed around the concept of “Women in Polycrisis” AS a term that names the condition of living through multiple, overlapping crises simultaneously: climate breakdown, socio-political conflict, economic precarity, WAR, CONFLICT, OPPRESSSION, FEMINICIDE and the relentless pressures of care work and professional survival. Crucially, the week approached “women” not as a fixed category but through an explicitly intersectional and inclusive lens, making space for trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse people whose lives are equally shaped by gendered structures. The theme of polycrisis is not merely analytical; it is felt. It recognises that feminist struggle today cannot be siloed into single-issue campaigns but must hold together the interrelation between anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, and decolonial thought. Within BK — a faculty of architecture and design — this raised urgent and generative questions: how do spatial practice, pedagogy, and knowledge production either reproduce or resist these crises? And what does it mean to design through feminist values in a world under pressure? The week held those questions open across five days, finding that solidarity, care, and collective knowledge-building are themselves forms of practice — not just ideals to aspire to. Monday, 2 MarchKick-off seminar · Timeline workshop
mONDAY, 2 March // wOMEN IN POLYCRISIS SEMINAR // fEMINIST TIMELINE
The week opened with a kick-off seminar before moving into a timeline workshop that AIMED TO CONTINUE THE WORK FROM THE BKFW25. tHE SEMINAR GATHERED AUTHORS SUCH AS lARA sCRIJVEN, lIDEWIJ tHOMAS, jASMINE mONTINA, sABINA tANOVIC, AND ANONYMOUS EXPOSER WHO PROVIDED AN INTERSECTIONAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE POLYCRISIS. fROM THE QUESTIONS OF FEMALE REPRESENTATION ON ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL GROUNDS, TO WAR, OPPRESSION AND STRUGGLE IN PRECARITY. fROM UNDERSTANDING THAT FEMINISM IS IN MANY PLACES A TOOL TO ENGAGE COLLECTIVELY IN OPPRESSION OF WOMEN’S BODIES. iN THE AFTERNOON, WE BROUGHT TOGETHER REFLECTIONS FROM BKFW25. a COLLECTIVE ORGANIZATION BETWEEN nEIUWE iNSTITUTE (sTEAREH nOORAI, sTEFANIE kORREL), cATHERINE kOEKOOK, Alina Paias, IRENE LUQUE nARTIN AND Marie Benninghoven Gathering multiple knowledge holders SUCH AS students, staff, and beyond. The session moved between objective historical facts and deeply personal reflections, mapping feminism’s history in relation to BK across four distinct analytical frameworks. The exercise proved that the timeline is not a finite document: with every iteration and every new participant, new layers of meaning emerge. The history of feminism at BK, it turned out, is richer and more diverse than any single account can hold.
Tuesday, 3 March // Men & feminism // BK Talk: Women in Polycrisis
Tuesday held space for two very different registers. A SECOND session on men and feminism invited those who are uncertain, curious, or committed to engage in open and reflective dialogue BUILDING FROM REFLECTIONS FROM LAST YEAR EVENT. tHEY MAPPED CONCRETE ACTIONS AND PLANS TOWARDS WHAT CAN BE DONE IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE FACULTY INVOLVING ATTENDEES CONNECTED TO MANAGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING AT THE FACULTY LEVEL. In the evening, the BK Talk brought together a range of voices from journalism, theatre, dance, water governance, and architectural practice, livestreamed from the Oostserre. Moderated by Irene Luque Martin, the conversation explored how feminist values manifest across disciplines — from Neha Mungekar’s work on reparative water governance in Indian cities, Mariya Kahn’s exposure of a discourse on imperial feminism, Caroline Newton understand planning and educational feminist pedagogies, to Elise Bos’s graduation project translating ecofeminist theory into spatial design and challenging the architectural patriarchal approach.
Wednesday, 4 March // Feminism in conflict areas // ARGUS critical evening
Wednesday turned toward some of the deeper terrain of the week: feminism under and within conflict, asking how gender and power operate when societies fracture. ORGANIZED BY mARH eCHTAI, SHE BROUGHT THREE SPEAKERS (tAMAN
The evening brought an ARGUS Critical Evening — a format well-known to the architecture community for its open, debate-driven format, complete with dinner. While participation from BKFW attendees was lower than hoped, those who did engage contributed to a conversation that was described as genuinely inspiring. The exchanges between students and PhD staff in particular highlighted how much is generated when people across different academic roles are in the same room. ARGUS noted they will continue to extend these evenings beyond their own community, keeping them open and free to all.
Thursday, 5 March DFV atelier · Campus walk · Library wall opening · Feminist values in practice
Thursday was the week’s most expansive day, radiating outward from the faculty into the wider campus. The Designing by Feminist Values (DFV) atelier brought together graduates, practitioners, and researchers to move from reflection into design — though participants noted that the depth of conversation generated suggests even more time is needed for this format to fully unfold. The feminist campus walk then traced stories and initiatives across TU Delft’s grounds, creating connections between faculties and disciplines. The day culminated in the opening of the TUD Feminist Exhibition at the TU Delft Library Collection Wall — a landmark moment. As Anika, who worked closely on the project, reflected: the exhibition showed that feminist practice exists throughout the university, not only within BK, and that values can manifest in a magnitude of forms. The display was also a testament to collective care — brought together under significant pressure by a group of colleagues and mentors who held each other up.
“The work for me is a testament of solidarity and acts of care between my colleagues and mentors. It showed me how women support each other.” — Anika
Friday, 6 MarchTimeline process · Feminist leadership lunch · FSP practices · Closing drinks
The final day turned inward, taking stock. A working session on the timeline brought together students and staff from BK and beyond to discuss how to substantiate and develop it further toward the 2027 BKFW exhibition — but the conversation quickly opened into something more reflective: what feminism means to each participant, how they see themselves in relation to feminist values, and how they experience life at BK. A feminist leadership lunch followed, alongside a session on Feminist Study Programme practices. The week closed with drinks — a moment to breathe, and to acknowledge how much had been made together.
All weekLibrary exhibition · The living room · The village
Running through the entire week were three continuous presences. The TUD library exhibition anchored the campus-wide dimension of the programme. The living room — a communal space assembled from existing furniture and given new warmth through small additions and rearrangement — offered a place to gather, rest, and connect throughout the days. Megha, who helped create it, described it as an example in itself of feminist practice: taking over something that already exists, making it your own without erasing what was there, and opening it to a broader audience with care. The village, a monthly gathering for those who identify as women and want to engage with feminism at the faculty, continued its role as the quiet relational infrastructure that holds the community together between events.
reflections //
BK Feminist Week 2026 demonstrated with clarity that feminist practice at TU Delft has moved well beyond a moment or a gesture. It is a growing body of work — pedagogical, spatial, relational, and archival — that is producing real knowledge and real community. The theme of polycrisis proved generative rather than paralyzing: rather than reducing participants to the sum of their vulnerabilities, the week found in overlapping crisis a reason to deepen solidarity and to insist on the plurality of feminist approaches. Perhaps the most significant development of this edition was the crossing of the faculty boundary: the TUD library exhibition and the campus walk signalled that what began at BK is now legible — and relevant — across the university. Several faculties expressed interest in developing their own programmes, and participants left with a sense that a campus-wide feminist network is not a distant ambition but a near horizon.
The conversations that ran through every session — about knowledge-holding, about care, about who gets to speak and who is listened to — are also building something more durable: the timeline, the archive, the Designing by Feminist Values group, and the ongoing work toward the 2027 BKFW exhibition. The week showed that with each iteration there is always more to hold, more to say, and more people willing to say it together.
BKFW25 — 3-7 mARCH 2025
BK Feminist week took place between the 3rd and the 7th of March 2025 at BK. It was a complete week with everyday several activities around diverse themes. The week was planned with two type of events: the events to generate discussions, lectures and workshops, and the assembly internal events to give space for the organizational team and “the village” to discuss ways of organizing and interests for the near future.
The theme of the week this year was about Pasts, Present and Futures as a way to understand the plurality of stories from the past, to converge all together in the present at the faculty, but also to build desires and ideas for the future.
The first day was about Pasts, Present and Futures in a seminar during the whole day. This day was organized by a collaboration between Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft (Laura Thomas + Irene Luque martin ), Nieuwe Instituut ( Setareh Noorani + Stefanie Korrel), EUR (Catherine Koekoek) and Urbanistas Rotterdam. In the morning, we explained the week, our collaboration, and we had short presentations from key women at the faculty from the past to the present Amy Thomas, Anna Vos, Nama’a Qudah, PhD , and Amber Coppens. The session revealed a clear plural understanding of feminism, which is not possible to be navigated without an intersectional perspective and it must have an interdisciplinary approach. We felt and understood the need for solidarity and care, which are pillars missing at many moments in our everyday life. In the afternoon we had two steps: first we heard Urbanistas presentation to see an active network we could become part of, which culminated with circle of stories where we got to know each other better. Secondly we made a timeline mapping, which during the whole day showed publications, stories, conditions and desired futures through time. We saw discussions on feminist labels, on prosecution of an activist approach, on the issues of star architect females vs women who operate everyday with feminist values, the called feminist winter (90s/2000 onwards), the untold stories, the mapping beyond accomplishments, the need to name it, the desired to a future where women section is back and where BK has a feminist space of research and teaching. We listened to each other, cared for each other, laughed and empathized with each other. Women who knew each other’s work for decades finally met in person, women who did not know each other had the opportunity to understand each other.
The second day revolved around Pedagogies of Feminism. The day started with the assembly lunch, where we got to sit together, reflect and discuss what feminism is for each one of us and how much there is a need for a space to meet and to have solidarity among us. We talked about intersectionality and the need to name things – such as feminism. We talked the need to dismantle the stigma for feminists, specifically in the Netherlands and to realize many of us were in that room together under the same umbrella term independently if we were calling ourselves feminists or not. In the evening we had the BK Talk organized with BK Public Programs with the support of Javier Arpa Fernández and Rens Hoofs to have a panel debate on Pedagogies of Feminism with Els Bet, Amber Coppens, Roberto Rocco, Renske Maria Van Dam, María Novas and Lara Schrijver . We were overwhelmed by the attendance, but most of all we enjoyed a refreshing group of stories on pedagogies beyond a traditional education institutions. We heard to go beyond the idea that feminism in our faculty is to design only for woman and that it is more about feminist values (which many of us already share). We discussed the need to go beyond the polarization of gender, the need to revisit and develop historical recognition to construct the involvement of women in our spatial design past, we discussed critical thinking and systemic issues as definitions of feminist pedagogies and we realized there was lots of interest, need, and curiosity on continuing this discussion.
The third day revolved for student driven feminism. First we had our assembly lunch where we moved more to understand struggles, fears, putting in question role models but also collectively discussing different perspectives on the current struggle of diverse positions (PhDs, students, teachers, so on). We thought on actions and we started to discuss how important is to get more settled what “the village” is, how of then we should meet (monthly or biweekly) and how to organize ourselves. Secondly, in the afternoon Isabella Jaramillo Díaz with Mary Sutherland, Jing Spaaij, Mahaa Ejaz, Emese Nagy, Wiebke Stadtlander and Eleonora A. organized a poster workshop where they got to know each other, they did some diving on intersectionality and they connected to each other. They first discussed pathways interconnecting them, and then had a collage making set of tables enjoying a very open and free afternoon. It was inspiring to see the care and how the week started to move from a performative process to a deeper level where we got to reflect more on our day-to-day.
The fourth day focused on solidarity and international networks. In the morning was the “Men & Feminism” event which had a high attendance. Johnathan Subendran organized this event with the support of Boaz Peters, Roberto Rocco, Jonah van Delden and Nick Jonckers Newton. We experienced first a positioning exercise where everyone embodied their thinking on different prompts around feminism, then we moved to tables to discuss stories and more in depth questions, finally we made a silent reflection on feelings and ideas around men and feminism. Right after that we continued with our third assembly lunch where we discussed further on education and the interconnection between PhDs and students struggles, and again on the need of protocols of care that are more effective. The afternoon started with a workshop on leadership and capacity building with Nourhan Bassam from FEM.DES where we had the chance to go in depth in certain discussions on intersectionality, representation and what is behind certain approaches on measuring equality. We finished our day with an online event where we discussed international solidarity organized by Sophia Arbara Daniela Maiullari and Nohemi Ramirez Aranda and we got exposure to the diversity of conditions and struggles women face in academia around the world with Ana Boadillo, Bri Gauger , Kristina Hill , Agustina Martire, Margaret Ngima Macharia Kedogo and Sonu Rani Das.
The fifth and final day revolved around building networks of care. In the morning there was a walk facilitated by Sofie van Brunschot (Gebouwen door Vrouwen) with the support of Odilia van der Valk with the idea to connect us to the TUD Campus. We walked through and within some impressive buildings designed by woman at the TUD campus. After this it came the last assembly lunch where we collectively decided that The Village will be an occurrence meeting lunch among the ones interested to pause, rest, connect and care beyond labels, genders, and professional expectations. From the village it can happen gathering groups to produce events, initiatives and whatever comes, but the village is at the core our place to come back to us. We talked on self- organization and execution of this group in a horizonal and collaborative approach. The afternoon started with the circle of stories event which was intimate and private event to connect and to make tangible our load, the one we think is not there but shapes us every day. The last event at BK building was the reading session coordinated by Juliana Gonçalves and Isabella Jaramillo Díaz which was the perfect end of a week. We read, without expecting reflections, we heard unheard voices and we grounded ourselves with intersectional perspectives on feminism. To finalize the week and the day we met for drinks, we hugged and laughed. We exchanged feelings and desires. We realized we made it. We were together in a community of care.
After the intensive week there are a few things who started and are right now on definition stage: The village which is a monthly lunch for anyone who feels a woman and want to engage with feminism at the faculty; Mapping Care Value System as a way to start documenting the people who care in our faculty based on another type of value system that goes beyond traditional outputs; The Designing by Feminsit Values group (DFV) which engages on education & research aiming to look into faculty cross-departmental levels; there is an active research with the Nieuwe Institute and TUD to see what next steps to be taken after the timeline mapping; and ultimately the intent for A BK Feminist Week Book as a way to collect the process and the outputs of the week in a way we can document the people and the discussions which happened during the week.