Spuybroek, Lars
Spuybroek, Lars
Bio Sketch
Lars Spuybroek is a Dutch architect, theorist, and professor whose work bridges architecture, phenomenology, and the philosophy of inhabitation. He is known for his theoretical writings on the relationship between structure, ornament, and the lived experience of things, and for his architectural practice (NOX). His work engages Lefebvre, Bachelard, Nietzsche, Coccia, and the Situationist tradition to develop a theory of inhabitation as appropriation grounded in the ontological life of things.
Key Works
- Habit and Inhabit, Stuff and Trash (2025) — a theory of inhabitation as appropriation across the ontological spectrum of things (object → thing → stuff → mess → trash → waste).
- The Sympathy of Things: Ruskin and the Ecology of Design (2011) — Ruskin's "vital beauty" and the ecology of design.
- NOX: Machining Architecture (2004) — architectural practice and the digital/generative.
Key Concepts
Concepts associated with this author that have pages in this wiki:
- appropriation — inhabitation as the thickening of space through habitual rhythms and detours.
- poche — the architectural name for the thickened, hollow wall-space of appropriation.
- thing ontology — the ontological spectrum of things and their circulation.
Relevance to Geoffrey's Research
Spuybroek is directly relevant to Geoffrey's The Everyday, Phenomenology of Place, and Vernacular & Everyday Architecture areas. His theory of inhabitation as appropriation provides a bridge between Lefebvre's critical-Marxist account of everyday life and Bachelard's phenomenological poetics of the house, grounded in a concrete architectural concept (poché). His ontological spectrum of things connects to the question of ordinary objects and their status — linking to debates on architectural ontology and the nature of the everyday built environment.
Source Support
Source notes in this wiki drawn from this author's work: