Els Vervloesem (1978) is an architect, researcher, writer and partner in Architecture Workroom Brussels. In her PhD thesis, entitled “Urbanism and Social Change. Learning from Forgotten Histories of City Making”, she investigated the complex interaction between urbanism and bottom-up urban development, focussing on processes of in- and exclusion. She has worked as a researcher and teacher at the TUEindhoven and the KULeuven. Since 2015 she became partner in Architecture Workroom Brussels – a European think-and-do tank for innovation in the field of architecture and urban and regional development. As a cultural platform for research by design and knowledge sharing, AWB contributes to the public debate, to the professional practice and to knowledge development as well as to innovation in urban development and urban policy. As part of the AWB team, she is involved in a wide range of projects and trajectories, paying particular attention to the social dimension of urban transformation processes.