Ashley Straub ’24 is a B.A. student at the University of Notre Dame majoring in architecture with a concentration in historic preservation and a minor in Italian. During the 2023 fall break, she traveled to three cities in Belgium with support from a Nanovic Institute for European Studies grant. She studied the béguinages, hospitals, and godshuizen of Bruges, Leuven, and Brussels to inform the design of her senior architectural thesis project in the spring semester.
After her trip, Straub wrote a reflective piece on her experiences and included both photographs and architectural sketches that she made while in Belgium. These two contributions are combined in a photo essay on the Nanovic Institute website.
Lessons for senior living community design from medieval Flanders
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