Public Defence Doctoral Thesis: Erik Pelicaen

Doctoral Defence

In his doctoral research project, Reclaiming earth blocks, Erik Pelicaen investigates the potential to reuse earth blocks as a circular end-of-life alternative to recycling or disposal. Reuse requires that blocks be first reclaimed through deconstruction, then cleaned and assessed for their technical performance. This research develops and applies novel experimental approaches to evaluate both reclamation performance and fitness for reuse, forming the core of the study.

Building on these results, the thesis examines the reuse potential of five representative earth block-mortar combinations and situates the findings within the broader context of circular construction. It ultimately proposes circular design strategies tailored to specific building applications, bridging experimental insights with practical implementation.

The PhD research in architecture was conducted at Hasselt University under the supervision of Prof. Dr. ir. Elke Knapen. The jury will consist of doctoral committee members Dr. ir. arch. Anne Paduart (Carbon13), Dr. ir. arch. Arnaud Evrard (ETH Zürich), arch. Ken de Cooman (BC Materials), and external members Prof. Dr. arch. Marwa Dabaieh (Malmö University) and Prof. Dr. ir. arch. Lionel Devlieger (Ghent University).

This research was supported by the Special Research Fund (BOF) of Hasselt University (BOF20OWB13), and the Living Lab Circular Economy “Application of earth blocks in practice”, funded by VLAIO, the Flemish Agency for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the European Commission’s NextGenerationEU programme.

Date and locations:

• Woensdag June 3rd 2026
• Refugiehuis, Maastrichterstraat 100, 3500 Hasselt
• Defence: 14h00 - 16h00

Registration:

You can register via this Google Form. Please fill in this form before may 25th 2026.

More information

• Research Group Arck
• Pictures by Olga Srejic & Erik Pelicaen