Biography

For more than 20 years, Ann Voets has combined a teaching assignment in higher education with tasks as a researcher/designer in a large and since 2002 in her own design office.

Gradually and partly due to the cross-fertilization between theory and practice, the unbreakable link between landscape, spatial planning and spatial planning has become the starting point for projects, lessons, lectures and advice and implementation files.

The historical perspective is always present. In the Royal Commission for Monuments and Sites of the Brussels-Capital Region, where she has been active as landscape expert since 2011, files relating to heritage landscapes, greenery in urban context and landscape in public domain, are assigned to her. The same task has been assigned in the Regional Development Commission of the Brussels region. She is also a landscape expert in the Gecoro (planning organism) of the municipality Sint-Pieters-Leeuw and the city Halle.

She is also convinced that ethics in the handling of files is the basis for sustainability. Sustainability should be more than a buzzword and can be put into practice by developing expertly substantiated long-term visions. In the current crisis, this awareness and striving is a daily occurrence and should also challenge design to use the available resources creatively and sparingly.

Knowledge is inextricably linked with research and experience, with testing theory against practice and vice versa. Investigation consists of contacting sources and witnesses of all kinds and physical contact with objects, people, and locations. By frequently and intensively dealing with these things, a wealth of knowledge and experience was gained.

Still enjoying the moment when one gains insight and experiences and exposes the soul of the place. Ann Voets sees it as a task and an assignment to describe, interpret and make these acquired insights available to authorities, private owners, students and interested parties: you can call it a commitment to share that knowledge. It is about more than personal intellectual enrichment, than knowledge is about knowledge, but that it is about social engagement with knowledge as the basis
for respect, with knowledge as a condition for recognizing authenticity, with knowledge of the past as the basis for insight into the present and the future, with knowledge as the basis of a matrix for quality and sustainability.

Landscape architecture is the pivot around which personal interests revolve and which allow to explore both ‘near and far relations’ between history, architecture, urban design, art and landscape. The most fascinating and challenging research themes often lie at interfaces between different disciplines.

Both at school and in private practice, there has been an interaction between the various disciplines, which has led to an integrated and multidisciplinary approach to design and advice files. The combination of the disciplines naturally contributes to a better understanding of the often complex and at times even contradictory context,
which can be used for projects of all kinds.