Daem studied architecture at the Hoger Sint-Lucasinstituut in Ghent and founded Robbrecht en Daem with Paul Robbrecht in 1975. Dutch-language criticism places her among the architects — with Marie-José Van Hee, Christian Kieckens and the critic Marc Dubois — who put Flemish architecture back on the European map through what it calls the Nieuwe Eenvoud, a new simplicity resting on exact proportion, restrained colour and a deliberately small set of materials. The office works at both extremes of scale: exhibition furniture for Documenta, houses and conversions, the Boijmans wing in Rotterdam, the Cinematek in Brussels, and the Bruges concert hall. Daem also trained as a printmaker and, later, in photography, and the practice's drawings carry that.
