BWMSTR Label / The act of building

The young Brussels-based office BC architects & studies wants to redefine the position of the architect in relation to building communities in order to create a new building proces.
In the exhibition The act of building BC architects & studies shows a contemporary act of building for the Commune of Edegem in Antwerp: a “Bioklas” for local pupils. They use earth as a construction material, sourced from a nearby quarry, and press them into blocks ready to be masoned. The architects use lime and hemp as an insulator jacket around the building. Here, all building partners get their hands dirty by producing 70% of all building materials on-site through workshops: architect and contractor work closely together to create an environment of learning and empowering for an interested community such as DIY-builders, local parents and their children, young architects, students and contractors. This is above all an act of building, where the architects document and create the narrative necessary to drive change along all tentacles of the building process and in which they learn to assume new roles in working together.   
 

• BWMSTR Label

With the BWMSTR Label, the Flemish Government Architect seeks to identify innovative and policy-relevant ideas and thus support (design) research at an early stage. In 2017 he Flanders Architecture Institute will exhibit the results of the BWMSTR Labels in the corridors of deSingel.
 

• Opening

Tuesday 18 April 2017 at 8pm in the Blue Foyer at deSingel International Arts Campus (Antwerp -BE)
 

• Programme opening (language: English)

Introduction by Bart Tritsmans (Flanders Architecture Institute)
presentation The act of building by Laurens Bekemans and Ken De Cooman (BC architects & studies)
Presentation Terres de Paris by Hugo Gasnier (CRATerre)