Anyone travelling through the ‘Fog City’ of Flanders will see the same generic apartment blocks popping up everywhere. The glut of banal projects reinforces the pervasive sense of isotropy. Very occasionally, amidst this mass, there is a surprising project that addresses multi-unit housing more elegantly, often due to constraints such as a complex location or a building of heritage value. But truly good examples remain few and far between. There often seems to be a lack of flexibility when it comes to designing for a village context, even though this is precisely what makes it so vulnerable. How can a language for high-quality village architecture be developed?

That no two villages are alike may sound obvious, but conversations with designers and project developers all too often reveal that villages are treated as one and the same. Time and again, the term ‘densification’ is bandied about, and large-scale urban schemes are projected onto the village fabric almost without a second thought, as if every village were somehow obliged to undergo densification. When we speak of villages, we mean the entire spectrum of villages: the shrinking hamlet or parish village, the village with hub value and development opportunities, the autonomous, vibrant village with little hub value, and also the village that has long since become urbanised. It is precisely this contextual sensitivity that is essential. Aligning with the village character, careful integration into the surroundings, recognisability and familiarity prove to be crucial principles for high-quality village architecture. ¹ 1 This was evident, among other things, from the workshop ‘Village Architecture: Vocabulary and Tools’, which took place on Wednesday 11 December 2019 in Malle as part of the Kempenlab Village Architecture, an initiative of Ar-tur. In this workshop, we asked 75 participants – designers, planning officials, heritage experts, Gecoro members and other specialists – what makes architecture in villages successful, and we explored policy tools that promote good village architecture.